Eddie Johnston, under his Lontalius moniker, has just released his first new music in two years. The two songs ‘I Wanted Him’ and ‘That Includes You’ are personal enquiries into lust and love, things which Eddie admits are “feelings I don’t really understand”.
From his beginnings as a teenager making covers of R&B songs on Soundcloud, through his debut album I’ll Forget 17 , and to these latest singles, Eddie has been open about his gay sexuality in songs - joining a wave of artists like Perfume Genius, Serpentwithfeet, and Christine And The Queens who are unafraid to be themselves.
Lontalius Photo: Enya Umanzor
“There’s a case to be made about making music kinda neutral. I think I remember The XX talking about wanting to make music that could be palatable to anyone. I appreciate that, but when I was 16 or whatever, I was listening to that guy Baths, and I realised that he was singing about boys - that changed my life. Being able to relate to it at that level - that was really striking. So that’s what I want to do.”
And that honesty and vulnerability in his music connects with his fans, who message him to tell him so.
“It’s pretty wild, it’s a weird thing to interact with - people who say that I saved their life, and listening to my music really helped them through some hard times - I mean that’s unreal. But what I usually tell them is that making it really helped me, it gave me something to do and something to focus on.”
The 21-year-old Wellingtonian has been based in Los Angeles for the last two-and-a-half years, making music full-time, mostly at home.
He’s dabbled in the group songwriting culture prevalent in LA but found he’s not comfortable in that scene, and prefers to put his energy into writing his own music rather than songs for other people.
But he did find someone to guide him through the process of making the second Lontalius record, Grammy Award-winning producer Om’Mas Keith, who has worked with the likes of Erykah Badu, Jay-Z and Frank Ocean.
Eddie says Om'Mas introduced him to this world "in a careful and loving way”.
“He wasn’t there to coach me or make me into something. He heard my voice and he lent me his."
Together they’ve made bigger emotional peaks than Lontalius has scaled before. Eddie says that as a kid he listened to a lot of Coldplay and U2, and those early influences have informed this record.
“I want big choruses, and I want big sonic ideas and I want this music to resonate with a lot of people, and for me that was really difficult, because my nature is kinda making these inward looking introspective things - and that’s not exactly pop music.”
He says that the best thing about living in Los Angeles is that everyone trying to make a living from music is in the same boat, and the confidence that brings.
“There’s so much opportunity, and no real barriers - you know. It’s hard to get into this industry, but you’re only ever one person away from Justin Bieber. Everyone seems to be at the same level, whereas in New Zealand, a lot of that stuff can feel very far away.”
“Like, I remember when I was 15 or 16, I was very proud of what I was doing in music, but I also felt like ‘oh, maybe I should just go to university or join the air force or wait five years until I can actually do this’. But as soon as I got here, it’s like, we’re all doing this, and we’ll all really proud of what we do and when I listen to my music next to someone else’s, I can be like ‘yeah, I think mine is better!’. I definitely had that personality as a cocky 16-year-old, but here it’s even more so. It’s just recognising your worth and where you come from.”
Lontalius Photo: Rob Burrowes
