As for the inspiration for “I fell in love with you on a screen,” now called 21st Century Love?
Ian: “I was on a dating app, and I saw this gorgeous girl with long red hair and freckles, like in the song. I don’t know how to describe it, but there was an added level of importance to this interaction. I think we’ve all been on dating apps and match with people we think are attracted to and stuff, but you can’t really tell if it’s real. But there was this weird aura surrounding this moment. I was sitting at my desk, and was like ‘okay, there’s something weird happening here.’ So I just started to write down everything I was feeling. It was poetry, essentially. And that became the inspiration for the song. When I wrote down the line “I fell in love with you on a screen,” I was like, huh, that’s interesting. This total illusion of seeing a photo…and the mind just takes off. A lot of what the song’s about stems from the observation of how we live in such a technological world, and how the distance between us creates this very sincere desire for connection. Yet, with our circumstances, especially with Covid, we’re very distant and the song is unfortunately more relevant than ever. We need that connection so badly, and the connections we make online can be just as real as meeting someone on the street. The way I see it, the internet and dating apps just make it easier to connect with the people who are supposed to help us on our journey and vice versa, without the limits of proximity. It’s made the ability to connect with people more immediate.”
Sam: Going off of the way in which meeting someone using technology can be just as real as meeting someone on the street, though different, how do you think our use of technology is changing the way in which we create and consume music?
Ian: “One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of music is made on laptops these days. It’s a plus, and a minus; it makes it more accessible to more people, but sometimes I feel like some of the soul is lost from the music. Some songs are very cookie cutter. And some of those cookie cutter songs are really terrific, but something I love about my producer is that he sits down and plays the music rather than generating it with a computer. It creates such an amazing feeling. There’s a guitar riff in my new song that has such longing, and brooding, and soul. You can’t recreate that with a computer. I think we need to maintain some of the messiness in the sound along the way.”
Sam: Can you speak to the importance of using emotion in acting versus in music and how the experience is different in each medium?
Ian: “You’re always playing a character. Creating a song is like creating a character, just like in acting. You’re using your own emotions, and using the song or character in the scene as a vessel for the emotion. I really treat acting and music as the same when it comes to emotion. You start to learn more about yourself, more about your voice, and it’s really just about telling a story. That’s what everyone is trying to do, whether you’re a violinist or a dancer or a singer. You’re trying to convey a story through your art. I love songs because they’re really just vessels for emotion. For acting, you need a lot of time, money and crew, but with music, all I need is me and my guitar. It’s a more immediate expression than acting.”