Q&A: Elijah Woods’ Debut Album ‘Can We Talk?’ Captures The Simultaneous Freedom And Internal Devastation Of Lost Connections
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY SULLIVAN JORDAN ☆
Photo By Austin Calvello
ELIJAH WOODS, CANADIAN SINGER-SONGWRITER, PRODUCER, AND MULTI-TALENTED ARTIST, IS NO STRANGER TO THE MUSIC INDUSTRY—After launching his solo career in 2020, Woods has garnered a dedicated fan base thanks to his dashing melodies, rich production style, and passionate storytelling. After several successful EPs, Woods is ready to share his debut album with the world.
Can We Talk? explores the winding and confusing road through a friendship as it painfully falls apart. Set to a groovy, wistful, and electric mix of 80s and 90s-inspired drum and guitar instrumentals, Woods reinvents the indie pop rock genre with captivating melodies and sonic riffs that feel warm and familiar, like a pleasant childhood memory, but refreshing, like the first breath after weathering a strong storm.
“So Good” kicks the album off with a punchy combination of distorted drums and riffs that build in intensity as the song continues. Woods mirrors the energy of “So Good” with “Slicked Back Hair,” an instant classic for late-night dancing with cheeky lyrics to match: “A late-night drunk text left unacknowledged/A number I saved knowing I’ll never call it/A ‘just this once’ if you want it.”
As the album progresses, each song paints a picture of the back-and-forth between two friends as their relationship fades, and Woods explores his feelings of confusion, anger, longing, and eventually, acceptance. “Could You Love Me?” is sharp, with quick instrumental riffs and biting lyrics, representing the immediate shock after a conflict and the instinct to find someone to blame: “Would you call me up just to ask how I’m doing?/Could you just for once think of someone but you?” Expanded vocals and instrumentals in the chorus reflect Woods’ inner battle to balance wanting to move on, but still feeling love in his heart.
While instrumentally different, “Exercise Your Demons” and “Cutting The Grass” are two of the album’s most introspective tracks. With intimate vocals and more rustic instrumentals, these back-to-back tracks feel like secrets hidden between the pages. “Exercise Your Demons” lets loose with a laid-back drum and guitar mix as Woods reflects on taking music a little less seriously. In a similar vein, “Cutting The Grass” allows Woods to analyze his relationship to music as he fantasizes a more relaxed future.
The title track “Can We Talk” takes the laid-back style of “Exercise Your Demons” and “Cutting The Grass” and puts a more groovy, jazz-inspired spin on the melody to create a swinging rhythm and easygoing atmosphere, even as the lyrics examine unspoken feelings and conflicts in a relationship. “Stay Home” is more direct, with deep and resonant drums and an echoing chorus filled with yearning and nostalgia.
“I Miss You” takes the album to new heights with a racing guitar instrumental that builds alongside a fast-paced combination of drums and passionate vocals. The track unravels one last shred of hope, a sliver of light through a dark tunnel, that despite Woods’ confusion and exhaustion from a devastating fallout, his instinct cannot help but want to return to before things turned sour.
“Dynamite” and “That’s All Folks” close out the album with anticipatory and explosive instrumentals, marking the conclusion to a rollercoaster of emotions. A dynamic bridge in “Dynamite” mirrors the second-guessing and over-thinking that accompany major life decisions, while “That’s All Folks,” with plucky guitar instrumentals that dramatically shift into heavy, grunge, and rock-inspired drums, represents the freedom found in taking a leap of faith.
Luna sat down with Woods to discuss how being a musician is so much more than just making music, his creative process for crafting “Can We Talk?,” and building community in and out of the studio.
Photo By Austin Calvello
LUNA: When I first listened to the album, I was drawn to it immediately because there’s such a clear emotional storyline. What was your creative process in terms of finding that and building the stakes as the album continues?
WOODS: I’ve written a few projects in the past that I thought could’ve maybe turned into albums, but the storyline didn’t develop for me in the same sort of way. When it came to writing this project, I had started down this chapter where I was like, “I really, really want to write an album,” but I didn’t know what that meant and what that entailed. I just started writing songs and through that I was trying to pick away at a narrative of a friendship that had ended recently and my turmoil of that relationship ending. The ego that comes into that. As I started finishing these songs and started getting upwards of, I think I was 150 songs into writing this project, I realized that the concept was broader than me, and it was actually about conversations that have happened around me and close people I have in my life, and the title “Can We Talk?” was born from that.
For me, that has always been a very scary and daunting phrase to hear. “I don’t know what this means, you’re either going to tell me that you love me, or you are going to tell me that you hate me, or are you going to tell me that somebody died? I don’t know.” I was talking to my wife about this whole vision for the album, and initially, the title was Can We Talk About Something Else? And we said, “Why don’t we simplify it and say Can We Talk?” The emotional arc for me was having these terrible, but honest discussions, and coming out of them clearer than I was before. I feel like I tried to write with a lot of maturity that maybe I didn’t have a year ago, and illuminate that with the production.
LUNA: Absolutely. You’re so right with that title because I think just hearing it, without having the context of what each song is about or even what the album sounds like, gives listeners that sinking feeling in their stomach that everyone has felt at some point or another.
WOODS: You get that text and you’re like, “What the hell? What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
LUNA: Exactly! Your heart just kind of drops. The title creates such a visceral and emotional reaction even before anyone listens, which makes the album’s production and storyline that much more powerful. As you found the emotional direction of the album, did the production and sound of the album come next, or were the instrumentals developing alongside the emotional arc?
WOODS: I had pillars. At the start, you’re just experimenting and throwing stuff at the wall. For me, writing a full-length project was so brand new, so about 30 percent of the way into it I suddenly realized that two songs in particular were sonically the north star for this thing. For me, those songs were “That’s All Folks” which is the last song, and then the other one was “Exercise Your Demons.” That song was a fun play on really light, almost dumb, songwriting. We wrote that song as a joke, and then I realized this was exactly how I felt. Don’t take things too seriously, don’t be so caught up in your own shit, just acknowledge that there’s more going on here and sometimes the best thing you can do is step away from something and recognize that this isn’t brain surgery; this is music and the good part about it is that you can keep doing it and if you put it out and it’s a flop, your life isn’t going to end. Those really baritone rubber bridge guitars that were distorted and kind of amped out. I didn’t want it to sound like a Gracie record, but I also didn’t want it to sound like The 1975. The north star was more Fleetwood Mac than that, and more easy listening.
LUNA: One of my favorite songs is “That’s All Folks” because I love how the instrumentals switch, and I think it leaves you with a sense of freedom in that you have worked through these difficult emotions surrounding a broken relationship, but there is still a part of you that lingers in the past. As a listener, “That’s All Folks” kind of takes you by surprise. Were there any particularly surprising or challenging scenarios that arose during the making of this album, or were there songs in particular that surprised or challenged you as an artist?
WOODS: Definitely. Through the process of making the original track list, “Could You Love Me?” was kind of the door-opener for the concept material on this album and that was a song I wrote in January of this year, and some of the other songs were written long before that, but it kind of set the pace and surprised me because I had written the song with some friends during the LA wildfires when we were out of our home evacuating and I wasn’t expecting to write that song and never had any intention of writing that song. I wrote that one, and I was like, “Oh shit, there’s a bigger story here. There’s something else going on.” I kind of pulled at that string a bit, and that unraveled this project.
LUNA: Since this is your debut album, was any part of your creative process or approach different from making an EP or a single?
WOODS: Definitely different. I think the biggest thing that I noticed this time around was that I was very hyper-specific on how the songs flowed together. I think in the past with EPs, you can get away with a three-song run and then a jumble of ‘oh this song doesn’t really work after this one, but it’s fine because it’s a short package’ and there are very few EPs that I listen to front to back where I’m like ‘oh my god I wish there were 8 more songs.’ I think the struggle for me was finding 11 songs that sat in that world. That sat in that thing. That sat in that emotion.
I’ll use an example from a few years ago: I put out an EP called Bright Orange Everglow, and it was specifically about me getting engaged and these feelings I had around love and exploring that piece of my life for the first time, but at the end of those five songs, that chapter was closed for me. Sitting in something long enough to write an album with substantial content was definitely a change for me. I wrote half this album, and then I was just blocked. I was just like, “What the hell am I going to do?” and so I switched up the track list and I switched up the instrumentation. And then I had a bunch of life stuff come up and I was like, “Thank God this happened,” because I was able to write about it and it helped finish the album for me.
LUNA: I feel like I go through the same thing sometimes because, as a writer myself, there are times where I feel stuck or like I’m writing the same thing over and over again. When you get writer’s block or go through a period where you can’t figure out a song and you need a creative reset, what is the first thing you do, or where do you go outside of music to get back into your creative groove?
WOODS: It depends. I’m a huge proponent of learning new skills. I just love learning, whether it’s learning a new editing software or just trying to figure out how to organize my bedroom better. Whatever that thing is I’ll just dial into it and I think it’s something I battle with all the time but it’s kind of a superpower in a way where I don’t feel as if I can ever be idle, but I also just love figuring things out and getting to the bottom of things, so I think I just set my mind on other things. I’m a pretty passionate person, and I’m really fortunate that music is the backbone of all of that, but I would say I’m more of a creative than a musician at the end of the day. I just love creating things, and I love learning new things. The more human answer is that I love snowboarding and I love taking my dog on walks and I love going to the park and I have visions of eventually learning to surf, but I love doing things that are so one-track minded that you can’t focus on anything else.
LUNA: Yeah, I feel like I try to do the same thing in those situations. I try to get as far away from the environment I’m in as possible.
WOODS: There’s something to be said for that, too. I think maybe the plain answer is [to] create a world where you are desperate to make again. For me, it is showing up every day and trying, even in those periods of writer’s block, because all it takes is one idea to spark you out of that thing, so everyday I try to write something, to be a little bit creative, pick up a guitar, play the piano, whatever it is, but in the meantime, “How do you create longing and desperation for that thing?”
LUNA: I completely agree. Do you feel like your best ideas come from the moments where you are furthest away from music or when you are in the studio planning to write something or work on a song?
WOODS: I think it especially depends on the type of song. My general process consists of me constantly writing things down in my phone, taking little voice notes of melody ideas or things that inspire me, and I have a note that I go to when I’m in the studio. The process kind of changes, but I think the biggest thing for me is just allowing space for yourself to be the vessel today, and if you are the vessel today, then amazing, but if that vessel is not right for the song, then forget about it, move on, and try something else.
LUNA: You’ve mentioned this a few times already, but you are a completely independent artist, and for the most part, you are always writing and producing the majority of your work. I think it’s especially impressive when artists continue doing that even as they grow a bigger fanbase, like yourself. Especially when you are a creative and you love stepping into each aspect of the creative process, whether it be directly related to the music or it’s shooting your own promotional photos and music videos.
WOODS: I’m literally sitting in my photo studio right now. I take a good chunk of my art here. This album art was actually a different photographer whom I love and had the opportunity to work with, but I just love doing it all!
LUNA: That’s so cool! You actually wrote a few songs on this album with your wife! Do you ever see yourself collaborating on a bigger scale and branching out further with different producers and songwriters?
WOODS: Definitely! I had a couple of years of that. The last two EPs I put out, Elijah Would! and Hey There Elijah, had a lot of collaborators on them. That was me opening the door to a lot of new blood and having the opportunity to work with a lot of my idols, which was so cool because that was a goal of mine. I’m just a kid from a small town, so if I can work with the guys who made “Someone You Loved” or the new Benson Boone song, then that’s so cool! Who am I?! Some kid from wherever… middle of nowhere Canada, or as I like to say, the center of everywhere Canada. The fact that I was able to collaborate like that was really cool, and I think it taught me a lot about my creative process and my writing process, and I’ve come to a really amazing balance where I have hand-curated a select few people that I really, really enjoy writing with and people with whom it doesn’t feel like work. It’s not like, “Hey, we’re getting in the studio to write a hit song,” it’s “Okay, come over. We’ll hop in the pool. We’ll have a beer. We’ll chill out for a bit.” If we write a song, amazing, but the biggest thing is having people around me who now create the environment to be creative.
LUNA: You mentioned promoting your music on social media. How do you find a balance between social media and your art?
WOODS: For me, it’s always a question of “Did I make this song for me or did I make it for money? Did I make the song to say something and to connect with people?” I make so much music that doesn’t come out, just for me. I make dumb little ideas that sit in my Dropbox, and I listen to them ad nauseam, knowing that the fanbase I’ve developed on the internet isn’t going to like these songs or maybe they won’t appreciate them in the same way I do. I make music because I love it, and I use social media to promote the things that I think will add value to other people’s lives, and spread some level of goodness and some mutual level of communication that kind of levels the playing field.
LUNA: That totally makes sense. I think I first discovered you through social media when you were putting out a lot of covers and singing clips of songs in different styles. Then I started diving into your original music. How did you go about finding your own sound and creative process while singing covers?
WOODS: The boring answer, and the factual answer, is that I was learning how to sing. That’s why I started singing covers. So me recording my voice and recording covers was a method to figure out my voice and if I liked my sound, and I was a good enough producer at that point to make my songs sound convincing and then from that point I decided I liked what I was doing sonically with my voice and how I sounded singing certain songs and certain covers.
LUNA: That’s so cool! What are your future plans for this album? Are you planning to go on tour? Do you enjoy touring?
WOODS: I do have plans to go on tour! I would love to tour the U.S. a little bit more. I recently got back from touring in Asia, and that was incredible, but now for the next month, I don’t want to do anything. Right now, I’m planning to have two headlining shows in Los Angeles and New York City, and those will be my first headlining shows in those cities, which I’m really excited about.
LUNA: That’s so exciting! What songs from this album are you most excited to play live?
WOODS: The songs I’m most excited to play are “Exercise Your Demons” because there is a really great arrangement on it. I made it in conjunction with the recording, actually, and a bunch of the stuff I made for the record didn’t make it into the song, but it works really, really well live. In Thailand this summer, we recorded a live, off-the-floor version with our live band playing “Exercise Your Demons,” and we recorded the whole thing on video. “Slicked Back Hair,” I played all summer, and it was so much fun. It just rips live, and I’ve got my little choreo down, and it’s just so much fun. I would also say “So Good” will be a really fun one, which is super high energy, kind of MGMT vibes, and we have a really cool live arrangement for that one.
If I’m honest, I’ll perform anything because there are a lot of songs that for me, to sing live, are easier on my voice or I like the way I sound, but the most fun ones for me are songs like “24/7, 365” I love singing that one because people participate so it becomes our song and I can put my mic down for half a chorus and we can all sing it together and there’s a community component. That is really special to me. For me, I can sing these songs all day long, so it’s more important that people insert themselves into it, and we can experience that thing live. It’s one thing to have art live in a vacuum and put it on the internet, and people post about it, whatever, but for people to take it in and really appreciate it means a lot.
Woods headlines two shows in New York City and Los Angeles this December. Catch him live at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn and The Echo in Los Angeles. Tickets are on sale now.
