Q&A: Kenton Turns Pain Into Power on “Gift of Loneliness” Ahead of Debut Album ‘Sweetmouth’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
WITH HIS NEW SINGLE “GIFT OF LONELINESS” queer Asian American singer-songwriter Kenton reclaims a label once meant to wound him. Inspired by a childhood memory in which a fellow churchgoer declared he had been given “the gift of loneliness,” the track transforms a painful prophecy into an anthem of strength and self-acceptance. What once felt like a curse now fuels Kenton’s artistry, reminding listeners that solitude, queerness and difference can carry their own kind of freedom.
Produced by Eric Cannata (Young the Giant) and SameSame (Portugal. the Man), “Gift of Loneliness” fuses dark, infectious pop with Kenton’s striking vocal performance, carrying his story into an expansive sonic world. It’s a reflection of the artist’s ability to balance intimacy with grand, cathartic energy, crafting music that feels both personal and universally resonant. As the third single off his upcoming debut Sweetmouth (due October 2025), the song continues to carve out the album’s themes of identity, forgiveness, and rebirth.
For Kenton, Sweetmouth represents not just a musical debut but a deeply personal reckoning, with his religious upbringing, his Taiwanese American heritage and his queer identity. By transforming shame and grief into melody, he invites listeners to embrace their own complexities with honesty and compassion. Read below to learn about the making of “Gift Of Loneliness” and what’s next for Kenton.
LUNA: “Gift of Loneliness” comes from such a specific and personal childhood memory. When did you know that moment needed to become a song?
KENTON: To be perfectly honest, not till the writing session! We were looking for interesting concepts for a song and Rob (of SameSame) asked me about my relationship with religion, my father being a pastor. So I started chatting about some of the problematic beliefs I was taught by the church. You know, the light stuff: purity, obedience, deep unredeemable guilt…
The sermon was based on 1 Corinthians 12, about how people are given different gifts from God. On the surface, it’s a great lesson. Like the hand vs. the eye, we all have different gifts and purposes as a part of the greater body. Where it got weird, is when the minister talked about how some people’s gifts are not necessarily to raise a family. I was 12. And I felt it deep in my gut what that pastor said. This was a man who cried on the pulpit weekly about how “God weeps at the sins of San Francisco.” And I sat in the front pew and took notes.
So I was telling this story, about how this girl named Jessica came up to me after service and said “I know what gift you have—the gift of loneliness!” And everyone in the session paused. The Gift of Loneliness. It had a ring to it, this ironic sense that while it was an insult, it didn’t have to be. We knew we had to write around that phrase.
LUNA: You’ve shared that the phrase “gift of loneliness” has taken on a new meaning for you over time. How did your perspective on it shift from something painful to something empowering?
KENTON: I did feel a bit of stigma surrounding loneliness. Growing up, I believed my queerness was a temptation, a broken part of me that only God could fix. And boy, did I try to fix myself. All I wanted was to be loved, give love, find someone to share this life and build a home with, and all my religious mentors were telling me no, that’s not in the cards for you. You are destined to be alone. That is your calling.
The truth is, being queer saved me. If I didn’t have this part of me that couldn’t conform, I’d be stuck in the same systems that dictated exactly who I was allowed to be. Queerness gave me my freedom. Of course, there were costs, and statistics have shown that people who identify as liberal are more clinically depressed but hey, I’d rather be sad about real people dying than live my life in fear of a figurative burning lake.
LUNA: The production on “Gift of Loneliness” has a dark pop energy while telling a very intimate story. How did you and your collaborators balance those two elements?
KENTON: Rob and Blake (Same Same) truly know the world of pop. Eric Cannata (Young the Giant) comes from indie rock. I studied creative writing in college, so I get super heady in my lyrics naturally, burying the lede with thick metaphors, but what’s nice about a cowrite is—I have to pitch it to the room and see if anyone gets what I’m saying. For instance, the line “No one to impress/it’s the gift of loneliness” I had originally written as “No one to repress” and everyone kept mishearing it. In the end, we went with “impress” because yeah, hearing the line so quickly would take you out of the dance/pop vibe, and there is quite a bit of power to feeling unencumbered by anyone’s impression of you.
LUNA: Sweetmouth feels like it weaves together your personal history, family dynamics, and queer identity. What was the emotional process of making such a vulnerable debut album?
KENTON: I cried a lot. Understandably. I have to give credit to Eric, who as producer dealt with the days where I really was dragging my feet. There’s a lot about the process that is cathartic and liberating, but to get to the heart of these lyrics, I had to let in a lot of grief, doubt, and anger. The first song of the album, I’m Breaking My Father’s Heart, I wrote on the plane back to America. I just remember feeling so, so heavy, with no way out, and no space to sit with it. I was jumping on another tour the next day, so I rushed home from the airport and stayed up all night to work out the chords on piano, and record a scratch vocal. The next day, I bottled it back up and took a plane out to Chicago for a two week stint. That emotional whiplash was violent.
LUNA: You’ve said the record is partly about forgiving your parents while still honoring them. How did you navigate that duality in your songwriting?
KENTON: I don’t necessarily see it as a duality. I think part of honoring them is recognizing that this is their first time on Earth too. They made a lot of mistakes, damaging ones, but they did their best with what they had. Our parents are products of their parents’ mistakes, who are products of their parents’ mistakes, and so on and so forth. All I ever wanted from my parents—all I ever needed, was unconditional love. I’m not ever going to get that by holding onto my anger and resentment.
What I can do is model unconditional love for myself, and for them. In my songwriting, that means seeing things as they truly are, and not what I want it to be. In Sweetmouth, I don’t paint myself in the most flattering way. Ex: in 3 AM in Taipei, I talk about hiding out in the bathroom, scrolling through my phone trying to find someone to hook up with. In Gift of Loneliness, I ask “what’s the point?” when we all trauma dump on each other, call that connection, then break it off because we’re ashamed. I think I have grown a lot since these experiences, but in my song lyrics, I want listeners to know, “Ya. Me too.”
LUNA: Your trip to Taiwan in 2022 clearly shaped this project in a big way. What’s one moment from that trip that you’ll never forget?
KENTON: Since his stroke in 2020, my dad hasn’t been able to walk without assistance. His rambunctious demeanor became quiet; his body, frail. The whole trip, I was holding onto this tension, that my father felt like a stranger. These years and boundaries I had put between us, with the added layer of masking (this was during a Covid peak), my parents couldn’t feel more distant.
The very last moment before I headed to the airport, my dad asked if he could pray over me. I had been pretty dismissive the whole time about any religious discussion, let alone praying, but I decided to relent and let him do his thing. What came out of him shocked me: this deep guttural cry, filled with grief for himself, for our relationship, for the future, and yet, in it all, a hope, a wish, a love for his child. I’m haunted by this image of my father slowly losing every bit of his identity and dignity. It’s inevitable, it’s beautiful, and tragic.
I think about this often—about my own mortality, about families going through unspeakable grief; how we are helplessly complicit in causing more grief every day…the best I can do is speak about it, sing about it, and perhaps that can encourage more empathy and compassion.
LUNA: You’ve worked with huge names like Billie Eilish, Kesha, and Katy Perry. How has being part of those worlds influenced your own artistry?
KENTON: I’m a jazz head. I went to USC for vocal jazz, and grew up playing classical violin. It wasn’t until I started singing for pop princesses that I really understood the power of a simple hook. I mean, so many of their songs circle around one note! It has really influenced my songwriting and pushed me to say more with less.
In terms of world creating, they’re meticulous in imagery, from set pieces, instruments, to how they dress, not just themselves, but their entire band and dancers. Every moment in public is a touch point with their audience, another opportunity to further their storytelling. While I don’t have the discipline (or money) to be en pointe all the time, I’m definitely much more deliberate in my image now.
LUNA: You’ve been open about growing up in a religious, heteronormative environment. What do you hope young queer listeners take away from hearing your songs?
KENTON: It gets better. Of course it does. But not right away. You have to make it better. I remember when I came out, I thought to myself, “This is it! The beginning of your life,” but the harsh truth of it was, there was so much more to unpack. I spent at least another decade trying to unwind these thought patterns embedded in my brain. I’m still doing it.
I want queer listeners to hear my music, and understand that we can heal ourselves. Coming out is the first step, but there is so much more to do. And you don’t have to do it alone. Especially in these upcoming years, we’re gonna need community—beyond pool parties, raves, and dodgeball. That’s not a dig at any of that, but it’s not work. The real work is the displeasurable untangling of our own traumas, the learning of how to sit in sober silence and live a life of radical honesty (re: Velvet Rage) in which we recognize our own struggles in relation to every marginalized community around us. It takes bravery to face our own demons, but it’s so, so worth it. How much more energy does it take to run away from yourself?
LUNA: When people hear Sweetmouth in full this October, what’s the feeling you hope stays with them after the final track fades?
KENTON: Hope—that isn’t passive, but a hard-earned and unrelenting hope. We aren’t the stories that we’ve been told, or even the ones we tell ourselves. In the darkest of days, we always have the power to change. Tell a different story.
