Song Exploder - Sasha Sloan - Until It Happens To You

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

Sasha Sloan is a singer and songwriter based in Nashville. She put out her debut album, Only Child, last year. Before that, she’d written songs for artists like Katy Perry, John Legend, and Charli XCX, and she’s been a featured guest vocalist on songs by electronic artists Odesza and Kygo. Sasha made her album with her boyfriend, producer Henry Allen, aka King Henry, whose other production credits include songs by Beyoncé and Diplo. In this episode, Sasha, along with Henry, tells the story of making her song "Until It Happens to You." For more, visit songexploder.net/sasha-sloan.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. I've been thinking about grief a lot recently, because my mom passed away a couple months ago. Just a few weeks before that happened, I recorded this interview with Sasha Sloan about her song until it happens to you, which, as you'll hear, is about grief, but also about the distance between those who have lost someone and those who haven't. And when we did the interview, I was in the second category, but now I'm in the first one. And for me, making this episode has been an interesting way for me to retrace my steps as I crossed from one side of that divide to the other. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that.

But here we go. Sasha Sloan is a singer and songwriter, originally from Boston, but now based in Nashville. She put out her debut album, Only Child, last year. Before that, she'd written songs for artists like Katie Perry, John Legend, and Charlie X-C-X, and she's been a featured guest vocalist on songs by electronic artists, Odessa and Kygo. Sasha made her album with her boyfriend, producer Henry Allen, aka King Henry, whose other production credits include songs by Beyonce and Diplo.

So they're kind of a music power couple. In this episode, Sasha, along with Henry, tells the story of making her song until it happens to you. My name is Sasha Sloan. when it comes to writing, I always start with the title. My boyfriend and I have a close friend, and he had a cousin who was like a sister to him, and we hung out with her a lot. She was in her early 30s, and one day she was diagnosed with leukemia,

and a couple months later, she passed away. Henry and I were very shaken up by it, and just sitting and talking, and, you know, we were like, you'll never really know what it's like until it happens to you because my boyfriend and I had never lost someone that close to us. We've both been to funerals, but it was kind of, you know, at a distance. And it was just one of those things where I wanted to say, hey, I know what you're going through right now, but I couldn't. I could only say, I can only imagine what that feels like. And it didn't feel like enough.

That's kind of what inspired the title. That's my friend Danny Silberstein Danny came over to hang out and we were talking about song titles and I was like, I had this song title called Until It Happens to You And you know, when I explained the concept to him It really struck a chord with him

And we went to the studio And Danny had this guitar part That was really beautiful I love writing with Danny and Henry Because they're great guitar players I can play piano but I'm always usually more inspired by like a great guitar riff. So I felt super inspired by that and the title, until it happens to you, felt like it really fit with that guitar part. For me, titles have to find their

partner first in order for me to write them. It's so much easier for me to write melody when I have a concept that I'm starting with. It's much harder for me to work off of melodies and then fill in lyrics afterwards. You know, there are songs where it takes painstakingly long to find a good melody or a good lyric. And with this song, it kind of all just flowed into each other. Somebody loses there's somebody. But you'll never really know what it's like till you wake up to some real bad news or how it feels till it happens to you. No, you'll never really know what it's sometimes it's really hard to be simple without being boring. Not simple, but to the point and not overthink the melody and not overthink the structure

and just let the song be what it's supposed to be. So Danny just laid the guitar in and I think he probably took us like two hours to write. And yeah, that's what we did that night. After I write a song, I listened to the demo about four. hundred times. And then for me, it's super important that I step away from it. So I don't think I heard the song for like two or three months after my epic listening session. And then, you know, I was thinking about what I was going to put on the album and I was going through old songs because I'd been writing a lot since then. That song came up in my demo folder. And I was like, oh man, there's really something

to this. But Henry, also known as King Henry, is my boyfriend, Sash, producer. My name is Henry. He's like, you know, it sounds a little, like, sweet right now. It sounds like a lullaby. You can have a friend, get their heartbroken. You can be there when they need it the most, but you won't be the one falling off the deeper. He's like, how do we take it out of this folk guitar world and make it more of like an emotional roller coaster. It's hard because a lot of times it's better for a song that's emotional like that and really important to just be very simple. But I just kind of wanted it to tell a story in the music as much as the lyrics. But I was really attached to the demo. I had like the worst demo I'd as ever.

And I was like, come on. Like I love this guitar part. He's like, let's just take the acapella and start from scratch and see what happens. He started playing piano under it, you can have a friend, lose somebody close, and you can be there when they need it the most, but you won't be the one having trouble sleeping. He started playing piano under it, and then he started playing, you know, electric guitar under it. And nothing really felt right until we found the Juno sound. At a friend, lose somebody close and you can be there when they need it the most, but you won't be the one having trouble sleeping. At first, I really hated it.

It was so different. And I missed the rhythm of the guitar underneath. I was like, Henry, I really just don't think this is going in the right direction. We're going to need to change it back to guitar. But the understanding that Henry and I have between each other, He's like, okay, well, give me, like, one more try. Luckily, she's very down for me to just experiment, and I'll basically tell her, like, I know this is sounding insane,

but just let me sit here for, like, two or three hours. And then if you hate it after that, we'll just go back. The first time Henry ever shows me something, I usually don't like it. I just have to trust in the process. And that's what I did. You know, if you don't trust each other, than I should have just made the album myself.

From there, we just kind of started playing with, well, how do we make this move? How do we make this pick up? And Henry started playing that guitar part that comes in on the second verse. Once I heard that guitar part come in, I was like, okay, I can get behind this. I actually started to love the space

that the Juno created in the beginning of the song. and then, you know, the slow, gradual build with that guitar part. I think that's when he discovered the drums. Those drums that you're hearing weren't written for the song at all. Henry and I had just worked with this band Lainey. We did their record together that just came out. I wrote a lot of it. Henry produced a lot of it.

And they have this awesome drummer, Jake Goss. Jake was just messing around on a drum set one day. And Henry was like, oh, that's really cool. I'm going to record it. And then somehow he found it in his archives. And it was the exact same tempo as until it happens to you. For me, it sounds so nostalgic. You know, I grew up listening to Snow Patrol and Arcade Fire.

And it kind of has that element to it, which I die for. And it was also very inspired by explosions in the sky. Once Henry dialed in those drums, Henry just found these really crazy sounds. It sounds like a dying whale to me, but I love it. I'll use a granulator a lot of the time. A granulator is basically a kind of sampler that uses granular synthesis. So it takes a sample and then slices it up into tiny sonic bits and then plays those bits back, overlaying and cross-fading them on top of each other

to make these sort of soundscapes. And in this case, Henry's using a piece of Sasha's voice as the sample that he's feeding into the granulator. Honestly, I think it doesn't sound that good on a lot of things, but the tone and texture of Sasha's voice just works really well because it's so clean and soft. So it really lends itself to using it in a granulator. We went out to a craft store.

We bought a bunch of felt, and then we took the top of the piano off, and we put felt where the keys hit, and it created this muted sound. I grew up playing more jazz piano Everything I did was always very complicated And I had to scale it back I think I just fell in love with that piano part

Because it's so simple For me, I'm a sucker for harmonies And I always have been But there aren't that many harmonies in this song You know, it would have been really easy To just their harmonies on this whole thing But if you're deprived of harmonies And then you finally hear one, it's like, oh

You can do your best Call them having to be Listen to whom say say they're all right But you know there's a chance They don't really mean it Somebody loses there's somebody every day The woman we know who passed away from leukemia One of her very close family members

Posted on Instagram Somebody loses there somebody every day And I was tearing up That hit me the most I think that is the most important lyric in the song. You'll never really know how it feels till it happens to you. This song is almost me talking to myself

saying you'll never really know what it's like until it happens to you. But what I'm really saying is I'll never really know what it's like until it happens to me until I experience a loss like that. Those strings were played by our friend Jameson. We sent the song over to Jameson

and we were like, hey, If you hear anything, just let us know, and he sent back these parts. And I actually remember Henry and I just seen there going, whoa. It gets so big in the end because, I know this is really cheesy, but I almost wanted it to sound like you're holding back tears, you're holding back tears, and then you finally let go. In this song, prepared for some inevitable moment of loss in the future, do you feel like you're better prepared for that moment?

I do. I've been sitting with this song for months now, but I put it on the speakers last night, and it actually made me super emotional. It's very helpful for me to remember why I made something and why it means a certain thing to me. The thing that really helps me is I just tell myself, there isn't a single thing you're feeling that someone hasn't felt before. You can say all the cliche things to someone and you know that everyone else is saying it to them too. And pain and loss and grief are so universal. Everyone goes through it in one way or another. So I think it's my own way of saying, hey, it's part of life and you're going to have to grieve.

But it's going to be all right. And now here's until it happens to you by Sasha. Sloan in its entirety. But you'll never really know what it's like Till you wake up to some real bad news You really know how it feels It's to you No, you'll never really know what it's like

If you think you do You'll never really know how it feels Till it happens to you You can say sorry a million times But even if you try to sympathize You won't be the one picking up the pieces You can do your best

Call them every night Listen to whom say Say they're all right But you know there's a chance They don't really mean Somebody loses But you'll never No you'll never

Or visit songexploder.net You'll find links to buy or stream Until it happens to you I have a new album of my own Coming out on April 24th It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career.

And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April,

and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light,

and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. This episode was made by me, with editing help from from Tini Lieberson and Casey Deal and artwork by Carlos Lerma. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX,

a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at SongExploder.net slash shirt. You can also follow the show on Twitter or Instagram at Song Exploder. My name is Rishikesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.