Leah Martel shares single "Everybody Out" ~ a fun genre-blurring song about social anxiety
ABOUT LEAH MARTEL
Having spent her formative years hard at work training to be a prolific writer, musician, performer, actor, dancer, activist and cycling through various superpowers via extensive maladaptive daydreaming, Leah Martel has nothing much to say for herself on paper. Against the better judgement of both family and friends she decided to go to school for music, not as a young, impressive prodigy but, as a mature (debatable) student. It was during these years of overwhelming insecurity and deepening poverty that Leah decided she would take the music she had created to be the soundtrack to this experience and release it. This will mark her 25th release in her mind and her very first in the real world.
Let’s all welcome Leah Martel to existence.
ABOUT THE SONG: “Everybody Out” – released on April 4th
“I wrote Everybody Out at a point in my life when my social anxiety was really at its peak. The thing is, I figured it would have been its worst as a kid in elementary school getting picked on and not, embarrassingly, as a 20something just trying to attend a party of some very nice seeming people from my college program. I had already been out in the working world for a while and thought I was over it and had gained a bit more confidence and social skills but I realized I really just hadn’t been in a group of new people in a while and once that happened I may as well have been 13 again. If I said something I felt like an alien trying to pretend to have a human conversation. If I stayed silent I felt like an awkward weirdo just hovering around. And I had no clue what to do with my hands or where to sit or stand without either intruding or looking to closed off. So, instead of trying to communicate through it or rise to the occasion in any way, I ran out early and wrote this little melody on the way home in my car (well, after stopping at the side of the road to have a minor panic attack first).
The funny thing is, I really wanted to be friends with these people and there was nothing actually standing in my way except me just not knowing how to be normal in any capacity. So when I finally sat down to write out all the lyrics I wanted to really emphasize the contradictory nature of this kind of anxiety where it has you running for the hills to get away from everyone but only because you so desperately want to connect with people and care far too much about every minor interaction just hoping it will be good. Then you convince yourself it’s all gone horribly wrong when you’re probably the only one even thinking that. It’s so silly, you know? So I wanted the song to kind of poke fun at the ironic nature of that feeling while also containing that frantic, on-the-brink-of-a-panic-attack energy.”
– Leah Martel
Credits:
Leah Martel – Music and lyrics, Vocals, Photography, Graphic Design
Harrison King – Piano, Synth, Videography
Jesse Martel – Acoustic Guitar
Jesse Jodouin – Electric Guitar
Luke Vasilakos – Bass
Lucas Bertoia – Synth Bass
Eric Vanier – Drums, Tambourine
Andrew Mullin – Recording Engineer, Mixing
Reuben Ghose – Mastering
Recorded at Gordon Wragg Recording Studios