The lead singer of the Los Angeles-based band Gabriels has just exited the stage at Glastonbury, where a surprisingly sizable crowd enjoyed their soulful, mid-afternoon performance.
“When Beyoncé performed at Glastonbury in the past, she would exclaim, “GLASTONBURY, ARE YOU READY?” Additionally, I once shouted it in my living room “He claims. “It’s a little intimidating to be at Glastonbury because of this.
“I sense to love all the time. The vibe is positive.”
The musician, who is wearing a special green and blue satin robe, is animated and laughing as he discusses the contrast between his Glastonbury garb and the run-down hotel he is being made to stay in.
He chuckles, “I went to use the soap dispenser and grit came out. “I guess we don’t have an enormous budget because we’re new artists.”
That won’t last for very long if everything goes as planned.
With their debut EP, Love And Hate In A Different Time, which Sir Elton John hailed as “one of the most seminal songs I’ve heard in the last 10 years,” Gabriels ignited the music scene in 2020.
As Lusk speaks of the “rapture coming” and the “walking dead all around me” over convulsing Motown percussion and foreboding spiritual chanting, the title track is both fire and brimstone.
His falsetto has a shattered beauty that makes him sound like a fallen angel.
When Lusk sings Strange Fruit to a crowd of thousands of people at a Black Lives Matter protest, the music abruptly stops in the video.
Because of what they were going through, he claims, “the entire song came out of our souls.” “Everything seemed to be turning around. Racism. Sexism. Homophobia. What is going on? We should be making progress, right?”
Gabriels arrived in London as word of the EP spread, played several small, informal shows, and delivered a jaw-dropping performance on Jools Holland’s TV show.
By the summer of 2021, they had begun work on their debut album and had agreed to a deal with Atlas Artists, a division of Parlophone Records.
Lusk estimates that the record is “50 or 60% done” when we chat in June. A few weeks later, the Gabriels decide to end their tour early so they can finish it at home.
Lusk detested the notion. In September, while catching up over Zoom, he says, “I’m a new artist, and canceling shows just makes you seem unreliable.” The producer of Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé, Sounwave, wanted to work on the album, but he was only available for four weeks in the summer, which presented a problem for the band.
I don’t know whether you’ve heard Kendrick Lamar’s most recent album, but Lusk compares it to a nice cognac.
He concluded that the chance was too wonderful to pass up.
American Idol’s “Treason”
Songs were dissected, rearranged, and reworked in the ensuing flurry of activity. Angels and Queens Part One is the result, a stunning fusion of eerie gospel, stuttering electronics, and classic melodies. It sounds like Marvin Gaye and Portishead recorded a song and then sped it up.
Also, It is described as having “real emotional depth” by The Independent. It “may be the album of the year,” according to The Guardian.
The voice of Lusk is the band’s not-so-secret weapon. He was raised in the Apostolic church and has the power to knock you off your feet and break your heart with a trembling whisper. But he is always careful not to overwhelm the subject.
There is pressure to hit the high note, or the “money note,” when you’re a famous singer, he claims. But that is egotistical because that is not the song’s core message.
Lusk has spent years honing his vocal abilities, first in the church and later as a backing vocalist for Nate Dogg.
His first taste of fame (“I went to the Philippines and I got chased through a mall by 100 people”) came from his 2011 American Idol audition, but the experience left him scarred.
It was heavily manipulative, he claims. Oh, how dangerous it was. He declines to elaborate further but admits that his uncertainty “about who I was” conflicted with the producers’ desire to develop a character.
He claims,
“I wasn’t black enough, I wasn’t man enough, I wasn’t gay enough, I wasn’t straight enough. Some folks found that to be puzzling.
He continues,
“I couldn’t even watch the American Idol videos after I was eliminated.” “I really believed I wasn’t able to sing. It was frightening.”
Idol was supposed to be a launching pad for a solo career, but various agreements and managers fell through. Lusk thought about giving up music altogether, but he decided against it and went on to become a choir director, working with performers like Diana Ross and Gladys Knight.
The foundations of Gabriels were laid in 2016 when Sunderland-born video director Ryan Hope and classically-trained composer Ari Balouzian hired the Lusk choir to record a commercial.
No matter the content, Balouzian later told Rolling Stone that Jacob was “leading and arranging the choir in a way that made it interesting.” “He was being watched closely by every other singer for guidance. He was thinking of ideas on the moment and working swiftly.”
They wanted to team up with him once more. Ryan invited me to his home in Palm Springs so we could record together for a week. But Lusk declined out of caution.
Rebirth
Instead, Balouzian and Hope traveled to the singer’s church to convince him to enter the recording booth. Everything was altered when he did.
“Wreath, the first song we ever recorded, was stunning. At that point, I thought, “Oh, I think I’m going to keep hanging out with these boys.”
Between their day jobs, the trio met again every few weeks, and gradually the project unlocked something Lusk believed he had lost forever.
“It helped me rediscover my love for music. say, do you recall that? Do you recall when we enjoyed writing songs and listening to music? My life was changed by being with Ryan and Ari.”
On Angels and Queens, they attempted to convey that sentiment. The front cover depicts Lusk being baptized in physical form, signifying his musical rebirth.
“My current way of living, moving, and being—even the way I perform—has changed. It is very unafraid.”
Nevertheless, there is a theme of loss and regret present throughout the album. If You Only Knew was written as soon as Lusk learned that his godsister, who had battled addiction, had been discovered dead. Inspired by a relationship Lusk had with a “very famous” hip-hop artist, Taboo is a stark, dramatic account of destructive relationships.
He remembers that “there were guns and all kinds of crazy stuff going on.” You’re going to need to leave that situation alone, Ari and Ryan said.
Lusk’s argument against those who dismiss Gabriels as a “retro” band is the directness of his lyrics.
“I respond, “No, it’s just retro because nobody plays real instruments or really sings anymore.” It’s not outdated. I’m talking about current events that are actually happening in real life.”
Amazingly, the seven songs on Angels and Queens Part One only tell the first half of the narrative. The album will be finished when Part Two is released in 2019. It is “a continuation of the story” and “a little more fun,” according to Lusk.
Why then divide it into two?
The singer chuckles, “I’m going to be transparent with you. “I didn’t want to wait, which is why it turned out this way.
However, I promise that round two will be very exciting.
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