Tennessee rock group Lenox Hills has spent the last few months crafting new music and on November 20, they released their latest single. “I Feel It Coming On” is easy and breezy while still capturing a lyrical depth from the minds of musicians really coming into their own. Atlas spoke with singer Luke Mullin and drummer Kyle Swenson to catch up on the recent past, talk new music and what the band is manifesting for 2021.

It’s been awhile since we last saw each other! How have things been going? What have you been up to these last few months?

Kyle: Having to wear a mask constantly in the studio is a bummer, especially playing the drums and moving really fast and can’t breathe. We’ve been able to record which is good. We haven’t been able to do much of anything else.

Luke: We’re kind of working on a record right now. We tracked the first few songs of the record already and we’re releasing them one by one. We tracked at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville back in late September and it was the first time in a long time [that] the four of us were in the studio together working on songs like that. It was good and we’re really eager to get back, but things are just kind of crazy right now. 

We’re just eager to get back to playing. So instead of playing, we’re just going to try and release songs because we really think we’ve been writing our best stuff. We [just] haven’t really had the chance to play it.

You’ve got a new single out today. How did “I Feel It Coming On” come together and how did you decide it was going to be the first single?

Luke: This new song…I would say it’s the hardest song we’ve ever had to record. It’s weird because it’s a really simple song but we were just trying a lot of different stuff with it to see what fit. I think it’s the first time we really went in the studio and just tried 10 different things and pieced it together. That song in particular was really stressful to record which is funny because it’s such an easy flowing song.

We wrote it about a year ago, but at the time, we just put out an EP so we were intending to hold it for a bit. It’s fun to play as much as it’s fun to listen to. We’re really proud of it. 

We weren’t really interested in putting out a song that was just depressing. Our main focus was making sure whatever we put out [that] those three minutes are gonna make whoever listens…to make their day better. That’s the reason we play music in the first place. 

You mentioned that you’re working on a record. What’s been fueling the inspiration for your writing these days as opposed to your last EP?

Luke: I’ll say a lot of songs have been coming from dreams lately, which is weird. Both the songs that we did that with turned out to be really good, and we’re really excited about them. Inspiration-wise, we’ve really tried to focus just on our own personal experiences. We’ve tried not to get too much into the coronavirus stuff and just stick to how we always write, which is just letting the songs come to us. And then once the idea is there, we’ll build on it. We’ve really let the songs go where they’re going, and we’ve just tried to follow that road. 

What are you all manifesting for next year?

Luke: I think we’re really just hoping we can put out a great record that we’re proud of and that hopefully people enjoy. For us as a band, we’re just trying to take the next step…just being a legitimate band and putting this record out and putting everything we have into it so that we can yield the best return in the end. I think our main focus is getting better. We’re just gonna focus on that- focus on what we can control and see where it takes us.

Stream “I Feel It Coming On”, out now!

Story by Olivia Khiel
Photo courtesy of Lenox Hills