Leon Thomas Prefers a Vintage Recording Experience
A journey through a Leon Thomas project is a brief glimpse into the constantly firing neurons in his brain — imagining and exploring the various inspirations that lay embedded in his subconscious. As a matter of practice, the Grammy-winning producer and budding R&B star has chosen music as a medium where he can explore with no fear, weaving together elements of funk, rock, and blues to create a heady listening experience that is imbued with the charm of a classic soul record yet polished with the modern sheen of a songwriter who has used a dating app. Out of this process came that chart-topping hit “Mutt,” a crackling slow burn of a record that explores that agony of mismatched expectations. Since then, we’ve found ourselves enthralled by Leon Thomas performances all over — whether on tour, at an electric Tiny Desk performance, or while shredding the guitar during a performance on The Late Show.
Like his idol, the recently departed D’Angelo, Thomas is in the tradition of venerating Black music and all of its roots. This has wedded him to the power of collaboration and instrumental experimentation. “My roots in music was just me and my guitar,” he tells me. It’s a reverence that is shared among his peers and idols, from Ty Dolla $ign to Lucky Daye, who continue to heap praise upon his breakout success.
With a possible Grammy nomination on the horizon, Thomas has been on a breakneck pace all year, reaping the rewards of his focused work ethic while touring new music for his fans. After the acclaimed reception to the Mutt EP and the deluxe edition, Heel, Thomas doubled down on the elements of musicianship that he holds dear with his latest EP, Pholks. The musician continues to write about the ins and outs of love and yearning, loading his new record with the big band sound that crackles to life on Parliament and Prince records. “The energy that comes from live instrumentation is important,” Thomas stresses. “I feel like it’s the kind of stuff that really showcases the entire world of my musical capabilities, and that can’t be hidden or over thought.”
Over the past year, you’ve done intimate performances, late-night television, and a headlining tour, and people are streaming your records. What is your preferred way to share your music with fans?
I think my favorite way is through a curated show that I’m putting together. I feel like there’s less parameters around what we’re capable of doing, and I really get to take my time. On a festival stage, or even a late-night-television show, there’s a lot of pressure involved. It can be a good thing. Pressure makes diamonds. But there’s something special about being with my core fan base and delivering a show that I know they really want to see.
On your recent project, Mutt, you seemed to be a little bit more stripped down; there was a lot of use of intense bass lines but a little bit more Lo-Fi in the sound. On the new EP, Pholks, it seems like you’re leaning heavy into instruments — you’ve got a lot of live guitar, piano, and the drums are going crazy on almost every single track. Was it an intentional choice to flip the sound that you were going for, or was it just what you were feeling in the moment?
I’m a big fan of artists like Jimi Hendrix and Prince, and I think being able to accentuate live musicianship is an important thing in R&B right now. There’s just a lot happening on the technology front, and I think it was important for me to put my foot down and say, “Live music still matters.” Musicians getting together and jamming through a record is important. On Mutt, I had the Lo-Fi side, and then I had records like “I Used To” to showcase that live perspective. We did that whole song live. I wanted to dig into that — everybody playing all the parts you hear at the same time — and Pholks was an opportunity for me to make a band with my friends and experiment with that live sound in R&B.
Who are the artists, past or present, who stimulate that creative part of you that wants to push the boundaries of R&B?
Inspiration? Prince, D’Angelo. I watched an interview with Prince, and he’ s literally mirroring some of the conversations I’ve been having in the press around the time when he was about to drop Purple Rain, before it was a hit. They were kind of saying that he was turning his back on R&B doing all this rock stuff. His answer was similar to mine: I feel like I have a right to be creative, and I continue to do that. Prince is a big influence.
On Mutt, the songwriting was focused around the ups and downs of modern-day dating and what it’s like to chase something that may not necessarily be all the way there. Is this project a different angle to similar stories?
My friend has a really cool term: “Write your life.” All of the projects that I do leading up until my next album are going to be me documenting how to love. My next album is going to be explaining the process of love but in a different perspective. I always explain it as something that’s fleeting; I’m excited to explain what it feels like to be enthralled in it, living in it. This EP was me documenting my journey. I’m not all the way there yet, so I’m building it out, you know, just writing my life.
Are there any albums that you like to go back to when you’re thinking about love and romance?
Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions is a really good album for me that explains more than love. It’s life itself, which plays into how we love. Stevie Wonder is such a beautiful writer and was able to express it in so many different ways on that project.
You’ve put in the work for the better part of a decade. Has there been any useful advice that people have given you for what comes next as you’ve navigated this transition?
I’ve had some of the most impactful conversations with Babyface — I call him Kenny [laughs]. It was important for me to understand that it was okay for me to experiment with new things that I think are cool, because that’s the very thing that’s going to help me stand out in this industry. He really put that battery in my back when it came to feeling vindicated in being myself. Things that I would consider cool may not be cool to the world yet, but it’s okay to be early.
What were you listening to when you were working on this? On a track like “Baccarat,” you hear those classic Black Sabbath–style guitar-solo licks, and then songs like “Muse” have that ’70s Stevie Wonder and Isaac Hayes influence all throughout the melody.
I was obsessed with the ’70s, and what they mean to music as a whole. All of those artists were inspiring each other in different ways. If you listen to Parliament-Funkadelic, they were very inspired by Jimi Hendrix and his work in the late ’60s. Black Sabbath is a big influence but also, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were really big inspirations throughout this whole flow. Around this time, Quincy Jones had passed — God rest his soul — so I wanted to pay homage to some of his production styles. Prince is a huge influence as well, so “Just How You Are” is based off of that Minneapolis funk. It was an opportunity for us as a collective — me, Robert Gehringer, and David Phelps — to put our brains together to create aspects of a crossover that felt genuinely specific to us but also paid homage to the folks that inspire us, hence the title.
You’re a cinephile — on Mutt, for example, you sampled Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle. What are you watching these days, whether for casual comfort or inspiration?
I’m really big into escapism and journeying to worlds. I’ve been finding myself combing over all of the Harry Potter films, because it felt like I was traveling to a different place; it was a nice moment to escape. But I have been getting into Tarantino’s catalogue of films too. He has built a world that just feels like an alternate universe, and I love to do that in my own music. I really respect his ability to operate as a director like I do as an artist and just break rules, try different things, be a student of the game to the point that you’re creating something that hasn’t been done or isn’t done often. Tarantino is a huge, huge influence. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, all that.
Brooklyn is your hometown. Do you have any mainstays that you go to when you’re in New York or in your free time? What does life in New York look like for you?
It’s funny — when I go to New York, I’m running around LES a lot. I don’t really find myself going to Brooklyn like that, even though I love Brooklyn. I left New York when I was 16 years old — at that time I was on TV, so my parents were scared I was gonna get caught up. Sheltered is not even the word. When I came back in my 20s, I’m discovering completely new things. Going back to Park Slope and seeing the places where I grew up is always a fun thing to do on a New York trip. It just brings back a lot of memories.
You’ve been praised by legends and recently you were anointed by George Clinton! Who remains on your shortlist of icons that you’d want to spend time with?
I’d really love to kick it with Thom Yorke from Radiohead. The stuff he makes solo, comparatively speaking to the Radiohead stuff, is really interesting to me, and I’m a big Radiohead fan. I just want to pick his brain on how he deals with the ups and downs — he’s been in it for so long, was able to reinvent himself so many times, and is continuing to make dope music.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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