AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The musician Gallant gets his inspiration from an unlikely source.
GALLANT: It was cathartic to kind of lean on science and chemistry and biology and astronomy as just, like, a reminder of the bigger picture that you exist within and how lucky you are to even be able to worry about the things that you're worrying about on such a small level.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ATOMS")
GALLANT: (Singing) Losing love 'cause I would anything for you, but I'm splitting atoms into two.
RASCOE: The song "Atoms" is from his third album, "Zinc." The 33-year-old grew up in Maryland. He started recording songs when he was just in middle school. He studied music at NYU before releasing his first album in 2016. Gallant says he uses his newest album to explore some of the toughest times of his life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ATOMS")
GALLANT: (Singing) You know I felt foolish...
RASCOE: It sounds like a love song. I wouldn't normally think about splitting atoms into two for a love song. But is this a love song?
GALLANT: Yeah, I think it's rooted in what a love song would be, for sure. And I feel like it's one of those songs where I was just thinking about how crazy it feels when you're focused on something that's so microscopic - you know, day-to-day life - and how just the implications of it can feel the same as if the entire universe is ending or imploding in on itself. And so it was really fun to write, like, a very grounded love story but wrapped in the context of this bigger, more expansive, all-encompassing everything-that-ever-was and everything-that-ever-will-be package.
RASCOE: But isn't that what love is? Isn't that love is everything that ever was and everything that ever will be?
GALLANT: Yeah, you're actually right. I never thought about it like that, but yeah, you're - when you put it like that (laughter), I guess it really is.
(SOUNDBITE OF GALLANT SONG, "ATOMS")
RASCOE: You earned a Grammy nomination, and then you were an opening act for John Legend's tour in 2017. The pair of you performed this duet together, "Overload."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OVERLOAD")
JOHN LEGEND: (Singing) Don't we always make a show...
GALLANT: (Singing) Love.
LEGEND: (Singing) ...Of love.
GALLANT: (Singing) Love, love, yeah (ph).
RASCOE: It seemed like you were really set for the big time. But then a few years after that, you were dropped by your label. That - I mean, that must have been really tough. How did you get through that setback to get to where you are now?
GALLANT: I think, you know, definitely thinking about it as it happened. It was always kind of, like, a back and forth, trying to be on the same page with the label. Not to say that it was, you know, the label's fault or anything or my fault, but with a major label, they go through so many different regime changes. And it was kind of, like, just reckoning with the fact that the people who were there just didn't necessarily understand me. Especially at that time, you know, it was really - everyone was really, really obsessed with, you know, fitting everything into certain boxes and...
RASCOE: And what were those boxes? Were they trying to get you to be, like, more R&B, more soul or something?
GALLANT: Yeah, you know, I mean, there's - it's, like, oh, the - we need to, you know, appeal to this group. You know, maybe be more R&B or lean into more hip-hop, or oh, we need to - you're Black. So, you know, it doesn't really make sense that you're writing these lyrics that you - and to me, you know, I'm just being myself. So I don't really think about trying to represent any, I guess, commercial landscape or commercial box.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KEVLAR")
GALLANT: (Singing) Fresh blood tracking on the train home.
RASCOE: I want to get into another one of your songs called "Kevlar."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KEVLAR")
GALLANT: (Singing) Red eye. Ghosts I probably should've dropped off. Shaking like a soldier.
RASCOE: Was there a particular story or idea that you were trying to illuminate with this song?
GALLANT: Yeah, I mean, I was nervous to put that song on the record. But I was writing that just about the darkest night of my life where I just completely hit the bottom of the barrel emotionally, beyond a point of burnout.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KEVLAR")
GALLANT: (Singing) I don't think I'm, I don't think I'm bulletproof.
RASCOE: Was it work? Was it personal? Was it...
GALLANT: I mean, I think it was a little bit of everything. I think that, like, when you come - when you talk about work, for example, I really believe in the whole, you're never competing with other people. You're competing with yourself. And it's hard to know, OK, I'm competing with myself, but then the past version of you is winning. And then you're, like, oh, man. And then just normal existential terms - I mean, there's so much pressure on age and your worth.
RASCOE: Were you worried that you had, like, peaked? Is that what you thought?
GALLANT: I mean, that's - it's a part of it. But not necessarily just in a career sense, but just in terms of happiness and in terms of looking back and being like, oh, yeah, I used to be so happy and when I was going to an amusement park with friends, let's say. You know, and then realizing that's completely in the rearview. And then thinking about how complicated family can make everything, you know, starting a family and realizing that that's not too far off on the horizon. And I'm still in the period of going back and really taking stock of exactly why I was feeling the way that I was feeling and what caused it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LUCID")
GALLANT: (Singing) Satellite losing connection, intermittent loving affair. Walked with my head in the clouds, now the ground's got me gasping for air. Should've never left Earth with an ego this hurt. Logic so broken and bared. Apathy tightens its grip, maybe ignorance is bliss.
RASCOE: I want to ask you about the song, "Lucid." You've described this as being one of your most personal songs, almost like an exhalation. How so?
GALLANT: There was this ending on that song that's just this burst of energy. And it's, like, this falsetto thing, and then the guitar comes in, and it's just this line of, like, (vocalizing).
RASCOE: And you sound good. You sound real good.
GALLANT: (Laughter). Thank you. Thank you. It sounds better in the song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LUCID")
GALLANT: (Vocalizing).
GALLANT: It's like a cry to say that you exist. It's like five or six different emotions all condensed into one completely new feeling that I just - I feel like it's just, like - it's what the primal screams of a - like, an ancient tribe are made of. I just hope that other people would hear it and be like, oh, yeah, that's - I understand what this man feels, and I feel this way, too.
RASCOE: That's the artist Gallant, whose new album, "Zinc, " is out now. Thank you so much for joining us.
GALLANT: Of course. Thank you so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LUCID")
GALLANT: (Vocalizing). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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