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“An effortlessly vulnerable and raw talent.” – The Aquarian
“Skoda has long been drawn to the rawness and simplicity of country and bluegrass music. Ironic when you learn it was Mariah Carey’s four-octave range that wowed Skoda as a little girl, and she has spent much of her life singing in choirs.” – American Songwriter
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Leeann Skoda – Living Room Sessions EP (out May 26)
Los Angeles singer/guitarist Leeann Skoda is in demand for her directing of lush harmonies and emotive guitarwork. You might’ve seen her on Jimmy Kimmel Live! backing up Noah Cyrus, touring & singing with Psychic Temple or harmonizing with Brian Bell of Weezer. When not on the road with heavy hitters, she’s an integral part of Los Angeles’ familial americana scene that was built around The Grand Ole Echo, a weekly Sunday music series every summer at The Echo in Silverlake. Her new Living Room Sessions EP is born from these relationships.
It was recorded on a sunny afternoon in the living room of Malachi DeLorenzo (Langhorne Slim, Izaak Opatz) who set up a tape machine, placed some room mics and let them do their thing.. Skoda played guitar and sang with her friends, and tremendous artists in their own right, Dylan Rodrigue (background vocals, guitar) and Sie Sie Benhoff (background vocals). Their rehearsals were the shows that they all played together leading up to this day.
“We played these gigs together,” says Skoda. “And I just loved singing with them so much. Dylan is the best person to bounce ideas off of and collaborate with and Sie Sie is the best singer I’ve ever heard. She’s a great performer. We’ve sung together at her shows and on her records and vice versa. I really wanted to just capture this moment that felt so special, even if it was just for myself.”
They decided on three songs to capture that day: “Little Star,” “The Living Room” and Mariah Carey’s “Can’t Let Go,” in which Skoda strips its pop R&B down to the bone, creating a gorgeously sullen Americana rendition with incredible harmonies from Rodrigue and Benhoff. This classic ‘90s torch song of being so heartbroken that you can’t even deal with life feels like Skoda is baring her own soul for all of us to see. “There you are holding her hand.” Has there ever been a more brutal lyric?
“It’s such a young song,” says Skoda. “Everybody has felt this way when they’re young, like you’ll never get over someone. I was going back to explore my influences during Covid. Mariah was the biggest deal in my life from age five through eleven. I had every record and memorized every song. I always wanted to sing like her and of course couldn’t. I was a precocious kid. So I made it in my own style of Mariah-cana.”
Co-written with Emily Herndon as part of a 30-day songwriting challenge, “Little Star” is a slow-march lullaby, about not having all the answers and just living life. Its hypnotically elegant cadence feels like a slow dance, a first kiss, falling in love, putting your first-born infant to bed. There’s so much loving chemistry built into this performance that its poignant lyrics feel like you’ve lived with this song your whole life. “Oh, my little star / Spinning around like a dancer / Don’t know what you are / Still waiting for an answer.”
“Emily wrote the first two lines of ‘Little Star,’ and I did the same for one of her songs,” says Skoda. “I wrote one song a day for 30 days, and this was one of the best of them. I love to test myself that way, to spark my creativity. For ‘The Living Room,’ I did the Acoustic Guitar Project where you have a traveling guitar for a week and have to write a song on it. When I finished, I brought it to the next songwriter. Then, we all did a show at the end where we performed the songs we wrote on that guitar.”
With Skoda playing rhythm guitar, Rodrigue playing lead and everyone singing, “The Living Room” embraces the sound of the room they recorded in, the hiss of the tape and the trio’s rich harmonies. This sparse and mysterious tale of sex, longing and voyeurism carries a somber weight.
“I was inspired by this Love + Radio podcast episode called ‘The Living Room,’” says Skoda. “This story about a new mother watching young lovers across the way until tragedy strikes, all from the perspective of someone just watching, that isn’t a part of that situation at all. Sometimes it’s easy for me to adopt that persona and put myself in that place.”
Her 2018 debut album Call Me Back Home (BIG EGO Records) has the charm of classic country stalwarts like Patsy Cline or Lorretta Lynn with honkytonk guitars, expert pedal steel and Skoda’s intimate vocals. Both “Little Star” and “The Living Room” come from her 2021 studio EP Lucky Penny which moved into more indie-folk territory, but with a much bigger sound. Now with the intimate and gentle Living Room Sessions EP, magic did happen while recording in the living room that day. DeLorenzo mixed the tracks and sent them to Kevin Ratterman (My Morning Jacket, Andrew Bird, Murder By Death) for mastering.
This group of songs have a theme of introspection that’s translated in a way that feels effortless between these three friends. Whether we’re trying to let go of lost loves, learning to live in the present or lusting after a life we’ll never have again, Living Room Sessions EP is a heartwarming companion for all our life’s journeys, something to make us feel loved and grounded.
“I’ve really learned to enjoy songwriting and to follow my instincts,” says Skoda, “to trust my own style, to dive into the lyrics and continue to hone my voice as a songwriter and performer. I can’t wait to continue collaborating with my friends, with such great musicians.”