On his debut album ‘Fighter for Love,’ Parisian artist Jordan Lee chronicles the various phases of l’amour and the artistic influences he’s encountered throughout his many years as a musician.

Stream: ‘Fighter for Love’ – Jordan Lee

Jordan Lee spent his whole upbringing deeply immersed in music— both the popular French music prevalent across his hometown of Paris, and the English/American tunes that his parents regularly played in his household.

He finally decided to have a go at creating music himself, resulting in the 2014 release of his debut EP, Therapy. He has continued to produce and DJ over the ensuing decade-plus, which has given him plenty of space with to experiment with and incorporate a variety of creative styles and personal narratives within his musical craft.

Fighter for Love - Jordan Lee — Fighter for Love – Jordan Lee

With the recent release of his debut full-length album, Fighter for Love, Lee feels as though he’s finally settled on the right combination, one that channels his go-to soul-groove genre most of all. “It was a cathartic experience, blending past influences with the energy of the present,” he says of crafting the album, which is designed to evoke the various ways that, indeed, he has fought for love and acceptance himself throughout his life. “I felt like I was speaking to myself as much as I was speaking to the listeners, trying to find balance in a world that often pulls us away from what truly matters.”

Lee is confident he’s achieved that balance in his hard-fought final project, which he is supporting through an accompanying tour, the Jordan Lee Xperience, as well as a screenplay he wrote that visualizes the personal quest for love that the album is designed to evoke. Lee currently divides his time between Paris, his native city, and Brussels, where his musical cohorts are based. While hanging out in the latter city one day, he hopped on a call with Atwood Magazine in order to recount the creation and central narrative of the multi-faceted Fighter for Love.

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:: stream/purchase Fighter for Love here ::

:: connect with Jordan Lee here ::

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Stream: “Permanent Mark” – Jordan Lee

A CONVERSATION WITH JORDAN LEE

This interview was originally conducted in French. It has been translated and lightly edited for purposes of length and clarity.

Atwood Magazine: How did growing up in France, specifically Paris, influence your creative interests and inspirations?

Jordan Lee: That’s a super interesting question. I imagine you’ve listened a bit to what I’ve done musically and remarked that it doesn’t feel especially French or Parisian. Well, I grew up in Paris and was immersed in the city’s music scene. I had a lot of contact with the local music industry and started doing some DJ’ing, which allowed me to meet plenty of Parisian artists.

What happened was that my father was a musician, a bassist, and I grew up largely listening to Anglo-Saxon music– American and English stuff, primarily. In fact, when I started building my own musical profile, it’s true that French music, at least to begin with, didn’t have much impact on what I was producing on my own. Being in Paris provided me with some inspiration and allowed me to meet other musicians, but not all of my influences were French. So, it’s hard to respond correctly to that question because my influences were more Anglo-Saxon. I grew up with that stuff and my father listened to very little French music, so really I was more inspired by James Brown, Michael Jackson, Prince and artists like that.

Have you always lived in Paris, or have you ever lived elsewhere?

Jordan Lee: I grew up in Paris and have always lived there. Recently, I’ve commuted a lot between there and Brussels, Belgium and Paris. I’m actually in Brussels right now as I talk to you. The music group I work with is primarily based in Brussels, so I got an apartment here as well. In fact, I’m almost in Brussels more often than in Paris these days. I love Brussels.

Your first EP, Therapy, came out in 2014. How would you summarize your artistic evolution over the decade-plus since then?

Jordan Lee: Therapy was my first solo project, but I’d been working with an indie pop group before that as well. When I started composing and producing my own music, it was really like a flash of lightning. I’ve always enjoyed listening to music, but working in the studio impassioned me even more from the start. Being able to create my own sound, my own color, was amazing, so I started focusing especially a lot on that.

My first opus, Therapy, was the first seed of another project that wound up being a lot more R&B-oriented but that also incorporated other genres. I grew up listening to a lot of funk and jazz, and it took me a few years until I settled on the right mix between those genres. So, I think that spending more time in the studio allowed for me achieve my personal style more quickly.

You released two singles before the album itself: “Permanent Mark” and “Love Ride,” last year. How would you say these songs serve as an introduction to the larger project? Do their themes or lyrics indicate what the rest of the album has in store?

Jordan Lee: The first single, “Permanent Mark,” set the tone for the album, and then there was “Love Ride.” Both of these early singles relate to my personal evolution as someone who’s experiencing life. Lyrically, a song like “Love Ride” is about understanding your ego from an outsider’s perspective and to be at peace with what you find. So, in a sense, these early songs set the stage for me to later go on and produce Fighter for Love. The themes of loving others, loving yourself, loving your dreams– to do all of that, you have to know and understand yourself, and have the possibility to sit down and say, “OK, let me think about certain of my particular traits.” My music really grew out of that particular chain of thought. It’s really a cathartic process.

Now that Fighter for Love has just come out, what are your impressions of the finished album, and what are some important facts about it that you would like to share with your fans?

Jordan Lee: Where to start? Haha. As you know, it’s my very first full-length album. I think it relates to what I told you before: this album, for me, the way it was put together and created, was a succession of events that took place and gave an essential feeling to my music. They are really personal things that I felt and that allowed me to lift myself up spiritually and personally. This album, for me, brings together a good packet of what I’d been working on for several years. At the same time, it creates a certain form of risk, given that I’m working with themes and musical styles that I hadn’t explored much before.

I also wound up writing a screenplay based on the narrative of Fighter for Love. If you look at the album cover, I’m portrayed as a fighter— that is the main character in this screenplay. It tells a story in which love has totally disappeared from the surface of the planet and there is a young man who decides to go on a quest to find love. On the way, he meets a lady. At first, they’re very conflicted, but in the end, she feels a spark and decides to join him on his quest to find love. It’s a metaphor, in fact, for all the forms of love that are possible. If you look inside of yourself, you could see this woman as a fictitious representation of the center of a relationship. Or, alternatively, she could also be the flame or the alter ego inside of you, and you have to learn to embrace both her positive virtues and her faults.

The album is constructed as a love story and all of its various chapters. How do you think the music inside of it helps to reinforce this general theme?

Jordan Lee: These songs came about in several phases. Let’s talk about them, one at a time. The first song, “Fighter for Love, Speech,” introduces this love story. I was inspired by songs like Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” and Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” while working on that track— songs like that make me vibrate, you know? That music made me feel like I was having a type of dream that I wanted to recreate on this album.

Then there’s “Friends Or Lovers, Part One,” where we start looking at the themes of indecision, the choices we make, and the questions we ask about ourselves and other people. Then, on “In Between Feelings,” I start looking at those questions even more thoroughly. I had a lot of influences in R&B, pop, and funk while working on this album. As the project evolved, I felt as though I was able to find a way to properly connect all these styles and themes. Achieving that allowed me to bring a cinematographic touch to my music.

Let’s talk about this year’s tour, the Jordan Lee Xperience. What are your hopes for the tour and what do you feel whenever you go onstage and do your new music?

Jordan Lee: For me, the Jordan Lee Xperience is really an opportunity to create an experience for the fans that replicates the experience that I had in creating Fighter for Love. When I perform onstage, I would really like to recreate the manner in which I make music in the studio. This project represents a chance for me to make an initial connection with people. So, the goal is really to tell a story through songs that I perform onstage, and maybe that can can inspire ideas for me and my fans. What I desire most profoundly is that, when people go to see my concerts, they’ll come out feeling as though they’ve gone one step higher. It’s an international tour around Europe, and I hope to bring it to the United States as soon as possible.

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