Music Q&A: Luke Storey

How would you describe your sound?
It’s difficult to say. I’ve realised as an artist you don’t get a choice how people view you. I just make what instinctively feels right to me. I know I don’t get to choose what sort of sound I make – it just happens. It might sound old, it might sound new, but for the most part I feel like the subject matter and the things I say make it current. Some of it is emotional as hell, and some of it is cocky as fuck. I performed once and this guy come up afterwards and said to me: “You’ve got five different personalities, look after them all.” It stuck with me.

What informs your music and songwriting?
Just feelings, man. Feelings, too many of them. I suffer with depression and anxiety, and when I write and record it sort of takes care of all of that. I just write how I see it. I’m so damn sensitive I can turn the slightest situation of disappointment into a ballad. Heartbreak has fuelled a lot of my music so far. One specific one that happened summer last year – I feel like I almost died, man, and even though I’ve processed most of the pain I can still draw from that experience time and time again. Tears In Rain is my most played song and it was all about that. I guess the answer to your question is just life itself. At the end of the day what else would I have to be informed by?

How have you evolved as an artist over the years?
I started to draw at five or six years old – like, actual paintings. I might use some of them for artwork. I was a DJ for many years and now I’m a recording artist. Everything has had its natural flow. I feel vessel-like – I don’t get to decide any of this. It’s all from god, or a higher power. I love what I do now.

What are you up to at the moment artistically?
I’m staying very close to my producer Cores and the people that make my beats. I’ve found myself day to day dealing with all the other aspects of being an independent artist, which I’ve found challenging because all I really want to do is make music. Even videos have become less fun, or finishing tracks production wise, tying up loose ends, as it were – the real buzz is the process of creating something new. I try to set aside a lot of time to do that because otherwise this shit won’t make me happy no more. I’ve got at least an album worth of tracks now. I don’t know what I will do with them, whether it’ll be an album or split it up into a few EPs, but right now I’m trying to get everything finished so it’s nice for me at the start of next year.

What’s on your rider?
Fruit, water, towels, Haribo, Juul pods, ice cream, sweet and salty popcorn and no alcohol.

Tell us your most embarrassing or surreal experience.
There must be loads – so many in fact I’ve either buried them far into my subconscious or I will take them to my grave.