CLARA LARS TALKS HABIT
"The habit becomes a part of you"
Daniel John
This song carries a lot of conflicting emotions, being caught between excitement and hesitation, passion or restraint, the good and the bad. What led you to explore that on 'Habit'?
During the process of writing 'Habit', I was thinking a lot about the feeling of uncertainty, and the idea of the unknown in general. It’s about all types of unknowns, such as the unknown of where a relationship stands versus how to even feel about it in the first place. If a relationship truly just feels like a “habit”, is it worth running back to? Writing this song was actually a multi-month long process, as more ideas about it kept coming to me over time, and the themes of the song took a while to narrow down. Creating 'Habit' was definitely one of the most fun writing processes I’ve had, though.
What does writing a song look like for you, what’s your songwriting “habit”, as you sit down to create?
The way I write songs varies from project to project! Sometimes a song idea will come to me all at once with basically no reason as to why. When I have random inspiration bursts, I usually flesh out songs in under an hour. However, writing can also be a multi-month long process for me, where I add in ideas as they come up. I never rush myself, if everything comes at once, great, if it takes longer, that’s fine too. For 'Habit' specifically the verses came to me pretty quickly but it actually took until two months later for the chorus idea to come to me. When it did, I knew I wanted to come back to the song and finish it. I used to always write with a keyboard, but lately I’ve just been having a lot of random melody ideas that I end up taking straight to a music-production DAW, a digital audio workstation. So that I can work on my ideas there.
Just time-wise, do you tend to write while you’re in the middle of something or once you’ve had time to process?
This can go both ways, I used to always write when I was able to have a while to process things. I would often write without even fully knowing what I was writing about, and I would need to sit and think back on old situations to figure out where my lyrics were stemming from. Now, I tend to write off of the emotions I’m going through at the moment, and it’s a way for me to process everything. I used to be a lot more anxious about being vulnerable with the world through my songs because they felt like diary entries, but now it is a lot easier for me to share my work. I figure that whatever I’m going through, someone else is likely able to relate as well, and that makes all of it less intimidating.
What does it mean for you to really be able to let things linger in your songwriting, breathing things in, keep things close, to not tiptoe around your vulnerability?
Having music as an outlet in my life is genuinely a necessity for me. It’s a way for me to process everything and see things from a different perspective. To “let things linger, breathing things in, and keep things close” is to be okay with sitting with my own feelings. Which is something I have had to learn how to do over time. Sometimes, the most uncomfortable emotions are also the most important ones to work through.
When you released your debut EP you were only around fifteen or sixteen, how long had music already been part of your life at that point?
Music has been a part of my life since I was around seven or eight years old, when I started experimenting with the keyboard and making up melodies. I began voice and piano lessons shortly after, which was when I started writing actual full length songs. When I was ten, I got a laptop for school, which was when I also began experimenting with music production. When I was fourteen, the pandemic hit during my freshmen year of high school, and I decided to convert part of our basement into a recording studio, where I started working on my initial EP and getting better at the music production DAW Ableton Live. I put a ton of time into music during this era of my life and after the pandemic I knew that it was something I wanted to continue to pursue.
Set on the beach, moving between the water and the sand, what was it like moving between those two elements, again with all the conflicting contrasts, for the song's music video?
The music video for 'Habit' was probably my favourite music video I’ve done so far. I wanted the video to feel a bit visceral, and I wanted to really integrate the environment around me, sand in my hair, letting waves crash on me, and so on. I wanted to capture the feeling of repeatedly being drawn back to someone or something, whether it’s the good parts of them or the bad parts. Eventually, the habit becomes a part of you, whether you want it to or not. The scene in the video with me in the water and the waves crashing on me was something that I knew I wanted to film, and the day of, I remember it was pretty cold outside by the time we filmed it. I dipped my foot in the water and almost backed out. That being said, I knew I’d regret it if I did not film it and give it my all. I knew in the moment that it would be a hundred percent worth it, which it was.
This song-release followed the late January release of 'What I Wanted'. Are you planning on keeping this up?
Yes! I’ve been trying to release roughly every eight weeks this year, and I actually have a new song called 'Jeans' coming late May that is probably one of my favourites. I have been writing and producing constantly this year, so hopefully I’ll be able to continue consistently sharing music at this pace for a while!
