Limit State Goes Beneath the Real: Music, Meaning and the Art of Starting Over
From childhood melodies to Beneath the Real, Limit State opens up about songwriting, live connection, creative rebirth and what comes next.
GHR: What inspired you to start writing music?
LS: When I was a little kid playing with toys, I was already humming soundtracks to whatever was happening. I’ve always expressed myself musically, and I’ve always been involved in multiple art forms. I love acting and illustration. I do the artwork for Limit State, and I’ve done some story writing too. For a while, I was even making a comic.
But I find music to be the purest art form.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be about one distinct thing. To me, it’s a direct expression of the raw energetic movement underneath experience, and that same energy can exist beneath many different situations.
One piece of music might express the energy of a war, but also the breakdown of a family or an existential crisis. Another might perfectly express the feeling of being completely absorbed in a sunset, but also the feeling of having a first kiss with the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.
A piece of music is never bound to one particular scene because it’s more fundamental than that. I think it’s the most direct language we have for conveying the essentials of experience.
GHR: Can you tell us more about your experience performing live, and what has been your most memorable experience?
LS: When a crowd sends energy toward me and I can send it back to them in this kind of feedback loop, that’s an incredible experience.
The most important part of performing is connecting with an audience and hopefully having some kind of positive impact on the people who are there.
There was a woman who came to my shows pretty consistently for a while. Eventually, she started making her own music and putting it online, and she told me that getting into my material had inspired her to do it. Her music wasn’t really like mine at all. It was completely her own thing, and it was great. That meant a lot to me.
It’s also really special when kids come to shows and get completely into it. You realize that you might be helping create a core memory for them, and maybe even inspiring them to make something of their own someday. I’ve had moments at shows where I could see that happening, and it’s incredibly rewarding.
GHR: What does your songwriting process look like?
LS: There’s usually one small idea that comes first, and that becomes the initial spark. It could be a melody, a short chord progression, or sometimes a lyric, although lyrics almost always arrive attached to a melody for me.
Then the craft comes in. I start figuring out what needs to surround that original idea, what serves it, and sometimes even what makes sense of it.
The process moves back and forth between inspiration and craft — analysis, experimentation, and planning. I’ll get an idea and start tinkering with it. During that tinkering, something unexpected might appear and become another moment of inspiration, and then I’ll build around that.
It’s about carrying everything I know from my studies and experience, along with all the tools I’ve developed, while still keeping the window open for things that aren’t planned and can genuinely surprise me.
GHR: What motivates you to create music and bring awareness to different situations through your songs?
LS: At certain points in my life, inspiration comes in a massive wave. The songs start demanding more attention every day, and sometimes it feels like they’re almost writing themselves.
When that happens, it becomes less about deliberately saying something I think people need to hear or trying to bring attention to a particular issue. It’s more about surrendering to the process.
What I write about is obviously connected to whatever feels important to me at that moment, but it doesn’t necessarily begin with a conscious need to write about a particular subject. It’s a bigger process. Everything I am at that point in my life — everything I’ve seen, felt, and experienced — starts condensing into one larger expression.
It crystallizes that period of my life. One of the greatest gifts of that process is that it often frees me to move forward.
For me, it’s normally music first and ideas second. I find the lyrical expression that feels right for what the music is already communicating.
That was very much the case with this album. I had reached something of a reset point in my life — almost a clean slate. I had moved to another state for a new job, and the whole thing fell apart in a pretty major disaster. It took a lot out of me.
When I eventually came back from that, I found myself in a situation where I had a lot of space and time to decompress. That space and time became filled with music. Eventually, that music became this album and this band.
GHR: Could you share some insights into your next projects?
LS: First, the full debut album has to come out. It’s called Beneath the Real, and it should be released early in the new year, probably in January. Some tracks won’t be available on streaming platforms, but the complete album will be available on Bandcamp. That’s where listeners will really be able to experience the full intended arc of the record.
It isn’t simply a collection of songs I wrote and put together. It’s designed as a thematic and emotional journey from beginning to end.
After Beneath the Real is out, we can start looking forward. I’ve already written most of the material for a second Limit State album, and I feel like it’s a step up — some of the best material I’ve ever written.
Some of it is heavier than the first album, including the use of seven-string guitars, which don’t appear on Beneath the Real. Some of it is also more epic in scope, with several longer-form compositions.
I’m extremely excited to get to that material, but right now I need to keep my attention on the release of Beneath the Real. Planning and executing a successful album release is a big job.
