Interview with Lehn Kessen

We have another very talented musician in todays interview.

Lehn Kessen is a French music producer, sound engineer, singer and songwriter.

He started hearing the need of music when he was 7 years old, when he took his mom’s cassette player, at the time, and started listening to US type of songs to simply learn English, as this was the music he was going after.

On his first job salary at the age of 14 years old, he bought himself his first keyboard and self educated himself into music theory. He started working in different youths clubs.

All his moves were toward the music direction as he was always carrying his keyboards, computer, mic to have the kids working on music, writing etc.

Lehn had the chance to travel to the United States of America with his younger brother, where he could meet the Gospel atmosphere, for him it was like meeting Jodeci, Kelly Price, Fantasia Barrino every Sunday.

Kessen was proud to have his first records recorded there with up coming artist that he had the chance to work for.

Now Lehn keeps his way into breaking the walls of the music industry.

Lisa: What first got you into music?

Lehn: I remember my mother was listening to music in this old school cassette player, she left me use it one day, I must have been 7/8. I started listening to more and more music over the years, until one day I started translating songs words to words from English to French, obviously didn’t made any sense haha, all that to say that I was watching the American culture already back then and wanted to be part of it.

Lisa: How would you describe the music that you typically create?

Lehn: I’ve always wanted to do music, I’ve had a few different “bands” when I was a teenager, again this came to me really early, I think that music was in me from the beginning, it’s hard to just say that someone inspired me when really, my curiosity for music drove me to start creating, when I was really young. But my go to are definitely R.Kelly, Tank, Dru Hill, Jodeci.

Lisa: What is your creative process like?

Lehn:  Although my favorite music genre is R&B, I actually love everything about Urban Music, the culture, the everyday’s side of it, lot of people live by it, it’s painful to think about how challenging it is for any artist going for that type of genre, but that makes its beauty at the very same time.

Lisa: Who would you most like to collaborate with?

Lehn:  It really depends, I have to feel the vibe like anybody does, I guess, I used to write french poetry when I first started writing, so I came from that, but lately, I’ve been working with Safarian, French producer from Paris, and he would send me the instrumental and I would write to it on the spot.

Lisa: Can you tell us a bit more about your latest release “Give Me the Yams”?

Lehn: Give Me the Yams is a song that I wrote in reference to some LA comedians that I watch daily, fun vibe, I’ve tried to create that with that song, like, they do it perfectly on camera, I thought I’d give it a shot with my pen & the microphone. 

Lisa: What is one message you would give to your fans?

Lehn: The message here is that many people are shy or scared to bring certains subjects when it comes to their music. I think you should not filter your own lyrics to fit in, giving and singing our hearts out is our only mission, and sing the truth and only the truth.

Lisa: What is the most useless talent you have?

Lehn: My most useless talent, I think, is wanting to help everyone, and it usually goes the wrong way, not many people can understand or respect what time represents.

Lisa: Besides being a singer and a songwriter, you are a music producer and sound engineer. Where do you think music production is going in the feature?

Lehn: It’s amazing how many tools we have to do music. Many artist just record in their bedroom, produce on a small software. I can’t do that haha, I have tried, but I chose to stick to Pro Tools for everything starting from the writing phase to the master, I saw the other day that you collab with an app and record to it, that’s all amazing, I think this new generation will collaborate even more with people from different countries etc, I think that’s where it’s really going, no matter what you use to produce, you will want to be seen or heard everywhere so the tools that we have now, smartphones, laptops, we can get it done on the go and fast, I think that’s really cool.

Lisa: Where have you performed? What are your favorite and least favorite venues? Do you have any upcoming shows, or canceled due to a Covid 19 situation?

Lehn: I have performed in small venues only so far, I was indeed planning on doing much more but the virus came in the way. We were about to start shooting the music video for the song, everything was lined up but safety comes first.

Lisa: How do you feel the Internet has impacted the music business?

Lehn: So this would continue what I was saying, with that situation that we have now over the world, we still have a way to release new music, go live, tweet, email… we can still share our work, even if our video shoot was cancelled, to give you an example, there’s still so much that can be done, thankfully because we have the internet, I can’t even imagine how this would have been without any smartphone or internet connection back then.

Lisa: What is your favorite song to perform?

Lehn:  My best time on stage was singing my song called TYH (Touch Your Heart), I haven’t been on stage that much, but this situation makes us all rethink I suppose.

https://soundcloud.com/lehnkessen/tyh-acoustic-version

Lisa: Do you sing in the shower? What songs?

Lehn: I rarely sing in the shower, but when I do it’s to practice a new song that I would be working on.

Lisa: What is the best advice you’ve been given?

Lehn:  Best advise that was given to me was “do what you gotta do”.

Lisa: If you could change anything about the music industry, what would it be?

Lehn: It’s hard to say but I would want to see like an alliance where even the singer that live in the worst conditions in the smallest country could be rescued by the music, something like a yearly contest or else where producers would actually go to these countries and look to help the ones that nobody wants to help, because we know it, it’s not simple to live from music, so if you had these conditions they have there or there, that you never even be a question, so may be opening more to places we have never thought about instead of always only thinking about the main “leading” countries.

Lisa: What’s next for you?

Lehn: Next I‘ve got a few more singles on the way, some collaborations, some solos, then hopefully an album out soon…