The Corey Leiter Interview
When and where were you born? When did you first begin to fall in love with music, more specifically the guitar and songwriting? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? Did you participate in any groups, or projects prior to becoming a solo musician?
I grew up in a small-town town in Ohio called Aurora. Looking back, I’m very grateful for growing up somewhere that had so much green. We had a forest and creek in our backyard that we would explore for hours. My sister and I, and the neighborhood kids would try to catch frogs and crawfish. I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings as a kid and would run around the woods pretending I was Legolas. My first musical memory is seeing the Beatles 1 commercial on TV when I was 9 and immediately asked my parents to buy it for me. I was so captured by those early Beatles songs like “Love Me Do” and “From Me to You.” It wasn’t long after devouring that album that I asked for my first electric guitar. Long winters and constant rain in Northeast Ohio meant that I was inside a lot, practicing guitar. My dad has incredible taste in music and shared so much with people in those early years, like Neil Young, Pink Floyd, and Wilco. He introduced me to Nirvana when I was in middle school, which he probably regrets now. I thought Kurt was the coolest, and my mind was blown by the juxtaposition he created, merging melodic poetry with heavy guitar, pop and hard rock, lightness and darkness. I didn’t want to do anything else with my life after that. I started songwriting around the age of 12, or 13 after my first ‘break up’. My earliest songs were all punk and emo songs. I played in emo/punk bands throughout middle school and high school, and I always wrote on an electric guitar. I was gifted a 1969 Gibson J-50 after I graduated from college, and ever since then I couldn’t put it down. All my songs were written and performed on acoustic.
What ultimately inspired you to pursue a life and career in music?
Ever since I was a kid, I wanted a life and career in music. I decided very young and thought of little else for most of my life. Over the last couple of of years, I’ve had a major shift. I’m currently in graduate school to become a therapist, and it’s been one of the most life-affirming changes I’ve undergone. Everything that I love about music can also be found in therapy. Exploration of self, feelings, emotions, thoughts, and dreams. Human to human connection and community. That heart-to-heart resonance you can feel with clients is such a gift. It’s what I’ve been seeking through music and have gotten glimpses at times, especially when I feel I’m really connecting with the audience at a show. Today’s world is so upside-down and difficult, and as much as music is my calling, I also don’t think it’s enough to do only that. I’ll always write songs, and make records, and play shows, but I’m also seeking the intersections between music and mental health care. Music gets to be sacred again when I’m not trying to make a career out of it. The relief I feel from not trying to hustle and sell myself constantly is priceless. My proudest achievement so far is a music group that meets weekly at a homeless shelter in Santa Monica. We get together to listen to music, eat snacks, talk about life, and play instruments and jam. Sometimes we dance and sing. It’s one of the most wholesome things I’ve gotten to experience in a long time.
Tell me about writing and recording “The Whale, The Calf, The Satellite”. What was the overall process and approach to this album and would you mind giving some background to songs such as “Shame”, “Window” and “First Song”?
“The Whale, The Calf, The Satellite” was my third record, and my first attempt at producing myself. Most of the songs were written while backpacking all over Europe. Following that trip, I moved from Nashville to LA. It was a very dreamy time. I was seeing a lot of parallels between nature and my own emotional life, and very inspired by the changing landscapes around me while traveling. The record is somewhat of a concept album with three parts. A third of the songs felt very nautical and oceanic in the content and production, another third felt more earthy and pastoral, and the last third felt more airy and spatial. I didn’t necessarily plan for that, but that’s how it all came together. I started recording the songs right when I moved to LA, originally on a 4 track to cassette. Eventually, I wanted the songs to be more fleshed out and started recording with my neighbor Joey, who happened to be an engineer. I ended up recording a lot of it in my small shitty bedroom in Silverlake, but also got to collaborate with friends Kosta Galanopoulos (PWNT), and Luke Eneyeart in Kosta’s warehouse studio that he lived in at the time, with my buddy Raymond Joseph sending piano and extra guitar tracks from Nashville. It took almost three years to finish it due to the sort of convoluted process and adjusting to LA, but I love that album, and I’m super proud to have produced and arranged something myself. “Shame” is one of the oceanic songs on the record which was written in the wake of the #MeToo movement. I was sort of disgusted with men, and myself for being one, and coming to grips with what privileges and blind spots I had at the time. The feeling of shame for me feels somewhat like a wave crashing over you and trickling down your body, so I wrote a song about it. “First Song” is another oceanic song. I was having a lot of recurring dreams about Orca whales at the time, and I wanted to write a song that felt like being an Orca. “Window” is another favorite of mine. I tend to believe that other people you meet throughout life are like portals, (or windows) into other ways of seeing and experiencing the world, and love is the key through that gateway. The song is really a reflection on how love can transport you out of your own ways of being, and help you learn about yourself.
In 2022 you released your follow up, “Fire Season” with an ensemble of musicians such as Ryan Polli as engineer and producer. A departure from your previous work, what did you ultimately want to express and achieve creativity with this album? Jumping ahead to your most recent effort, “White Heat” EP, that is set for release this month on Anxiety Blanket Records. Tell me about the process and approach to bringing this record to life and how you connected with this particular label.
“Fire Season” is another special album for me. I wrote those songs in 2019-2020 through COVID. There just seemed to be so much turmoil then, but I guess it hasn’t really let up. There were wildfires happening everywhere and so much fear surrounding the pandemic. I started giving more voice to some of the fearful, anxious, cynical, and sarcastic parts of myself. It was a time when a lot of shadowy aspects of humanity were coming to light, and I was looking at my own shadow as well. The goal was to transmute some of these more rejected parts of myself through songwriting, and I found a lot of light and healing there. Producing the record with Ryan Polli was really fun. He really understood what I was trying to achieve and made it so comfortable for me to explore at his place. We did everything in his living room in Eagle Rock. The record is this sort of guitar explosion that really seeks to blend shadow and light. It’s a statement of trying to stay true to yourself amidst the chaos going on around you.
The “White Heat” EP was really just an opportunity to celebrate my band, who are just incredible. Raymond Joseph Bracchitta, Doron Zounes, Spencer Hoffman, Telly Galanopoulos and me played a lot of shows together following the release of “Fire Season”. We had so much fun together as a band and I really wanted to capture that. We recorded all four songs live to tape in one day at Altamira Sound with very minimal overdubs for some extra spice. “Gone” is a translation of a mantra from the Heart Sutra, an ancient Buddhist text. It’s meant to calm the heart. Buddhism, meditation, and mantra have made a huge impact on my life and have trickled into my music as well. “Raven” is another mantric song. I discovered that when I’m feeling off kilter, if I really belt it out over some simple guitar, and let the voice lead, I end up feeling a lot better. That’s how “Raven” was born. “White Heat” and “Help Me”- which is a Joni Mitchell cover-have been staples of our live set for a while. “White Heat” is a song I wrote many years ago for my grandma. After losing my grandfather and her sister, she went through an intense period of grief, which led to a brief psychotic break. She recovered thankfully, but I tried to write this song from her perspective. Once I started working in the mental health field, it started to have new relevance for me. Now I hope it provides validation to anyone struggling with their mental health. As for the Joni cover. Who doesn’t love Joni? Anxiety Blanket has helped me spread the word on “Fire Season”, my single “Lay It Down”, and now the “White Heat” EP. I learned about them from my bandmate Spencer Hoffman when they put out his record “Apple Core”, which is incredible. Anxiety Blanket does a really great job at helping grow the LA music community and fostering connections between artists. They’re also just the kindest people out there.
Are you planning any shows, or touring this summer upon the album’s release? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
I’m planning on playing an EP release show on July 21st at Scribble in Highland Park, CA. Scribble is a non-profit community mental health center, and half the proceeds from the show goes toward the center, which allows people to go to therapy for a lower cost. They are currently raising money to expand their center. It’s a great mission and if any readers can contribute, they absolutely should.
