London, ON-based Indie-pop band, "Lost in Japan", is back with the release of their new single "Ego". Following their self-titled album "Lost in Japan", "Ego" marks the newest song released by the band since 2018. Prior to their show at the Social Bowl on Thursday, September 17th, I got the opportunity to interview with the band about their upcoming music and their newest band member. 

How has life in the studio changed since the COVID pandemic hit? 

AJ: A lot less shows, a lot more writing, and being really bored I guess.

JW: A lot of crying too.

What has been the biggest challenge for the band arising from this pandemic? 

AJ: Honestly, the biggest challenge for us was replanning all of our release strategy. In a way, it kinda worked out a little better for us because we happened to find some money a bit later. Before we didn't have the money to finish this EP or this collection of songs that we were going to hand out. You know, the pandemic, in a way, kinda helped us out to replan and we have a stronger plan now. 

Does everyone else feel the same about this? 

CH: Yeah it felt like we were trying to rush it before because we haven't released anything in quite a long time and so we just wanted to get it out, but this kinda forced us to sit out and plan a more strategical way, or a better way, of releasing everything.

Nolan Peake, the bass player, recently left the band to pursue a career in engineering/producing. Are you guys planning to find a new bass player for the band? 

KE: I'm Karl and I'm the new bass player of 'Lost in Japan'. I just joined last month. It's been a great time. Late July is kind of when I started getting ready and practicing, this is going to be my first show tonight with them. 

AJ: In a way, we're trying new things. What we found is when a member leaves the band, you want to rebuild yourselves and that's a time where you can be really experimental. And that's another reason why this pandemic helped us out as well, with that, so we can practice more and try new things. 

Your newest single "Ego", was recently released in May. Can you talk us through some of your influences for this song? 

AJ: For us, we just wrote the song when we just weren't really sure what we wanted to do as a band. We wanted to write something just a little bit harder and that riff just came out of nowhere and we were like, 'Hey, let's write a song about different personalities and who you are and who you think you are.'

What can we expect from your upcoming EP? Will it be different from your previous releases? And are you trying new sounds? 

CH: Yeah, we're definitely trying out some new stuff like some different sounds and different styles of writing. Especially now with having Karl in the band, we'll start trying to write some more out their stuff. But this one's definitely still us and has all the 'Lost in Japan' flavours...a whole bunch of stuff and I'm really pumped to show you our new sound.

Which artists and/or musicians continue to inspire the group? 

JW: For myself, I'm a big fan of Bastille, Anderson Paak, and Cage the Elephant. Just all three of these artists inspire everything I do and I always go back to what they write. 

And what do you guys think is the best song you've ever released and why? 

AJ: The new stuff that's coming out we're feeling really confident with. We're going to be playing some of them tonight. Yeah, just keep your eyes peeled and ears peeled for them. 'Orpheus' is my favourite song that we've released. 'Orpheus' is my favourite song just because that was when we started to experiment with songwriting as a band. Before which, it was kind of more like bringing songs to the band and that's when we first started really pushing that. So yeah, I liked 'Orpheus' and what we did with it. 

JW: I mean I'd have to go with the statistics and say 'Never Was You'. It has the most views, it got us the most outreach, and it just did a lot of good for us so I would say that one. 

CH: I would probably still go the opposite of James and say the one that we that had the least amount of numbers, but I'm proud we wrote it. It was 'Lighthouse Part 2', which is the last song in our album, which is like 8 minutes long and it's a kind of like 4 different songs--one song goes to next one, to the next one. It was the last song we had to record for the album, and we were like, 'let's try something new.' It all came together and I'm of proud of the whole band for how it came out. 

KE: As a new member of 'Lost in Japan' and as just a former fan, my favourite song is actually 'Good for Now'. 

And just on a final note. What advice would you give to someone following in your footsteps? 

AJ: It's okay to be afraid. 

JW: Network, network, network, network, and then do some more networking.  

CH: Try to have some fun from time to time because it can get stressful. 

KE: For me, as someone who played in so many bands, it's just always 'just don't say no.' That would be just try everything. Just don't say no, just try it, just go, if something doesn't work, it doesn't work but never say just immediately no to something. Always go out and give yourself, give it a try."

You can listen to Lost In Japan's newest single, "Ego", now wherever you stream music!