Karli Morehouse, the songwriter, vocalist and guitarist of Lipstick Jodi, is a force to be reckoned with. Karli announced the return of her Grand Rapids-based trio last month with the ferocious single "do/SAY". Today, Morehouse continues to scorch the earth with the follow-up track, "Going Insane." Both will be featured on the band's sophomore LP, More Like Me, due out May 7 via Quite Scientific. Pre-order More Like Me here.
Discussing the embers sparked "Going Insane", Morehouse stated, "At the time I started writing 'Going Insane', I was at one of the most stable points in my life. I found myself surrounded by well meaning friends, had a decent day job, was working out consistently for the first time in my life, and had gotten engaged to someone I had been seeing consistently for 2 years. All things I had spent my early 20s wanting, but was instead cycling through self-destructive behavior surrounded by people who weren't looking out for anyone's best interest, including mine.
On what I'm sure was a very normal day, I could feel myself slipping into a depression/anxiety episode that could have been triggered by anything. I knew I had a stronger grasp on how to handle it, but at this point in my life I was afraid of how the people around me would start treating me. Before I got into boundary work and practiced mindfulness, I would find any self-destructive way to escape my anxiety. It's how I watched others handle things and I was conditioned to do the same my whole life. But I had done the work to grow through a dark time in my life, and wanted myself and everyone around me to know that I was 'not playing games' and I wouldn't be reverting back into old, toxic habits.
The lyrics hold a sort of confession, paired with the idea of 'not being held' to the same standards as I once was held to - either by myself or others. They started out directed toward my fiancé, who has known me for 10 years. We had been on and off for 5 and were giving it a real try this time around (we've set a record for make up streaks). She has watched me go through a lot of good and bad, and I was most worried about how she viewed me when I was in a bad headspace because of outcomes that had happened before. It started as an explanation of my behavior; letting her know I could still be there for her and that I wasn't going anywhere even when I hit my lowest mood swings.
Because of my lack of intention while writing, it ended up developing into an entire song about where I was mentally and how I couldn't handle it the same ways I used to. 'Not going insane now', was a phrase that kept repeating in my head. As if I needed to keep assuring myself there was no way I was going to let myself fall back into my old ways of coping. Every lyric in 'Going Insane' can be isolated and pointed toward a situation or a repeating thought I have had. It was a song that started writing itself, really."
With More Like Me Morehouse closes the books on everything that got them to this place. All the raw emotions and experiences of childhood, teenage complexity and early adulthood angst are explored and expressed in depth - soundtracked by adrenaline rush of synths, guitar-fuzz and propulsize drums. When Morehouse sings, they blast through the sounds in triumph.
More Like Me thumbs through a journal of self-improvement, self-doubt, self-preservation, and self-celebration with each track an entry on its pages. Some written in a steady hand and some scrawled angrily on the page-music from the deepest valleys, celebrating small victories, right after a big fight, or driving fast yelling out the window on the treacherous road to trying to do better.
"One day I looked around at my surroundings and found that I needed something to change," notes Morehouse. "I'd kind of lost myself when I was 20 and did a lot of things that I was not proud of in order to attain some sort of escapism. Something needed to budge. So, following a lot of emotional and boundary growth, the songs we finished center around change; letting go, and moving on. And while I didn't go into writing 'More Like Me' with an idea of 'I'm going to write about xx', looking back, in a way, this album is a loud scream to myself and others, that I wasn't okay."
More Like Me could not be more upfront about what its collection of songs means to Morehouse. A little more mature, a little wiser, a lot more confident about what they want from her music, what they want to say as a queer artist, and what they want from life.
