For starters, if you listen to Lemon Lord, you will become an Illemonati for sure. Based in Los Angeles, Nora Germain chose her alter ego to flourish and create some good pop music. She released her first album Be Blonde in November of 2020 and it has been added to numerous playlists on Spotify including Gaga Daily, Women of SynthPop and others. Her mantra, To Infinity and Be Blonde, is a reminder to us all that we can do anything we dream of and we can be any version of ourselves that we choose along the way. This mantra is echoed in her song Queen in the lyrics of the chorus, which say, “You just gotta live life like a Queen/ Ooh you can do it/ Baby it’s done/ If you put your mind to it.”
Continue reading to know more about Lemon Lord!
Your debut album Be Blonde is exhilarating. How did you prepare to give such an impressive debut?
LL: Thank you so much! The biggest preparation is of course just writing the songs. Between the writing process and the demo process, and then the final selection and polishing of the tracks, that’s the most time-consuming, the most expensive, and of course the most challenging as well. Besides that, for me it was mostly about believing in myself, being patient with the process, and being strong and standing behind my songs and the statements I wanted to make, remembering why I started and who I am.
What draws you to your preferred genre?
LL:I started listening to pop music, mainly the Spice Girls, when I was very young in the ’90s. Seeing and hearing women dominate the world like that and have so much fun uplifting their audiences was a powerful image for me — understanding that it wasn’t just men who could be musicians or be leaders. The fact that they were my idols first was special and formative for my concept of the world. There were others in pop music who inspired me deeply too, but to stay with women, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga were also big parts of my childhood and the sound that was around me in high school in particular. I think that whatever music you grow up hearing is music that stays with you forever, and I also feel that music has the ability to bring people together, to help us make friends on the dance floor, on the internet, or at a show. So I guess it’s that feeling of girl power that sparked my interest in pop music, and the lasting feeling of friendship, community, spirit, and joy that has kept me going and inspired me to become Lemon Lord.
How did the pandemic blues help you to focus on music? Were you able to create any fresh tracks during the mundane lockdown times?
LL:I worked on Be Blonde, my debut album, during the pandemic and began releasing the singles in September of 2020. It wasn’t always easy to figure out the scheduling and logistics because studios have different rules and there was a lot to do to keep up with testing and so forth. Our ability to work depended on those parameters, which we respected faithfully, but caused some delays due to things opening and closing and so forth. I was able to keep writing after my album came out last November, and I continue to write new music usually every day. Mostly I’m just proud that I was able to get my sonic vision with respect to Be Blonde out into the world. I didn’t know how long the pandemic would last (and still don’t) so I didn’t want to put my dream on hold indefinitely. You never know what will happen with the world and “now” is the only certain thing. I just wanted to unleash it and let the chips fall. The pandemic has given me a lot of quiet time to write more, to work on my voice and technique, to listen to more music, and to take in more inspiration — but mostly I feel I’ve learned a lot about gratitude, patience, and finding a way to keep going no matter what.
What about your music is new and out of the box?
LL:Maybe that’s for my beautiful fans, the Illemonati, to decide! I didn’t write any ballads or slow songs on this album, so maybe it’s rare to release an album with the only medium to faster tempo songs. I also wrote all the melodies, lyrics, arrangements, and musical parts myself, which for a singer is a bit unusual. I had great help from engineers and producers who helped me create the particular sounds and effects that I wanted, but usually, the singer/ songwriter doesn’t arrange the whole album on their own. Before I was Lemon Lord I had a background in playing violin and touring as a jazz musician under my given name, so that background really helped me to understand the functions of different instruments and how harmony and form works, and so forth. That’s probably a bit unusual too.
We loved Paint My Face and it’s an on-loop track for us! What’s the story behind this one?
LL:Thank you so much! I love this one too. This song came to me over a year ago when I was reflecting on life as a young girl, maybe an early teen, and wanting to wear makeup and high heels and just wanting to have fun with my appearance and my clothing. I was thinking a lot about how people all around the world often get shut down or dismissed, or even abused by their family members or people at their schools or elsewhere just for how they look, or what they want to do with their hair or whatever else. I had an aunt who scolded me and called me a prostitute to my face when I was about 12 years old. I was wearing blue or purple eye shadow at the time and she felt it was inappropriate, maybe even disgusting. I remember that moment so clearly, and how it made me feel, and the many moments like that I went through in my life, some even happening while I was becoming Lemon Lord. When I was a girl, I just wanted to have fun and be free. Following my heart felt like a beautiful thing to do, so when it wasn’t seen that way, that was difficult. Maybe that’s something a lot of people around the world, people from different backgrounds or places can identify with. Being misunderstood or mistreated in any way at a young age can scar you for life, but if you do the work of self-love, of naming your pain and courageously healing that pain, you can maybe help someone else, which is what I wanted to do with this song. Many people have misunderstood this as well, but I don’t see makeup as a way to cover my face, but rather to celebrate my face and to love who I am with or without makeup on. Also, the idea of makeup could be a metaphor for anything — for gender, for fashion, for anything in life that speaks to you. The song also goes into a wider view of society, commenting on people who try to discourage you, and the beauty of being multidimensional as a human being. It’s a special one to me.
What kind of instruments/recording facilities do you have? Which one is your favorite?
LL:I use a variety of keyboards and synthesizers to write my music, and most of the demos were made principally using a microKORG xl+ synthesizer, which I bought because it’s easy to use, pretty compact, and doesn’t have *too many* sounds to choose from. I feel people can get bogged down when they have too many choices. Of course then when you add the other parts and extrapolate on the demo to make the full song, there are thousands, maybe millions of sounds (and combinations of sounds) available in the computer through various programs. Then if needed, those tracks can be supplemented with live instruments or whatever you need, so we used live electric bass on Paint My Face for example. I can make demos in my living room at home but worked in various recording studios around Los Angeles to make Be Blonde. Someday I hope to have my own studio in my house so that I can have recording sessions any hour of the day or night under my own roof. That would be glamorous and fun.
What’s challenging and tough- writing the lyrics or recording it?
LL:Writing might be slightly harder because there’s the potential for anything to happen. Anything can be changed, scrapped, redone, expanded upon, deleted, and so forth. When you’re recording, you usually have a solid framework (even if it’s unfinished or just a demo) so there isn’t as much opportunity to change the broad strokes, but there is still a possibility of that if needed. Recording is more about singing the lyrics in the best possible way, finding the right sounds for each specific part, and that is a more meticulous process. At that point, there’s usually a vision or at least some references of other recordings to help guide the vision, so you’re not quite as open-ended.
Where do you see the pop music world heading towards? What major changes do you perceive specifically after the lockdown?
LL:I am hoping that more high-energy, empowering pop music comes back to the charts. Except for Chromatica by Lady Gaga and Dua Lipa’s recent hits, also with Miley Cyrus, there isn’t a lot of that on the charts or radio anymore, and I really miss that and hope to be able to bring that back to the world. People need to dance and sing and love now — to embrace one another, to laugh, and to come together in their communities (when it’s safe). I hope that there is a higher demand for live music, dance, and theater, because artists and venues have had a huge burden put on them by this pandemic, and rarely get the economic support that restaurants and others do, for example. Furthermore, streaming is a hugely powerful tool for discovering artists but pays almost nothing to them (on the high end, $4,000 per million streams, which for some may not even cover the cost of production). So I hope that the fans will buy merchandise, they’ll come to the shows, and that girl power will live forever.
Thank you so much for these questions and for listening to my songs!
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