Logan Lynn

Music:

Member Since: 6/22/2006
Band Website: LoganLynnMusic.com
Band Members: LOGAN LYNN

(Photos: www.RayGordon.com / Artwork: www.CoreySmithArt.com)
Influences:

THE INNOCENCE MISSION, JOANNA NEWSOME, THE SUNDAYS, LIZ PHAIR, THE CARDIGANS, ADULT., JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL, JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS, BARBIE AND THE ROCKERS, STYROFOAM, LORI CARSON, EAGLES OF DEATH METAL, RICKIE LEE JONES, CHAGALL GUEVERA, PIZZICATO FIVE, LUSH, LARRY TEE, 10,000 MANIACS, SUZANNE VEGA, FISCHERSPOONER, DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, Q-BURN'S ABSTRACT MESSAGE, SUN-60, L7, MUDHONEY, DON PERIS, AMY GRANT, GRAVY TRAIN!!!, THE DANDY WARHOLS, THE UPSIDEDOWN, THE OCEAN BLUE, TORI AMOS, NICK DRAKE, THE SHINS, KEANE, WILSON PHILLIPS, THE SWOON, LAMB, MARTIKA, THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS, TIFFANY, ERYKAH BADU, DEBBIE GIBSON, PAULA ABDUL, MISS MAKI NOMIYA, THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK, MILLI VANILLI, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, JULIE MILLER, MEW, PHIL COLLINS, HOWARD HELLO, OF MONTREAL, JULIANA HATFIELD, MICHAEL STIPE, PEACHES, MARK FARINA, MISS KITTEN, TV ON THE RADIO, JAMES TAYLOR, INDIGO GIRLS, EMMYLOU HARRIS, TRENT REZNOR, EDIE BRICKELL, PHOENIX, BEN FOLDS, PRE-KEVIN BRITNEY SPEARS, MIDNIGHT OIL, NIRVANA, PETE YORN, LAUREN HILL, PANSY DIVISION, HEATMISER, YEAH YEAH YEAHS, THE STROKES, THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, SAM PHILLIPS, A CAMP, THE CRANES, TEGAN AND SARA, MINISTRY, BARBARA MANDRELL, THE BREEDERS, THE PIXIES, THE AMPS, CAESARS, BETTE MIDLER, FIONA APPLE, COCTEAU TWINS, THE FROGS, BAXTER, ELLIOT SMITH, KIDS INCORPORATED, SCOTT SIMPSON (FOR GIVING ME MY FIRST CASIO SK-1 WHEN I WAS 9), BAD TECHNO FROM THE 90'S, & MANY YEARS OF CHRISTIAN REPRESSION

Sounds Like: LOGAN LYNN HAS LOST HIS FUCKING MIND.


LOGAN LYNN ON MTV'S "LOGO" NETWORK (JULY 2007) "NewNowNext" Queer Artist Interview: Logan Lynn on Moody Dance Pop, Tori Amos & God"Ain't that America?"
BY: JOHN POLLYLogan Lynn's electro-fueled music merges God, country, queer love and gloomy artsy-ness! Put that in your firecrackers, folks!What’s more American than being raised by super-religious Midwestern parents, home-schooled, pumped full of Amy Grant tunes, then coming out at 14, becoming a musician and moving to the crunchy West Coast to make your own kind of music (and lots of arty videos and collage-y visuals)? Yep, out musician Logan Lynn’s life sounds like a queer-tinged John Cougar Mellencamp song, and he’ll be the first to tell you (see below) how his tightly wound Christian upbringing influences his artfully electronic tinged mope-pop sound. As it’s been put, Lynn’s music puts the “disco” back into discomfort.These days, the Portland-based redheaded songsmith is seeing his video, “Burning Your Glory,” cruise nicely along on Logo’s weekly Click List Top Ten, and he’s playing gigs all around the Northwest, as his forthcoming album, From Pillar to Post, is slated for a fall 2007 release. Give his new single “Feed Me to the Wolves” a listen if ya wanna.You can watch and hear his videos and tunes on LoganLynnMusic.com (or via MySpace), but since he was in NYC last week for a show and some Pride fun, I chatted him up. After the jump, you can hear about his musical ethos, frisky fans, his Tori Amos devotion and how redheads do get more action.John: So... You live in Portland?Logan: Yes, but I’m originally from the Midwest; kind of everywhere you wouldn’t necessarily want to be from, I’m from. My dad did a “Strong Family” seminar funnily enough, and we traveled around doing that.John: He led it?Logan: Yeah, it was sort of like a touring Promise Keeper experience, so we lived in like Nebraska, Texas, Kansas, Michigan and Tennessee, did the whole rounds. I moved to Portland in ’96 and never really went back to the Midwest after that. I prefer to stay coastal.John: I hear Portland’s pretty great. I hear there’s great food… And a cool queer community.Logan: It’s a real sleepy town, but in a good way. There’s a lot going on. The music scene is kind of tight-knit. It’s a good jumping off place, I think. There’s no shortage of venues to play, and the kind of music I make, it lends itself to a little bit of depression along the edges. And with Portland, with the sun depravation, you get a little of that. [Laughs.]John: So the climate lends itself well to depression?Logan: People are into the cry-baby stuff! [Laughs.] And I do like how cheap the city is. Part of me is really into the, er… cheap.John: I can understand that. Your song, “Burning Your Glory” has been on Logo’s Click List and getting play. It’s nice—very melodic and still and introspective, but with an electronic vibe, too. Is that song written about someone specific?Logan: ...Yeah, that was written about my previous relationship. It’s actually on older song that Carlos Cortes, my recent bandmate, took and remixed it, and re-recorded it. (Watch Logan Lynn's "Burning Your Glory." Like, now...)John: Has the person you wrote it about ever responded?Logan: I tend to send CD’s out when they happen. It’s sort of the whole process for me, to release my anger or hurt or whatever, to make it into a product so I’m not feeling it anymore. And then after I sing it a few times, it becomes more like a story about someone else, almost. It’s kind of therapeutic in that way. And I think part of the process is that it gets heard by the person who it’s about. That’s the final part.John: Your videos seem like collages of art and music. How do those come together?Logan: I did five videos this past year from my previous record, all with five local Portland filmmakers. And I just let them all run with it, and it actually turned out pretty well. That’s also something I like about Portland; there’s a lot of like-minded people, and people involved in the visual arts too. There’s a lot of starving artists who are just jobless and bored. [Laughs.] They’re like, “I’ll make a video; I have nothing else going on.”John: And how does your upbringing in a strict religious household influence your music?Logan: Probably 100% of everything I do comes from that. I was home-schooled, so when I was finally able to listen to pop music—anything besides Amy Grant, which is essentially what I grew up on—I sort of felt like I was at home then. I’ve since been able to patch things up with my family. And I figured out that forgiveness is kind of selfish; you do it for yourself. And they’ve been able to get something out of the music too, I think, whereas before I don’t they were ever able to hear me. It’s sort of a weird scene, with that church. It’s a stifling experience, and I came out when I was 14, which wasn’t the most popular thing to do in 1990-whatever in Kansas. Since then it’s been great. I think moving west has been good for that, too. But it’s nice to be able to revisit those issues musically…John: Your album is coming out this fall. It’s called From Pillar to Post. What’s the origin of that title?Logan: My grandmother used to say that all the time. It’s basically somebody who runs amok in every aspect of their life, from one catastrophe to another. That’s sort of been my situation from time to time. Like, burn one bridge and go on to another. Not so much now, but a lot of my feelings before have been a lot about running amok. This new record is more about my present, and getting the new band has been good.John: When you perform, if there’s two of you, what’s it like?Logan: It’s sort of like a DJ experience, with me up there doing my singing bit. The sound is all 100% computer; anything that’s instrumental is sampled in to the computer.John: Well, that’s easy. You travel light!Logan: Yeah, it’s nice. Not tons of gear. You want a show? We’re ready to plug in on a whim.John: You’ve played lots of queer events, including Folsom Street in San Francisco … What’s the raciest performance scenario you’ve been in? How far do you go onstage?Logan: Well, I tend to not go very far, but Folsom Street Fair was the most racy. I wasn’t prepared; there were some wild things…John: Like what?Logan: Like guys jerking off in front of the stage. Like, during my songs, which is a little distracting. I looked at my band after that, and was like, “Dude, if we can make it through this, we can play anywhere…”John: Maybe it was a form of flattery?Logan: Well, yeah… I figure if they’re enjoying the show that much, I’m doing it right.John: And you’ll know, if they’re enjoying it.Logan: [Laughs.] Yes. I go for full release at the end of my performances.John: What music are you listening to now?Logan: I listen to a lot of chick rock. I’m really into The Innocence Mission and Feist, and embarrassingly a little Tori Amos.John: There’s no shame in some gay Tori-love.Logan: Yep, I’m into it. I think that’s where my touchy-feely stuff comes in. I like dance music, but I tend to make and not listen to it as much I would listen to a lady with a piano.John: How do you create music? Is it a solitary thing, is it with Carlos? Is it in the shower?Logan: I have a digital vocal recorder that I carry around in my pocket, and I’m just constantly singing into it. I used to carry notebooks but that got hard on my hands… So now I just press play and record and go with it. And then I use my simple old Casio SK-1 bit. I’ve had the same keyboard since I was ten, and I still like it. So I start with that and lay down a simple track and Carlos and I build around that.John: Now when you were coming out, as a teenager, was there a song that sort of served as your coming out soundtrack?Logan: I don’t think there really was that. I’m sure I would read into things in music, but I think I’d probably credit Tori Amos as the lady who let me free myself of the religious bondage, and sort of turn that into a musical thing. And for me that was the big deal; it wasn’t that I felt dirty about being gay, it was that I didn’t want to go to fucking hell.John: Who does?Logan: [Laughs.] Hell’s a bummer, from what I’ve been told. But once I could figure out that I was already in hell, and I needed to get myself out of it, that was more of a coming out for me. It had more to do with God, than sex.John: Who would you say is the most inspiring gay artist to you?Logan: I like Rufus Wainwright a lot. I think he’s really honest. I listen to a lot of people who have gay stuff around the edges, but I don’t know. I listen to a lot of chicks, so the Indigo Girls, maybe? [Laughs.] Michael Stipe… It’s all about the songs more to me, than who they are in the sack, or whatever.John: Now, importantly, do redheads get more play?Logan: On the radio?John: No. Sexually.Logan: I think people tend to think of redheads as being hypersexual, which in my case is probably true. But I don’t know that I get more play. But I think people either really like us, or really hate us.John: I think some people are extra turned-on by redheads…Logan: Yeah, I guess that’s a good thing. [Laughs.]John: Finally, what’s your musical mission? What do you want to do?Logan: I want to be heard. It would be nice to find like-minded people, and just be able to keep doing what I’m doing, and have an audience. That’s the goal, to have an audience that can relate. That makes the impending sense of doom, or the loneliness of being me a little less lonely. I’d like to find other people who are totally bummed out—and who want to dance, at the same time. [Laughs.]John: Are you that bummed out?Logan: I go through phases. That’s part of the whole thing, right? Being alive isn’t always totally awesome. But that’s where the music comes in. If I didn’t have music, I’d be just suicidal and crazy. But I’m just crazy and musical…Logan Lynn: He likes art, Tori Amos, cloudy Portland--and puppies!
-JOHN POLLY


LOGAN LYNN ON "LOCAL CUT" (DECEMBER 2007) "DING! LOGAN LYNN JOINS THE DANDY'S NEW LABEL!" BY: JAY HORTONIt’s easy to figure why most music critics—even, especially ‘community’ obsessed northwest writers (our own very much included)—trash the Dandy Warhols. They specialize in infectious, lyrically-available, immediately-explicable pop rendering the critic’s job rather beside the point. They freely admit the quality of drugs and sex partners available to rock stars to be perks of the job. Most damning, they’re a singles band. Had they the good sense to put out a dozen 45s in 1967 and record a series of majestically-condescending interviews to fawning magazines before well-timed overdoses, we’d all be lighting candles (or, likely, other things) upon Taylor-Taylor Street each year.As is, despite the mountain of press CTT* spends detailing the glories of his hometown to the international press, they are locally considered from Portland but not of Portland. Too careerist (which makes no sense). Too haughty (ever talk up Janet Weiss?). Too attractive (perhaps, but their unending advertisement for NW glam have buffered the ranks). Too…happy? Confident in their powers? Unabashed in their desire to change the town, or, at least, their little quarter, towards a well-articulated vision of…I know, I know, but there’s no other phrase…urban Bohemia? Put simply, they’ve never sought to Keep Portland Weird or indulge a Malkmusian sense of artist-in-residence at riverside village. The mission statement’s been there from the beginning, but, now, the Dandy’s have built their compound, imported allies, and started a label.Following themselves and next week’s concert openers the Upside Down, Logan Lynn becomes the third artist to be signed to Beat The World Records. A dayglo electro performer, Lynn’s ecstatic intelligence and untempered glee through two EPs and LOGO-rotated videos resembles a sweaty Postal Service capable of inelegant emotions or The Pet Shop Boys were they sorta hot and born to the civil unions generation—”Ring Around,” for an artist whose press protests (wrongly) he “brings the ‘mo back to emo,” tackles proposals absent politics. CTT’s set to produce his debut full-length From Pillar To Post (and, we hope, counsel against Lynn’s cap choices) early next year and, one expects, set dancefloors thumping worldwide.Another soldier joins the ranks, and I, for one, welcome our new glam overlords. “Keep Portland Intriguing And Pretty And Well-Drugged” would be a far better bumper sticker, but, then, do you know anyone who drives?
* There’s a number of explanations given to the Taylor-Taylor name change. He’s said before that, well, his parents are still together. A fondness for Terry-Thomas, perhaps. British mags supposed that, accompanying a celebrity down the red carpet years past, he was asked his name and stumbled a repetition which was then printed. I believe he insists upon it purely to fuck with the press. Which, much as I appreciate the thought, I don’t wanna fully enable.
-Jay Horton
LOGAN LYNN IN "WILLAMETTE WEEK" (AUGUST 2007)TONGUE LASHING BY: BYRON BECK A preacher’s son is “putting the disco back in discomfort.”“Promise me you won’t call me ‘gemo’! I could kill my publicist for saying that. I’m great with gay-tronic, emo-tronic, crybaby, whine-o...anything but gemo !!!”Logan Lynn, a 27-year-old local queer boy who plays next week at Holocene as part of MusicfestNW, was trying to describe, over a six-inch Subway chicken sub, his music. That is, now that it’s been dubbed “gemo” (a.k.a., gay emo) by his PR person.“I guess I’m a singer-songwriter you can dance to,” Lynn says about being tagged with that particular g-word, which evokes images of Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba being strapped into a leather sling. “But, really, I don’t know what I am. The music I make is basically me just whining.”Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family, Lynn has plenty to whine about—including his father. A preachy proponent of a Promise Keeper-like touring seminar, for nearly a decade Lynn’s ministering dad, Dennis, dragged his family all over the country. That was, when he wasn’t smashing his son’s “heathen” CDs to bits or asking others to pray with Lynn in hopes of curing his son’s homosexuality.“That’s why I make this mopey type of music. It helps me deal with the self-hatred that was instilled in me since I was a young kid,” Lynn says of his somewhat clichéd, Footloose- sounding Christian childhood. “I try to take the ugly in my life and make it sound pretty.”Although his melodies are indeed sweet and easy to dance to, most of Lynn’s lyrics are far from pretty.On his new album From Pillar to Post, which comes out Oct. 30, Lynn take stabs at his religious past in songs like “Clean and Stupid.” “If God made me, then who are you to tell me what the fuck to do?” he sings. And on “Bleed Him Out,” where he asks to be “tied to a bedpost and burned with a cigarette,” Lynn seems to be dabbling with the dark side of his soul.It was those darker lyrics that got Lynn a gig last September at San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair, the world’s biggest BDSM-lifestyle fair. Playing in front of an audience that was literally bound and gagged was exhilarating for the once-shy, 6-foot-4-inch redhead.But what’s got Lynn gagging himself is how his audience has grown from a few friends to a real, live fan base via the music machine that is MySpace. The Folsom folks found him there, as did Logo, MTV’s gay network, where his song “Burning Your Glory” has been in rotation all summer.“I used to hand out homemade CDs to my friends,” says Lynn, who works as an assistant for American Apparel’s Tacee Webb. “Now I have 51,000 ‘friends’ on MySpace, and some of them are actually buying my music.” Still, Lynn isn’t used to the attention.“I’m more used to people beating me up rather than building me up,” Lynn says. “Fans make me uncomfortable.”-BYRON BECK

LOGAN LYNN IN "JUST OUT" (AUGUST 2007)Exotic Electro Elixir Queer knowledge test: Do you know what “G-emo is?”
BY: WEST DUNCAN
I didn’t either until I met “gay emo” musician Logan Lynn.
The sassy electro fag is putting Portland on the musical map in an entirely new way, coining his queer-oriented genre for the heartbroken.
Apparently, the sadness of his audience makes Lynn a happy man. “I really want to be the Liz Phair of my generation,” he says. “I don’t want to be a rock star, but just have some really big hits on soundtracks.”
Since debuting his first album at the Folsom Street Fair to 400,000 leather daddies, Lynn has found his niche with an entirely different audience—that of the straight community.
With his quirky, sex- drenched musical style filled with catchy beats, he appeals to frat boys and sexually androgynous hipsters alike.
Crediting bands like the Postal Service for “paving the way” for artists like him, Lynn is taking every inch he’s given to push the sexy extremes of his exotic electro elixir. With the video for his single “Burning Your Glory” reaching No. 3 on MTV’s Logo network and his newest album release, From Pillar to Post, coming out in the fall, there is no stopping this man-meets-machine.
“At first my music was too dancy for the emo kids and too folky for the electro kids…things seem to be happening really organically now,” Lynn says. “The music may be quirky, but it’s still digestible.”
Lynn and bandmate Carlos Cortez are ready to play for, and with, the G-emos of Portland during MusicFest NW 8 p.m. Sept. 7th at Holocene, 1001 S.E. Morrison St. While rocking the sweaty room, Lynn will surely teach you a thing or two.
Lynn is also booked to perform at Cascade AIDS Project’s 21st annual AIDS Walk Portland, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to noon Oct. 14 at Pioneer Courthouse Square. For more information visit www.loganlynnmusic.com.
-WEST DUNCAN

LOGAN LYNN FEATURED IN ARJAN WRITES "FRIDAY PUNCH" (APRIL 2007)
BY: ARJAN WRITES "I had never heard of the term "gemo" before until I received a press release yesterday. "Gemo" is a combination of "gay and "emo." Not in a Pete Wentz kind of way, but in a Logan Lynn kind of way. His new video "Burning Your Glory" will start airing on LOGO this weekend. It's good. It's different."
-ARJAN WRITES

LOGAN LYNN IN NEUFUTUR & SKOPE MAGAZINES (JULY 2007)
Logan Lynn To Release New Album, “From Pillar to Post”
Emo artist Logan Lynn drops breakthrough album From Pillar To Post on October 30, 2007. Produced by Carlos Cortes of DJ Collective Assemble The Empire, the album’s driving electro-heavy beats combine with Logan’s self-deprecating lyrics to provide a sense of urgency that will keep you pressing the replay button. Think The Postal Service, only gayer. “Feed Me To The Wolves” is the first single off his upcoming release, and can be downloaded at: http://www.deviousplanet.com/downloads
Meanwhile, Logan’s video “Burning Your Glory” has maintained a comfortable stay on MTV LOGO’s Click List over the past thirteen weeks. With no signs of slowing down, the video has reached the number 3 spot, topping the likes of Christina Aguilera’s “Candyman”.


Record Label: Beat The World
Type of Label: Indie