Photography and interview by Christopher Brown

Lewis OfMan is the stage name of Lewis Delhomme, a French producer, singer, songwriter, drummer, and pianist from Paris. Known for his distinctive sound he loves to try things and ideas, exploring new sounds and cultures and gets inspired by different styles. He loves to immerse himself in unplanned and unorganized moments – those sweet moments that life often gives you just unexpectedly, to later reproduce them in music. This makes his sound incredibly unique, authentic and mostly nostaglic. We sat down with the talented artist to talk about his North American headline tour, how it comes that he used samples voice notes from friends, lovers, past lovers, and why he thinks London is one of the most inspiring places now.

You just completed your debut North American headline tour and played a sold out show at The Roxy – how are you feeling? How has the tour been?

I was feeling quite intense the day of the show – I wasn’t feeling in my shoes to be honest. I don’t know why I felt it. When I woke up in San Francisco in the morning, I was in a bad mood. I was moody on the plane as I was sitting by the corridor and all the people that were passing by to go to the toilet were hitting my shoulders and stuff and I was definitely feeling not so nice. Then I arrived at The Roxy in LA and I discovered that one of my synths, the minimoog, was totally dead, totally broken inside and making some terrible Star Wars sound. I was really stressed. Plus, someone important I wanted to come to the show told me that she couldn’t come. So I was really pissed off. But at some point I changed my mind. I went to chill out a little bit. We found a solution for the synth. We rented an old version of it that actually sounded better.

And at some point, a new vibe appeared before the show. It was nice. I went to have some pizza with my friends Taika and Shanae, big vibe in the streets. And then Cola Boy started to play – so crazy – he was throwing roses into the crowd and the crowd was having a great time. Then it’s my turn and the show was insane. I was sweating so much, the AC broke and everybody was sweating. It was crazy. So, yeah, it was one of the best shows, to be honest, and no offense to the other cities, but it was really nice. People were crowd surfing, I signed some shoes. It was amazing. Thank you. The Roxy. Thank you.

What have been your best moments from the tour so far?

The best moment of the tour? To be honest, I think it was in San Diego on Saturday because this was the last show. It was really chill. And the moment you realized you’ve made all these shows, and been on all these adventures and then you’re finishing with a cute, mellow show and it was really extraordinary, actually. The whole set, the whole mood, the whole setup. Once you realize you made all these things and this is your favorite moment. Because I could say some funny parties or shows, or stuff like this, but this is IN the moment, so you don’t really realize. It’s when you finish the whole thing that you’re just like, “wow, I just did this.”

We read that Carly Rae Jespsen considers you her “silver lining” during the pandemic and now you’re going on tour with her in Feb 2023, tell us about how your collaboration with her on ‘Move Me’ came about and how your friendship has blossomed since you first (virtually) met!

So Carly discovered my music, thanks to her cousin or someone in her family that showed my music to her. As she was making a list of producers for her next album, I found myself in the top five. And she was like, “hey, let’s do a FaceTime meeting.” And I was like, “oh, okay…Carly Rae Jepsen is a huge star”. So I was in my little studio, it was 08:00 p.m in France. And yeah, it was really cool. I felt that we really connected on similar tastes and some stuff like this. Sometimes with some people you just feel that you can express your feelings and open up. And this is what kind of happened as we were doing these sessions. So it was the beginning of the day for her and it was the end of the day for me and this yin and yang timing, we had good chemistry and we are telling each other our lives in a way. And at some point I was living in Florence, Italy during the middle of Covid and I had this great, insane, full-of-action party where I met with someone and we went into the whole adventure and stuff. And I wrote “Move Me” the day after but it was just me singing and I was like, “let’s show this track to Carly.” And she instantly felt it and got the whole vibe of the song and she said “Lewis, we need to do a duet for this track, let’s do this!”

And then it was really simple. She recorded her voice in LA, sent it to me and I was like “wow, what the fuck?! This is so nice – it’s so perfect.” And yeah, it was as simple as this, but this was like maybe the second or the third track we made. We made some other tracks – also really easy – we would like to write the lyrics together. It’s always really nice. We met in real life in New York at the Electric Lady Studio in Greenwich Village to finish some vocals for another track. And it was so nice. It was so cool. It was her Birthday, by the way. Fun times.

“Once you realize you made all these things and this is your favorite moment…”

You kicked off your headline tour in London this year and released the UK bass-sounding ‘Nails Matching My Fit’ – how does the UK inspire your sound and what makes the scene over there so special?

Well, the UK is the place where the best music is made since the 60s – T-B-H capital letters, My album Sonic Poems found its soul in London as I was coming back from my little lifetime in Florence. I went to London to work with Tim Goldsworthy, who is the producer of the first LCD Soundsystem album and the co-founder of DFA Records. But you know cities like London, or even LA by the way, are insane because when you make some stuff you’re just directly inspired by the soul of the whole geographic place. And in a day we made like 14 demos of tracks. And in those demos you had “Energized”, “Such A Good day”, “Fuck You”,”SOS” “Sorry Not Sorry”, “Love Parade” – backbones of the album was born there. So I felt London is one of the most inspiring places now – this is just a fact. And from there, I was listening to some other music with Tim Goldsworthy and we would exchange stuff, I would get into knowing all the science of Breakbeat with people like Dillinja or Photek, also get into 2004-2007 dubstep music from the likes of Mala..

And those sound bass are like an addiction now, and from there, I wanted to try and do a UK-bass sound. Also I would go to a record shop in Paris and go to the UK-bass section and buy random records just to get this cold bass sound. So, yeah, this is how “Nails Matching My Fit” came about, was just trying.

Your debut album Sonic Poems samples voice notes from friends, lovers, past lovers and people you met while traveling, what made you decide to incorporate this into your production?

This is something that was born at the beginning of young Lewis doing music in high school. And I had a friend who was like, “Lewis, you should put some voice in your tracks. It’s too instrumental.” I was like, “Okay, maybe she’s right, let’s try it.” The only voices I would put were these pitched voice samples from the 2013-2016 era, Flume vibe. But I also had videos of my friends doing shit and then I would put them in the track and it would actually really work. And so this is how this habit of taking some iPhone sounds from videos was born. And then I was like, “okay, now that I know this is a great sound, what if you create the whole fake sample?” So instead of taking a sample from someone, you just ask your friend, “hey, can you say ‘Attitude’ and send it to me over your phone?” I also did this for “Such A Good Day” and remember I text 30 people asking them to say it.

It’s just something I love to do because suddenly it brings extra soul. And this almost advising campaign thing, it’s like the logo of the song, like “Attitude” bam. Because Attitude was the name of the song, but there was no Attitude voice on it. And only a year later I had the idea of adding the name of it and it would work. Yeah, I was in Tanger with Taika and Shanae, they nailed it, easy. It was nice when I had the idea in my routine. It’s just this extra soul, this extra detail you add to the whole painting and it makes sense.

With the album being an ode to the night, what has been the most memorable/crazy/exciting night out and where was it?

Naughty version – Well, the night after the Roxy show was really interesting. I took some shrooms with two friends and it was so nice. I have to say, the streets of LA when you’re high on shrooms listening to loud music, especially “Flying Away” by Smoke City is insane. I strongly suggest. I went to a few places and at some point I was laying on a bed on a rooftop, and it was really nice. Then we had a moment in the car with the cops…basically we parked and they parked in front of us. BAM! Everybody stopped breathing because, of course, it was a mess in this car, somebody said “ok.. its a different vibe now” I processed the little scenario of the dumbass little french boy going a bit too far and seeing this US thing being OVER. And then the cops got out.. and went somewhere else in the street and we were on the road again. We went to some places in DTLA, but I wasn’t feeling the vibe so my friends took me back to their place in Venice where we made a little fire in the garden, had some tea and then I got an uber back to my place at 7.30am to get to San Diego to play a show at 1pm. I made the classic mistake of saying “have a good night” to my Uber driver at fucking 7.30 in the morning.

“I think I’m more someone that is really impressed by the whole atmosphere that is spread by fashion activity. Not necessarily the people, but the activity of it.”

You’re spending some time in LA where we shot you on the streets of Fairfax, have you had a chance to experience life here? How does the city compare to others you’ve visited?

LA is a really nice place. At The Roxy I was saying on stage that I think it’s way more the city of love than Paris. I feel like you can really dream here in LA if you find yourself in some nice streets, you’re in the car with some friends, nice music. This is amazing. It’s like a super nice cocktail. Because I don’t think I would leave here because maybe I would lose myself in this paradise and maybe be too comfortable. I need to be sad and angry in Paris and dreaming about LA. Yeah, but it’s really a nice place. I don’t come here often, but when I go, I have a really nice time.

We understand that Donatella Versace handpicked your music (‘Sorry Not Sorry’ & ‘Attitude’) for the Versace FW 22 show, how does it feel to know she’s a fan and what’s your relationship like with fashion?

Well, it was really fun and I was really surprised and honored to know that Donatella was banging my track in the office for a year. Like “wow okay!”. I was really happy because Versace really has this vibe that I like. And what I love about fashion shows is that it’s huge, the music is loud, you find yourself in this huge cinegraphy amongst insane moments – this is really extraordinary. So they asked me if I wanted to make a track for the show and I showed them “Sorry Not Sorry” which I felt would really fit with the Versace mindset and they loved it. And actually Donate Versace was saying that the lyrics were saying “sorry” too much – I really liked this. And my relationship to fashion, I’m not into brands but I kind of find myself somehow involved. I love to dress up, I love to have interesting clothes with interesting details.

I love to balance and contrast the looks – it’s nice to try to look good. I also like to buy interesting ties, I just bought a really cool tie in San Francisco from the 40’s in a super nice elegant shop in San Francisco. I think I’m more someone that is really impressed by the whole atmosphere that is spread by fashion activity. Not necessarily the people, but the activity of it. Sometimes fashion parties – especially in Paris – you could have a party in a concrete room with no lights, just big strobes and flashes, and you had jungle music being played – this is what I like about it!

Finally, what’s next for Lewis OfMan? Can we expect any more exciting collabs, releases or shows any time soon?

I was in the studio with the singer Empress Of and we made a really nice, funny track. I have a whole new project on the way that is quite LA, a little folk / country music, if I may say. If you know me, you know it’s not going to be country but it’ll be a mix of genres. I’m really into this countryside, nostalgia, sunset, Woodstock vibe – I’m really into hippies – this is what I like these days. So I make tracks like this. But sometimes I can also make some hard electro stuff. You never know. It’s going to be an interesting second album. The first album was like, “let’s show everything you got” just so that if someone wants to get it, you just listen to this album. But now I’m so free I can do whatever I want because it’s like, okay, if someone wants to get the Sonic Poems, someone wants to have some different kind of fantasy where this album might come out. So, yeah, it’s going to be great!

Follow for more:
www.instagram.com/lewisofman