Hi, I’m UPSAHL. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona in an extremely musical household. My dad has been playing and singing in punk bands since before I was born. We had a band room in the house and there was always music playing. Most mornings I would wake up to a random band crashed out on our living room floor from playing a show in town the night before.
From having breakfast with punk rock dudes as a toddler, to learning guitar and piano at 5, it became clear to me that music was the only thing I wanted to do with my life. I tried a lot of other hobbies and quite frankly, music was the only thing I was even remotely good at!
Music started off as something fun that I did in my free time, and as I got older and started to deal with real life bullshit, music and songwriting quickly became my lifeline. I moved to LA at 19 and was in sessions writing songs every day. For the past four years, I’ve been able to put however I was feeling at any moment into a song. Writing sessions literally feel like free therapy to me.
Making my album, Lady Jesus, has definitely been the highlight of my career so far. Every song on the album is a direct result of me rolling up to the studio with my friends that I made the album with, me b***hing about however I was feeling that day, and us all talking in circles about life until one of us said something that inspired a song.
Lady Jesus is all from a very autobiographical standpoint, so I hope that when people listen to it, everyone can find a piece of themselves along the way or something that they can relate to.
I started writing this album as I was going through a breakup with the only person I had ever been with. When you’re young and with somebody for that long, it seriously feels like the whole f**king world is ending when the relationship ends.
I felt like when it ended, a part of me ended too. Half of my identity was this person, so I was left with a version of myself that I didn’t even recognize. I then went on a journey to find out who the f**k I was and was in the studio writing through the whole process.
I really thought I was about to write the saddest breakup album of all time, but as time went by and I started to fall in love with myself, the album turned into something way bigger than me. It was about rebirth… getting through something tough and coming out the other side better than I’ve ever been.
When people’s lives go to s**t, they often turn to religion or a higher power for clarity or for “saving”. I feel like people have always placed so much power and unconditional trust in this “higher being”, so it got me thinking… What if we could see that figure within ourselves? What if instead of looking to someone or something else to save us, we look into ourselves.
I wrote each of the songs on this album as I was processing these feelings in real time. The only thing that stayed consistent throughout the s**t-show of getting over a breakup was the fact that at the end of every day, I was by myself. I was the one that I had to trust and give the power to. This ultimately led to a personal rebirth. I seriously feel like I died and came back to life as a new bitch, some real Lady Jesus s**t – ha!
Listen to my debut album Lady Jesus below and stream it everywhere else here.
