Equinox: Old Songs and New Beginnings with Levitation Room
Levitation Room’s new album, Equinox, is a juxtaposition of old songs with the new beginnings. Rambler! sat down with Julian, Gabriel, and Kevin at the Arroyo Secodelic Festival to talk about important themes in their new LP . We talked about how this album is different from the last one and what has changed for them since they originally wrote Equinox’s songs .
(Left side) Julian and Iggy! (Right side) Gabriel and Kevin!
To start off the interview I wanted to ask them about their process of making Equinox, so I started off with the question: How did you come up with the name Equinox for your newest album?
Gabriel: We were recording over a couple of weekends when we had an Equinox moment. I think Glenn threw out the name Equinox. Like, “why don't we use that?” And we all liked it. We called the instrumental Equinox first, and then we just used that, just the title for it after the instrumental.
In the making of Equinox, Julian, Gabriel, and Kevin talked about how it’s symbolic that they’re entering a new phase of Levitation Room with Iggy and Glenn Brigman, who are new bandmates but produced and played with them in the past. If you think about the symbolism in all of this, it’s interesting that Glenn, a new bandmate on this album, was the one to come up with the name of this album. A new member chose the name of the new album which is all about shifting into a new phase.
Julian Porte, Kevin Perez, Iggy, Gabriel Fernandez, & Glenn Brigman
Noa: What does the word equinox mean to you?
Kevin: What does the word equinox mean to us? Or what does it mean according to the Miriam Webster definition?
Noa: Well, I guess the Equinox is like the start of something new, right? It's the start of a new season…….. hahaha, right?
It was funny because defining the term Equinox was lowkey drama. Kevin looked it up online, Julian talked about how we’d probably have to revise these answers in the article. (Bet— that’s literally what I’m doing right now. LOL.) Faith (our photographer) even chimed in to talk about how the equinox has to do with the sun’s solstice.
Ultimately— Julian answered that the album name Equinox “mostly just sounds really cool!”
But on a real note—
Julian: Symbolically, it’s about the start of something new; the shifting of the seasons. It's also the last time that we had our drummer John record with us. We were shifting into a new phase with different musicians.
Gabriel: We went into the session knowing that this would be the final songs with our founder John on drums so it felt like (naming this EP, Equinox) was meant to be a little bit.
Then I asked them how this album was different from the other ones. I wanted to know more about their process of creating this project, especially because they’re going to be making different music with different members in their band.
Gabriel: Part of the story behind these songs was that they were almost forgotten songs and demos that we just had lingering about. Some of these songs were created before Kevin was even in the band. When we showed him some of them, he was like, “why aren't we doing this in the studio????”
For me, I had to think about some of my parts differently. We have these old demos and versions of them, but I approached them differently because I really gave them a better shot to come alive!!
We had these songs, we needed to finalize the singing, the colors of the songs, and the emotions of the songs.
Julian: In the song Touch I was coming up with the lyrics just on the spot for the most part. It's kind of like a diary of the span over the last six years of just self-reflection and spirituality politics., heartache, finding new love, you know, just kind of striking on all these themes.
When I interviewed Julian on Strange Weather in 2024 he talked about when he was younger and how he wanted to be a busker like Bob Dylan, how he just wanted to make music. At the time he was going through post-tour depression and didn’t know if he wanted to tour anymore after that.
Julian: My favorite song was Touch because it's about meeting my wife. Before we went into the studio I was beating my head against the wall, trying to figure out what the lyrics would be. After I met her, we went into the studio, I was feeling inspired by love, and just off the cuff I came up with the lyrics. Literally five minutes before I went into the studio to record my vocals, and I remember feeling like I was kind of dragging my feet on that song, I didn't really want to do it. When I finally got into the booth to sing Touch it felt really good. It just kind of encapsulated my whole experience meeting her.
AWWWWWWWWE!! I LOVE LOVE!
This is how I picture Julian and his wife, Madison <3
(Madison is the angel and Julian is the devil) ((obviously))
Kevin: Making Equinox was fun. We recorded it at Glenn’s studio in the mountains, and kind of cuddle-puddled over like a weekend or two. It was awesome.
Again, like Gabe said, these are kind of throwaway songs. So, when they started morphing into something with legs, we were all like, “this is our greatest batch of songs yet! This is incredible. We're making amazing work right now.”
We felt like we were making big strides as a band, spiritually. Outside of the lyrical content that Julian wrote, Equinox is really such a great showcase of all of us becoming more of a hive mind and a homogenous musical entity.
Even though John was about to leave the band, I felt like that added a really fun complexity to the record. So Equinox did end up having a great deal of excitement and sentimentality, as we were making it, and that pushed us a little bit too.
Gabriel: We purposely lean into trying to change and be different from the last time we did something— while still trying to maintain what is Levitation Room. It's good to push ourselves, get into new territories. We love music so much! We want to showcase that.
You can check out Levitation Room on all listening platforms!
Follow them on IG: https://www.instagram.com/levitation_room/
Check out their music video for Light Me Up off of Equinox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmiBOLftmgc
Shoutout to the Arroyo Secodelic Festival for letting us do press!!
