KERRANG! 27Lynn facing burnout, and she would later tell
interviewers of how she had not only shut off
from people but also questioned her passion
for what she was doing. If that record showed
her resolve to face that negativity head-on,
this new setback was still something that she
wanted to keep private.
“I felt like I was failing every single time I got
up there,” she admits. “It was a difficult thing
to navigate. I was in a place where I didn’t want
to say anything about it because I didn’t want
to draw more attention to it or want people
to think that I was looking for pity or anything.
I was like, ‘I’m going to get through this and
maybe I’ll talk about it after.’ I didn’t even know
if I would get through it or if I wanted to keep
playing music after it, to be honest.”
Lynn says that there were one or two shows
that were nearly pulled as a consequence of
these issues, while the band also came close
to cancelling their UK tour during this stretch.
In the meantime, the singer was working with
a vocal coach almost daily to help rebuild her
voice, which in part meant changing her style
of delivery, all while still stepping out onstage
night after night.
“I basically had to relearn how to sing,”
she says, “and just do it in a healthier way
and an easier way and in a way that under any
circumstance I could navigate and give a good
performance. It was
a lot of really chaotic
things to be doing in
the middle of a tour.”
Lynn also needed
to repair her internal
relationship with the
stage. One thing that
she has found has
helped her mindset
is journaling, with
one technique being
recommended to her
by her vocal coach:
every day, write down
10 things, no matter
what happens, that she was grateful for in that
moment of time.
At first, Lynn was sceptical.
“At the time when she was telling me to
do it, I honestly couldn’t think of 10 things,”
she admits. “It was a really difficult thing to do
because I was in such a negative headspace
and such a helpless place in my life. It was
really hard to see those things. It was hard to
step back and look at all of the awesome
things around.”
As such, the things on the list to be thankful
for started out small. A cup of coffee. A cool
song playing in a restaurant. The sound of
birds chirping. But they gradually started to
get bigger.
“You really just have to check in with yourself
in that exact moment and see what feels really
good,” says Lynn. “And then once you’re able
to do that, it kind of expands outwards. And
by the second month of doing it, you’re like,
‘Oh yeah, I really like this tour that we’re on,’ or,
‘I really like being around such great people all
the time, this is amazing.’ It helps you centre in
with yourself and then be able to go and look
outward. It’s a very gradual thing but I totally,
totally owe it to that as one thing that’s helped
shift my perspective.”
Another cause of concern that Lynn
pinpointed as she embarked on what she
refers to as some “deep diving” was her
dependency on her work as a musician. It’s a
factor that she believes has been a huge source
of unnecessary pressure even since her earliest
days being in the band, with any shortcomings
onstage damaging her personal self-worth.
Consequently, she has been making a conscious
effort to unravel her personal life from her
existence in PVRIS.
“I felt like I had this very strange pressure to
attach my actual identity and personality to the
band,” she says. “I think that’s something that a
lot of artists battle with: attaching everything in
yourself to your art and to your project, and if it
fails that means you fail. And if it does well, that
means you’re doing well. I think that’s a giant
misconception, and it’s really unhealthy.
“I realised my life is as amazing as all the
opportunities PVRIS brings, but my life is not
defined by it. That for me was a big, giant shift
and made it a lot easier and a lot more fun,
to be honest. Taking that pressure off of it,
being like, ‘This isn’t my only defining factor
as a human’, ‘This isn’t my identity’. I have a
life completely outside of it and I have other
passions completely outside of music.”
What other things would she like to pursue?
“I really want to try everything at some point.
Not now – we’re about to get very swept up in
the next release. But little things. I absolutely
love cooking, I love fashion – I make clothing
with one of my friends, that’s something I’ve
never really shared.
I love taking photos.
I love co-directing
on our videos. It’s an
exciting realisation,
like, ‘Oh, I really can
try anything.’ And
I plan to do that.”
Today, Lynn sounds
confident about the
state of her vocal issues
and her improved
headspace, explaining
that this extended
period away from
touring has given
her further time to rebuild and strengthen her
voice. Two days before we speak, PVRIS made
their first performance in almost a year when
they played a small showcase at LOVELOUD,
a festival in Utah that fundraises for LGBTQ
communities. All signs from the frontwoman
suggest that, besides a few technical kinks
perhaps expected of a band that have been
away for so long, it went well and she enjoyed
it. She’ll go as far as to suggest that her
struggles on the road – and namely the process
of actively seeking out the positives along the
way – have actually left her rejuvenated and
wanting to make sure that she stays present for
these moments.
“By the end of the last cycle, as much as
I felt defeated and unhappy with myself as
far as what I was able to give performance-
wise, it really re-established my relationship
with performing,” she says. “So that was
something really positive to take away from
it, something that I still have now, and
something that I’m really excited to bring
into what we’re doing next.”D
espite going through what was
undeniably a tumultuous two years,
when PVRIS set down their instruments
in the summer of last year with the All We
Know Of Heaven... cycle completed, Lynn still
neglected to take any real time off, and instead
dived straight into the next phase for her music.“I FELT LIKE I WAS FAILING
EVERY TIME I GOT UP
ONSTAGE. I DIDN’T KNOW
IF I’D GET THROUGH IT”
LYNN GUNN