LOS LEO

Words/Interview: Aysha Swanson

LOS LEO steps into 2025 with LL-1000, a bold experiment in honesty over perfection. Written, recorded, and released within a single year, the album captures the restless motion of an artist testing his own limits and rediscovering creative freedom outside the machinery of major labels and sync briefs. It’s a record that rejects polish for presence — built from field recordings, fragments of memory, and the kind of imperfections that make music feel truly alive.

Across LL-1000, LOS LEO filters the romanticism of 80s pop icons like Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel through a modern, impressionistic lens — songs that bleed into one another like shifting memories, threaded together by warmth, experimentation, and a quiet defiance. It’s an album that values experience over outcome, emotion over precision, and honesty over artifice.

We caught up with LOS LEO to talk about what it means to build a world from scratch — the pressure and freedom of setting creative deadlines, the beauty of imperfection, and the challenge of staying human in an increasingly artificial landscape.

AYSHA: You set yourself the challenge of writing, recording and releasing an entire album within a single year. What did that creative pressure unlock in you — or force you to let go of?

LOS LEO: Honestly, the first thing I felt when I read that question was stress and anxiety. I think what I learned is that creativity flows more freely when you give yourself permission to make mistakes and take the time to just see where things can go, which is a luxury not everyone has. Setting the challenge of writing and releasing an album, regardless of what the end product was, actually helped release the expectations of what it ‘should’ be and that opened up a lot for me. The essence of this album was never about making a perfectly engineered, slick record. It was about the experience, the experiment, and seeing what was possible and hopefully that translates to authenticity and honesty while listening to LL-1000.

AYSHA: You’ve described LL-1000 as “a creative experiment in honesty, not perfection.” What does honesty sound like to you in a musical sense?

LOS LEO: It's the imperfections that give character and soul. I feel like I'm revealing myself half dressed and disheveled. The album feels a little raw at times for a pop record, a little unpolished, but I'm hoping people feel that I'm offering something real. Music that’s honest and human, especially authentic in a time when AI can almost copy digital music 1 for 1. I like the comparison to when photos and cameras became more common in society, it was an engineering feat and it was amazing to see a perfect image. But it also created a movement for impressionist artists like Van Gogh, Monet and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

AYSHA: LL-1000 feels like a document of motion and transformation — songs that bleed into one another like memories. How conscious were you of creating that “impressionist” flow as you wrote?

LOS LEO: Typically in pop writing, you'd pull in finished songs to build an album. One of the big advantages of committing to a concept album from day one is being able to thread themes, tones, and callbacks throughout the entire project. It let me communicate less literally and more of an unconscious communication throughout the arch of the entire record.

AYSHA: The first single, “I Miss You,” was born from connection in isolation — long-distance friendships and a virtual songwriting game. How did that sense of community shape the emotional DNA of this record?

LOS LEO: The feature artist on 'I Miss You' is Friendship Global, a project I started with a few friends during the COVID lockdowns. We began writing songs together on Zoom, just as a way to stay social. I didn’t collaborate much on LL-1000, but this track felt like the right moment to bring in other voices and influences. It carries a strong sense of connection and warmth. For me, 'I Miss You' is the most pop leaning song on the record. It acts like a palate cleanser, sitting in the middle of the album to shift the tone and turn a corner in the journey of the album.

AYSHA: There’s a distinct visual world around LL-1000 — from the album art to the way you’ve documented the process online. How important is visual storytelling to how you express your music?

LOS LEO: Visuals come pretty naturally to me, sometimes even more easily than the music itself. I usually start forming the visual identity of a song or album while I'm still making it. I don’t think I’ve ever reached the end of a project not knowing what the artwork or video should be. What made this record unique is that I was documenting the process before I even knew what the album was going to be. So the clips I posted on social media developed their own tone and style independently, which I felt like I had to carry through consistently to the end, even before the music was fully shaped.

AYSHA: You’ve cited artists like Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and The Police as influences. What lessons do you take from that era of pop craftsmanship into your own, more experimental sound?

LOS LEO: A broad thought I have about all of these artists and a lot of pop music from that era is that it feels genuine and authentic. You can really hear expression in their music. It’s emotional without being over engineered. That kind of honesty is something I’m drawn to and still trying to carry into my own work. Something you don’t hear as much in today’s pop, and I’m still trying to figure out why that is.

AYSHA: You’ve been through major label success, sync placements, collaborations — yet this record feels deeply independent and personal. How did you reconnect with your own creative voice in the process?

LOS LEO: This record is completely independent, and that really opened up space for creative freedom, something that wouldn't exist if it was under a major label or for a sync. Pitching a project like this to a major label especially for someone like LOS LEO, who I’d still consider a developing artist would be a hard sell. It would be near impossible to get funding for an abstract project like this.

There are no guarantees, not even that the music will be good in the end. Writing for sync is also a totally different process. The briefs are so specific they’ll describe the scene, the tempo, the emotion, even how the arrangement should unfold. With a project like LL-1000 there were no briefs or guidelines except my own imagination. That kind of freedom is becoming rare, especially in the indie pop scene where the focus is on singles, sound bites, and playlisting. It’s a strange feeling to look back and realise that this big, elaborate project I obsessed over somehow came out of my own head

AYSHA: You called yourself an “art pop romantic.” What does being emotionally available for art look like day-to-day when you’re in the thick of writing and producing?

LOS LEO: I’m really privileged to be surrounded by a community and have built a life where I get to spend every day doing something music related. That kind of consistency gives me the space to fully obsess over music, art, and creating. I’ve always felt similar emotional responses from film, visual art, and other creative forms. I'm just not sure if someone who is grinding out in a 9 to 5 or someone whose life revolves around simply surviving, gets this chance or has the intellectually and emotionally available to experience the full depth of what art can be.

I feel really blessed to live this way and hope I can keep doing it until I’m very old. On a practical level, I set aside time this year to go to London specifically to immerse myself. I went to galleries, small gigs, met new people, booked studio time, and made revisions on songs. That kind of scene change helps me reset and experience things differently, which always finds its way back into the work.

AYSHA: With LL-1000 almost out in the world, how do you reflect on the idea of completion — does the project feel finished, or is it more of a snapshot in an ongoing story?

LOS LEO: It’s been an absolute whirlwind and something I’ve truly obsessed over this year. I’ve been deep in the weeds of creating this album, taking on majority of the work as the writer, engineer, producer, mixer, and art director. It’s hard to take a step back and fully understand what it is. In a way I think the first time listeners might actually have a clearer perspective than I do. I’m really excited to hear what people take from it and what their interpretations are. I’m also looking forward to coming back to it after some distance and hearing it with fresh ears. I think only then I’ll really start to understand what it became.

AYSHA: And finally — if LL-1000 is a time capsule of one year in your life, what do you hope future-you hears in it when you press play a decade from now?

LOS LEO: Something AI will never be able to recreate are physical places, experiences and the sounds that are in these spaces. While making this album I traveled with one of those portable field recorders in my pocket, super embarrassing to be pulling this out while you're in a train station or gallery, but I made field recordings and incorporated them into the album. Music has always served as a soundtrack in my life, I can listen to music that I listened to when I was younger and get taken back and remember the places and people that were around me at that time. I had a great year and I hope when I listen back in the future I get taken back to 2025 and I'm proud of what came from this ambitious project.

FIND LOS LEO HERE

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