I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Leanna Firestone on her Victory Lap tour just before her Denver show. Before we even got to music, the conversation had already gone completely off the rails in the best way.

Between talking about altitude, allergies, cottonwood trees, and a hailstorm she described as “golf balls falling from the sky,” Leanna Firestone was already laughing about how Denver might be the one city on tour that fully wins against her. She joked that the crowd might end up having to carry some of the vocal work that night because the combination of the weather and her allergies had not been in her favor.

Still, even with all of that, she was exactly how fans would expect her to be, honest, funny, and completely unfiltered. That energy carried through the entire conversation, from her new album “The Answer” to songwriting burnout, to what it feels like when your inspiration suddenly shifts away from your own life.

GWT: I read that a lot of the inspiration behind your new album came from your friends and their experiences. What made you decide to shift the perspective away from your own experiences?

Leanna Firestone:
All of my past projects have been about me, and on the back of something really terrible and horrible happening in my personal life, whether it's breakups, my dads addiction, or fighting with my mom, it has always been inspired by bad things like that - it’s always been something painful.

When I started this album, I kind of waited for that again. I was like, okay, something bad is going to happen and that’ll be the inspiration. And then… nothing really did. Which is good in my life, but bad for my material creatively.

So I just waited and luckily for me but bad for my friends a lot of them were going through breakups and big life changes. We ended up doing  a lot of processing, healing, talking and  hearing what they were going through.

And I just became really inspired by their stories, specifically how many of them knew things weren’t right while they were still in it, but were trying to make it work anyway. I felt very inspired by their loss and freedom that came along with it. I saw my friends return to form after this person, and once they lost that person it ended up sort of making them blossom.

A lot of the album is about being about freedom just as much as it was about heartbreak

GWT: Was there one song that helped unlock the rest of the album for you?

Leanna Firestone:
The first song I wrote in completion of the album was “Emergency Contact.” I had been sitting on that idea for a long time, but I just hadn’t fully gone there yet.

A lot of my music isn’t super explicitly sexual, and I had kind of been in this place where I was like… I don’t really know how to approach that part of writing. I’d never really written about that side of things in a full way before, so it just felt like this thing I kept avoiding.

When I started this album, I was also dealing with a lot of writer’s block. I had been touring and releasing singles, and I got to this point where I genuinely felt like I didn’t know what I wanted to say anymore. It felt like I had already said everything I had in me.

So when I finally brought that idea to my friend and collaborator, Abigail Barlow, I was basically like, I need help with this because I can’t get out of my own head with it.

We wrote “Emergency Contact” pretty early in the process, and something about it just unlocked everything for me. It made me feel like, okay, I actually do still have something to say. I just needed to push past that block.

After that, everything started coming back, writer’s block out the way. 

GWT: Your music has always been really personal. How do you balance being honest with what you choose to keep private?

Leanna Firestone:
I used to be way more open with everything I wrote. When I was younger, I didn’t really have a filter in that way, I would just write exactly what was happening in my life at the time, and I wasn’t really thinking about what it would feel like later to talk about those songs.

And honestly, I think part of that came from just wanting to be seen. I wanted to be loved and understood so badly, and I thought the way to get there was just to be completely honest about everything all the time.

And it worked in a way. People connected with it, and I was kind of rewarded for being that open. But I think now, looking back, I can see that I was also just trying really hard to find connection wherever I could.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to pull things back a bit more. Not because I’m less honest, but because I’m more aware of what it actually means to still be talking about these things years later.

There was this piece of advice I got that really stuck with me: if a song becomes the defining piece of your career, are you willing to talk about it forever?

Ever since I got that piece of advice every time I write something if I feel even a little hesitation I'm like no, i’m good. I’m still very open on the album and have come to terms that I'm okay with this and talking about it years later down the road. 

GWT: What’s your favorite song to perform on this tour right now?

Leanna Firestone:
I’d say “Town Ain’t Big Enough,” which is my encore right now. It’s one of those songs where it’s kind of hit or miss whether the audience is going to really go for it, especially with new stuff, because it’s the first time they’re hearing it live.

So you never really know what you’re going to get until you start playing it. Like, are they going to get into it? Are they going to sing along? Are they going to jump up and down?

But on this tour, as soon as I started playing it, I felt like oh, they get it. They’re here with me. And that’s been really fun.

It changes all the time, but right now that’s the one I’m most excited about.

GWT: Do you have any pre-show rituals?

Leanna Firestone:
Yes. I make myself look like a bear.

I learned in a college public speaking class that the best way to deal with nerves is to make yourself seem like a bigger predator. So backstage I’ll literally go on my tiptoes, put my arms up, and just try to look as big as possible.

And everyone around me has to do it too or else it doesn’t work.

GWT: What do you want listeners to take away from listening to the album the first time vs their 10th or 100th time?

Leanna Firestone:
I hope when they listen to it the first time, they’re listening for comprehension like actually understanding what each song is saying.

And then after that, I just want them to listen for vibes.

The first time is to really get what’s happening in each song, and then after that it’s just about enjoying it and not overthinking it as much. Have fun with it.