Three years ago, Lucas Powell embarked on a pathway to self-healing.

The Royal Oak, Michigan singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist found closure from a past relationship after writing a new song about it.

“I often write to tell stories about myself and my experience and to process my feelings. This one was a song I wrote to say all the things I couldn’t say directly to a former partner,” Powell said.

“Going through heartbreak without explanation leads to a lot of self-gaslighting and blame and was one of the loneliest periods of my life.”

What resulted is Powell’s cathartic new single, “Lose You on My Own,” which openly explores that heartbreak and disbelief alongside emotive indie-rock instrumentation.

Backed by intrepid electric guitar, synth, bass, and drums, Powell sings, “Now, I’m pulling at the steering wheel / And I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel / Looking in the rearview mirror because forever didn’t last / Asking, “How can this be real?”

“I hope people who hear this song will be given words for what they feel and know they aren’t alone in their experiences,” he said. “Three years later, I couldn’t be more thankful in every way for the changes I’ve endured via the specific hardship mentioned in this song.”

Like Powell, “Lose You on My Own” experienced its own evolution during that same period. The track originally started as a five-minute acoustic ballad that Powell demoed for friend and collaborator Benjamin Rose but later morphed into a concise, infectious up-tempo rocker.

“From there, I remember messing around with it on electric guitar and had been listening to a ton of Declan McKenna and The War on Drugs and sort of jokingly sped up the song and realized, ‘Wait, that kind of works,’” he said. “Each demo of it—I think there were four total before the studio—kept getting a slight tempo bump until we got the final product.”

To achieve that goal, Powell worked with producer Jake Rye to record “Lose You on My Own” last fall at Social Recording Company in Adrian, Michigan. He played electric guitar and synth on the track while Rye added bass and Logan Witte contributed drums.

“Jake took a ton of creative lead, made a lot of the tone decisions, and just kind of slammed home the direction I wanted to take the song. I think—in a refreshing way—his influence pushed me in a couple of directions with this song that I wouldn’t have floated to on my own,” said Powell, who met Rye in 2020.

“The combo of [Jake and Logan] built a super solid bedrock to create over. I’m used to doing drums at the end of recording, so it was fun to have a more traditional approach of tracking rhythm first and then building off that.”

Unpacking A Ten Pound Bag of Rice

“Lose You on My Own” also builds off Powell’s growing catalog, which includes last year’s full-length album, A Ten Pound Bag of Rice.

The compelling concept album chronicles Powell’s spiritual journey of freedom and growth and seeks inspiration from the late Chris McCandless’ fateful trek into the Alaskan wilderness.

McCandless’ trek was documented in the 1996 book, Into the Wild, by John Krakauer and the 2007 film of the same name by Sean Penn.

In 2021, Powell rewatched the film with a former partner and remembered the profound impact it had on him. At the time, it laid the initial groundwork for his highly personal sophomore album.

“I thought, ‘Holy cow, I forgot how powerful this story is and how it resonates with some of the journeys that I’ve been on in my life.’ That was the first time I had the idea … and I’ve always done this with scripture and Christianity as a way to write about myself,” said Powell, who first saw the film as a kid.

“I think there was a way for Chris McCandless to be that same kind of analogy for me. The first song I wrote on the record that was a direct Chris McCandless song was the opening track, ‘Great White North.’ The first line I wrote about it … was ‘Some days I dream of driving off to the great with north and dying lost like Chris McCandless.’”

That initial lyric unlocked the emotional floodgates for Powell, who needed a creative outlet for unearthing, processing, and reconciling past struggles with religion and relationships.

“These songs came as all the little moments were being processed … Out of all the songwriting seasons I’ve been in, this is the one where I can look back over the timeline of where I wrote and recorded the songs, and I can see the journaling that was happening,” he said.

“This felt like a step where I was being even more explicit … It was like, ‘I’m sitting down and I’m writing about this issue.’ I had something absolutely eating me alive as a thought and I needed to write a song about this. It helped me process through a lot of that stuff.”

Powell processed his thoughts and experiences over eight insightful tracks on A Ten Pound Bag of Rice, which features perceptive and spiritual-themed lyrics, anthemic indie-folk and indie-rock instrumentation, and wistful vocals.

“Part of my childhood … was wishing I could be good at stuff, and I wished I could be a musician. And what I really needed was validation and affirmation, and unfortunately, some of the religious [beliefs] growing up reinforced people not giving me that,” he said.

“For me, from the beginning, writing music was so pure and natural. And I do think about that kid having that stuff being said to him and trying to control and navigate him while saying, ‘This is who you should be.’”

Fortunately, Powell reclaims his sense of self on the profound opener, “Great White North,” which includes valiant electric guitar, humming bass, whistling synth, and thunderous drums.

He sings, “I want my sweatshirt back / You can take all of our mutual friends / I won’t listen to our song / And I’m burning all the pictures / Don’t hold your breath / Because I won’t be coming back.”

“Growing up religious, you’re always talking about doubt in regards to faith. A lot of times when I was young, I thought, ‘Don’t doubt—that’s a bad thing.’ Then you get to a more mature version of Christianity, and you’re sitting there and thinking, ‘That was good because it enhances your faith and you’re able to lament with God,’” Powell said.

“My ‘Great White North’ was an absolute chosen apathy towards the stuff that had brought the life out of me. That was the moment when I thought, ‘I finally don’t have to go to church on Sundays. I finally don’t feel this expectation to have to show up and be this person they expect me to be … I can choose what I want to do and who I want to be.’”

After having that epiphany, Powell continues to search for peace and truth on “Victimless Crime.” Backed by angsty drums, hopeful violin, candid electric guitar, and driving bass, he sings, “I don’t fear you / But maybe you should hear me / ‘Cause when your god of justice comes ‘reaping for wheat’ / It won’t be me lying through my teeth.”

“I wrote that song more directly [about] a breakup. I received a letter long after things had been settled and it had a bunch of inflammatory language about stuff. My biggest response was, ‘I understand why wrote this, but I don’t understand why you needed to send it to me. It feels like we’ve already found the place that’s peace,’” Powell said.

“At the time, I had just read about M.J. Eberhart, who is the oldest man to ever hike the Appalachian Trail. He said he started hiking because he had gone through a divorce and his kids and family weren’t talking to him. He started hiking because he thought it would bring him peace … and it took him 20 years to find peace hiking.”

Next, Powell finds solace and freedom in nature on the poignant ballad, “Simple Truth and The Little Things.” Melancholic violin, somber electric guitar, thoughtful bass, and thumping drums comfort him as he sings, “A six pack and a blanket in the back of my car / Staying up through the night, not minding driving in the dark / We stayed there for a weekend, getting drunk and singing songs / Feeling infinite in the moment, ‘till the feeling is gone.”

“An [old college] friend’s family had a cabin that was right on Lake Michigan in Saugatuck. Two to three times we went there for two to three days and we would go out and go swimming and sit on the back porch and look out over the lake,” Powell said.

“That song is about Saugatuck and it’s about those college memories … and the way I felt when I was there is the kind of peace and freedom I want to feel in my life. The distractions of expectation, adult life, Christianity and religion, and relationships have clouded the dream.”

Finally, Powell struggles with losing his faith and searching for a way forward on “The Score.” Backed by resolute electric guitar, buzzy bass, vigorous drums, and crashing cymbals, he sings, “I don’t know how to feel losing you / If it’s jubilation or grief / Maybe they’ll find me with a note saying / ‘This rifle killed the bear that killed me.’”

“With the album and this journey, it was like the fatefulness that all things would be well and that I needed to take this journey knowing that that would be the end cost,” Powell said.

“The pre-chorus, ‘I don’t know how to feel losing you / If it’s jubilation or grief,’ is about [wondering] if I should be happy to be losing something or if I should be grieving that I’m losing something.”

Filling A Ten Pound Bag of Rice

To bring his creative vision to life, Powell spent most of 2021 writing tracks for A Ten Pound Bag of Rice. He started with a pool of 20 songs but selected eight for the album.

“I had written them in various orders and for different purposes,” Powell said. “It was never like, ‘I am working on an album, and here are the eight songs that I need to write.’ I had started working on some of the Chris McCandless songs and some of the other songs had progressed.”

By spring 2022, Powell started recording tracks remotely for the album but had done some drum and instrument tracking at Wyandotte’s Eureka Records for “Victimless Crime” before that.

“We took drum stems, bass stems, and stuff from that session, but I finished recording that song about a month before it came out in [August] of [2022]. Everything else was still kind of demoing and then we went to the studio and did all the drums in one day,” said Powell, who produced the album.

“My drummer Konstantin [Polyakov] who’s been with me for two years … he pumped out the whole album of songs plus some drums for either demos or songs on future albums. We went in with six songs for drums and we finished 11.”

In addition to Polyakov, Powell featured several collaborators on A Ten Pound Bag of Rice, including Mitchell Pysz (electric guitar, slide guitar), Josie Palmer (violin, vocals), Benjamin Rose (keys, vocals), and Austin Stawowcyk (bass, keys, programming).

“It was super fun to do it collaboratively … and there was a lot of stress off me. It made it far more real. I never want to record an album all by myself again, especially when I have people who can do it as good if not better and with their own musical interpretations of my songs,” he said.

“And for me, as a person, just allowing other people to be creative on what I was creating … I had never experienced that before. It was also validating for me to have them come in and be enthusiastic about what I was writing.”

Looking Ahead

Outside of writing and recording, Powell continues to play live shows, including opening for Frontier Ruckus on April 27 at Lansing’s Grewal Hall. 

“As far as the lineup, I’m playing a ton of stripped-down things as a duo with my partner Brigit Edwards,” he said. “I love doing that even with songs like [‘Lose You on My Own’] because new audiences get to connect with the message and heart of a song before hearing the recording.”

Powell also plans to release more new material later this year, including tracks recorded with Jake Rye at Social Recording Company.

“Sonically, [you] can expect a mix of stuff with more pop/indie-rock vibes like [‘Lose You on My Own’] as well as some classic sad folk that sounds like the first two records from me. I think there was always a mix of that feel on my earlier stuff, so I wouldn’t expect anything different this year,” he said.

“The stuff I’ve been writing and recording is some of my favorite I’ve worked on so far, and I cannot wait for y’all to hear it. This is just the beginning for me this year.”