‘Multi-hyphenate’ has become something of an overused label. But in John-Paul Pryor’s case, it rings all too true. The journalist turned singer-songwriter has the relaxed aura of someone content with being busy when I meet him in Soho on a sunny September morning. With the gentle clinking of plates and a soundtrack of jazz in the background, Pryor touches on Christopher Hitchens, David Lynch and Daoism — but it’s straightforward human connection that the artist always comes back to and which sits at the centre of his band’s new album, Lost Kingdom.
Together with producer Jez Leather, what started out as an experimental audio-visual project turned into The Sirens of Titan. “Me and Jez became such firm friends and had this creative shorthand that developed between us,” Pryor explains, “where he was taking these ideas and elevating them, bringing his [own] creativity to it. It grew over time into being a band.” This sense of collaboration, particularly where it relates to community and the creative spirit, is something Pryor is keen to emphasise — even where the band’s more recent rock and roll sound tends towards a darker tone.
“It’s all quite joyful,” he laughs. “Even though sometimes the finished article sounds a bit like you want to lock yourself in a dark room and cry your eyes out. That’s not really where it’s coming from.” There’s something almost magical about the partnership at the heart of The Sirens of Titan — an unexplainable sense of understanding. “I write songs pretty simply on acoustic guitar and Jez takes that raw material, then starts to weave a tapestry of sound around it. Our cultural touchstones are so similar, I don’t think we’ve ever had a moment where we go, Oh my God this is going in the wrong direction.” That’s certainly not the case for Lost Kingdom — an album which seems likely to set The Sirens of Titan up for further success.
Talk me through your writing process for Lost Kingdom.
We started writing songs for an album called Age of Treason. When I came back from Los Angeles, we galvanised what we were doing — it was a much more layered, rich and textured thing. We were looking at our love of traditional rock and roll bands like Pink Floyd but then there was the pandemic, so that got delayed. It should have come out in 2020 but it actually came out in 2023. During the pandemic, that’s when we wrote these songs for Lost Kingdom. It’s quite introspective in places but it’s much more [about] the coalescence of our creativity. It’s probably the best expression of what we do together that we’ve achieved so far.
How do you think that sense of isolation came through, if it did at all?
Definitely with the initial songs. ‘On the Night of the Hunted’ is probably the first one we wrote. ‘Lost Kingdom’ was something we had been working on as a soundscape for an exhibition we had in our heads, then that morphed into a song. ‘Lost Kingdom’ for me is a bit about that sense of losing our humanity — the sense of the human, of the real, moving into an era of disinformation, tech feudalism and AI, all of these things that are going to completely transform society. There’s some hope in there as well — hopefully it’s not all too doomed. But I think the pandemic opened up a space for reverie and daydreaming, that a lot of the songs were born out of.
A lot of your lyrics and the album imagery seem to pull from the Romantic movement, particularly Pre-Raphaelite art and William Blake, in its connection to nature and death. Do you look to any particular sources for inspiration?
There’s a few things that are in my transom, that are always there. Unfathomable Sea by Shelley, and his Ozymandias — that’s a really strong influence. I do feel an affinity to [Blake’s] Songs of Innocence and Experience — they’re in there but they’re not direct references. I don’t know if there’s specific references or influences but the overall idea of Love is God, not God is Love. We’re all becoming more isolated units of consumption, we need to connect more. We need to be more involved in what it used to mean to be human beings.
Lost Kingdom touches on a lot of these themes, how does the visual element — a ten-minute-long video — sit alongside the track?
It’s a film by a friend of mine, called Bonnie Foss who made a short film called BUTTERFLY a few years ago. We talked about them together before it became a film. Then I left LA and she made the film. It’s nice that it now has this life where it involves us both. But I feel it’s completely different to her film, the way it’s been re-edited and re-framed. It fits the sadness of Lost Kingdom.
You’ve cited David Lynch as an inspiration in previous interviews. How does film more broadly influence your work?
I certainly think quite cinematically when I’m writing a song. It’s very image-led. They have a narrative structure, but they have a kind of dream logic. I’m obsessed with film as well — I’m obsessed with the way filmmakers like Mintz express a deeper reality, a sense that the things we experience in our lives don’t make much sense. I do feel sometimes like we’re moving through a collective dream. There’s a lot of questioning mortality, or purpose or loneliness. Those are the things that probably come through lyrically all the time. I don’t know though, you’d have to tell me. [Laughs.] I sound so pretentious.
Are there any key cinematic influences to your work?
I like creatives who aren’t afraid to explore the sadness and tragedy that can underpin existence, while also pointing towards moments of joy or transcendence. I like the Dumans thing: through agony, salvation. I think that’s there in my writing. It’s only through embracing and experiencing the emptiness of things that you can become stronger and more aware — more attuned to the magic of existence.
Where do you think this philosophy comes from in your own life?
My mother died pretty young, I was in my early twenties. That had a big effect on me. I’d been studying English and Philosophy — in a very half-arsed way, I have to stress — but even as a child, there were moments where people were like, He’s really in a world of his own. I have always been able to just be in my own head — it’s not always helpful that questioning thing. Now, I try to be really productive, to be someone who does. But I do believe you need those moments of silence and retreat from everyday life to discover the inner landscape. It’s all we really have.
What do you hope that people take away from Lost Kingdom?
When I was a kid, I could fall in love with a song and listen to it a hundred times. I like the idea that someone will get something from one of these songs or it will connect with them in some way, or just make them feel they’re not alone. I like the idea that the music is something people will experience, that it will be kind of a partner for them on their own journey, through their own inner landscape and their own lives. Maybe if someone falls in love with something, they’ll listen to it again and again for their whole life, you know?
Listen to Lost Kingdomhere.
- WriterDaisy Finch
