Today we’d like to introduce you to Alejo Cala Lara And Christopher Morrison.
Hi Alejo Cala Lara and Christopher Morrison, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
We didn’t look to start a band at first, we kind of stumbled into it by writing a song. Our first song ‘Prodigal’ began as a verse idea that Alejo shared and then slowly morphed and grew over the course of several months, sporadically working when time allowed into a fully fleshed out recorded song. From there we decided we enjoyed working together and began meeting several times a week to write, record, and produce songs. One of the reasons we work so well together is our complementary and differing strengths and interests! Alejo is a skilled singer, composer, lyricist, and graphic designer. Chris is great at playing a variety of instruments, producing, and engineering. It seemed like a perfect combination of skills to begin creating what we love to make: music.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Our band Noland started mid 2022. A year and half into our music making journey, the organization we both worked in went through an intense crisis. Our community fractured in the midst of the crisis and the fallout continued in rippling effects for years. We experience intense job and life instability and at first continuing to create music in the middle of this season was challenging and triggering. But through the pain and pressures of this season we were able to write songs that helped us process pain and loss. Songwriting became a lifeboat and producing these songs became a sign post of our stories.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Currently about to release our second EP “Love & Dust” which explores themes of human fragility (like dust) and the power of steadfast love in weakness. Our first EP “Where No One’s Ever Been” was our first attempt to create something lyrically profound related to our faith but also musically engaging, like something you wouldn’t mind getting stuck in your head for hours.
A big theme in our writing is vulnerability. The more vulnerable we are the more relatable our stories are. Mostly because we get rid of all those smoke screens of performance and put the finger on that human emotion we deeply avoid but we all connect with.
Our next project is a collaborative collection of songs with different songwriters in Kansas City.
Here is a link to our Spotify Profile: https://open.spotify.com/artist/76lN3OkaZleo7Cnnkfjp8h?si=-aQAOhfSQM6h0TayG23zrQ
Here is our link to our Youtube Profile: https://youtube.com/@its.noland?si=oSNEtDZJh6HRbxjR
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Just Start. Don’t wait for the perfect gear, venue, or inspiration. Put time in your schedule where you are creating your art, whatever that may be. And give yourself to growing in the craft. If you’re writing a song and inspiration strikes then great! But if not start putting pen to paper, even if what you are writing starts out as garbage. That’s how you improve. Everyone is terrible when they start out.
Also practice finishing! The act of finishing each of our songs and releasing it has helped out grow so much! It’s so easy to get bogged down on the last 10-15% of a song. But by finishing we keep momentum and are able to apply things we grew in to our next project.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bio.site/noland
- Instagram: @its.noland
- Youtube: @its.noland
