CHRISTIAN LALAMA OPENS UP ABOUT HIS NEW VIDEO, ‘KNOCKED ME OFF MY FEET’

Meet Christian Lalama : the fresh, immensely talented musician who’s new music is hitting the mainstream with a bang.

Introduced to the classics at a young age, Christian Lalama had always harbored a deep love for making his own music. Christian learned piano when he was practically an infant, later accompanying himself on songs by Elton John, ACDC, and Billy Joel to large auditoriums. Often dubbed the new Justin Beiber, Christian’s YouTube account documents his journey from 10 year old rockstar to 16 year old pop star, bringing us to his latest release, ‘Knocked Me Off My Feet.’ Enjoy his quarantine visuals for the track below.

Christian Lalama hails from Ontario, Canada, and his smooth, R&B sound reflects his kind and charming demeanor. He’s an entertainer by nature but spends hours upon hours cutting his own YouTube performances using Logic Final Cut. Christian never imagined he’d be picked up by a label, moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career before he graduated high school, but he admits that he honestly can’t see himself doing anything else.

We spoke with the Gen-Z, multi-talented musician below about what makes a good song, what inspires him, and the age-old question, where he’d like to be in five years:

How do you balance school and music? Challenge?

It can be hard at times, for example, if I’m missing a lot of school for music related things. But I’ll just set a couple days to just grind at school for hours and it gets me caught up. For the most part it’s usually good, I’m able to balance it!

If you weren’t a singer and performer, what would you be studying? In another world?

*laughs* I honestly don’t know.

You have totally surpassed the expectations of any 16 year old. Did you ever think you’d end up here at this age?

Honestly not really. This is always what I wanted to do, I wanted to get here, but it was just super uncommon. It didn’t seem realistic but I just kept grinding through and spent a lot more time doing music while most of my friends would be like doing their thing. I just devoted a lot of time when I was a kid, I guess I still am *laughs*. Hard working and grinding really does pay off in the end.

What’s your favorite thing about music?

Definitely performing. Being on stage and seeing people that actually listen to your music and know the words to songs you’ve written. It’s crazy knowing that people are there to watch you and enjoy your music. Performing and touring are my favorite parts.

What kind of artists do you admire?

R&B, PostMalone, Right now I’m really into people that have a really good voice.

So singing is a really big part of this whole thing for you?

Yeah, definitely

When you get into the studio what’s the first thing you do?

Sometimes it’s just getting to know the track, warming up a little bit just hopping in the booth and grinding it out; other times we’ll get a good vibe going and grind out writing. It’s a super chill environment and it always goes really smoothly.

For you, what makes a good song?

Lyrics that mean something. Whether they’re about someone, or how you’re feeling. Also a catchy melody and cool beat…if you mix all those things together, it’s a perfect recipe.

What kinds of things inspire you?

I’ve written a ton of remixes lately; those have all been like a “sad boy hour” type *laughs* I also enjoy writing upbeat songs…but honestly, whatever I’m feeling will inspire me initially.

Are you close with your family? Are they supportive?

Oh 100%. My dad was a musician himself so he knows all about this stuff. He even records me back home; he turned the basement into a home studio. He’s been insanely supportive, he’s come on the road, anywhere I’ve gone. He moved to LA with me. My brother and my mom are also super supportive. It’s good!

I hope you don’t hate this question, brace yourself. Where do you see yourself in five years?

I get this question a lot, haha. I want to have a lot of just really great songs out, and be on tour, go to Europe. Hopefully that will be possible, I hope it doesn’t take five years. I definitely want to be on some sort of world tour and performing.

The animation for ‘Knocked Me Off My Feet’ is so rad! Tell us about the song and making the video.

The video was super interesting. Basically, the director told us what he was thinking: it starts in the real life perspective, super clean, and then it transitions into animation. It’s really hard right now to get a fully produced video out so we thought, why not add an animation to it.

The song is really upbeat but at the same time, is a little shady. It’s about someone who just knocks you off your feet, but talks about the other side to them as well.

‘Miss Me’ was one of your first big hits. How is ‘Miss Me’ different from other songs you’ve written or released?

It’s about someone back home. Some stuff happened between us…and now I’m out in LA, working on myself and my music. So the lyrics are really just saying, I hope you miss me.

It was pretty emotional [moving to LA] because I’ve always lived in Canada. I grew up here. But I got to the point where literally half of my time was being spent in hotels in LA, so we decided to get a place out there. I wanted to take recording seriously so we focused on getting in the studio all week. It was opening up a bunch of new doors and I’m really glad we took advantage of it, and made the move.

CONNECT WITH CHRISTIAN LALAMA

INSTAGRAM // TWITTER // SPOTIFY

photos / courtesy of the artist

story / Ariana Tibi