In a candid interview, scene mainstay Lil Lotus shares lessons to be learned in his story of redemption
Crushing coke, downing drinks, and popping pills before the show even goes on has inevitable makings for a rock and roll redemption story. Musical success can particularly be the downfall for an artist who is still being haunted by the pain of the past, but Lotus proves that it is all about how you pick yourself up again and keep moving forward. In his short but eventful 25 years, the vocalist has become a mainstay at the intersection of experimental rap and post-hardcore. His diverse talents have put forth classic tracks like “Run Home“, fit for long, lonely nights, alongside hit “Body Bag,” which is best suited for fast times with friends. No matter the feeling, Lotus has probably spoken about it. That is why it does not take a major motion picture to tell the story of his rise, downfall, and rebirth, but rather, truth extended from broad Texas skies with no room to hide.
“I was like the stereotypical little rebellious kid growing up with really strict parents,” Lotus says of his childhood in Pleasant Grove, an East Dallas neighborhood close to downtown. “I was always like, ‘No, I’m going to do what the fuck I want and you can’t stop me from wearing eyeliner, or doing this or that.’ It was a fucking train wreck.” Not only did Lotus experience trouble fitting in at home with “super Christian” parents, but he felt different from the rest of the kids on his block from an early age, which he largely attributed to identifying with different music scenes. First inspired by the likes of Paramore and Linkin Park, his taste was largely determined by the fate of a stolen iPod that fell into this lap. His friend helped him jailbreak it, but under one condition: he got to pick what would go on it. “He put a bunch of emo bands and crazy metal shit on there, which I already kind of liked, but I hadn’t really stepped that deep into the world,” he explains.
With a library of bands ranging from Alesana and Silverstein to Deftones and Glassjaw in his back pocket, Lotus’ dueling passions for sports and creative expression were coming to a head, and ultimately, the latter won. He was accepted to a music and arts magnet high school in what he claims was an overnight shift in his life’s trajectory. When it came to repping fringe scenes, he says that “everybody who went to that school went to the max,” sporting bold-colored hair and off-the-wall fashion. While his classmates would retreat home to spaces like Tumblr, Lotus got to work on music after his dad taught him his first four guitar chords. “I was like, ‘Woah, this is fun,’ and immediately couldn’t put it down,” he recalls . “I couldn’t go outside, and everyone would be like, ‘Yo, come play football, baseball,’ but I just locked myself in my room and I was teaching myself on acoustic.” From there, this passion bled into perfecting his vocal and electric guitar skills. “My whole life from that day to now has just been music,” he says of his first lesson with his dad. “It just consumed it.”
Lotus began filling in spots in local metalcore bands, as well as performing in a church group at the encouragement of his parents. “I hate fucking mentioning that because I hate the church so much … but that was where I was meeting a lot of other young musicians who happened to be into the same type of music as me,” he explains. Being that Christian metalcore was at its mainstream peak at the time, the church group became a place where they could practice more abrasive projects on the side. This context also allowed Lotus to be able to perform heavy music with his parents’ blessing. Yet, like most kids with strict parents, he still managed to live out teenage trouble. “Since I was in high school, I was always popping pills, although they were like hydrocodone,” he recalls. From there, matters progressed into Xanax, acid, and, unsurprisingly, drinking. “I’ve always done some kind of drug; anything to not make me feel.”
This desire to erase emotions only intensified when a 17-year-old Lotus experienced the unexpected passing of his father which left him with a visceral desire to take flight. After two years of living in his car, he returned home. “My life was weird, ” he says. “It was like a strange dream.” Lotus eventually adapted back into his old routine of performing in local bands, but things didn’t feel quite the same, particularly because “no one was talking to anyone or getting any traction with labels.” Working random warehouse jobs by day and putting on shows with his friends by night, Lotus was about to see yet another major life change, but this time a much more joyous one. The birth of his son, Luca, meant putting music briefly on hold to tend to his responsibilities as a new dad. This time also came to mark a turning point in Lotus’ career. As he strayed away from playing in bands, he began to pursue acoustic solo projects.
“I was like okay, this is what I should have been doing this whole time,” Lotus says of the transition. “I was better at writing songs than filling in gaps in bands.” By returning to his roots of locking himself in his bedroom, he describes a pattern of releasing songs just a week after he would write them. “I didn’t have much equipment, so you can hear the quality change throughout my music,” he says of his early self-mixing and recording. Through organic means, he began linking with fans and future collaborates like Scum and Fats’e. This process was expedited after the revered YouTube channel Astari began uploading up cult classics of his, like “Run Home” and “Scared To Die” . As his presence in the community began to build, the intersection of fan bases among various artists ultimately proved to play in his favor. Particularly after Lotus began working with Nedarb on his 2017 EP Body Bag, it would be common to talk shop with the likes of Horse Head and Coldhart, who Lotus describes as “artists who I was listening to in general as a fan.”
While Lotus would eventually go on to work with big names, touring with Of Mice and Men and makingmusic with I Set My Friends On Fire, all was not well below the surface. He had started embracing studio production, but unfortunately, that meant exposure to an operation that allowed him unlimited cocaine. “I was like fuck it, it’s mine,” he recalls. “That’s when things started getting really out of hand.” The spiral continued as Lotus made the pilgrimage to Los Angeles and began using with romantic partners, stating, “I was dating people who were really into specific drugs, and when you date somebody like that you just happen to stick to what y’all usually do.” Ultimately, this meant consistent use of cocaine, fentanyl, oxycodone, and miscellaneous opiates. The flexible schedule of being a professional musician proved to be a double-edged sword. He had the time and money of which everyone longs, but most of it was invested back into his intensifying addiction. The final blow was a simple desire to be noticed. As Lotus puts it, “once you gave me the attention to act out like the fool that I was, [using] became an everyday thing.”
“I guess to sum it up, I got really excited about doing music but then I got really lost in my demons that I never dealt with from my dad’s death and I was running from it with addiction,” Lotus says from a much more lucid perspective. He recalls “grams and grams and grams” of cocaine being consumed in addition to a plethora of pills, leaving him astonished that he was still alive. Whether it be showing off at parties by consuming dangerous amounts of cocaine or scaling streetlights, Lotus seldom had a quiet night at home. He recalls one night of the Of Mice and Men tour in which he had consumed countless Xanax, two Four Lokos, a gram of cocaine, and a bottle of Jameson before he even performed. After the show, in an attempt to take his own life, he downed entire bottles of Zzzquil and Advil. Miraculously, he awoke the next morning to stories from his friends about how he had behaved. “I would get in random fucking fights and not even know about it,” he describes, as well as another anecdote in which Lil Aaron had to chase him down the street after becoming extremely inebriated during a show with their collective, Boyfriendz.
While Lotus was still producing music amidst the chaos, it was not up to his personal standard of genuineness. “Everything that was going on wasn’t me and I had no control and all of the music I was writing then was such a fraud,” he says. “Now that I had gotten some attention, I was going to make everyone watch me burn out and fucking die.” Nevertheless, Lotus managed to survive countless reckless nights, but he finally hit his breaking point with enduring such a low quality of life. When it came to initiating change, Lotus explains that “it took my girl.” It was through Twitter fate that Lotus met his now-fiancé, Sage, with whom he attributes his 180-degree turn. “She wasn’t afraid to tell me you need to chill; you need to talk about these things and quit killing yourself.” As Sage’s words began to bring Lotus back down to reality, he had stumbled upon the first step of recovery: accepting that he needed a major lifestyle overhaul.
As with many struggling with addiction, Lotus had to take it one step at a time. “I got sober in stages,” he explains. “When I met my girlfriend, I did one month sober from opiates and it was really hard, but then I was doing more coke because I was drinking more.” While attempting to give up using hard drugs in favor of seemingly lesser ones, Lotus found himself caught up in the same patterns. After realizing he became an “asshole” after consuming liquor, he decided to stick to drinking beer and limit his cocaine use to hyping up before performances, but those vows did not last long. A few beers often turned into many shots, and before he knew it, he would be in the club buying bottles and declining calls. Absence of alcohol would just mean excessive cocaine use, which would end with him staying up for weeks at a time. It took these failed experiments for Lotus to realize that his ability to be a reliable friend and boyfriend would require totally abstaining from substance use. He will be celebrating a year clean from opiates on July 9, and a year totally sober on November 3.
As Lotus’ romance with Sage continues to blossom, the two have laid roots where it all began – Dallas. After their last lease was up in Downtown L.A., they decided they wanted to buy a house, but they knew the local market was too costly. It was during a visit with Luca that Lotus decided to explore the prospect of purchasing in his hometown. The last of the three homes that he viewed proved to be the winner. “We’re pretty manic and pretty impulsive,” he says of his relationship with Sage. “We’re just on the same wavelengths with everything so it ends up working out.” Now, the pair enjoy raising their pug, Uma, going to the movies, and browsing IKEA. Sage and he are also into home furnishings and authentic sushi – simple pleasures that have proved to be the backbone of Lotus’ sobriety. “I just feel so content … I’m lying in my bed or on my couch watching TV and kicking my legs up,” he shares from the wisdom nestled in his newly grown mustache. “It feels so much better now that I’m not all pressed to go to a party.” By initially using his impulsive tendencies for good, he has been able to achieve peace.
Naturally, these major life changes have bled into Lotus’s approach to music. Since losing his ability to run from his problems with drugs, creative outlets have become more vital than ever. His latest track “Sleep Paralysis” documents surrendering to the unknown of sobriety after declaring an inability to maintain a chaotic lifestyle. This single, too, represents a stylistic change, with Lotus stating, “It’s definitely very rock and a blend of something that could fuse with the mainstream.” With immense respect for bands like Bring Me The Horizon who are adept at evolving album by album, Lotus intends to embrace the tides that come with encountering different stages of life. He even goes as far to imply that rock is the wave once more, citing how the current underground has gone viral online in a similar fashion to bands that frequented Warped Tour. “I’ve always been torn between tracks having trap snares and having the song played live with a drummer and guitar player,” he goes on. “Somewhere along the line there has to be a way to fuse a sound that translates both live and on the track.” While his U.S. summer tour with Smrtdeath and guccihighwaters will feature the era of Lotus’ music with which everyone is familiar, there are great changes on the horizon.
“I feel like I’ve had a rebirth, a second chance to do everything right – to do my whole life right,” Lotus says while reflecting on his present, and for the first time, his future. “There are doors that are opening left and right because I’m going into things with good intentions.” Freshly engaged and with a new pug on the way, Lotus intends to stay busy by adding to his collection of unreleased music that the world can’t wait to hear. But equally important as sharing his new work with his fans is conveying the following message: “I don’t ever want to drug shame you or anything like that. If I could do drugs and not be a fucking wreck I would be. It’s just me. It’s just the way I’m made. But I want you all to know the signs of things going downhill and never going back up.” Luckily, Lotus is still here with us, sharing his longtime talents with all of those who have never quite fit in. “It’s okay to say when,” he insists. “It’s okay to say ‘I’ve had enough.’”