For Lil Lotus, life has largely felt like one giant nosebleed—being drained by the people around him, solitude and his internal demons. “This whole experience has been me being drained my whole life. Now that I'm getting older, I'm trying to figure out, how do I fix these things?”
That concept also informed Lil Lotus’ sophomore album aptly titled Nosebleeder, due December 1st via Epitaph Records—an album produced by Matt Malpass (Blink 182, Travis Barker, MGK, nothing,nowhere.) and Mike Pepe (Taking Back Sunday, Charlotte Sands) that traverses themes like friendship, addiction, mental health and toxic relationships.
Lotus, born John Elias Villagran III, grew up in Texas in a Christian household where he was only able to listen to certain types of music. But after stealing an iPod from school, he was drawn deeply to the rock world—Mars Volta, Saosin, Underoath, Paramore and Linkin Park. It was those bands that inspired Lotus to start creating his own music. At 14 age, Lotus began casually jamming out with his friends before he started playing in bands like the alt-hip-hop group Boyfriendz and the post-hardcore band If I Die First. In 2016, he began focusing more on his solo work, which turned into Lil Lotus. After releasing a string of singles and EPs, Lotus shared his debut album Errør Bøy in 2021, which featured Travis Barker and lil aaron.
Nosebleeder marks a new era for Lil Lotus.
The title track on his forthcoming album is perhaps the centerpiece of the record, detailing the redundancy of the vicious partying experience and endless benders in LA culture. “Nosebleeder, I taste the cocaine on your tongue,” he sings over anxious guitar riffs. On the raw, Armor For Sleep-inflected “What a Time to Be Alive,” Lotus further explores the complexities of addiction and the double-edged sword of being medicated. “Sometimes it feels like, ‘Is medicine helping me, or is it just to keep me from feeling anything at all?’” “Ghost,” a metalcore screamo-tinged track that features Alexis Monroe, explores the weight of betrayal in friendships. “We just took this like, ‘You're dead to me,’ approach, but that one definitely is on the heavier side.”
Throughout the album, Lotus digs deep into the complexities of his relationships. “Blame Me For Everything,” which features Mod Sun, tackles the frustrating feeling of not being able to do anything right in a relationship. “Loving you is social suicide / you’re a bad habit,” he says with a biting lilt over raucous drums. “It's just like if you ever felt like you can't do anything right, and you're just sitting there and you're just like, "I'm doing everything completely wrong according to you or the world or my parents," or anything, it's like just waiting until the morning for you to put all that happened today on me.”
Similarly, in “Everything You Hate About Me,” Lotus focuses on being clouded by something negative in a relationship that ultimately detracts from seeing the positive. The chorus explodes with layers of sarcasm and resentment that have been building up: “You can add it to the list of things that you hate about me.” “There's always like two sides to each situation, and you might feel somebody's like, ‘You're doing all this wrong, you're doing all this wrong,’ but it's like, ‘I've been doing this for you, and you're just disregarding everything else that I've done for you.’”
“How's It Feel to Feel Nothing” taps into the exhaustion of an on-and-off relationship. “It's just like, ‘How many times are we going to do this? Did we not learn the first time? We always end up here, what are we learning?’” The screamo-meets-emo “Play Dead” taps into the pettiness of trying to fend off someone who keeps pursuing you when you aren’t interested.
“When Life Gives You Lemons” is a sassy number about an unmanageable partner and the chaos they bring to a relationship. “Halley's Comet” is a downtempo, one-sided wistful anthem about missing someone who doesn’t miss you. “I miss you, I miss you, I miss you/ I hate you, I hate you,” he seethes.
Lotus showcases his singular storytelling skills in “She’s A Vampire” and “Missouri.” The cinematic “She's A Vampire” was penned with Twilight in mind. “I wrote it with this movie mentality of like this guy meets girl, girl's acting weird and he doesn't understand why, and she keeps dipping off to hang out with these people at night that are so important to her. She's actually meeting up with her coven to do vampire shit.” The bouncy pop-punk “Missouri” is a twist on the epithet “misery loves company” but plays off of the idea of what would happen if they got married. One of the purest moments of the record comes on “Shooting Star” which captures the experience of two people watching a rare phenomenon while on the beach.
With Nosebleeder, Lotus hopes his experiences resonate with his listeners. “I feel like a lot of songs are just me singing universally in the hope that somebody connects to the topics.
