Francis of Delirium’s Jana Bahrich Talks Debut EP

Francis of Delirium are a Canadian-American act currently based in Luxembourg. The band is composed of Vancouver artist Lana Bahrich and Seattle drummer/producer Chris Hewett. The two craft homemade indie rock pumped with hot blood and cathartic momentum. Francis of Delirium’s debut EP All Change dropped back in April and introduced their signature style of swirling guitar and introspection. I spoke with Jana Bahrich about All Change as well as the challenges that come with making a debut effort.

How is your day going? Up to anything fun? 

The weather is really nice so we’ve been hanging out and playing music. We’ve been really lucky, my drummer has a studio in his basement so we’ve been working on a new EP and we just got our first mixes back and were listening to those today which has been exciting.

Do you have any specific albums on repeat while enjoying the summer weather?

Yeah these songs feel really close to us so we’re really excited! I’ve been listening to Dua Lipa’s album a lot, it just sounds so good and I recently got my driving license and it’s kind of the best album to scream along to in the car. I also have been listening to Okay Kaya’s “Both” a lot, Phoebe Bridgers “Punisher” of course, Sorry released their album “925” which is excellent. So much good music recently and Bartees Strange just released a single called “Mustang” which is really really good. I also love Charli XCX’s “how i’m feeling now”, I will stop myself now.

All great choices. I’ve been geeking out over Sorry’s debut album quite a bit, what a stellar record. Speaking of debuts, I would love to get into your All Change EP. What did the process of making the EP look like?

It’s so unbelievably good. Chris and I spend a lot of time jamming and just testing stuff out and seeing what resonates with us. Except for Circles, I wrote Circles when I was 15/16 and we wrote the rest of the songs when I was 17. A lot of the time I’ll come in with a chord progression and some verses and then we build the rest of the song together or we’ll start with drums and build around that like we did with Karen. With Quit [Messing] Around I came in with the verse and then nothing was working for the chorus and I started getting so frustrated and Chris went “try something you would normally never do” and I was getting so annoyed and went fine and then we played it and Quit [Messing] Around came out and then that really connected with us and that’s sort of how that song came about. With the recording process, it was a lot of trial and error with us figuring out how to record and finding guitar sounds and stuff like that and then we got it mixed and mastered externally.

It seems like you had to overcome some roadblocks. Were there any other major challenges that came with making All Change?

Yeah for sure, we ended up making three versions of Quit [Messing] Around from scratch because we were still learning how to record properly and get things to sound how we want but then mentally as well it’s a weird thing putting out music. I can get pretty in my head about a lot of stuff and I remember the night before we released Quit [Messing] Around I was ready to just not release it at all. Mentally overcoming the fear of sharing something you’ve been working on privately was relatively challenging. It can be really easy to start hearing things or feeling like no we need to make a fourth version. Then there is of course the whole fact that we’re in a global pandemic but we’ve been really lucky and we’re all safe and healthy so it’s all good.

What would you like listeners to take away from All Change?

I think a sense of comfort. Your mind can be a weird place and love to drag you down deep holes but I hope listeners feel some sense of release and catharsis in the idea that we don’t always have to be [bad] people or feel [bad], that we really can change.

That’s a great message. I think everyone can find catharsis in All Change.

Thanks 🙂 really appreciate it!

Francis of Delirium’s debut EP All Change is available now for purchase and streaming.