By: Karla Mendoza-Ochoa, Photos By: Crystal Lugo
Nestled in the heart of Los Angeles, bridging the gap between the past and present lies the Chateau Marmont. Coveted for being a sanctuary to artists, dreamers, and Hollywood legends, its irresistible charm lures many to its corridors hoping to harness the energy that lingers in its walls. It is August 9th, 5:00 p.m., and photographer Crystal Lugo sits beside me. We share drinks and settle into the evening when poet and YouTuber Karissa Love joins us. In between greetings, we discuss our travels, astrology, and how the previous night at a women’s filmmaker panel, Anna Biller, director of the film The Love Witch, anointed Karissa “the real love witch.” A server soon escorts us from the lounge to our courtyard table. A brown butterfly flutters into the lush greenery and we turn to Karissa’s upcoming spoken word poetry album, Metamorphosis.
How long have you been working on this album?
I wrote the first poem, I Have My Mother’s Hands, when I lived in Florida, and I’ve written the other poems over the years. I didn’t know it was going to be a full story until March of this year. Then I was going through my archives, and I wanted to create a whole body of work. I realized that I was writing about things that could be put in chronological order and tell an entire story. You could say it’s a few years in the making, but I decided to really shape it into an album this year, so it’s been kind of a quick turnaround process. I’ve been writing my whole life.
Is the album composed of archival work or did you create anything new for it?
The last poem on the album is new. I wanted to end it on a very specific note that I hadn’t written about yet, specifically my move to California. I wanted to end it on that cusp of change, and maybe in the future, I’ll write more tracks about what happened after the move and my life here. I wrote Last Words From Angel City specifically for the album, but everything else was archived and put together. I did edit a few things, but overall, most of it is from the archives.
As we continued our conversation, a server arrived to take our order: two more Mango Tangos, Vegan Chikkin Nuggets with Calabrian Chili Aioli, and Heirloom Tomatoes with Pistachios and Ricotta Whip.
What inspired you to create Metamorphosis, how is it different from your previous work?
The automatic difference is that it’s a whole body of work that tells one beginning and end, one full story. I feel like my previous work has just been poetry, kind of peppered into my various YouTube videos. I’ll just throw one into a vlog, and then that’s where it lives, and that’s where it stays. I’ve never had one place where you could go to find my poetry; I’m not published or anything like that. This is a completely independent project. It’s me and a team of six, including my music producer, Elliott Woodbridge, who is also a friend of mine. He created all the music on the album. He did a really beautiful job making it very visceral, raw, real, beautiful, and otherworldly—very transportative. I would say that is another key difference. You can press play at the beginning, close your eyes, and feel like you’re going somewhere else. I feel like this is something my audience or anybody could just go to if they really want to immerse themselves in a piece of art. That is probably the main difference—that it is just one collection.
You put this body of work out into the world, immortalizing your poetry…
Yes, and I think what kind of sparked the creation of this album was back in February when my YouTube channel was terminated for no reason. I just woke up, went on my computer, and saw that my YouTube channel was gone, and I had just hit 100,000 subscribers. I was super upset about it, and I didn’t have it for a week. They eventually gave it back to me, thank the Lord. But in that week, I spent a lot of time wondering what other avenue I could pursue to have my work in one place. For some reason, the idea of a poetry album kept popping up in my brain. I thought, ‘That’s kind of crazy. I wouldn’t even know how to do that.’
When I got my channel back, I kept thinking about it, even after the fact. I thought, ‘Maybe I should just start it and see where it goes.’ And the minute I started it, it was like divine intervention. All the right people found me, and friends reached out, asking, ‘How can I help you with this project?’ It just worked out better than I could have imagined. So when I started this, it was very different from where it is now. I didn’t think it was going to be this whole production. I thought it was just going to be a cute little thing that I threw on YouTube or Spotify. Now it’s become its own entity in a lot of ways, and as I’m about to put it out, it’s going to exist outside of me, which is super weird.
Your channel getting temporarily terminated was kind of a blessing in disguise, like a push…
Oh, for sure. The universe loves to do that to me. It loves to shock me in the best way. I think it’s my Aquarius placements. As Aquarius people, our lives are kind of set up to have big, shocking moments that shape our path. That definitely felt like one of those moments for me. It was my income as well, so I was really scared for the future. I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I was brainstorming a lot.
Even after I got my channel back, that voice was still like, ‘Maybe you should still explore this idea that you had when it was gone.’ Just because it’s back now doesn’t mean you can’t explore other things. I just followed the call, and now I’m here talking to you!
Can you walk us through your creative process?
I knew I had something really important to say. I knew I had a story to tell, but I just wasn’t sure how it was going to come about. It was definitely like taking one step at a time, and then somewhere along the way, the story came to life on its own. In a lot of ways, the structure of where each poem sits on the album is what took a lot of creativity. I had to really process that and think, ‘Okay, this poem should be track one and then track two,’ because it tells a cohesive story. The writing of it wasn’t necessarily intentional in that way, like I said, just picking through the archives. When it comes to the visuals, that creative process—I just get images in my mind, and I kind of just follow that image. Sometimes it comes to life exactly how I pictured it, and sometimes it doesn’t; it comes out even better or just completely different. I’ll drive up to Topanga Canyon or Joshua Tree. I’ll just run out to the desert for two days and not have my phone. I just sit and write down every idea that I have, and some of it sticks, and some of it does not.
I’ll usually also rewatch films that inspire me, listen to music that inspires me, and reread books that inspire me to hone in on what I would like to reference in the album. I wanted it to feel like a culmination of all of my favorite things in art. The visuals, I would say, took even more work than the audio tracks. I had the help of two different photographers, Danielle K. Hamlet and Emily Oreste. They helped me bring it to life, and then my poor, dear boyfriend helped me with the video stuff. My creative process is not linear. It’s definitely like one track would be finished and the visuals would be finished, and then track eight would be finished, and then I’d go back to track two. So it was really all over the place.
I kept disappearing for a few days, and people were like, ‘Where are you?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m just doing a thing, don’t worry about it.’ I can’t be around people when I create. I have to be in solitude for the most part. When it comes to the writing, jotting down ideas, writing scripts for short films, or writing down different visualizer ideas, I just have to be in my own world.
I know that it’s challenging for creators to pick favorites, but was there a particular poem that stood out?
The title track, Metamorphosis, is probably one of my favorite tracks on the album. Sonically and instrumentally, it’s actually the darkest. What shocked me was how dark a lot of the album turned out. It wasn’t necessarily my intention, but just working with Elliott and the poems themselves, it ended up that way. The first half is kind of dark, and then it gets a little lighter as you go on, which is great because that’s kind of how my life has played out in a lot of ways. My early adult life was pretty treacherous, hard, and dark. I wasn’t sure where I was going, feeling kind of blind, but walking forward anyway. Then, somewhere along the way, I found my voice, I found what I love, and I found my footing.
The most personal track, the one that is very revealing about me as a person, is called Harbored Knowledge Of the Seed People, it goes in chronological order: me at age nine, age sixteen, age eighteen, and age twenty-five, now. It just takes you on my spiritual journey specifically. It’s very much about my relationship with magic and God. Those two tracks stick out to me the most.
How did you approach translating your written poetry into an audio format?
I didn’t realize I was doing this, but as I’m writing and editing, I will speak it out loud to see how it sounds. I was shocked that not everybody does that until someone asked me, ‘Do you purposely make it spoken word?’ I thought, maybe I do subconsciously, and I wasn’t aware. There’s a huge power in me reading it to you because I’m very intentional with the way I read it, emphasizing certain words and pauses, and I’m very intentional with the way it comes across.
That’s why I wanted to make it an audio format—to really tell the story how I think it was supposed to be told. It’s more potent and rich. It enriches the experience because it’s my voice and it’s my story as well… I am open to having a physical book one day, but I’m definitely more of a spoken-word kind of writer.
What themes would you say are the most prevalent, and how do they align with your personal experiences?
The most prevalent themes are coming of age and spirituality, specifically how those were very linked for me. I was raised in a very evangelical southern church, and my dad was a pastor, so we have very different views on a lot of things. From a very young age, my identity was linked to the church. I think it gave me a bit of a brain chemistry thing, where I link my identity with my spirituality quite a bit. The album really explores that link, how I changed spiritually as I grew up, and how it made me feel about myself.
It also touches on the concept of home and how they’re all linked together. As my physical home changed, my internal world changed, and vice versa. As I changed internally, I realized I wasn’t happy where I was. I needed to leave and find my own path. It’s really about choosing yourself at the end of the day and embracing change rather than fighting it. The relationships in your life and your family can really shape you and, at least for me, shape your spirituality.
I’m a completely different person today than I was five or six years ago. This is the most transformative slice of my life, encapsulated in these eleven poems. So I would say the pillars of the album are home, spirituality, coming of age, and craving some kind of adventure.
What are your sources of inspiration?
Since we’re at the Chateau, I have to talk about a few things that have happened here that directly inspired this album. One of my favorite short films is Florence and the Machine’s The Odyssey. She filmed some scenes here in LA, specifically at the Chateau. Florence Welch is one of my biggest inspirations. Her way with words is so inspiring and so much of what I aspire to be.
I’m also inspired by other poets, Jim Morrison, I love Sylvia Plath, I love Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. My boyfriend’s also somewhat of a poet, so we’ll go back and forth and exchange things, and give each other notes, and he inspires me a lot as well. Additionally, my relationships—my friends are all artists, so we get together, commune, and bounce ideas off each other, and their art really inspires me. I have a dear friend named Ha Vay—she’s a musician with a really beautiful writing style, so she inspires me a lot.
Lana Del Rey is the queen of spoken word poetry at this point. She really inspires me. I love Jeff Buckley’s writing a lot—rest in peace. Musicians definitely inspired me, which I think played a part in wanting to make an album as well. I thought, ‘I love music with words, but I’m not a singer, so how can I do that in my own way?’ Then came Metamorphosis, and it’s really cool to say I have an album, even though I’m not a singer.
You had a great team helping you create Metamorphosis, what was the experience of collaborating with other artists like?
It was amazing. I’m really lucky to be surrounded by people who take me seriously but are also willing to have fun. They’re not flippant with it; they take me very seriously, which can be hard to find, especially in LA, where there are so many artists and so many people trying to make it.
It was collaborative in the sense that I had the concept and the ideas, but specific people really helped me bring them to life. I was very open to their ideas as well. My graphic designer for the CD asked, ‘So what do you want it to look like?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know, why don’t you listen to the album, and whatever comes to you, let’s do that. I know what photo I want on the cover, but everything else, you can get in the creative driver’s seat and drive.’ I tried to remain open to other people’s ideas, which is why I think it turned out so well.
If you become too rigid in your own ideas, it can stifle creativity. Greatness comes from multiple brains. If you think of any art piece you love, it wasn’t just one person. Nobody is self-made—that is a lie. Everybody needs help and someone to bounce ideas off of. I tried to remain as open as possible, and that’s what made it go smoothly. I wasn’t very rigid, and I was really happy with the results. Beautiful things can come from just remaining open.
How did you decide on the sound or musical elements that accompany the poetry?
I wanted it to be very atmospheric. Elliott and I tackled one track at a time, adding elements that made it feel a certain way that matched the poems. The track Take Me to the Moon—specifically is a portal between my old life and my new life. We wanted it to feel celestial like you’re going through space or a portal of time. It was more about the feeling of it than anything else. I wanted the music to evoke a certain atmosphere, and Elliott did a really good job bringing those ideas to life.
Each track stands on its own; the instrumentation is very different from beginning to end. The last track on the album features beautiful backing vocals from my friend Ha Vay. I wanted her to sound like a siren faintly in the background, calling you to the sea, calling you to the West Coast, calling you to your fate or your destiny. She was very gracious in doing that for me.
On a personal, spiritual, and creative level, what does this album mean to you?
I’m just very proud of myself for finishing it, for even starting it because there was definitely a point in my life where I believed I wasn’t talented. There was a whole era of my life where I didn’t think my writing was good enough, and I didn’t think I was going anywhere. I was living in my small town in Florida, feeling very hopeless and stuck. I guess that’s what this album is about—getting unstuck.
It means that I’m doing something right. Spiritually, it’s very raw and real. I feel closely connected with my spirit guides, and I feel like they’re really proud of me as well and really love this body of work. If anything, I just feel proud, no matter how it performs, no matter who listens to it, no matter the opinions. I’m really happy with it, which is a testament to doing something you’re supposed to be doing.
What do you hope listeners take away from this album? Is there a specific message or emotion you want to convey?
I hope, if anything, they just get to know me better because it’s quite vulnerable. I hope they can walk away from it with a new love for poetry or be inspired in some way. I don’t know if there’s a direct message in the album, other than to be okay with forging your own path and accepting the change that comes with it.
When writing it, thinking of my audience, I was just hoping that it might be a form of escape as well because it’s very ‘not of this world’ in a lot of ways. It feels like a completely different place where you can really escape into it. Maybe it could be an escape for somebody, a source of inspiration. Maybe, it’ll inspire them in some way to change, to choose themselves, or to choose their own path.
What are your goals moving forward with your poetry and YouTube?
I’m always going to do YouTube. I was talking about this with my boyfriend the other day. It’s funny—he always asks me things I need to be asked at that moment because I’m already thinking about them. At the end of the album, I reference a question he asked me: ‘Are you happy now that you’re home?’
Recently, he asked me how I want to be remembered, and I immediately said I want to be remembered as a poet more than anything, even though I’m a YouTuber, influencer, and content creator, and I’ll always be that in some sense because that’s what got me here in the first place. But when I’m gone, I want people to remember my work and my writing more than anything else.
I’m trying not to think too much about the future and really just enjoy the present moment because I don’t know when it will come back around. So I’m savoring each day as it passes.
After paying our bill, we wandered through the Chateau’s magnificent hallways, taking in its dazzling architecture. We made our way to Karissa’s car, which sat in a spot that overlooks Sunset Boulevard. The city stretches as far as the eye can see. We played Lana Del Rey’s Honeymoon album and watched a kite sway in the wind as the sun set.
Karissa Love will be performing Metamorphosis in its entirety, on August 30th at the Pacific Opera Project in LA along with a stripped set from Ha Vay, tickets for A Crescent A Chrysalis are still available. Metamorphosis will be available on all streaming services on August 22 and will be available to purchase as a CD on Karissa’s Website on August 23. Stay up to date with Karissa and her journey on YouTube and all social media platforms!
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