Langhorne Slim has brought lyrics of hope, love, and spirit to a confusing world for over a decade. After a two year hiatus from playing shows with his band, he is back on the road to tour his 2020 album “Strawberry Mansion.” Before his Oct. 4 show at The Sinclair, The Harvard Crimson sat down with Langhorne to discuss life on the road and the healing power of music.

The Harvard Crimson: It’s been two years since “Strawberry Mansion” came out. How’s the tour going?

Langhorne Slim: Yeah, it’s crazy that it’s been two years. I didn't realize that. Time really never has worked in a linear fashion. I never believed that it really worked that way. Life as a traveling person, it certainly doesn't seem that way. Then add in the pandemic and it's very baffling. Things seem like they were a week ago or a thousand years ago at the same time.

There were all these different phases where we thought it was safe again and then shit got shut down again, so I’ve been back on the road playing shows for the past year, I think, but not with the band. So anyway, it doesn’t feel new to be on the road. But with the band we haven’t done a tour-tour since I don't know, six months or a year leading into the pandemic so it’s great to be touring with these guys again and to be playing more shows.

THC: What does it mean to be playing these songs from 2020, now?

LS: What I’ve really noticed on this tour is the pandemic, although nobody likes the reasons for it, it really enabled me much needed time to take care of myself and change the way I was living in certain ways.

I got clean. I got sober about 10 years ago and then I got un-sober, and right before the pandemic, a few months before, I got myself clean again, started going to therapy and stuff.

And really, out of desperation, kind of like, making some different life choices. And then I live in Nashville and we had a big tornado, and then we were in the pandemic. So it really forced us all to slow our roll down whether we wanted to or not, and to kind of take a look at the way a lot of us were living and coming out of it like, What did I learn while i was in my house? Or, what did I learn with the work I was doing on myself that I want to bring out into this world with me?

And I have just noticed feeling just so much more present with the band and enjoying my time during the day with these guys and laughing more and therefore the shows have been better, it just feels more connected.

Our band has been together for like 18 years, I’m told. Malachi the drummer told me.

And I’m like, ‘Holy shit that’s crazy.’ But it manages to feel fresh because of the changes I've gone through in my own life.

THC: This time with the pandemic and changing how you’re living your life, has that changed or brought new meaning to the songs you’re singing now?

LS: Oh yeah, sure. All the songs that went on to the “Strawberry Mansion” record were all written in the first two months of the pandemic, two or three months. And that was within a year of me — they’re not necessarily songs about getting sober, but they are songs that came out of like a real — the way I look at it is, I’ve been in one way or another running to or running from my whole life in some capacity, often not sure which one I’m doing. Being still and truly being still was never it.

As a little kid I wasn't able to do that much and then I got in trouble for that when I was a little kid in school, and then when I got older I got a job that allowed me to not be still. I think that being forced to be still and to change some of the different ways that I was living in a time that was so chaotic. You know it’s like there’s a fucking gobal pandemic but there’s also political unrest and social unrest and there’s all this Trump shit and everybody is just like losing their minds and at that time. Sort of paradoxically, I’m like in my house, finding I wouldn't say myself again, but like maybe myself in ways for the first time. Like finding some quiet and some peace when it felt like the whole world was on fire outside. And so maybe there was something to that.

I think it was just a healing time and songs started to show up as little kisses from the universe or something. Because when they don’t show up for a while, maybe I shouldn't admit it, but I get scared that they're not going to show up again.

THC: The band’s been together 18 years and you’ve been releasing albums for a little less time, but you've had a big impact on people for a long time, and still you're right around a million monthly listeners on Spotify, so what does it mean to you to know the effects you’re having on listeners who are going through some of the same things you’re going through, or not?

LS: That's the beauty of being back on the road, right? You know we all made do during the pandemic in certain ways, and some more people did more stuff online than others, but I was grateful for some opportunities online to connect with people. And actually that was my most healthy relationship, was social media, in that time. It felt more pure or something and it felt less gross in that I was writing songs posting them on instagram being upfront about how I was experiencing the pandemic life and stuff and so there was like an online connection that I got, but it's nothing like what we get when we’re on the road and playing in front of people.

You know[,] the whole idea has been to write music that is as true to myself as I can, and through that, to connect with others. So it feels, as I say on stage, it feels more human. The medicine of connecting with other human animals through art and music is, I'm convinced, is the most powerful divine medicine we have as people. We’re able to somehow get away from, for an hour or two hours, a lot of what I would consider bullshit and distractions that we walk in with. That lives in some unsayable land. I don’t have the words for what that is, but I know it’s like an ancient thing. And so to be back on the road and doing it is… I don’t know, not that it’s so important what we’re doing, but it feels important. The whole thing feels important.

You know art and music, the marriage of those two things, not art and music, art and commerce, it’s a strange dance that they do and i thnk its easy to get off the rails sometimes with the ego parts of it the money parts of it, this and that, I think when you’re not able to do it for a little while and you get to come back and plug your instruments in and light the fucker up and truly feel that conenction with other people. There’s no words for it, it still is the most incredible thing.

I tried lots of drugs, I tried lots of drinks. Some of them are good but there’s nothing as powerful as that.

THC: You say you don’t have the words but I think your lyrics do a pretty good job of describing that. Is there anything else you’d like to say about your tour?

LS: We’re out here! And it’s nice to talk to you man, I appreciate it. Thanks.

—Staff writer Jacob R. Jimenez can be reached at jacob.jimenez@thecrimson.com.