Leon Bridges said recording his third studio album, “Gold-Diggers Sound” was one of his “most liberating experiences.”
The Grammy Award-winning artist, who shot to fame with his 2015 chart-topping debut album, “Coming Home,” spent two years working on the newly released 11-track project.
While discussing the album with “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Bridges, 32, said he feels he’s finally reached a place in his career where he’s releasing music that he wants to make and isn’t “staying within the confines of what people want” him to be.
Through this project, Bridges said he changed up his creative process, recording environment and more while he was developing it.
One of the most influential aspects of the project’s creation was the building in which it was made — the Los Angeles bar/boutique hotel/recording studio that Bridges named the album after.
“Throughout my career, for me it’s been about just redefining myself as an artist, and Gold-Diggers was the experience of — kind of living and creating music in this space was very significant to me,” he said. “It was just all about just experimenting with new sounds and kind of making this departure from the more-so retro sound.”
While recording at Gold-Diggers, Bridges changed up his hours and decided to create at night, which he said “unlocked something special” in the record.
“Prior to this, I mostly made music during the day, and we felt like we hit this wall creatively and wanted to kind of see what would transpire out of doing this whole nocturnal hang, bringing in the tequila and bringing in some of our favorite musicians to kind of cultivate this kind of unique R&B thing,” he explained.
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“We wanted to kind of shape the songs around this more sensual, R&B-oriented kind of thing,” he added.
The sensual and personal album, which Bridges said is infused with “psychedelic influences,” is an intentional departure from his previous two studio albums, “Coming Home” and “Good Thing.”
“I knew if I were to make five versions of ‘Coming Home’ then my career would stay stagnant, and I wanted to be, I wanted more than that,” he said.
“I wanted to be in the same conversations as some some of my R&B counterparts, while still staying true to myself,” he added. “Evolution is inevitable, and I’m just grateful that my fan base just kind of allows me to just grow and make the music that resonates with me.”
With “Gold-Diggers Sound,” the R&B recording singer-songwriter, who bussed tables at a Texas café for seven years before his music took off, is taking risks and proving that he isn’t content staying within one box.
His advice to other singer-songwriters with ambitions of making it in the industry? Keep going.
“Don’t look at the moments that don’t meet your expectations — as far as what success looks like — don’t look at it as failure,” he shared. “Soak up as much inspo as possible and find that missing piece within the marketplace, musically, and stay true to yourself.”
“That’s the stuff that normally thrives — there isn’t a formula to it, but yeah, stick to that and keep good people around you,” he added.
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