{"id":973641,"date":"2019-11-21T09:11:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T16:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=915628"},"modified":"2019-11-21T09:11:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T16:11:22","slug":"the-breakdown-alec-benjamin-on-jesus-in-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/the-breakdown-alec-benjamin-on-jesus-in-la\/","title":{"rendered":"The Breakdown: Alec Benjamin on \u2018Jesus in LA\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/BD-AlecBenjamin-Thumb.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/alec-benjamin\/\" id=\"auto-tag_alec-benjamin\" data-tag=\"alec-benjamin\">Alec Benjamin<\/a> discusses the inspiration behind his recent single \u201cJesus in LA\u201d for the latest video installment of <em>Rolling Stone\u2019s&nbsp;<\/em>\u201cThe Breakdown.\u201d The track is the third single Benjamin has released since his 2018 breakout album&nbsp;<em>Narrated for You.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I moved out to California, I went to college for a few semesters and then I got a record deal,\u201d Benjamin explains, \u201cand I thought, \u2018All right, like, this is going to be it. This is going to be my big break.&#8217;\u201d However, the singer-songwriter\u2019s \u201cbig break\u201d was put on hold when he was suddenly dropped from the record label. \u201cI lost all the songs I had been working on for years,\u201d recalls Benjamin. \u201cAs pretty and cool as Hollywood is, there\u2019s a little bit of a dark underbelly, so that\u2019s what I wrote the song about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Benjamin describes how he knew the song\u2019s title before the rest of the lyrics followed. \u201cSometimes I write out 50, 60, 100 titles on a piece of paper,\u201d Benjamin says of his writing process. \u201cJesus in LA\u201d was one of them. \u201cI thought it would be cool to tell the song through a story about me meeting the devil and looking for my savior,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>While the lyrics strongly relate to Benjamin\u2019s own life, he was also influenced by someone close to him caught up in the party scene and struggling with drinking. Benjamin remembers being told, \u201cYou\u2019re not gonna find your happiness out there doing that.\u201d This piece of advice inspired him to write the chorus, which he launches into on acoustic guitar, singing: \u201cYou won\u2019t find him down on Sunset \/ Or at a party in the Hills \/ At the bottom of the bottle \/ Or when you\u2019re tripping on some pills.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Though Jesus and the Devil are central figures in the lyrics, Benjamin insists it\u2019s not a religious song \u2014 even though those who don\u2019t listen closely may mistake it for one. He reflects on how this has fueled his self-doubt. \u201cSometimes I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh man, maybe it was a mistake to put out a song that has Jesus in the title.&#8217;\u201d But he doesn\u2019t dwell on this for long. \u201cLyrically, it\u2019s nice to take risks sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/alec-benjamin-song-breakdown-video-915628\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alec Benjamin discusses the inspiration behind his recent single \u201cJesus in LA\u201d for the latest video installment of Rolling Stone\u2019s&nbsp;\u201cThe Breakdown.\u201d The track is the third single Benjamin has released since his 2018 breakout album&nbsp;Narrated for You.&nbsp; \u201cWhen I moved out to California, I went to college for a few semesters and then I got [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-973641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 22:03:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}