Ski Team Questions the Presumption of Marriage on “New BF” Ahead of Album ‘Burnout/Boys’ (Interview)

Who hasn’t asked themselves if a traditional route is what is meant for them? Ski Team, aka Lucie Lozinski, found herself surrounded by a bridal party whose relationships seemed to encapsulate everything. That wasn’t the case for Lozinski, for whom the experience prompted a line of questioning that ended up being “New BF.”

Lucie Lozinski is a New York-based artist that has been making music since she was a child. She moved to California to study technical writing. Although focused on technology, Lozinski decided to release her first singles under the name Ski Team while in California. Burnout/Boys is her upcoming debut album about coming back to music after she realized her current career wasn’t what she wanted.

She released the album’s lead single “Plan A” this year. In an emotional recount, the song speaks about having your plans derailed and not knowing where the future will take you. It was followed by “Thirst Trap for Diego,” an observation on modern dating and how it can become everything for certain people. It’s a commentary on how their self-worth and meaning becomes dependent on who they are to someone else.

Burnout/Boys is all about figuring out what you want to do after the life you pictured becomes obsolete. At the same time, there’s the exhaustion that comes with dating and trying to find the right person. Both “Plan A” and “Thirst Trap for Diego” surround these subjects; “New BF” continues the preview of Burnout/Boys in the same cohesive narrative line.

With her new single, Lozinski takes a grunge approach to the realization that everyone seems to follow the perfect pattern of partnering up and getting married. She questions whether the life path of marriage and partnership is the right one for her, and although she doesn’t have all the answers yet, she knows staying in the relationship she’s currently in would be a disservice to her future.

All Too Creative talked to Ski Team, aka Lucie Lozinski, about “New BF” and her upcoming album Burnout/Boys.

ATC: Could you tell us about your beginnings as an artist and how you decided that you wanted to become a singer-songwriter?

LOZINSKI: I don’t ever remember not doing it. Legend has it, I was doing that as a baby. My parents and musicians so I think it’s something you don’t really decide to do, it just happens. I started writing songs and started playing guitar when I was five or six, and my first performance was probably around the same age. I’m a nerd and I put that nerdery into other things like school, writing and work. The last few years have been me trying to transfer that focus and energy toward music 100%.

ATC: Congratulations on your single, “New BF.” It has such a grunge sound to it, how was the creative process when it comes to production?

LOZINSKI: So much fun. I worked with Philip Weinrobe and we barely knew each other. I was trusting him a lot with these songs. This song, I had never played out loud to anyone. I got to the studio and I just met these musicians the day before; so it’s a bunch of strangers, and I play the song for them on an acoustic guitar with everybody gathered in a circle like, “Here we go” (laughs). Phil and I had different opinions about what this song could be, so he was like, “Okay, for this song, everybody is going to sit on the floor in a circle. Everyone get an acoustic guitar.”

We had these pieces of metal to play the guitar, no one had a pick. The drummer, he’s an excellent drummer. He’s on the floor with an acoustic guitar and has a flask stuffed into the strings and he’s banging the flask, so it’s this metallic, horrible sound (laughs). I was like, “I don’t think I like this at all. This is so cacophonous. And I want to trust that there’s a direction here, but I personally wouldn’t be able to listen to this. Can we just plug in?” We have all the people, we can do a rock band version of this, make it really synthy. Phil was like, “I hear you. Let’s do it my way first, then we’ll do it your way second.” So we did both, and then we put them on top of each other.

ATC: That’s so cool!

LOZINSKI: I didn’t expect it to work. Even after I heard it the first time, I wasn’t sure about this song. It’s become one of my favorite songs and records, but it took so long for me to come around on it. I’m so glad we have all those funky, metallic, kind of gross things to rough up how bright it is. There’s this cool artistic element of that production where the song itself is about two kinds of discomfort at once.

I’m uncomfortable in this relationship at face value, this guy’s got to go (laughs)… but I’m also with all my girls and I’m uncomfortable there too, and they’re all kind of participating in this marriage plot that I actually don’t know if I want. I’m not having a good time, so I have to leave both of these things and then where do I go? Is there a space for the rest of us? I think having a little bit of beef between these two discomfort production styles too and putting them in the same song is so cool to hear back.

ATC: Talking about that, the message of the song deals with the complex feelings surrounding weddings and marriage. Do you feel that the tide is turning when it comes to the expectations that people have where it’s like, “Oh, you have got to get married”? I’m Gen Z and I feel like a lot of my generation does not want to get married.

LOZINSKI: That makes me happy. Yeah, maybe Gen Z will save us all. When I talk to really old ladies, it seems like it’s worlds better but it’s still hard. Even when I was in my early 20s, it seemed like that was the case. People do just pair up and you don’t hear from them anymore. You feel like you’re outside of. It starts to be four people hanging out and it’s just two couples over and over again. I don’t know the answers either because I’m currently in this like, “I don’t know how anything’s gonna work out. Do people just drop off and have babies and move out of the city? Do you just meet new friends who aren’t in it and it stays fun?” That’s a fun thing to have some new mysteries each decade too.

ATC: I don’t hear anyone saying they want to get married, but then suddenly you also see them in a long term relationship and they are getting married, and it’s like, “Where did this come from?”

LOZINSKI: Which is beautiful! At the end of the day, I think I want that evezn though I don’t want it to be this pressure. I don’t want to watch my friends do that either where it’s like, “That’s kind of what you do,” but at the same time it’s this beautiful, lovely thing. [“New BF”] is dealing with that, “I sort of agree and if I agree, then I should get out of my relationship. Start over and find the right one.”

ATC: Your single “Plan A” paints such a vivid picture and like a sentiment that a lot of people will relate to. Do you find it difficult to be vulnerable in your music?

LOZINSKI: No(laughs). I wish it were a little more difficult, because then I have to go sing them in public and I’m like, “What have I done?” I think it’s the place to be most vulnerable. I don’t journal or anything, anytime I’m a little overwhelmed, that’s where all this stuff goes. No, it just comes flowing out. I like that in real life too.

I was emailing with a new friend recently and he mentioned he had some changes in his life, I was like, “Well, I totally don’t need to know anything about that, that’s a professional relationship, but also if you want to share, I’m totally down to read it.” Life is interesting. Anyway, we went back and forth for a while. We both found ourselves opening up, and neither of us had meant to. We don’t really know each other, but I’m constantly reminded that being honest and vulnerable is the way. I don’t know why we’re not 100% of the time. It’s the stuff of life.

ATC: Your other single, “Thirst Trap for Diego,” I love the lyric, “You need some meaning of your own, babe, not just a thirst trap.” I feel like it mirrors today’s society with a lot of casualness and commitment phobia.

LOZINSKI: Back to what you were saying earlier too, I think dating takes up so much of people’s if not time, then brain time. It feels like this thing that you’re like, “Well, that’s the problem.” Or that’s what I’ll fix, or that’s what’s not going well. Then you’re in a relationship, and you’re like, “Okay, no, that wasn’t the front.” You have to figure something else out that you want to do with your life. It’s about that too. With or without love, you can’t make that the thing you’re seeking all the time because even if you get it, it’s like, then what? Find something you want to do.

ATC: Who are your biggest musical inspirations?

LOZINSKI: I never have a good answer for it and I should make one. I think it’s complicated where you’re probably influenced by everything you’ve ever heard. Realistically, there’s so much stuff coming in that I don’t know who I’m not influenced by. You want to honor all of the stuff you take in all the time, and at the same time, you don’t want to sound like any of them… or I don’t. I want to go into a closet and feel and see what happens. If I get distracted or overwhelmed in there, go take a walk and look at the trees and look at the sky.

Making this record, I tried not to listen to anybody at all. I stopped listening to music for a year. (Laughs) My Spotify wrapped is like, “Nothing. You listened to nothing.” I don’t want to sound like anything else. That said, some of my favorite artists are, just off the top of my head, Sharon Van Etten, The New Pornographers, Yo La Tengo, Outkast, Britney Spears. Anything I’ve ever liked is probably in there a little bit.

ATC: I love that though, it makes for such unique music when you can’t really pinpoint influence.

LOZINSKI: It’s the best. It’s like with people, where is this personality coming from? What have you been through?

ATC: How would you describe your upcoming album Burnout/Boys?

LOZINSKI: I’m so excited about it. Musically, it’s everything I’ve always wanted to make. I’m so happy with it. It’s got a lot of cool, pleasant, lovely sounds. Sonically, I’m really proud of it and excited about it. There’s some songs that are wet and dark and swimmy, and some songs that feel like night driving synthy. Some that feel like we’re rocking out and then some that are a break from that. We didn’t record “Gilroy” in the same style, same room as everything else, same with “Killer.” They’re dry and really honest and acoustic. It’s a good variety of stuff. Someone called it disco-folk, and I was like, “Okay, I guess it’s disco folk.” There’s horns and a lot of bass and synth, and it feels wiggly and exciting, not just singer-songwriter folk music but the songs are still folky pop.

Thematically, the title is a summary of what it’s about. Every song is about burnout at work or burnout in relationships, this era of marriage and boyfriends and trying to figure it all out. You got the job you wanted, what now? What do you do? Being tired and realizing all the tracks that you’ve sought out and got on aren’t really going toward what you want and what do you do about that? You spend a decade building, and then you’re like, this isn’t really what I wanted to build anyway and starting over.

ATC: I feel like that’s very much an experience a lot of people go through, but not a lot of people talk about. When it happens to you it’s like, “I’m the first person to ever experience this.” It’s great that you have an album that is thematically based around that because it will help a lot of people.

LOZINSKI: That’s so sweet. That’s exactly what you want to hear as someone who decides to make that.

ATC: What did making this album mean to you?

LOZINSKI: So much. It feels like I was doing experiments before, like, “Oh, here’s a song I wrote. How does this feel?” Or working with different people here and there. My whole life I’ve been like, “I want to make music that I really like. Then I can die happy.” This is the first one where I’m like, “Yes, I can die happy.” I made music I really like and accomplished the goal. It’s taken so long too. After the first session, I was like, “If we ever finish this album, I’m gonna get the biggest cake. We’re gonna have such a party.” Then a year later, I’m like, “If we ever finish mixing this album (laughs).”

It takes so long, it takes so much out of you. It feels like giving birth. I don’t know what that feels like, I’m sure that’s much more painful, but it is a painful process releasing music as well. It means a lot. It feels like this time capsule of formative years; it has a lot in there that I’m ready to release and embrace some new life afterwards. Also, it’s just really cool to work with so many people I really admire. Everyone in the band is someone I look up to in some way and wished that I could find people like this to play with. It changed my life, working on this with these people, and having Phil take a chance on working with me. I was just some random person from the internet being like, “Can we please make a record together?”

ATC: What are your plans for this upcoming year?

LOZINSKI: More music. Get the record out. Play the record as much as I can. Starting small, I have two shows booked, one in LA, one in New York. I want to go play the songs but I write music every day too. There’s always a lot of bots boiling, some different projects that I’m excited to pick back up. There will be more releases soon but can’t tell you when yet.

ATC: Who would you recommend your music to?

LOZINSKI: That’s a fun question. It sounds like it’s resonating with you, so I don’t know how you would describe yourself. I wish I had this as well when I was like, “Am I the only living girl who’s experiencing this, if you do everything right and you try really hard, it doesn’t necessarily get you where you’re trying to go.” Young people or older people have gone through this, and they’re also reinventing their lives over and over. People get divorced and start over. Anyone who’s going through a transition and thinking, “How am I ever gonna do this?” And then you just do and it’s fine.