Banks is back and she wants to be misunderstood. The Californian singer, songwriter and producer, Jillians Banks who goes by Banks, is liberated, with a new found freedom and has fallen back in love with the simplicity of writing and creating music. Banks’ fourth studio album Serpentina arrives today and it’s her strongest body of work to date. It’s anthemic and cinematic. It’s tough and wildly empowering, and flows into a gentle fragility on other tracks, that softness she has always mastered expertly infused. We spoke to the artist in Los Angeles about her rise from rock bottom to happiness and ultimate independence.

Serpentina opens with the epic, exhilarating Misunderstood. “You don’t have to understand, please let me be misunderstood,” she chants on the song. The journey to get to this point of liberation has evolved over the last few years. “At the beginning of 2020 when everything shut down, I physically and mentally hit a really rough place,” she says. “I had burnt myself out beyond what I had ever experienced before. In order to pick myself up I hit rock bottom and had to work through a lot of things. I fractured my spine, I was sick on and off antibiotics and steroids in order to perform. I had been pushing myself past what is healthy. Confronting why I did that, I ended up falling into music, the way I always have in my life since I discovered it. Misunderstood is so special to me, it’s such an empowering sentiment. Not only is this album starting off with something that says ‘this is me, this is where I’m at and I don’t really care if you understand,’ but it’s saying in fact please misunderstand. It doesn’t bother me either way.”

The album is a celebration of the artist’s evolution of self-love. “I learned how strong I am. I worked through my own demons - I’m not saying I’ve worked through everything, obviously - but a lot of the things that were really painful for me were my own demons. You know when you first see something clearly? It feels like you’re walking on air in that moment. It’s not as hard as I’ve been making it out to be. It feels manically happy in that moment. I was able to document that and I feel grateful for the time I had on my own away from the business, away from anybody…  I learned how independent I am. I’ve never felt so independent in my life, learning how to use Ableton and co-producing the whole album. I just feel good. I’ve learned I’m more loveable than I thought I was.” 

Learning the intricacies of digital audio production software Ableton has been the most empowering experience for her, unlocking a new level of creativity and rekindling that childlike excitement of making music. “I just set up the studio at my house and teaching myself Ableton was so fun. It reminded me of when I taught myself how to play the piano and that’s generally how I write all my songs so it reminded me of that discovery of something you love when you’re such a beginner and you’re obsessed. With quarantine, it felt like time didn’t exist, every day blurred into the next. I would get inspired at 7am and work until 2pm. Or I would get inspired at 11pm and work until 4am. I was just in my own little weird world.” It’s an industry that is heavily male-dominated - recent research finds that women represented less than 3% of producers that have charted between the years 2012 and 2020. “I’ve executive produced every album I’ve ever done,” she says. “I’m always really hands on. After I learned Ableton I was like, why haven’t I learned sooner? I don’t know whether it’s this subconscious acceptance that we [women] aren’t looked at like we can, so we don’t, or that we think it’s not our job. But I feel so good being able to not need anybody. It also made me realise that it really was me all along. Deep down you think maybe you need another person, but the guts of my music has always been me…. It felt so empowering, taking that step and realising I can do this.” Working solely with producer Henry Laufer who goes by Shlohmo (and produced the Banks classic track Brain) instilled a fire in her. “It felt like when you’re making art just to make art when you’re young. I rote and worked on the songs in Ableton and brought the demo into Henry and we would go in on it together. It felt like this beautiful cheerleader I had. Having some I respect so much encouraging me when I’m learning something new really helped.”

Serpentina is about flowing freely. It’s best felt in the transition from the resilient, badass Fuck Love into the poignant, heartbreaking Deadend. “It’s so important to just feel it. I’ve been working with this woman named Alison who is like my soulmate, my second mother. She is such a blessing in my life. She worked with me on yoga and TRE, a trauma release therapy. A lot of what we worked on was just feeling the uncomfortable feelings. When you actually allow yourself to feel them, they go away sooner. I think feeling that Fuck Love energy is so fun to dive into but when you’re feeling the Deadend energy it is about wallowing in your own emotions. It can be really helpful. It’s strangely more stable.” The album ebbs and flows into every corner of Banks’ brilliant mind, and fittingly ends on I Still Love You, a song she wrote 13 years ago, one she has been fiercely protective of. “I wrote it so long ago, before anything with my career happened. It’s always been one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written. It felt so personal to me but I’ve been working on merging my two worlds. It was hard for me to adjust when my music first blew up. It’s a strange thing when people know you when you don’t know them. Part of me was so anally private about my personal life and it ended up making me feel disjointed. It was really healthy for me to realise that Banks and Jillian are the same person. It felt freeing. That comes with self-acceptance. Accepting myself more made me feel safer to be myself. It is interesting then that I suddenly felt like I wanted to share I Still Love you… I just feel like a snake now. I can flow, like Serpentina.”

There’s a newfound warmth in the songs, inspired by gospel melodies that were instrumental to creating this album. “There’s a brightness to this album that I haven’t had in my music before… It just feels more guttural and more soulful than I have melodically gone before.” It’s a clear sign of where Banks is at right now - she says she simply “feels good”. That pure happiness is felt when she talks about her live shows and the excitement she’s feeling about performing new music. It’s also evident when she talks about her relationship, the first she has publicly shared, in which she feels the most independent she’s ever felt. “I think when you don’t feel independent you look for things to make you feel safer. Those things are usually not what you need in a relationship and you search for someone to make you feel worthy or whole. When you fully feel independent is when you meet somebody you just love and want to be with, rather than feel that they fill something.” Her greatest strength is empathy, which she talks about when we discuss the atrocities going on in the world right now. “I hope people can feel each other and be more empathetic toward each other. I think the world would be better if that was the case.”

In The Devil, the song that boldly marked this new era, Banks chants ‘someone write my new name down’. This new Banks is “present. Excited. Free and inspired”. There’s a thrilling energy felt throughout Serpentina. An empowering adrenaline that makes the listener feel unstoppable. It is Banks in her element, in charge, letting go and flying at super speed.

Listen to Serpentina HERE and listen to the exclusive influences behind the album HERE.

@hernameisbanks