KAMRAN FEIZ | INTERVIEW + TRACK REVIEW
- May 16
- 4 min read
There’s a certain kind of honesty that only appears when an artist strips everything back to the core of the song itself. For Los Angeles artist Kamran Feiz, Strings Live marks a bold departure from the safety of distortion, volume and traditional rock arrangements, replacing them with something far more exposed: orchestral space, silence, tension and emotion. Centered around the powerful track City of Stone, the project feels cinematic without losing its humanity, balancing longing, beauty and heaviness in a way that reflects both the chaos of modern life and the deep desire to escape it. In this conversation with Lucid News, Kamran opens up about authenticity in Los Angeles, performing versus truly letting go, the emotional weight of writing for strings, and why sometimes the loudest statements are made in the quietest moments. This is a paid collaboration with Kamran Feiz.
TRACK REVIEW - CITY OF STONE
There’s not many moments while listening to new music where a song genuinely pulls you completely into its emotional world, but City of Stone does exactly that. Kamran Feiz creates something deeply immersive here, a track that feels less like a performance and more like an internal conversation unfolding in real time. Beneath the cinematic beauty of the arrangement is a very human longing: the desire to escape the noise, pressure and artificial weight of modern city life in search of something simpler, quieter and more real. You don’t just hear that feeling throughout the track, you genuinely feel it sitting underneath every note.
The acoustic guitar work paired with the swelling strings creates this unpredictable yet beautifully controlled emotional movement that constantly keeps the listener leaning forward. There’s a folk-rock warmth to the song, but also something grander and more orchestral quietly unfolding around it. Kamran never overplays the emotion either, which is exactly why it lands so powerfully. City of Stone feels like the sound of someone searching for humanity inside a world that increasingly feels manufactured, and in doing so, he’s created one of the most emotionally resonant releases we’ve heard in quite some time.
There’s something cinematic about City of Stone. When you were writing it, did the song begin as an emotion, a visual place, or a story you were trying to escape from?
To me, "City of Stone" is a song about escape, a longing for a world unbothered by the constantly evolving tech industry. A deep need for a rudimentary place of stone. It's a song of escape.
You’ve been performing on LA stages since grade school. Do you think growing up around a city built on image and ambition changed the way you understand performance itself?
Growing up here made me aware of what's fake. You see so much performance in people's daily lives that you start to crave something more authentic. I think LA actually pushed me toward letting go on the stage rather than putting on an act, almost as a reaction. The moments people often resonate with onstage are the ones where the act of “performing” stops.
Strings Live feels like a huge shift creatively. What did writing for a string quartet allow you to express that a traditional rock setup couldn’t?
It put a lot more pressure on my ideas and delivery. When you can't hide behind a wall of sound that you get from a typical rock band, you have to make sure what you're exposing is solid material that will still resonate with people.
A lot of artists strip songs back acoustically to make them feel more vulnerable. Your approach almost does the opposite, expanding them orchestrally. Did that make the emotions feel bigger or more exposed?
Honestly, the first time I played "City of Stone" with the string quartet, I realized this wasn't going to be a quiet, stripped-down arrangement. I'm not sure that was really my intent, but hearing the strings made me want to sing a little louder and give it my all, so it definitely made the emotions feel bigger for me.
There’s a tension in City of Stone between beauty and heaviness. Do you think cities like Los Angeles naturally create that contradiction in people?
I think cities create that tension for sure, but on a larger scale, the heaviness we're all feeling right now is immense. And I think "City of Stone" is ultimately a song about still finding beauty in this world, in what's real, what's human, what can't be manufactured.
You’ve spent years in rock bands where energy is immediate and physical. Did composing for strings force you to become more patient with silence, space, and restraint?
My natural tendencies are to be more generous with silence and space, but in a band you're only responsible for a quarter of the sound. It was refreshing to fully take the reins and let there be silence and space.
String arrangements can either feel timeless or overly dramatic. How did you stop Strings Live from becoming theatrical instead of emotionally honest?
This was my first time doing this, so honestly I was just arranging via my musical influences. I'm sure some will think it sounds theatrical and some won't. I guess only time will tell.
After spending so much of your life performing live, do you still see the stage as a place to escape reality, or has it become the place where you confront it most directly?
A little bit of both. The act of letting go through pure musical performance, but I confront life with the messaging.
If someone hears City of Stone without knowing anything about your history in rock music, what do you hope they understand first, the composer, the performer, or the person underneath both?
I just hope they enjoy the song and that it resonates with them in some way. So it's ultimately the person underneath both, because this project is my thoughts fully exposed.
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