Judah and the Lion talk Nashville roots and new, psych-centered album 'The Process'

It's a coincidence that bandmates Judah Akers and Brian Macdonald of Judah and the Lion were both raised by therapist mothers. But now, for their fifth studio album, they're leaning into their roots and bringing psychology and music together.

"The Process," due out May 10, captures the five stages of grief in song.

Judah and the Lion, a Nashville-based folk-alternative band, is best known for songs "Take It All Back 2.0" and "Suit and a Jacket." "The Process" follows their 2022 album "Revival" and 2019's "Pep Talks."

Macdonald and Akers sat down with The Tennessean in Akers' East Nashville home, reminiscing about the band's origins over the kitchen table and sharing about the process of crafting "The Process."

Judah and the Lion on the band's origins

Akers, the lead vocalist, and Macdonald, a mandolinist, first met at Belmont University in Nashville in December 2011. After playing some songs together at the Belmont Bell Tower with drummer Nate Zuercher — who exited the band in 2021 — the rest was history.

Akers, 33, and Macdonald, 31, seemed like brothers as they described their origin story as starving artists, hungry to make it as professional musicians.

"We were splitting a room, sharing rent and a bed, and making peanut butter Nutella tortillas for lunch," Macdonald said.

"Ramen," Akers chimed in.

"I remember you used to make egg mayonnaise sandwiches," Macdonald laughed.

In 2013, touring picked up. The band was opening for Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors and dropped their debut album, "Kids These Days," in 2014.

Since then, they've made appearances at Bonnaroo, Firefly and Music Midtown; opened for Twenty One Pilots, Incubus and Jimmy Eat World; and released five albums and dropped tracks with Kacey Musgraves and Jon Bellion.

Judah and the Lion has become one of Nashville's indie-alt staples.

Working through trauma

"So this kind of started last May," Akers said about crafting the new album. "I was going through the biggest lows of my life with a divorce and a couple of tragic deaths in my family. Just the pandemic, being in the middle of that was already just such a stressful time."

Akers said he wasn't ready to write music about the lows he was experiencing, but he remembered an idea he had while writing their record "Revival." He wanted to attempt to capture the five stages of grief in song.

Akers thought that instead of writing deeply personal songs about painful times, he could write about working through those times instead. So Macdonald and Akers set out to write a psychologically informed album about working through trauma.

Their plan was to write a few songs per each stage of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

"It was so fun to write it that way because now, you know, two or three years past the peak of that hard time, (I) was writing it from a little bit healthier spot," Akers added.

"(I was able) to write it from this space of forgiveness and empathy versus just anger and raw sadness. It's been such a fun process, no pun intended, to write 'The Process.'"

Macdonald said his approach to the writing process was different.

"I think for this story, I was the friend that was trying to be supportive and walking through that journey with Judah," he said.

He had watched the grief process from a different perspective and was able to factor that into the writing. In fact, Macdonald even wrote a full song from the perspective of a friend who is watching their friend grieve.

The song will be released on the deluxe edition, featuring Macdonald on lead vocals for the first time in the band's history.

'The Process' consulted psychology experts

The five stages of grief is a patient-focused, death-adjustment pattern that Swiss-American psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross coined in 1969. While Macdonald and Akers aren't psychology academics, it turns out they had a couple of tricks up their sleeve to make sure their music was as accurate to the science as possible.

Akers' aunt is a professor at Tennessee Tech in the psychology department, he said.

"I would send her songs and be like, 'Does this feel more like depression or bargaining? To me, it was like depression.' And she would come back and be like, 'No, this, this is clearly you bargaining.'"

Akers would bounce ideas off of his own therapist as well. Akers and Macdonald, too, would consult their therapist mothers in the writing process. In total, the band consulted at least four psychology professionals in the crafting of the album.

"We definitely feel more acquainted with the process of grief and what the science is behind it," Macdonald said. "But also, this is just our experience, and we're not experts. It's just our interpretation of it."

The album is structured so that each stage of grief gets its own shortened song, sometimes instrumental or overlaid with commentary. In between each stage are a handful of songs in each category.

Runaways from the album include "Son of a Gun," featuring K. Flay, a pulsing track with heavy percussive elements and appropriately angry lyrics — yes, it appears in the anger stage of grief.

The lyrics go: "Misfit songs in a beat up truck / I got 24 ways of not giving a single / Just got to take it and run / The bad guys win and the good die young / I got 24 ways of making my own luck."

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"Self-Inflicted Wounds" from the depression stage is one of the album's most vulnerable tracks. With a palpable sorrow, Akers sings: "And it was easy for me to blame it all on you / Never looking in the mirror cause I couldn't take the truth / If hurt people hurt people I didn't mean to."

"Leave It Better than You Found It," featuring Nashville artist Ruston Kelly, comes in the acceptance stage. The song dropped as a single in December.

They sing: "And I guess that I hope, when it's my time to go / That they say I was alive, and I tried to be kind / And at times at bars with karaoke, I fully ascend / That I left this place better, than I found it."

The 19-track album brings listeners through a personal, yet universal, metamorphosis.

"I pray that it can be healing for people, too, that are walking through life with unprocessed grief," Akers said.

The sound features synths, catchy mandolin licks and powerful vocals that act as a vector for "The Process," a through-between that elevates it beyond a typical indie-alternative pop album.

To learn more about Judah and the Lion and their new album, head to judahandthelion.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville's Judah and the Lion to release new album 'The Process'