Chase Sullivan Talks The Garden, “Bunny” and Writing Songs That Reveal Themselves

Chase tends to see a song before he fully understands it.

A hand caught in focus. Someone bleeding in water surrounded by sharks. A final image that sticks around long enough to become a lyric.

“I am usually attracted to songs from a visual place first,” Chase tells Everyday Jams. “That image of the hand in focus instead was strong enough to get me started.”

That instinct runs throughout The Garden, his upcoming EP and a project built around memory, reflection and the strange distance that comes with finally being able to look at something clearly. Across the record, Chase’s writing stays detailed without feeling overexplained, with production that moves between intimate songwriting and something increasingly atmospheric.

Starting With “Bunny”

“Bunny,” the first single from The Garden, felt like the right introduction because it represented a shift for Chase in more ways than one.

“I wanted to show a different side of my sound from what I’ve done in the past,” he says. “This song felt like growth to me sonically and personally.”

The song began with a verse and chorus Chase had written before bringing it to collaborators at the Los Angeles Academy of Artists and Music Production. He originally approached it as a challenge to himself: write a love song without letting it become too sweet.

As the writing continued, though, the perspective started changing.

“I realized that I related heavily to the ‘you’ in the song, which actually helped with the process,” he explains.

That kind of self-recognition appears throughout Chase’s writing. Songs do not always begin with a neatly packaged meaning. Sometimes the meaning arrives later.

“When I write for myself I’m staring at my reflection in the mirror,” he says. “Unless I have a clear concept for a song to start, I have no idea what the song is about, but eventually the song will reveal itself.”

Letting “For Sharks” Get Bigger

If “Bunny” opens the door into The Garden, “For Sharks” shows how far Chase is willing to push the sound once he gets inside.

The track originally existed as something much smaller. Chase left it alone for months, but the song refused to disappear.

“I couldn’t get it out of my head,” he says. “I think taking it from a simple acoustic song into something more allowed me to expand it.”

Producer Jasper Hoegh-Goldberg helped reshape the track, with Parker adding to its atmosphere. What had once ended before the drop suddenly opened into another section, and Chase wrote an entirely new verse nearly two years after the original.

The song is also one of the clearest examples of how visual his writing can be.

“It’s a very melodramatic thing to say: some people would rather stay bleeding with sharks than keep swimming with you,” he says. “I’m a very visual person, having a film background, so when a song provokes such a strong one I tend to see the song as a movie.”

That expansion into something more experimental is not accidental either. Chase says “For Sharks” points toward the direction his music is continuing to move.

A Bookstore Employee With a Sword

Chase describes lyricism as the center of what he does.

He was named Songwriter of the Year at LAAMP, recognition that gave him confidence but also raised the standard he holds himself to.

“My songwriting ability completely skyrocketed in nine months and I hope to keep honing my craft and my career,” he says.

One of his friends once described his sound as “a bookstore employee with a sword,” which might be one of the better artist descriptions we have heard in a while.

It fits.

There is something literary about the way Chase approaches a lyric, but there is almost always an edge underneath it. He cares about writing that feels unmistakably human and intentional.

“I really care about the craft of songwriting,” he says. “A real writer’s voice is so important to me lyrically. I hope that comes across in my songs.”

Even knowing when a lyric is finished comes down to instinct.

“If I try to rewrite it and nothing else works, even if it is a boring line, it reveals itself as the right one.”

The World of The Garden

Across The Garden, several songs trace different points within the same emotional history.

“Bunny,” “For Sharks” and the title track each capture Chase in a different mindset, with “The Garden” serving as the ending he knew the project needed from the beginning.

“To me it sums up the themes of all the songs on the EP, since it follows the stages of loss before a final acceptance with the line, ‘I’ve seen you now, I can look away.’”

Chase describes the emotional space of the project as an open one. Not necessarily comfortable, but honest.

That feels like the best way into the record. The Garden does not try to make every feeling pretty before putting it into a song. Instead, it lets the memories stay complicated while Chase works out what they mean.

And he is already thinking about what comes after.

His next music leans further into genre blending and experimentation, with more indie and alternative influences and a little more movement behind the production.

“My next stuff I’m super excited about,” Chase says. “A lot more upbeat songs, but still with the same attention to detail.”

That attention to detail is ultimately what makes Chase an artist worth keeping close. Whether he is building a song around a single image or allowing one to reveal itself over the course of years, there is intention behind what he puts out.

Stream “Bunny”‍ , and listen to The Garden out now.

Photography: Hannah Baynes