Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
The five stages of grief are a framework that helps people identify and understand their feelings as they learn to live with loss. It’s also the framework for Judah and the Lion’s latest album, The Process.
Frontman Judah Akers is well-acquainted with the five stages of grief at this point in his life. Over the last two years, he’s been on a healing journey while processing the grief of a painful divorce. Initially, he tried to keep everything in, hoping to work through the loss of his marriage without relying too much on others or letting them see how he was truly feeling inside.
That plan quickly fell apart.
“During the weight of it all, I was desperate to fix myself, trying everything, but nothing worked until I surrendered,” Akers said.
It took time — and there’s still a ways to go, Akers admits — but he’s learning how to let go of grief and surrender all his emotions. He’s also learning how to forgive and empathize in a deeper way, and he’s doing it the best way he knows how: by making a record.
Akers and bandmate Brian Macdonald sat down to write a project based on a powerful concept: the Kübler-Ross model. The completed album contains songs about all five stages of grief, with the hope that wherever a listener finds themselves on their grief journey, they’ll have a soundtrack for their emotions.
“We wanted the undercurrent of this record to be hope,” Akers said. “We want to remind people you’re not stuck. You’re moving towards something. So just be gentle with yourself.”
Akers is telling himself that message as much as he’s telling his fans. Throughout the creation of The Process, Akers was battling self-worth and self-confidence, struggling with how to forgive himself for the past and embrace the future with hope. He poured his struggle into his music, giving fans a glimpse of how processing one’s emotions is rarely easy.
“I want people to remember that healing isn’t linear,” Akers said. “I still have to wake up every day and work through my emotions. But that work is important, and I can’t give up.”
Given its message, is the process is your most personal album?
Yeah, it is. We’ve always been a band that writes about what’s going on in our lives. It’s fun looking back at our catalog and seeing these little time capsules for us. Pep Talks was personal because it was intertwined with my mental health and my parents’ divorce. But this one is directly tied to me, my struggles and issues.
Going through a divorce is automatically pretty personal. I fought even writing about my divorce for a while because I didn’t want to be exposed in that way. Divorce feels like a massive defeat, a massive cut to the ego. You have to acknowledge personal things that have gone on, my own weaknesses, and admit to those. So it’s definitely the most personal as far as my story goes.
And this record, since it’s so personal, comes with all the emotions. I always tell Brian, my bandmate, there are three parts to the record. If you’re writing from authenticity, when you’re writing it, it’s healing. Then it comes out, and there are all these emotions attached because you feel like you’re allowing people in on your inner journal. Then there’s the healing part of doing the songs live, where all those emotions are kind of wrapped in.
I’m very proud of this record. We think it’s going to help people.
Did you write this album during the process of going through your divorce or after?
There were two phases. As I was going through it, we were writing our last record, Revival. A lot of that was about learning how to let go, finding a sense of self-worth and awakening myself by active surrender. Then this one, I got through a really bad anger phase. It was poignant for me because I didn’t grow up in a house where, as a dude, you were allowed to be angry.
I was allowed to have tears, and I have amazing parents — but being a Southern boy who grew up a jock, you were just told to “rub some dirt on it” and move on. I think I had anger issues as a child, like punching the locker room wall. Luckily, I never took it out on anyone but myself.
During this season, there was a lot for me to be validly angry about. I had chronic back pain because of the anger, and it negatively affected my health. There were a few months of writing the angriest songs in the world, thinking I could never release these songs, but it helped.
My anger was misdirected at my friends or other relationships, but it healed my back pain once I allowed myself to get out that rage. Violent anger is toxic and terrible, but holding onto anger is also terrible. For me, anger was rooted in unforgiveness. Once I forgave myself, the anger became more about justice. Letting that go allowed true acceptance and forgiveness to settle in.
Then Brian and I talked about writing this record from the position of empathy and forgiveness towards myself, my ex and other relationships. We decided to follow the Kübler-Ross stages of grief.
A lot of these ideas were during the divorce, but it was after I had come to a space in my heart where I could hold forgiveness and empathy. Writing it a few years after the fact, I could look back clearly and see when I was in complete denial. It was really healing to go back and see how I was holding onto this anger.
Of all things, why make an album following the five stages of grief?
Both Brian’s mom and my mom are in the counseling field, so we’ve always had the language of therapy and no stigma around it. The Kübler-Ross stages of grief were always enticing to us in processing grief.
After coming out of anger, we thought it would be fun to write a few songs for each stage. We’re not professionals in this at all, just writing our story. But we had experts in our family to lean on for accuracy. It was educational for us as well.
What are some of the things you learned?
Bargaining was the main thing. Denial is pretty obvious; it’s your body protecting itself from taking on all the emotions at once. Anger is also obvious; it’s a false sense of control. But bargaining was like a personal inventory and wrestling with God.
It’s a crucial stage because it helps you move from denial to acceptance.
Depression, the next stage, is what it sounds like—realizing that it is what it is and that it sucks. It’s a deep forgiveness of yourself. I was stuck in depression for a while, suffering and not knowing how to tell anyone. Acceptance isn’t perfect; it’s learning to hold space for all the emotions and move forward.
As you were writing songs for each stage, did some come easier than others?
Bargaining was the hardest one. Writing about depression was also tough because it brought back those emotions. Anger songs like “Floating in the Night” were hard, too, because I’d get angry during the vocal takes. But acceptance songs were fun to write. We wanted to make sure each stage got its weight and gold. We only had one song on denial and one on bargaining but had three or four on anger, depression, and acceptance. It was a fun puzzle piece for Brian and me.
What do you hope people take away when they listen to this album?
It’s in the first song: healing isn’t linear. I was looking for a step-by-step program to heal my broken heart, but it doesn’t exist. Even the Kübler-Ross stages educate you on where you may be in the journey, but that’s not the point.
The point is that you’re worthy of love. Heartbreak or deep loss hurts, and there are many unhealthy ways to cope. We hope the process finds someone where they’re at and helps them feel less alone. During the weight of it all, I was desperate to fix myself, trying everything, but nothing worked until I surrendered.
We’re still in the process. Acceptance isn’t being a perfect human; it’s learning to hold space for all emotions and move forward. We want the record to feel like a warm hug and remind people to be gentle with themselves.
