I feel like hyperpop comes with so many attachments to it. There's definitely a certain image. Did you ever feel the need to be pushed into that certain aesthetic visually?
I don't really think that certain aesthetic fits me, you know? There are people who push it on, don't get me wrong. But when it comes down to my whole thing is just the entirety of being yourself. Just being your absolute self and you know, me and my roommates and the people I make music are into our own things, and we have our own little aesthetic and the way that we look and hopefully that could be assigned to something that we do.
Going back from your last project to your newest, single, what do you think is the biggest growth you've seen within yourself?
I think I have learned to appreciate a lot of the things that are in front of me and be able to really mature through what I was making. I feel like when I was making my first project that everybody really listened to, it was an immature version of myself, I had a different outlook on the world. And now with this project, it is a more understanding, not a hundred percent mature, but definitely a more understanding and more vetted version of myself. It's stuff that I created with my like family, like the people that were around me and the people that helped me make music. This is our baby, this whole entire thing that we have right now. I think it was just a large jump of just creativity through maturity, growing and figuring out what life is about.
Can you paint the sonic landscape of your new track?
If I could paint you a beautiful picture of this album, I would say, imagine what audibly it would sound like of five boys just getting after what they always really wanted, and had an experience like no other for a year and a half. All of these songs are literally just packed into a .wav file of experiences of that bit. It could be us in LA, us in the mountains in Colorado, a random Airbnb, or a random studio somewhere. It could be something that I wrote after going to a party and meeting a person that I've always wanted to meet. After a cool dinner, after heartache, after an issue, after a victory, after a loss. It was all trial and error and all of the smile and frown moments a year and a half-packed into like 14 songs.
For the video, the concept behind it seems very dark and a visualizer for what would go on in someone's brain if they were living inside of a video game. Can you talk about the intention behind that?
Behind the song, it's basically the journey of becoming a— I don't wanna say the word commodity, or I don't wanna say that I'm being exploited because that's a hundred percent not the case. But when it comes down to, you know, the way that things are looked at, it's a commercialization of a hobby. I love Interscope Records, they did something amazing for me and it was an absolute blessing. So they became my lifeline. It was very difficult for me and my roommate at the time, before we signed, to like pay bills, I went hungry various nights. It was a tough situation that I was in and I felt like my label was a lifeline and unfortunately, it can become a commercialization of yourself.
I'm painting the picture of basically somebody who has given up something, but for a greater cause. And what that represents inside of the video is that this like fallacy, which is the video game, this fake world that is being built around a real situation is showing you that it's all a game of cat and mouse. You're constantly running, constantly chasing, and trying to succeed. But you know, some shit can get in the way of making it a game over, unfortunately.
How do you find a way to balance that all and put boundaries between yourself and kind of the success that helps you, but also can harm you in a way
I think off of your question, what can help is trying to be as self-aware as possible, this is a very depersonalizing job. And it's very easy to disconnect from your own body because of the things that you do or the people that you meet or the situations that you're put in. So I would say it's a lot of self-awareness. It's a lot of grounding yourself. It's a lot of finding the common ground and not sticking on a black or white and being in the gray area as much as you can.
What is something that you're most looking forward to? I know you're going on tour.
Oh my Lord. That, the festivals, being able to see my fans' faces in real life again. This is my first headline tour, so, I've never had a situation where people have just come for me and I'm excited. And then the album, of course, for everybody to hear our child.
This is your world, this is your utopia. You make the rules. What does it look like? What's going on there?
In my utopia, the sky is absolutely like the pink sky all the time. Like, you know, when like the sun is going down sometimes and it's like orange and pink. It's always golden hour. I think the only music that's allowed to be played is like all like old eighties 80s like pop, Teena Marie era. Mm-hmm She's the only person that's played. Every human right that we think is a human, but the U.S Is like, "Nah, that ain't no human right" is a human right. In my utopia, everybody got a free crib. Everybody has free food. Like we're living in a sharing, harmonious, type of vibe in my utopia.