Isaac Dunbar Takes Our Pop Quiz
office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
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office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
Continue reading below for insight into the artist’s views and how her latest EP came to be.
How are you today? What's your headspace like?
My headspace right now is making my album. I'm excited to leave New York. That's where I'm at right now. I saw Rosalia yesterday and that was super inspiring to me. You're witnessing something that feels like a story. You know what I mean? It feels like you're reading a book and the different phases of a person's life. And I felt all different emotions. I was thrown from being happy to being sad to weeping, to crying, to jumping.
I feel like those emotions especially come out more when you're an artist yourself, and you can appreciate what they're doing.
I think as an artist, maybe you have a different outlook on it. I was looking at the people, I was looking at how people were reacting. I mean, I'm just also really emotional, so I was crying a lot. And I really love her. But I also think that people who don't necessarily make art are able to connect. I think that's the beauty with music is that I genuinely think that everyone has their own unique kind of musicality that maybe is unexplored and everyone can connect to it. You know what I mean? It's vibrational. It's literally math, we can't escape from it. It affects us. I think having a background in music tech has really allowed me to understand music beyond my emotions about it. And I think that it's allowed me to understand the physical effects of it.
Let's talk about your EP that you just released. I was listening to it and it has this haunting sort of otherworldly sound to it. Talk to us about the inspiration behind it and how the songs came to be.
I would say that instead of using the word haunting, I think the words I relate to are more ritualistic, honest, vulnerable, sincere, honest, and raw. I think that there's a lot of darkness as well as likeness and as well as magic. What I was simply doing was just exploring my experience growing up with my mother and my grandmother in Peru. Trececerotres is the name of the EP, which means 1303. I like playing with language a lot and I think that I really wanted it to be sort of like a code, almost like you couldn't really figure out if it sounds like a dinosaur. There's a lot of play with vocals, lyrics, and ways in which syllables are even conjugated I think with the intention of trying to play with language. Making sounds that are more expressive, which is something I learned from my mother and my grandmother.
How did the songs come to be?
I think it was an exploration of my experience with my mother and my grandmother and growing up with them in Peru. Going through a range of emotions and situations growing up with them changing roles. Sometimes I was the mother, sometimes I was the grandmother and sometimes my mother was the child. I think that this EP is a compilation of all of those experiences and I think the moment in which the climax happened was when my grandmother got sick, and I got to get really close to her when she had cancer. The three of us really got together and we got to know each other a lot more and I think that it was basically an outpour of my most honest emotions of dealing with hardship. Of remembering things and of being very honest with my emotions. With going back to your house, but in a way feeling the presence of death. How do you deal with that? How do you express that or express the passing of time? You can't really control the nature of nature itself, how death works.
So would you say overall, that over the five years of creating this EP, you found it to be therapeutic for you to express your emotions through your music?
Absolutely. It allowed me to express things that I think I wasn't able to express through conversations. I wasn't able to talk about this with people and so my intention behind this was like having faith that by making the songs, I would eventually connect with somebody else that might not be going through the same situation, but might be feeling the same way. You know, and in that way, we start a conversation even though we don't know each other. I think that there's a lot of magic in that.
The visuals for "No Para" and they were just really beautiful. From what I saw, how was filming the video for you?
I think that the video and the song are very different. I took a class on Paradise Lost and I remember we were talking about the devil in a compassionate way, in a very, like, human way. It wasn't actually evil, and it was just there to do its thing. You know what I mean? Like, that was its duty. I think that it inspired me to think about sort of destructive forces that try to stop you whenever you want to flourish or grow. In a way that's compassionate and I think that generally seeing things that threaten me in a compassionate way makes me feel safer. And I also think it's something that I've learned through my mental health journey, because I really care about mental health and the human brain and psychology in general. It was sort of an ode to this resistive force that I feel like wants to stop me from growing and flourishing. I think that everyone can relate to that and I gave it a compassionate voice. It wasn't really me singing, it was representing this mythological character that came in between mountains to make a wish and perform a ritual that I had performed before. We actually went in between mountains to reenact this ritual which was pretty cool. I gave a voice to this resistive force, and I made it a compassionate thing that was just there, and it couldn't help itself and it's just part of nature.
So you were born in Peru, how much does your Peruvian background play into your music?
A lot. I think it's just natural because from the parties that I go to, to the jokes that we make with my friends, to the songs that my grandmother and my mother would expose me to, to the songs that they play. For example, my mom was in a lot of bands when I was a kid and she would take me with her because I'm an only child, at least from my mom's side. She was in reggae bands, but also different forms of fusion. I would just be a kid exposed to all of this. So from my grandmother's experience and her songs that came from the highlands and my mom's experience in the jungle because they lived together, to going to parties, and listening to old school reggaeton. I think that Peruvian music for me in a way has marked me, but it's not something that I do intentionally. It's not like, "Oh, I want to make this a Peruvian song." It's just kinda like you were born around it, listening to it, from different regions and from different places, with different intentions. And I think it just comes through naturally because that's what I gravitate towards. But, I don't want to limit myself to make it all about that.
They're just making it for the love of making it.
The intention is to make something stay alive. You know what I mean? It's to tell a story. It's to continue a story that has to be told. It's more about history and it's about love and family. I think that's beautiful.
Are there any sort of specific rituals that you perform when you're writing something new? Like, how do you get into that headspace of writing?
I think that I make rituals something very personal. I think that I can create rituals by forcing myself to not use specific plugins and go through the process of making something that takes me five hours, or six hours or a week. Simply because the process makes it feel like I am more invested and I am giving more of myself. In that ritual of mine, I think that people will be able to hear it. I have this amazing mentor who is a musical electronic music pioneer from the 70s who created one of the first synthesizers ever. I mean, it's an honor I chased him. I think that something that I learned from him was that people can definitely feel it. And I think that I have my own rituals from threading voices together in a way that takes more time, but I think, captures more emotion to things that I would do with my mother and my grandmother, to simply having a moment with myself, connecting with water in my own ways, and doing things that my mother and my grandmother had done. And others that I think I'd rather just keep to myself.
I saw on your Instagram you spoke about partnering with the Rainforest Foundation and I thought that was really interesting. Can you talk to me a little bit more about this and what it means to you?
It means a lot to me, because my grandmother, grandfather, and mom grew up in the jungle. They lived there for 10 years, and they worked very closely with the Ashaninka tribe that lived in that region because they're nomadic. I was really inspired by that because there was an interchange of knowledge that came from different backgrounds. You know what I mean? Like my grandfather would help them with medicine, as much as they would help him with knowledge of something that he would have no access to in the city. I just find it a lot more inspiring to follow what they were doing. I find that a lot more inspiring and I think that it's a relationship that has just begun and it's something that I'm very excited to cultivate. I also am really excited to go and visit when the time is appropriate. I think that we will go to different regions that are in need of more help. For example, there's 70% of people that are not documented in Peru in general, but in the jungle, there's so much that's going on that needs protection, help, and awareness, and I find it very inspiring to involve myself in any way I can. I'm gonna keep exploring this and exploring how I will relate to that artistically, but it's probably what I'm most excited about actually.
I feel what I'm picking up is that there's so much to uncover, and so much to unravel. But the beauty in all of it is that you keep it close to yourself, and you share what you want to share, but there's so much more to it.
I think it's difficult to maintain a myth as an artist these days. I like fantasy and I think that in some ways, it's important to at least for me honor that. It's a difficult line between being honest and being vulnerable but still offers fantasy and magic.
I’m home and DOOM’D after the week long buzz of tour. Our bodies are recovering from the exhaustion, but Aramis and I agree the symptoms are closer to a fresh breakup. You relive how things were just a week ago, you listen to songs that remind you of them. The nostalgia is immediate and new emotions emerge as you also try to find your traction with a new routine, struggling as you relearn time alone.
Post-tour life is the hard part; your day job doesn’t wait for you to readjust to the normalcy of home-life. For Aramis, that's asking if you have a preference of tequila with your beer; LaDaniel, thatʼs cooking a steak to your liking; Eli, bicycling you to your destination with a smile; and Nathan, screening your latest shirt.
Most of your anxieties from your daily life seem to fall away while out on the road.. You race to sustenance with the five minutes and two gas stations at your disposal. You’re not wasting time looking at Yelp reviews or taking extra time to split the check evenly; it’s grab and go and don’t be the last one out. It’s not luxurious but that van-ham-egg-and-cheese hits different.
Less familiarity. When you explore something new itʼs stimulating and energizing. A city, its food, the local venue's green room amenities. You never know what to expect and the mystery keeps you curious. When you return back home, you attach memories to places, residuals of the past that come with biased feelings. Sometimes it even feels like groundhogs day.
As we take our seats on the final flight from Brick City, Bellies full of Jersey pizza, The mandatory screaming child cues up tears as soon as he notices the lack of screens on the headrest in front of him: “I AM NOT OKAY”. We all feel that way sometimes, but more than anything, it's an example of how expectations and familiarity can set you up for disappointment. We laugh under our breath in surprisingly good spirits after a Newark airport delay that kept us at our gate for five hours.
“Are you guys like a rock skate band?” Asks the crying kid's dad. He claims that he also used to skate and snowboard, all to the dismay of his wife, sitting next to Aramis. Eli offers the kid a shirt and he lights up like a fucking Christmas tree.
Sometimes, we all just need a little disruption in our lives to brighten the day.
Less options of music to choose from; drivers choice. Less time to think about the future. Doom today's performance and get to the next venue; that's all that matters.
Less self centered thinking. When you're with the band for 7 days you have to be considerate. You gain a community in return. Seven thousand randoms and the same five youʼve come to always count on. Toro [y Moi] and They Hate Change are super chill and dealing with the same circumstances we all are. It's like a music summer camp curated by Chaz himself, sans Donkey Lips and public humiliation.
You sleep wherever thereʼs space and whenever thereʼs time. Hotel floors and pass-through living rooms; Blankets and pillows optional, fleas and AC as well. The temperature breaks three digits with east coast humidity drizzled on top. Despite all of this, I sleep better on the road than from my bedroom and king size bed thatʼs big enough for the whole band plus luggage. I’m even falling asleep on the couch at home now. TV is trying to replace the feeling and exhaustion that a day’s end on the road brings and I’m unsatisfied.
We now miss the Deez nuts jokes in the legless middle seat; No more chugging pedialyte or instruments cramping your feet. Instead of billboards or skylines moving through my eyeline from the van window, I scroll and binge the world from my living room couch. With as much personal space as I could ask for, I find myself wanting less.
Spears’ in-your-face (literally), ruthlessly provocative mystique has grown to be such an integral part of his aesthetic makeup, that by the time you make it to the door (if you manage to get that far), the already-potent I-don’t-know-what-I’m-in-for anxiety has hardened into something molten, and it’s bound to begin to show. It’s exactly this that Kendre Swinton, Spears’ longtime friend-slash-manager, must be picking up on, when — standing across from me in the foyer with a mischievous grin — he asks me to make my best guess as to what Spears is like in person.
Necklace R13, bracelets MARTINE ALI and BERNARD JAMES
Spears’ music, a primary focus of his over the past few months, is cut from a similar cloth to his unforgiving aesthetic. In the two singles he’s released in tandem with Shayne Oliver’s Anonymous Club, his voice rattles into a growl, yelling itself hoarse through half-threatening, half-obscure mantras like “hold my motherfucking cock,” on Hollywood Meltdown, or “all these n***as are bleeding out,” on Bleedinout. He performs on stage with the same high-energy, punk-informed hardcore penchant that defines his public-facing persona — whether donning a mohawk and a leather jacket, or spaghetti straps and a skirt, everything comes out of him in grand, roaring fashion, leaving only the question I’m sweating in this Brooklyn high-rise to hopefully find an answer to: what is “everything”? With my only hints being his obscurely glorious, carnal creative footprint, I have just as many leads now as when I didn’t know who Izzy Spears even was.
Moments after Swinton gets the question off, a teasing whistle comes from the top of a winding staircase, and it looks like it’s time for answers. Today, Spears is fresh off of an international tour with Yves Tumor, a frequent collaborator now helping him to piece together his upcoming debut musical project. For all it seems, the non-stop work isn’t near finished. When Swinton and I are led to an expansive, sunlit suite, we’re greeted by a pair of studio headphones sprawled out on a cowskin rug, a switched-off TV, and Spears’ spiked leather boots, which lay glamorous claim to the sense that, although the tour is over, the show must go on. Even the pets are busy — for most of our interview, a rugged black cat is intently swiping away at doomed houseflies on a window.
For a proven multi-hyphenate like Spears, being a busybody is somewhat on-brand. At 24, he’s been handpicked by Shayne Oliver to take part in the aforementioned creative powerhouse Anonymous Club, and mastered a raucous stage presence as unnerving as it is enticing. These days, he’s on to the next challenge — his first ever sonic release — and although he throws me a simple “no,” when I ask him if he’s scared of anything, it isn’t as though the road ahead is a certain one. On a humid Friday morning in June, Spears opens up about people’s opinions of him (spoiler alert: he doesn’t care), motivation, and the art of just doing it.
Jacket and Pants Y/PROJECTS, Shoes BOBBY DAY NYC, Headpiece and Mask STYLIST’S OWN
Samuel Hyland – Post-tour, can we do an existential check-in? Where is Izzy at in life right now?
Izzy Spears – Resting, but also, the work hasn’t stopped. I’m doing Boiler Room, I’m doing this [interview], I have a studio session, [and] right when we leave, I have to go around the corner to work on my set… so, yeah. I’m just more ready than ever to put my project out. We’ve been working on shit for months. I’ve been working on this EP since November. Been working on videos, working on a bunch of shit. So I’m just ready to put it out and go to the next step, which is touring some more. I’m super tired, but I feel like I haven’t earned a full vacation yet.
“Earned”… that’s interesting. What do you feel like you have to do to “earn” a full vacation?
Reach my goals. I skipped a couple levels. My EP’s not out, I haven’t been on a [headline] tour — those are all goals. But I think the main goal is just feeling the accomplished feeling of putting out my first project, and living my project. That’s, like, the main goal. And even after it comes out, I feel like more goals will open up. So I’m not really planning, or seeing, a vacation moment in my future anytime soon. Not next year.
Necklace R13, bracelets HANREJ and MARTINE ALI
You have a lot of avenues that you release creativity in. Did they all kind of come around the same time, or did they each grow as you came into your own as a creative?
IS – My brother had a rap group when I was a kid, and I was always writing raps to try and get him to let me in the group. He never did. But I started making music in high school with a couple of friends. As I got older, I started throwing parties called the ‘House of Lotus’ in Atlanta. Once I started curating those parties, people started asking me to help with casting. [From] that, production opportunities came up, and I started working on sets. As I got more experienced, I took a break from music and started working on production, and managing someone else, and then casting. And then last year, or the year before that, I just completely stopped casting to work on music. For the first year, it was just trying to figure out who would take me seriously enough. And then Anonymous Club came through, and we worked on a couple singles. But Anonymous Club was working on multiple projects with multiple artists, and there wasn’t enough focus on me specifically. So I took it upon myself to leave and go to LA, and just get away from everything I was doing. As soon as I got there, I started hanging out with Yves [Tumor] a lot more, and he put me in the face of all my producers now, and everyone who’s helping me. Things started happening as I got older, but since I was younger, I knew. I dropped out in the tenth grade. I checked out in the seventh grade. Not that I knew it was gonna happen, but I knew that this was the direction I was going in. I got face tattoos as insurance. Like, I’m not ever gonna be no cashier, or at a desk, or some shit like that. So it’s like I have to… not like I have to, but just ensuring that I’m going to follow this route. Kind of like forcing myself to achieve what I want.
Shirt TELFAR, Jeans WILLY CHAVARRIA, Shoes BOBBY DAY NYC, Necklaces HANREJ and MARTINE ALI, Bracelets MARTINE ALI; Top YOUTHS IN BALACLAVA, Shorts DIESEL, Boots HOOD BY AIR, Jewelry MARTINE ALI
You mentioned feeling like you weren’t being taken seriously, and I wonder if that’s still true to an extent?
Yes and no. I mean, I’m doing it. I’m doing everything I set my mind to. Whether I’m being taken seriously or not, I’m gonna do it still. For now, if you aren’t gonna take me seriously, I’m just gonna go somewhere else and find the people that believe in it for real.
Is it your goal at any level to be taken seriously?
I don’t give a shit if you take me seriously. It’s not really a goal. I feel like wanting people to take you seriously – and for that to be a goal – defeats the purpose of doing it for yourself. You can miss the train, but we goin’.
In that case, how much would you say your music is for you, and how much would you say it’s for your consumers?
Well, this EP specifically is very cryptic and very personal. It’s all for me. I love all the songs. They’re not Anonymous Club songs, so maybe they’re not what people are fully expecting. But it is fully, fully personal. Personal, but designed for consumers.
If you could choose between hating the record and having it sell, or loving the record and having it flop…
[Laughs] The charts. Money. I could keep making shit for me all the time. But I want to make hits. I want to be a pop star. A lot of people want to be cool, and they want to make cool music that their friends would love — and that’s cool, I want to make music that my friends would love — but there’s a goal to be successful. And you can define success in different ways, but my version of success is charts… endorsements… money.
At least you admit it.
I’m not ashamed of it. I come from dirt poor. Mom got eight kids. All of us in the same house, by ourselves. I want to get her out. It could be for fun and all that stuff, but I’m a grown-ass man. I gotta eat.
You’re two different people, on-stage versus IRL. How does that interplay work? IS – Before I get on stage, I get nervous, so literally right before, I’m just like “Oh, you have to go out there.” You go out there, what are you gonna do, choke on stage? Be like, “Oh my God,” and run off? You have to just do this shit. You have to do it, and you have to do it to your fullest capacity. Once I get on, I kind of just let go. Whatever People are gonna love it, people are gonna hate it that got me going crazy, I kind of just let go of it all, because I have to do this right now. Everything just comes out in whatever way. It comes out in that moment because the adrenaline kicks in, and I’m taken by the adrenaline.
What is the “everything” that comes out?
All the energy. And just being a performer. Even though I may dress a certain way, it’s a fucking show. You can be the outfit. You can embody the thing. You can’t just go on stage in a fucking skirt and a mohawk and be like, “Um… this next one is called…” Nah. It all comes out.
Jacket, Shirt and Tie BURBERRY
How much is the outfit an extension of you, and how much is it a “Jekyll and Hyde” situation? Like another brain that’s working against the version of you that wants to blend in?
My look is a really big part of me. That’s why no matter where I go, people are always saying something to me. That’s why when I miss, I’m like, “Oh, I need to change,” or, “I need to go,” because I don’t feel represented. It is a really big extension, the outfit. I mean, I could still give the show naked. A lot of my look, Izzy Spears, is naked anyway. It’s not like a must, but it is an important part of my look to have the accessory, or the little peek-a-boo piece, the little take-off reveal, you know what I’m saying? It’s all part of it. I like to show layers of myself. Sometimes I’d go out in a full trade fit, big baggy, and other times I’m going to wear a skirt and a little fucking spaghetti-strap tank top. It’s all the same message in the music regardless — it’s masculine, it’s feminine, it’s whatever.
That version [of me] is always present in my head, but I never show it. There was an interview where Rihanna was asked, “What do you do if you’re just not feeling it?” And she was like, “Fake it, bitch. Act like you’re feeling it, the fuck?” That’s pretty much the concept there. I won’t always feel like, “Yah-yah, but I look like it.” It’s not something super intentional every day, because it’s just me, the way I dress, whatever the fuck comes out. It’s just who I am. I’m always going to look the way I look. Unless I burn my whole wardrobe and start over.
Something you mentioned earlier was about having checked out of school in seventh grade, and actually having left in the tenth grade. What was that time between seventh and tenth like? What led up to you–
[Laughs] Weed. And just being a fucking hooligan. Skipping school, selling weed, doing bad stuff, not being gay. Not like, being straight, but just pretending that I wasn’t gay. Doing every retarded thing I could think of that would draw the attention away from me being gay. I was really figuring out that I was gay, but trying to fight against it in every way possible. Selling drugs… hitting licks… partying every day… doing a bunch of drugs.
When did you stop trying to fight being gay?
Seventeen. I was high on Xanax. Me and my friends, six boys, six girls, we were all at the house just talking. And they were like, “Oh, she likes you, you aren’t fucking with her? On Xanax, you just don’t give a fuck about anything. So I just said it: “I’m not fucking her, I’m gay!” And then I got too excited, and I got on Facebook, I wrote a long-ass paragraph, I sent it to my sisters, and then the next morning I woke up, not remembering anything, got on Facebook, had thirteen messages. I was like, “What the fuck?” My whole family was going crazy. So I didn’t really consciously choose. It was fully a surprise.
KENDRE SWINTON – [Laughs] Going crazy. What does that mean?
They were just tripping. They were like, “Oh, I can’t believe this.” Now, everybody’s super happy for me. But yeah, like seventeen. I could have been like, “Oh no, my friends did that, they’re assholes,” but I was just like, “Shit, it’s literally now or never. You’re gay. Get over it.” It was just too much drama going on. Too many rumors. I was like, I haven’t been [in the house] for three years, I don’t have to be here, so I’m not going to be here.
Necklaces HANREJ and MARTINE ALI, bracelets MARTINE ALI
And you never went back?
Nope.
Have there been any challenges in recording the new EP?
Just being patient. I didn’t want to put the EP out just to drop it on SoundCloud, or put it through DistroKid, or something like that. What I wanted was a very cohesive, very industry-proper way of doing things. Then I guess another challenge was just… I do think about putting myself out there, and how it’s going to be received. Just being real on the track, and not taking anything out, or being worried about being too vulnerable, or saying too much, or people being able to piece what I’m saying into moments in my life. It was a challenge to just let that shit go. Put it out. Write it. Most of the hardship comes from breaking mental barriers.
How do you normally address challenges?
Just doing it. I could sit there and dwell on it. But if I am dwelling on it, I’m thinking of a solution, and most of the time, the solution is just doing it.
You’ve done a lot of work the past few months. Touring, then jumping straight into finishing your EP. Does it feel any different when the work is for you, and not for someone else?
I’ve done a lot of work for other people. This is my first music project. As soon as you finish a job for someone else and it’s done, it’s like, What’s the next job? Working for myself doesn’t end. As soon as the EP’s done, there’s more to do. I think that’s the biggest difference. I don’t see an ending. There’s not an ending point, or a final payout, or next thing.
Creativity is something you never really retire from. With a lot of artists, you can never buy it when they say they’ve retired from music. Is it like that for you? Full-time all the time?
Yeah. Even if I stopped doing music for a little bit, it would be something else for sure. I mean now that I’m doing music, I feel like it will be able to open up different opportunities and avenues for different work. It’s not going to stop anytime soon. Even if I take a break or something, it would be another project happening.
Do you want there to be an ending?
Not yet. I mean, obviously eventually. But no. Not really. I could perform for a long time. I’ve got a lot more of that left in me. I don’t see an ending anytime soon.
Necklaces HANREJ and MARTINE ALI, Bracelets MARTINE ALI, Cuffs R13, Underwear CALVIN KLEIN
They did everything to make a n***a turn from god not knowing every n***a is a god. Perception? We never see ourselves until we’re left staring naked in the mirror; dick limp. It wasn’t the alcohol but it wasn't him either.. Often am I perceived as “aloof” by the men I don’t want in my life or have ditch ed. I am the opposite of whatever a steady fuck is, they assume. What I conceal from you enables my evolution. First n***a through the door always got a key, but I left it open and I want to be touched.
I regret everything I left in the closet. I gained myself respect after I tossed everyone else’s morals on self-esteem and now everyone’s so proud of Izzy. Now everybody want a piece of Izzy. But I'm not for those looking for a thin slice.
Sacrificing religion to get to the finish line, my Mohel knew I was destined for greatness. Raw is law. Too many half asses out here and i aint one unless im over the kitchen sink. To be understood, is never to be expected. My duality of man; my masculine, my feminine. We have both and I use my chromosomes. To my dear ones, I’m known as Isaac. Benyamin is my family name, it’s better than a Welsh last name. My last name might suggest I’m not one of Europe’s black possessions, but, heard by the wrong Ashkenazi and he’ll be quick to remind me I'm no African prince, either. The key to a tale is to be found in who tells it. Still n***a.
IZZY wears Shirt TELFAR, Jeans WILLY CHAVARRIA, Shoes BOBBY DAY NYC, Necklaces HANREJ and MARTINE ALI, Bracelets MARTINE ALI, glasses FLATLIST; LEFT wears Shorts BRYAN JIMENEZ; MIDDLE wears Shorts WILLY CHAVARRIA