Swae Lee is Unstoppable

A lot of words come to mind when I think of his music—boundless, relentless, choppy, alluring, profound—all of them reminiscent of the ocean. It’s an apt comparison for Vol. 9, his latest record, which opens with Strange As Can Be. On it, he sings about a tale as old as time: conflicting desires. He begins with a reference to Adam and Eve, and follows it with the lines: “Try to be wholesome/We all have different ideas/We have different ideas/Of what it means to be wholesome.”  That’s the magic of Lucy. He’s totally out there, and as real as can be. He paves his way charming together aphorisms, cautionary tales, and flashes of wry wisdom, all delivered with a disarming ease. They’re the kind of tracks that have me zoomed in on Bandcamp lyrics, or rapping over a Titanic sample he’s tweaked out. It’s liberating, you should try it. There’s a lot of laughter here, but not the ironic kind. It’s the kind born of genuine awe, of being hit over the head with something at once familiar and wholly unexpected. I recommend getting battered.

So, it's been almost a decade since Vol. 1 came out.

Yeah, pretty much.

Very exciting. Congrats on Vol. 9. 

The first single you released is called 2nd Wind. Does that have anything to do with the decade mark?

Thank you. I don't know. I hadn't really thought about that. (Laughs) Yeah, I think that can be thought of like that for sure.

You're from Massachusetts, right?

Yeah, I grew up on Cape Cod, so I’m definitely around the ocean a lot.

Can you sail?

I actually could not sail. I went out sailing one time. I had some friends in high school who were instructors for a kid's sailing camp, so we had access to the boats and took one out. But aside from that, I wasn't really in a sailing family. 

Do you like the ocean? 

Yeah, yeah. Totally. 

How do you think your Vol. albums delineate from the other projects you’ve released?

I think it's almost just a way of naming them without putting too much emphasis on one idea or something. I feel like most of the projects that I've put out solo are these volumes. I've made a bunch of other records with other people that are called different things and I've put out a few projects that are called other things, but most of my releases have been these nine volume albums. And I feel like it's mostly just an easy way for people to know what order they're in.

Do you like to go back and listen to them? You have a massive body of work out.

Yeah, I feel like I do. Every now and then there'll be certain projects I kind of forget about for a while. It's hard for me to listen back to music I made a really long time ago, like from when I was in high school. It sort of cringes me out. But with the Lucy project, I still like how it sounds. I don't feel cringed out listening to stuff from 10 years ago, which is good. I'm glad that I feel like that because I think that means I'm doing something right.

Can you pinpoint the cringe?

When I listen back to stuff that isn't even out, stuff from when I was, I dunno, 14, 15, 16… Obviously no one knows really what they're talking about at that point.(laughs) I definitely listened back to music I was making in high school and I'm like, ‘why was I talking about this stuff?’ Also, I think I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to sound like and it's hard to listen to that process.

Would you say you're a nostalgic person?

Yeah, for sure. But not in a way where I want to relive the past or something.

[Laughs] Right. Do you have any particular artists you’re listening to or are there any other mediums that inspire you at this moment? 

I don't know. Not really. I sort of feel like there was a bunch of music I listened to when I was, I don't know, in between 10 and 16 that sort of still feels influential. I'm always influenced by new things, but I don't really listen to as much music as I should. I'm working on music all the time, so I'm listening to all these different things I'm making. I used to listen to music with headphones, but I’ve overdone it a little bit [laughs]. I need to listen to less music or something.

I recently lost my headphones and just let that be a catalyst for me listening to not nearly as much music as usual. I miss it, but it’s nice to actively listen to your surroundings sometimes. And if you're not really taking a ton of outside influences in, it’s easier to deeply connect to yourself as a source. The Lucy projects and a lot of your other collaborations feel very immediately recognizable to me as you.

Yeah, it's true. I feel like also things are- at least for me- things I hear when I'm out and about definitely play a big role in ideas of stuff I make and things I want to make. Even if I’m at the grocery store, a lot of times I get inspiration to either sample something that I hear in a store or by the self-checkout sounds and stuff. There's so many funny little melodic things around.

You love the store.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot to learn at the store.

Your sound is persistent, and self-assured. I love it just as much as when I first encountered the earlier volumes a few years ago. I’d like to know more about your approach to songwriting and if it’s morphed over time? 

Thank you. Yeah, a lot of the time I'll have a melody or some ten second vocal melody. Sometimes it doesn’t have words, but most of the time it’s a phrase I’m singing to myself. I'll just make a voice memo and then go to the piano and see how I can make it work. Most of the stuff that's not sample based music that I make is pretty much all written on the piano. And then on this new record, there's definitely a handful of songs that have samples in them. Usually with those, I'll be making the beat before I have an idea for what the vocals will do. Making beats with samples has been a lot more fun for me in the past few years and it's good. But I sort of hope to move along from that after this record and have it be more of my own compositions, not just beats with clips of old songs or whatever.

So this is probably not the most evolved version of your sound so far?

Yeah, I wouldn't say that. I feel like I've been sitting on some of these songs. Some of the ones on this album are almost three years old, and then some that are four months old as well. So there's a bunch of new stuff and there's a bunch of stuff that feels really old to me. I think there's 17 songs on it, and usually I put six or seven songs on a project. It feels sort of mixed tape-ish to me. I'm just so used to it and I've been sitting on it for so long that it's hard for me to think of it as evolved or something. Friends who I showed it to seem to think it's more cohesive than I thought it was, so that's good.

I almost didn’t notice that there were 17 songs on it. I really like that it’s a 30 minute listen. And I agree with your friends, I wouldn't have guessed that you made them across different timelines. It’s a cohesive purge. 

Yeah, totally. I feel like it'll be good to get it out and kind of move along.

You use a lot of aphorisms and story-book style language in your lyrics. It’s all very sincere. I really love it, and I think that might be why I've had such an affinity for it for so long too. At the end of the day, it's dealing with those things that never really go away, take as old as time. 

Yeah, thank you. That is what I'm always going for. I feel like there's never going to be a shortage of content about those kinds of topics. 

Were you in love when you wrote a lot of these songs?

[Laughs] Yeah.

Yeah.

Probably, probably all of 'em in different ways. I don't know. I feel like I try to infuse the music with that. When I think of the songs on there, I feel like you can hear that energy in the happier songs. Then there's a bunch of sad songs, or songs that sound sad- to me. And I don't think I'm showing an in-love side on those, but I don't know. That's kind of a tricky question.

I hear that. It’s not that you’re specifically singing about love, but the melodies on a lot of your tracks kind of lift my heart in that certain type of way. It’s all clearly involved, and there’s humor in it. It puts me in this perfect mood, that comes with good communication. Even the sadder songs.

Alright- Easier question. What are you working on right now? 

I guess things are feeling a little bit more chill right now than they’ve been, just because I think I have three projects finished. I have this solo record coming out, and then I have a record with the Taxidermist band that's done and going to come out in March. And this Safe Mind project record that’s also going to come out. So right now everything's lined up and I'm just sort of waiting. 

And we wait.

Yeah, I'm excited to start on a new batch of music and try to…I don’t know. I feel like I need to be learning more than I'm learning right now. I want to take the next bunch of months to try to maybe learn something.

What do you want to learn?

I'm not quite sure. I want to learn some new skills. I should be reading more.

For some reason I assumed you read a lot. 

I really don't. Honestly, I really enjoy it when I’m into it, but getting to that point isn’t always easy for me.

Right, makes sense. You’re working on a ton of music projects.  

I mean, I'm definitely trying to continue to focus on music as much as I do now. I'm just in a position where everything's about to be a clean slate, it’s been a while since I’ve not had files that I keep going back to. 

Do you like being outside? 

I like being outside, yeah. I walk a ton. 

Do you have a favorite walk you do?

There's this range in Western Mass called the Holyoke Range. There’s a bunch of different mountains, and I sort of bounce between a lot of them. I go hiking almost every day, and a lot of the hikes out there only take an hour or two. I feel like that's as consistent as music for me for my life in Massachusetts. I spend a lot of time outside.

Do you have a typical “day in the life” right now? 

It's always different. I feel like I'm really bouncing around. I'm in New York now and I'm going to go back to Massachusetts, and then I have another show in New York on the 10th. 

Oh really? 

With another project, Club Casualties. It’s me and my friend Nick Atkinson. He's completely off grid. Never was on social media or smartphone or anything. And he's a producer, but he's on the mega outskirts of the scenes. We're opening for that group Kassie Krut. Then a couple days later, I’m coming back to New York to do another show with the Safe Mind project. 

Lots of movement. Have you ever made a time capsule?

Yeah. When I was a kid, I did one.

What did you put in it?

I put my school picture and some little Legos or something. I just put a bunch of toys that I liked. At the time, it was in a peanut butter jar. I think it had one of those wallet size school pictures, and I don't know what else was in it. I feel like I put some little notes, but I dug a really deep hole because I was obsessed with that book Holes. 

Legendary book.

Yeah. My dad was like, you can dig a hole in the yard if you want to. I really wanted to, and I wanted to make it the same depth as the ones in the book, which were, I think they were six by six foot holes. So I was out there with my neighbor digging for weeks, and then it was deeper than my head, and then I buried the capsule in there. 

I'm obsessed with that. That's so cool.

Yeah. It was before the movie came out, but the trailer was out, and I think I was like, this looks really cool. But the book was a big inspo.

What would you put in a time capsule now? 

Probably some, probably like a flash drive. I don't know. It's hard to know. I feel like lots of stuff is going to be obsolete, so it's sort of hard to know what would be good to leave in there.

Yeah, that's true. 

[Laughs] But maybe a more contemporary school picture.

Sweet.