You’ve been on the music scene for a while. What were some of your early influences?
I’ve been making music as this name for like ten years now. Which is kind of nuts but I don't really feel like my career started until like 2016. I think my generation of people who are 29 now, we grew up on a lot of like Slipknot, Korn. A lot of heavier kinds of music and like trance. I can really see so much music now that’s influenced by both at the same time. I love that you’ll hear an edit and it’s like Tiësto mixed with Korn. It’s like okay, yeah, we’re the same person. I know exactly who you grew up on because I did too.
And I think it's really nice to see so much music starting to still get big because of TikTok. People are using these really old songs that I didn't know would have a resurgence. I mean even like garage and drum and bass it’s just like, awesome, are really popular again. And that's kind of nuts. Because it wasn't mainstream at the time. Well, garage was, but like, not really drum and bass. And now all of a sudden, it’s making its way into pop music. That's just super, super weird. I really, I really love that. That kind of gives me hope that in 20 years’ time, something I make today might have the chance to have new life.
To give new life to something from your past, I want to talk a bit about SS2015 which draws from iconic movies like Fallen Angels and Gummo. Is it a hope of yours to score a movie one day?
Yeah, that’s the goal, my goal. I really want to do a really good science fiction film. That would be fun.
What’s your favorite science fiction movie?
The Cell. Have you seen it?
I have not.
I don’t even remember the soundtrack. But it’s just such an underrated film. Not a lot of people have seen it. You’ll love it. I think everyone will love it.
So...Romeo. It feels like the album is quite romantic, does your romantic life feel like a tragedy or comedy?
It’s neither. Because I think if it was a tragedy that’s terrible. If it was a comedy, that would simultaneously be terrible, like look at my romantic life, it’s a joke that I need to get together. It’s supposed to be a romantic album, but it’s nothing to do with Shakespeare, the name is just so synonymous with romance now and is the only thing I think I could’ve called it. I also love having a name for an album.
Are the names personas in any way?
Well, the first one was me. The second one was kind of me. I guess they are personas of very boring aspects of me, so yeah.
How did your approach to Romeo differ from Salvador?
Yeah, so the first one was like the first time I'd ever written about myself and all this stuff that it's about happened to me maybe 2015, 2014 when I used to drink a lot. The moment I started to write about myself, there was this backed-up stuff from the past that kind of just happened to come up like, you know, friends killing themselves. All that really dark stuff that happened in my early 20s that wasn't really reflective of anything that has happened in the last five years. So, it became like an introduction to who I am, but it's also got a five-year delay to it. And I didn't really, I mean, I don't care honestly, ultimately, but sometimes I'd DMs from strangers like, “you’re just so toxic, I love it” which was way off the vibe of what I was trying to do.
And then this one was just completely trying to be like, romantic and healthy and really like, how I felt about my friends and family and loved ones for the last five years.