#nomenclatures

What are some influences to your music?

Bibio. If there is one artist that's solely influenced me in so many ways, its him. But just as well, my friend Andrew (Homesick the Alien) was extremely influential, in the sense that he introduced me to pretty much everything I know about electronic production. A major influence to my song writing I've found are conceptual physics,  textures, cool strings of words - I like the idea of changing an entire song just by giving it a different name, or influencing the way someone listens to my song the first time because of the title.

Do you have any hobbies outside of music?

Too many, but I have a hard time keeping up with them these days. I really enjoy stand up, writing romance short stories, illustration, photography, web design, and developing games, but these are things that deserve their own individual focus and I hope I can return to in the future. Maybe with having learned something from music.

How has music changed your life?

Music has been center to my life since I was too young to be playing video games. I wrote my first songs at 4, and from day one took myself far too seriously haha. I feel like music has helped me form bonds with more people than I can count, and sharing new music is the most fun thing you can do.

What genre do you consider yourself?

I think the strongest inhibitor to my creative process (besides all the time I waste sleeping) has been trying to define my music's genre. Its an easy way to illude yourself from thinking you're copying an influential artist, and its just as easy to fall into over and over again. I've thrown out too many song ideas just because they didn't really fit whatever genre I was aiming for at the time, only to look at those songs and say to Andrew or whoever else, "maybe I should do this specific thing instead." The mantra I've been trying to follow is "what would radiohead do," in a sense haha. I see a lot of artists that don't fear genre swapping, but their sound is still distinguishable across a discography. And that's essentially the goal, as much as say a company removing their name from a billboard about their product is the goal for branding. But my mom calls what I do "electronic wishy washy crap, why don't you sing anymore?" So we could probably go with that.

Do you have a favorite memory as a musician thus far?

I think just this past year, in general, has been the craziest time of my life so far and it’s so clearly only the beginning. I want to say playing at 7th street, or hearing myself on the radio, but once it happens once it's not as exciting anymore haha.

If you have a goal of something you want to accomplish, what is it?

Finishing an album. I've heard it said that finishing the first album is the hardest - you've never done it before so you're not sure how to. You want it to be so many things because you've got so many ideas but everything is in the scope of one album because you've only ever been thinking about that first one. It's nearly impossible to fit 18 years of experiences into one album, but it’s easier to divvy up your stories within whatever the next time frame is for your second album. And just as well it seems like the point when you're first defining your sound. There are so many incredible debut albums that is just like "What, how? There's got to be at least 3 prior albums you're hiding from us" haha. But then again, Pablo honey. At this point my biggest goal is to create one finished piece of work so I know that I can, and then I can make the next.