This interview is with Mike Barnabas-Anyonga AKA Benna. Some of my question asking was not very clear so I'm going to narrate some of this interview, but yeah enjoy.
My name is Mike Barnabas-Anyonga and I'm 28 years old. I moved here when I was 11. I've been living in Kalamazoo ever since. My mom was getting her PhD from Western and she brought us along to go to school here too. Just better opportunities, you know?
Ever since I could really remember when I was like 8 or 9, I got a guitar from my mom and I had cousins who all played in church or whatever. So I've been around music all my life. Making my own music didn't really start until I got my first guitar and I started to noodle around, play different songs, learn the chords and train myself to play by ear and stuff like that, but yeah, I think about like 9 or 10.
We started talking about when Mike began to take music more seriously.
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When I was probably 18, 19 years old, I joined a band called Truefo with three of my good friends, best friends who I kind of grew up with and we lived together. We started play shows in The Vine neighborhood and all the house show venues. That was pretty much when it started to click for me to just like, you know, I want to do music, for the rest of my life more or less. I was playing guitar and bass in that band, and drums. Yeah, so we were switching off, it was kind of fun. We would write songs and whoever wrote the song on the instrument would play that instrument. So it was cool, sometimes it was a lot because switching around instruments and moving, you know, it cuts into your time when you are playing and your rhythm and stuff like that, but when it came off it was cool.
We got into when he started writing music initially.
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I was playing guitar since I was 8 or 9 and I was getting better and I noticed that and then I also sing and that was kind of a big, therapeutic thing for me was singing and always being able to use my voice. It helped me calm down, helped me find harmonies that sound good, kind of immerse myself in my vocal work and I started writing songs here and there. I didn't really take it seriously until I joined the band. Before I didn't have access to a lot of the recording material, like equipment in general, you know for my family wasn't a big thing to want to be a musician or anything like African parents are very, they want you to do a certain thing, very like particular about things so I never really had access to those things until I was with friends who did have that so then I started like, all right, let me record a song, let me record some music. Even before that I was just like recording memos on my phone. I didn't play any shows like until I was in the band so, most of the time it was just me making my own music for myself and just like enjoying it and then, you know, it just kind of like took off from there and I just kind of followed the process more or less.
I asked Mike how important he thought it was to have that time alone to create.
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I think that time that you're doing that helps you develop a sort of comfortability and understanding of yourself as an artist, what it makes you feel and what you can make other people feel with your music. I think learning to tap into that you have to internalize yourself, learn about yourself through your craft and your music to try to be in a position where you can express that in a functional way that makes you feel happy, but you definitely do need that internal time to yourself to kind of learn that and like get comfortable with it and then be able to be comfortable enough to express it I think is the next step, you know.
We talked about what he learned from collaborating in a band setting.
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It was a new more or less experience for me being in a band with my friends. We all kind of had the same idea of music and how we wanted to approach music and that helped me kind of like learn to work with writing with other people and not being as possessive about my goal for a song, especially in a band setting, but also learning that I can take information in to help my expression be better and then just being a sort of give and take with each other, especially helping cultivate a song, something that means something to everyone in the band. It's like co-operations in humans, like, you know, it's teamwork. We as a species, our biggest markers is our ability to cooperate with each other and our ability to create while we cooperate too.
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I asked Mike when he started going by Benna instead.
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That was probably about four years ago. My cousin, my younger cousin, who's now, I think he's about 18, 19, but when he was younger he used to call me Benna and I always thought that was cool because my middle name is Barnabas. When I was younger, my family would call me Bana, but he would call me Benna and I like the sound of that a little bit better. So, when I started to make my own music, I started going by that because it just made sense, and it felt good. I wrote my first EP called "Canopies" in 2017 and I recorded it with my friend Trevor and Tony, who were both in Truefo. So we had been doing Truefo for a while, but then, I had branched off and tried to write my own kind of thing after working in the group for so long. I always had in mind that, I wanted a band. I've always been a very team-oriented person, especially like, I grew up playing sports. I've played soccer all my life and working with ten other people on a field is, uh, it's a process, but when it works, it's great, you know? So, I take that mentality when I do solo stuff that like I don't want to be solo all the time. I want to have a group or a band or friends that help elevate the music and bring their own ideas, too. You know, for, the stuff that I was writing, that album, I'd never played it live, so I played all the songs acoustic whenever I would play a solo show, but now I have, like, you know, a band with some of my friends from, from work, you know, Will and Taylor from Buddha Hand, shoutout Buddha Hand. They helped kind of elevate what Benna was. The music that I have online is more produced, but I love live music. I love the live band feel of things and so we've been working on cultivating sort of a sound for, for that, for us, and it's going pretty well, so I'm excited for the projects and the songs that we have coming up.
We talked a little about when he met Buddha Hand guys and when they started collaborating with each other.
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I met Will and Taylor through work, and we just kind of talked to each other about music, and then I told Will, hey do you want to jam or something like that? And they're like, yeah dude, come over and hang out. And then we just started jamming and we're like, oh well, you guys just want to start writing songs together? All right, yeah, cool. We did that and then that kind of just folded into us being like, okay, well, we love doing this. Let's keep it going. Then I booked a show for us and we played our first show at the run-off with you guys, with Witches Wedding, shout out Witches Wedding and with Headband Henny, my little brother too, but yeah, that was our first show and it went well and it was good, and we are kind of just building on that energy now.
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I asked Mike to describe the sound of Benna.
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Yeah, I'm a big soul guy, neo soul guy, but also I do love rock and I do love R&B. So, trying to blur those lines a little bit. Tame Impala sometimes has that vibe to me. I think his more psychedelic in a way, and mine is kind of, it's not necessarily psychedelic, it's more emotional I feel like, but yeah, his stuff is also emotional, it's just in an acid trip type of way and mine is more of smoke weed and hang out with your friends type of way, but yeah. I would say like a neo soul, rock kind of combination is the thing that I feel like I'm expressing, but to some people it may be different.
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We talked about some of his early influences.
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Before when we were in Uganda, I listened to a lot of folk music, a lot of African music that kind of just made it through the waves of the radios and churches, like our country is pretty religious so, church band hymns. My dad is a pastor so I was around all the hymn type of music, and, like, very folky, earthy, but, like, also still very, like, religious, but then I moved here and then, I kind of got on the tail end of that too, but it was different because it was youth group now, and it was in a different country, and like, the music was different. So I got exposed to a lot of rock, and a lot of old white hymns. Then I started to veer into bands like, Relient K, Thousand Foot Krutch, all that very Christian music, which was really cool because it was technical, but I can only hear so much about Jesus, you know, but they did a good job of writing it in a way where it wasn't so directed to like, this is what I want you to believe I'm saying. It was very ambiguous, or arbitrary in a way, like they were just making music it just happened to be about their relationship with their religion, or God, or whatever, but then, I started to veer away from that a little bit and listening to a lot of hip hop and a lot of rap like the Cool Kids, back in the day, Mikey Rocks and Chuck English. I used to listen to that a lot when I was younger, and then I got into Kendrick Lamar, Ab-soul, I got into ScHoolboy Q and Death Grips a little bit, Jay-Z, Kanye, all the fun, vibe-y stuff that I was very interested in, especially culturally for black culture. It helped me kind of connect with a lot of the music, too, because I was like, oh, wow, this is something that started in this country and was built by large groups of people, like, from the Wu-Tang, to like, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony to like NWA, all those guys, Snoop Dogg, and then coming into, the Kendrick's, and then coming into the Ab-souls. All those things influenced me to wanna go in a direction, and then I started listening to Erykah Badu, Funkadelic, George Clanton, Chuck Berry, B.B. King, John Mayer, all the blues. I just started to dive into all the different realms of music, it was awesome, because I had access to it now. When I was in Uganda, it wasn't really a lot of music to express yourself, and this is pre-access to the internet fully for a lot of people. So when I moved here, and then it was, like, records, radio stations, iPods, blah blah blah, all this crazy shit and you can have music libraries, iTunes. You can have all your music in one place; it made it a lot easier to kind of just immerse myself and try to figure out what I like and try to figure out what sounds really good to me. I think one of the biggest influences for me was a band called Young the Giant. Their sound was, like it's very indie folk, but like also super psychedelic but then like ethereal in a way. I really liked that because that was kind of like the meld of kind of soul, gospel a little bit, but also still kind of indie and still abstract enough that you find your elements in there that you enjoy, that have the hip hop kind of drums sometimes, but also has like the gospel lines here and there, then the like keys and the bass are playing like a hip hop kind of melodic tone. So like you know ,finding all that in that band was really cool and then like that's kind of what pushed me to start like wanting to be in a band at 19, joining a band with like playing like surf rock music kind of. That was when I realized I can't just bring all my ideas. You have to work in a group and then like that meant I have to like sacrifice the genres of which ones I wanted to implement in the band or which I wanted to express in the band so that we can work together. That process just like went on, I started listening to different music like Tame Impala like, The Internet, Steve Lacy and then that started changing as I got older and then I was in a band called Purple Lemurs and that was kind of like soul rock more or less, gospel-y too in a way and that was fun. And then, Basic Comfort, which is an alt pop kind of vibe and that's like kind of music that I kind of like too, like Parcels is a band that's really, really cool in that realm of stuff and then here I am now playing Neo soul rock music, you know, with a band of guys that I've known for probably like last year and a half and we've now just been like doing the project steady for probably the last like six or seven months and it's going well.
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I asked Mike if being the heart of this project allowed him more agency in the direction of the project.
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Oh, 100% because I think for them they have Buddha Hand that's where their expression a lot of the times lies and then in Benna, they're really okay with having me kind of direct the move of where things are going but also they have their input, we always talk about things. We try to be democratic in a way but like also you can't really have democracy without like a leader. Yeah, it doesn't really work. Everyone just being like, yeah, I want this, I want this, I want this, like yeah, but then there's gotta be someone who's like, this makes more sense to do given everyone's sort of take, you know, luckily in this project, we are very aware of that.
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We talked about what sonic elements he pulled from his influences that are also present in his music.
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I do love harmonies and then also just like psychedelic feelings. A good example for me is like, there's a song called "Apocalypse Now" by Tame Impala and the first time I listened to that song, I remember thinking this is the craziest mixture harmonic tones, but also so filling to listen to. It transports you in a way. That's what psychedelic music was to like, it was supposed to get you out of your mind, get you out of this sort of like feeling of the normal or what you think sound is and what sound can do and that feeling is different for everyone. For me listening to that song was hearing how the bass notes worked and the sections worked and then hearing a breakdown that they have in the middle of the song where the lyrics are everything is changing and he's singing that over these harmonic tones, a very mild drum break and that was kind of when I knew, wow, I wanna make music like this. I wanna be able to break those sonic barriers and give you something that people don't really expect, but also expect at the same time. But like it hits you, it's like seeing something that you know you see all the time, but every time you see it, it still gives you that young feeling. Like, you know being in a relationship for the first six, seven months, every time you see them, it's like, ah, like you could have a shitty day and then the moment that you see that person, it's like, great, even though you probably saw that person last night, but that feeling still expands. Yeah, so that's like with especially music, like instrumentally wise, other things I look for, is like that feeling of when like a song does that to me.
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We got into his song writing process and where that normally starts.
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For the last few years, I've had weird writers block sometimes that will last me months and then I'll just kind of have a breakthrough and write a song. When I was younger, it was easier to write songs because I think I looked at material a little bit different. I looked at it as just kind of like, I'm just writing stuff, and then as I got older, I started feel like I need to write meaning into things. I think now I'm kind of reverting back to the, I don't need to fucking have meaning in my shit. It just has to be something that like, I enjoy or like something very simple because for me, I've realized it's not in my best interest to complicate my music or make it crazy or make it extensive, even though that may be the mode that like a lot of, like popular music goes, you know? It's like you want the thing that's repetitive, but for me, I just can't compromise myself like that anymore and I think that was for a while why I couldn't really write lyrics or songs, but my process is now kind of changed to, like I'll sit down for probably like three hours and I'll like go over a melody. I write on acoustic guitar. I'll hear the chords in my head or I'll listen to a song that has the chord structure that I kind of want and then I'll like rearrange it possibly and I'll like kind of write parts like very simple parts like you want an intro, I want like a pre-chorus or a verse. And then like a verse or a pre-chorus and then a chorus and then like writing like a bridge comes usually later, but it's never really an order. A lot of it is subject to change 'cause it's subjective, you know? It's like, it may sound good today and then tomorrow it sounds different, and that's okay. I think being okay with the fact that it's a process. Like, you know, you as a musician or an artist or anyone that's making music, you have to like be okay with evolving, allowing that to flow through you instead of trying to guide it yourself. I think to meet your full expression of something, you have to allow that to happen. Writing down how you feel. Journaling is a good way to like, pick out like good content for like writing songs and lyrics. And like, you know, it's probably why Taylor Swift's so good 'cause she probably wrote diaries all her fucking life. She has all this pent up crazy shit that like, you know, that's emotional that like, it's easy to put into folk music because that's what a lot of folk music is, is sad, love lost, happiness, strength, overcoming, enjoying, but then like, you know, all the bad things and the good things at the same time. Like, that's country music in a way too. It wasn't like direct, like, you know, like hip hop is direct. Like, you know, it's like, I'm telling you what the fuck I'm saying, you know? Folk music, is like, I'm kinda going to say what I am saying, it just gives you this sort of feeling that you have to be able to listen from start to finish to understand. Like rap music, not a shade to rap music at all. It's just that like, you can see kind of the repetitiveness, if it's alternative, it's probably a little bit weirder, like, André 3000 does a really good job of that, Mick Jenkins does a really good job of that. If you're listening to your New York drill, it's usually about the three things. It's guns, killing or women, or money, the biggest thing. Those are the things they're talking about. You know, they're gonna say those things somewhere in the song, but when you listen to Fleetwood Mac, the song Dreams, could be about dreams but it also could be about, a fucking relationship that she had with a fucking pimp. You wouldn't know because she's saying all this crazy shit that like kind of makes sense to you, but because it's so engulfing, like emotionally because that guitar, the way it's playing, that drum beat, so simple, but super driving that anyone can catch onto it, listen to it. That's why the song when it came back, a lot of young people were like, oh my God, this is crazy. It's like, this shit was out in the fucking 60s and 70s. That song has been around. Like, the people back then listened to that and they were like, yeah, this is cool. So when older people were like, oh, you guys are just getting into Fleetwood Mac, it's like, yeah, you know, all because of TikTok.
We talked about music as a form of connection.
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That's the biggest reason why I love music and art is because it is a way of connecting. You, you're hearing this the same way I'm hearing it and you're getting the same feeling, how do we expand on that? How do we express that? I.E. why people are in bands. That's kind of what you're trying to go for. How do we take this simple thing and then like, make it better? Or make it worse, (laughing) but that's the thing, no wrong or right.
We talked about writers block and how to work through it.
It's very difficult, I think. The thing is trying to not get mad at it and get bogged down in that feeling, which is I think a lot of artists just fall victim to because we tend to have these expectations of our music and our art and those expectations are nice markers but they aren't the goal, you know? You're gonna have those moments where you're not gonna fucking be able to write anything. That's okay, that's totally fine. That doesn't change the fact that you're working on what your art is. You're still working on your art. You wanna still have that thought in your mind that like, I'm still doing what I love, you know, I'm gonna keep doing what I love. That patience with yourself. I'm still working on that and I'm still learning that as an artist too. You know, that's always something that you're gonna keep doing as an artist and you wanna have that kind of thought in your mind that like, it is about patience. A lot of it is just kind of taking your time. Understanding that your work is, it's your work. Your unique experience as a human being is unique to you. Like, no one else is in your fucking head. We can try to figure things out, we can try to like, get into somebody's head, we can try to ask questions to get to the root of things but we always often miss because our minds are moving faster than we are, you know? So it's like trying to bring that calmness and that peace and then get to the point where you're like, I need to have patience. And that means just maybe chill, you know? Maybe like, don't write for like a month, you know? Then just make it a goal to come back and just like, try to write something. Or write a line a day. Write one line, you know, say fuck it, move on. Go do your shit, live your fucking life, come back tomorrow, same time, write something else, all right, whatever, cool, move on. Then if you're in that moment, you come back and then you have more ideas, just take that time to do it. And then whenever you stop, you stop. Don't try to make it a forced effort because when you do that, I think you tend to lose sort of parts of what your artistry could be and what it could get you to and what it could give you.
I asked Mike what was his ideal environment for creating and songwriting.
I do smoke quite a bit of weed, but like now that as I get older, I'm starting to realize I shouldn't do that. Whenever I do my best work is when I'm just in a space where I feel comfortable enough to just create. I think that's kind of the marker for me. If I'm stressed out about something or something else, like it's hard for me to write music because either the music isn't going to like, it's not going to be what I want it to be or what I need it to be. Whenever the moment strikes, I try to use those moments. But then like there's those extra moments where I know that like, I'm writing now, like, you know, I'm making this shit. I'm putting out what I'm doing right now and I have sessions with an engineer that I work with, Sam Peters, who's from Kalamazoo too. He's really good. He's amazing in the way he does and we work together and it's sometimes easier to just work on music with him because it helps us channel ideas because we're those type of people like we bounce shit off each other all the time. So we write music together and we have actually quite a few songs coming out this year together, which are really, really fun. Those moments are also just kind of where, what I live for. So I won't have a session for a month and then I'll have that session for a month and we write a fucking sick song. I try to like, not chase that feeling because it just becomes futile. I just kind of like, let it happen. And that's kind of what I was like now, sort of getting into that mode of like letting shit happen. (laughs)
I asked Mike if writing music was sort of a spiritual experience for him.
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Oh, 100%. Art in itself is spiritual. It's like, whatever it is, it's spiritual. It helps you tap into something that on the basic plane of existence, you don't see very often, or you don't experience very often. When you're expressing art with like a group of people, whether it's dance, whether it's band, whether it's art, like doing a mural with your friends or it's like those moments are spiritual moments, and people don't think about it that way because we sort of take those moments and make it a commodity. Now it's like art, you have to sell it. You have to like, you know, make a living out of it and money and be functional in society, but like, the first reason why that existed was to help you express yourself, not for money, not for an end goal. Some of the best songs out there are because of people who went through really fucked up shit, but we like to sing along to that. You know what I mean? 'Cause we're sharing in that spiritual experience. Like the early, Relient K like rock that I listened to... It's like, I started listening to the lyrics. I started to notice patterns of dialogue and what they were talking about is they're expressing their idea of their events that happen in their life or happen to somebody else or, like, you know, storytelling and that's just a very basic thing for humans and that's spiritual. It started off with like, the shaman in the fucking tribe is the one that's telling the story and everyone is listening because he's the only one that has a spiritual access to that and that's art. For me, it's always just been a spiritual experience and my dad's a pastor. I grew up in a very religious like environment, but I'm not a religious person by nature. I think we're all spiritual by nature, but I don't think we're religious by nature because I think religion is kind of like going to high school and then your senior year, you're like, I gotta go to a college and I gotta get a degree and I gotta get a job and I gotta work in the environment that I exist in so I can function and be a part of society. Religion is that. It's not to give you the right answer. It just gives you a place to be, but that spirituality is what you express after that. Religion is something that we created. We created it to help function. It's not to give you an answer. It's never to give you an answer. I think anyone that is a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, like, you know, Zionist, whatever, anyone that believes in any of that shit, it's like, those are things that help you feel comfortable at the end of the day. My argument with it all the time is that spirituality doesn't have a goal. It doesn't have an underlying process. It doesn't want to get anything from you, it doesn't want to take anything from you. It's just existing. Religion wants something from you. That's how I've always seen it. That's why the two are very different to me. People who are spiritual, it's usually they're just sharing their experience and it is what it is. If you enjoy it, you enjoy it, if you don't, that's okay. That's not gonna take away from the fact that we both have human experiences and we both respect that, you know?
We talked about some of his favorite releases.
It's not that I don't like the music that I've released it's that all the music that I released was kind of for me, it was building blocks. It's always a next step, it's always where am I at spiritually, where am I at with the song, or where am I at with the art and where do I want to go with the art and a lot of the music that I've made, like, maybe the latest release I had was Living Rooms with Davey, Davey Jones, shout out Davey Jones. That song came about from just kind of fucking around the studio with Sam. We had found a chord progression, I played guitar on it, and then we took it, reversed it. It turned out a really good song and now we're gonna in the process of making music video for it. That is probably the one that right now, I'm kind of enjoying, but I also have a lot of music that's unreleased and I love all that shit too. Benna, we have a song called "Losing" coming out and that song is great. I love it. It's what I envision my music being with a band, but then I also have a song called "Post Up," which is a very, like, slightly dark storytelling of an experience that I had when I was younger, that involved guns and fake money. Which I was exterior to, but I knew people and I was friends with people that, like, that one experience made me like, okay, I can't hang out with you people. (laughs) Like, you know, but I understood what, what that was for them, but it was different for me so my perspective on it's a little bit different, but then, like, you know, I have my other friend, Felipe is on it also, too and that song's really fun. It's cool, it's energetic, and yeah, so I have a lot of music coming out and I can't really pick.
I asked how his new music differed from what he's releases already.
A little more variation, I guess, in some of the songs. Maybe the one difference is that, like, it's as a full band in one of the songs, and, like, that one is kind of what I want to happen moving forward.
I asked if music was his first form of self expression.
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I wanna say yes. I think so. It was the first way that I noticed. Like, I did other stuff. Like. I played soccer; I played sports. I express myself in different other ways, but music was the first one I noticed its benefits for me, myself, and its benefits for the people outside of me. When you're playing on team and you win, it's great. It's cool, but it's a bunch of dudes. Like, you know, we're all kind of like, we're all, you know, we're just dudes. Like, we're trying to figure it out. Sports are great, they're awesome. They teach you crucial things, but it's like, it isn't a group of spiritual friends. Like, you know, it's like, it could be. And like, a lot of the times, that's what it turns into when you're in that process long enough, but that's also a season. We play for two months, two, three months, and then we don't see each other for another five or six, you know, but music was the one where, anywhere I was, I could relate with people. you know. For me, music, the negatives let's say that the positives wholly outweigh the negatives. What's bad about music is like maybe some music in the wrong hands can project a negative environment. There's like artists who like Takashi 6ix9ine, talking about crazy ass shit and gang member shit. But they were like, I love this music that it made me not go do any of that shit. You know, and that was like that expression to that. And that's cool, that's cool. I can't take that away from anyone, you know. And I want people to kind of experience that.
I found it interesting how Mike talked about vicariously living through someone's experience in the form of a song and having that help them not gravitate towards certain kinds of lifestyles.
And you know, we live in the internet age where everything is so, you know, it's quick. So like for a younger person listening to like Takashi 6ix9ine, instead of listening to The Temptations, like, you know, it's easier to listen to Takashi 6ix9ine. For generations, like now, especially the younger generations, it's easier for them to listen to K-pop than listen to The Temptations, easier to listen to Takashi than the Supremes because they don't know anything about that. I think it's mainly just because of exposure. Those things are more exposed than like The Supremes. You have to look for those things, or you have like family members who grew up listening to that and you kind of took that on. But a lot of the majority of us aren't getting that. They're getting the first things that are out because it's easier to do that. I think that's partially a part, like, you know, a byproduct of capitalism is that like, this idea of easy for everyone is sort of like right there. There's so much new that like the old doesn't make sense to you. Like you want the new shit. It's why they fucking shut your iPhone down after, you know, four or five years because they're gonna make a new one and then they're gonna make your shit slower. Why? Because it benefits them to make something cheaper and easier for you consume, but like, if they made an iPhone that's gonna last you fucking 10 years, they lose a bunch of money. You know, same thing with like, you know, music that's projected to children or younger generations. It's like, they want you listening to the Takashi 6ix9ines. They want you listening to the stuff that is easier to like intake. It's just exposure. It's what you're exposed to, you know.
I asked him how being an artist changed the way he saw the world and himself.
It's made me more nihilistic and positive at the same time. It's made me see the beauty in everything, but also see the negative in a lot of things and then trying to find a happy way and a functional way to live in between that and express that. I don't know, I just like love music. It just makes me feel good and I don't know, it's kind of where I live. If I wasn't doing music, I would probably be doing something worse, well, actually no, that's a crazy thing to say. I don't think I'd be doing anything worse. I just wouldn't be doing anything I don't think that would make me as happy as music does. But to me that is something worse, you know?
I asked him if he had any advice to aspiring musicians.
Express yourself at all costs whether that expression is to yourself or to a small group or to a large group, express it. Art is just, it's the way you connect with yourself. It's the way you connect with your environment. The way you connect with your being, everything beyond in and out and it's okay to not have everything right or done or the way you want it to be, because like, that expression is gonna come later. So it just behooves you to be open to those things, to be open to expression. Be open to your, you expressing your things. Be open to other people who are expressing their art too.
I told Mike that I felt like a lot of the times, people who are more critical of art made by others don't create as much themselves.
No, they don't. 'Cause that's not what they're built for. It's like, they just reach the mode of, I'm just gonna criticize and like creating is tough. The hardest thing to do is to be an artist. The hardest thing to do is to make art and be creative. Because you know, it's easy to go to college and get fucking 4.0 and like get a job in fucking Wall Street and make a shit ton of money. That's easy. That actually is really easy. People say it's hard, but it's like, you're following a formula. Like, try fucking writing a song, and then going and playing that to random strangers. That's tough. You know, when you do get that degree, you're probably gonna get a job that's gonna pay you quite a bit. That's like almost guaranteed. The structure is designed that way. But art, you don't know if they're gonna like your song. You don't know if they're gonna like, you know, resonate with what you're talking about you don't know if they're even gonna get what the fuck you're talking about, but you still have to express yourself. That's how I've always seen it.
We talked about some of his releases that he would like to plug and some of his final rounding thoughts.
We have a single out called "Losing" with Benna, the band. Then, Basic Comfort, we have a music video premiere and an album coming out. I've been trying to take better care of my health, and, you know, doing that as I get older.
I asked what kind of lasting effects he wants his music to have on people.
Use me as an example to still express yourself. If my music makes you feel like, oh wow, this is, I can do this. Then I've done what I need to do. I want people to just take away from what I'm doing, as this is someone expressing themselves and whether it's good or bad to them, you have to respect it. Shout out Buddha Hand, shout out Davey Jones, shout out Basic Comfort, shout out Benna, shout out, Witches Wedding, shout out Haley, thank you for having me for the interview. Shout out, Headband Henny, shout out all the Vine neighborhood rats that are looking for the cheese, dude. (laughing) I feel that. Yeah, that's it. Have a good night.
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Links-
Losing- https://open.spotify.com/album/1RAXqT2kUe5jdtMpgGOROz?si=9GjAMh5aTC6xXbp8EMb1oA