META CITY FUTURE
Q: What inspired you to write “All Over the World”?
It was one of those songs that seems to just “come about” out of nowhere. I sat at the guitar one day and the first thing I played was the bossa-nova-esque riff that would become the base of the song. The rest of the music came pretty naturally after that. The chorus lyrics came first as I was singing nonsense words while looking for a melody and they stuck. I quite often write my choruses this way as it’s quite fascinating to see what comes up from the subconscious, psychoanalyse what it might be trying to say and then build a coherent song around it. The “tryina make them see” line was the key pointer as to where I should take the song, with it giving an image of an individual ideologically opposing a mass. I inserted myself into this image at this point and what seemed to authentically make sense was an exploration into my personal relationship with popular culture and social orthodoxy.
Q: The song speaks about societal shallowness. Can you expand on your thoughts on this matter?
I think what came up for me in writing this song was the realisation of a kind of low-level chronic frustration with the disingenuousness and uniformity of “Instagram culture” and the standardised, materialistic definitions of success in our generation. There’s a lot of literal imagery in the song, and I guess the point is is that it’s expected that we chase these established images of success to prove our worth and coolness by literally setting up and sharing pictures of ourselves with the car, in the fancy restaurant, at the edgy pool party, over seeking out authentic first-hand experiences and connections. It makes me genuinely quite sad when I think about it, especially when I see people I know and care about, who I know to be unique and multi-layered human beings, feeling like they need to present themselves in this reductive kind of way.
Q: Growing up, how have you balanced personal expression with social norms that govern your life?
The flip-side of this song is me pointing the finger at myself and my own shame in often giving in to the pressure to play a role and tone down parts of myself while exaggerating others in order to both fit in and stand out positively in a given environment. I’ve always had an innate urge to position myself against any kind of popular crowd or cultural mass and try to prove myself on my own terms, but this brings with it its own irony and traps as in a way you’re just being even more egotistical in trying to be more “special” by being unique. The song ends up asking if it really is possible to escape the Will To Power and the need for social validation, and presents in places a suggestion of an answer that presence, mindfulness and connection to nature could be the way eg. “no digital witness, I really did this” and “til we shout silently from fields instead”.
Q: How do you believe that modern communication affects our ability to genuinely connect with others?
Modern technology and social media standardise what success looks like and make it much easier (and apparently necessary) to create a persona and attempt to live as that persona both on and offline. Being constantly exposed to curated images of not only the most successful people but just the sheer amount of people on a daily basis creates this pressure to be perfect and chase status and validation over real connection, which ultimately can only come through authenticity and vulnerability.
Q: How does authenticity come into play when creating as an artist?
I think the ultimate form of art is creating something that only you could have created, something that’s the culmination of your unique combination of influences, outlooks and experiences. Authenticity is when you stop trying to be your favourite artist and you find the little nuances and quirks that make you who you are deep down, be it a specific kind of vocal delivery, a certain chord voicing or a three-note pattern that comes up regularly when you play, like the kid inside of you is speaking through the instrument. Ultimately, it’s just about getting out of your own way and working to remove the walls between your art and your subconscious, which are most often the ego and to an extent your own technical limitations.
Q: Nietzsche is mentioned in your music. How has his philosophy influenced how you write songs?
I think the influence is in the idea of setting your own rules and defining your own view of success instead of following the standard protocol of what’s popular, then presenting that finished process to the world. Being aware of the Will To Power and trying to serve your own art and authenticity instead of playing that game in an industry that’s defined by it, where across the board there’s a need to always work to be growing reputation and influence. The complicated part is that we almost have no choice but to fight for the freedom that material, commercial success would bring for ourselves, our families and our art, and we have to play along to an extent in order to give our work the chance to be seen and experienced by others.
Q: You speak of a “higher prince” who seems confident and detached. Who or what inspired this character?
I imagined a modern-day Zarathustra or ubermensch, who in my head is for some reason walking down Market Street in Manchester with his hood up, getting about on their own mission to find meaning and being “cool” and an inspiration but in a different way to what’s more commonly expected. For the last few years I’ve been quite obsessed with the idea of an ultimate or ultra version of the self that we can visualise and be inspired to try and embody as much as possible. Granted it’s a dangerous game that can easily tip into unhealthy perfectionism and a distorted form of egotism if we let it, and there’s a sense in this verse of poking fun at the self in an attempt to maintain humility and awareness in the face of this ever-impending hypocrisy.
Q: The chorus reflects a desire for people to feel ashamed and be cleansed of their fakeness. Could we get more explanation on this point please?
There was a period in writing this song when I thought the chorus lyrics were a bit much and spoiled the song a bit by sounding overly judgmental and negative, but after sitting with a watered-down version of them for a while I decided it was more authentic and in service of art to keep the original lines, especially considering that they came about from the subconscious. I kept coming back to Nirvana’s In Bloom chorus and how it makes a comment in a similar vein that works really powerfully juxtaposed against the upbeat chord changes and the poppy melody the lyrics sit in. Shame is an incredibly complex and damaging emotion that I don’t advocate at all as an effective way to inspire long-term positive change, and while these lyrics hint at in places a hidden darkness and frustration making itself known, what that’s fuelled by is a real desire to see people use presence and genuine self-love to free themselves of the pressures that limit their self-expression and sense of peace and belonging in the world.
Q: The line “Free time calling, already booked up” reflects a busy lifestyle. How do you balance between creative work and everyday life demands?
“Free time calling” comes up A LOT in my nonsensical scats when I’m trying to write melodies without established lyrics, like my subconscious is trying to tell me something. The completed line in this song sticks out to me as being much more personal than the rest of the verse, as it describes a very real challenge I have to live with as an aspiring artist in that when I’m not at my day job, instead of having genuine leisure time to relax and recover, I’m faced with the pressure of having to build and deliver this other, infinitely complicated project. It leads you to live this upside-down kind of life where your day job is actually the time when that pressure is lifted and your mind can rest, then when you clock off the real work begins, with it being almost impossible to justify taking a day off or a holiday, and very difficult to feel a tangible sense of fulfilment even though you’re doing so much. So yeah, it’s very difficult!
Q: How do you hope your music impacts listeners on a personal level?
I would hope that each song comes across as a genuinely unique moment in time made by someone who is as complicated and ever-changing as everybody else. Musically, I’d like to be able to contribute to demonstrating how guitars can continue to be relevant and how they could work taking more of the focus in certain popular genres where they’re not often seen so much, more of that on EP two. As for lyrics, it would be great if my songs were thought-provoking on a deeper level around topics that can be quite specific and not often the go-to subject matter for a pop song. Aside from all over the world, on this EP erazor addresses the extent of how psychologically damaging our phones and social media can be, especially to teenage girls and younger women, and the “love song” of the record everything we’ve been taught about love subverts the standard trope of “the one” and makes the case for finding peace inside of yourself through the letting go of fantasy and possessiveness. italia 20 on the other hand is about England losing the 2020 Euros final, which clearly upset me enough to inspire me to write a song about it and there’s more there to unpack than you might think!
Q: How do you approach writing songs that deal with very deep and complicated themes in the creative process?
Firstly, I tend to avoid overthinking the choruses, in fact every chorus on this EP was written from the subconscious during a melodic scat. I tend to use the first verse to introduce and explore the main theme and the second verse to go deeper and potentially provide a more developed take on those ideas. The middle 8 or alternative section can provide an alternative view or a reconciliation in some way, and the outro tends to present some sort of solution or takeaway that may or may not resolve what the song brings up. Usually, a certain topic will bring up a series of images in my head that I’ll arrange in an order that makes sense to me in the context of the music and in the development of the narrative. I prefer centring my songs around images over the “this happened, and then I felt this” approach because it allows me to more genuinely translate what comes up first-hand inside my own head and gives the listener space to draw their own conclusions and answers from the songs in a way that makes sense for them in the context of their own lives.
Q: What difficulties do you find when transcribing your personal experiences and observations to your lyrics?
Given the extremely personal nature of songwriting, it can be a challenge to keep on finding the emotional energy to be authentic and genuinely vulnerable in the work you release, while also being mindful that you’re not over-compensating for that by leaning into self-indulgent oversharing. I always try to say what I want to say in the simplest and most genuine way possible, but the finished product of a song is different to that of a diary entry and sometimes the more specific details can add real life to a scene and other times can feel a bit pointless and contrived. When you’re allowing yourself to create freely and from an often subconscious place, early drafts can often carry a lot of that negative energy that you’re processing and releasing from yourself, and it’s a necessary skill to be able to turn that into something constructive that other people might want to listen to. I lean heavily toward imagery over metaphor, as metaphors can very easily pull themselves away from adding to the message and toward being intangible, contrived or overtly ironic, and I prefer to let images do the talking for the emotions and allow the listener find the emotions themselves.
Q: How does your music reflect this society’s current condition?
I think the combination of different influences in my music, some that you might think wouldn’t work together, reflects the range of different cultural experiences and forms of artistic expression available to us nowadays. I think under all that difference we are actually very similar, and different genres of music are very often just slightly different ways of expressing the same thing. I do get a bit metamodern and break the fourth wall in places in my lyrics but really I’m a modernist artist, especially when it comes to writing the music, who prefers to use the expected structure and form of a pop song as a foundation whose establishment then offers the space for wide-ranging creative expression inside of certain reoccurring tropes and tendencies. There’s also a bit of a retro feel to my music and a bit of a pullback in the songwriting to when music was less ironic and self-aware and more direct and unashamedly grandiose in its expression and sentiments.
Q: What would be your message to those that face societal pressures and shallowness of life?
I think it’s important to regularly check in with yourself to see if how you’re spending your time and energy is actually what you really want for yourself. It’s really difficult and it’s something I have to work on being mindful of every single day. Getting up early and having a few quiet hours to exercise, study or spend time in nature can be a great start in creating a break in that cycle of pressure and build a wider perspective. Trying to stay open, vulnerable and emotionally present with the people in our lives can turn our focus away from ourselves and counteract that sense of having to perform and be perfect by filling that void with fulfilling interactions and connections. Remember that the game is a game, one that we will have to play at times but one that doesn’t define us.
Q: Can you tell us about any different experiences of life that went into making “All Over the World” what it is?
I’ve had a lot of quite intense phases of listening to different genres of music across my life, and I think this song demonstrates the influence and the range of those influences pretty well. I loved pop music as a child and then turned towards more guitar-based music in my teens, before getting into dance in my early twenties and hip-hop and r’n’b after that. There have been times when I’ve been so put off by a guitar in a song that I couldn’t listen to it, and similarly other times when I couldn’t listen to a second of rap or r’n’b, whereas now I feel like I’ve come full circle and can happily travel in time across my life listening to little bits of this and that, and come back to the guitar from a new perspective.
