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The CENSORED dialogue Interview

*Pardon the lack of image or formatting I’m blogging on my phone, for playlist please hammer [this hyperlink](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6vQEKyw7Qj2HkMD3dsxAJl?si=P5G5TAaJR8mN26rqxBhlMQ&pi=u-2ykOXIrbQGyJ)*

The way I saw it, retromania was the major theme in 2024 music, highlighted by Chappell Roan’s 1980s approach, the heightened mainstream energy around country/Americana, and, to a lesser degree, Gens Z and Alpha loving dnb/jungle. I try not to be a trendy mf, but l was not immune to the backward pull. Throwback styles are present on my best songs list via Tommy Richman, Fabiana Palladino, Mk.gee, and GloRilla pulling from from the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s. 

The other big retro event of the year was indie sleaze, a mini movement inspired by 2000s hipsterism, by people who weren’t born at the time. It was something various entities were colluding to “make happen,” and smacked of struggle because there was no good music to support it. But it was something, and people were into it.

2024 music wasn’t strictly about old aesthetics, though. Innovators were innovating. And I would’ve liked to have read more stories about their innovations. Everybody and their mom wrote about Cash Cobain this year, but what is it about the way he makes beats that has so many fans in a trance? How did his sound cut through in 2024? Why does it still feel so fresh, for years now?

And like, off the top of my head, the bugged out funk of current era Brazil — it’s absolutely crucial to be following now, and has been the past few years. I love that it seems to soundtrack these huge popular parties. Could it be that the music of the people can also be so raw and experimental? Or maybe the popularity is in some way a fabrication on the internet, which is its own kind of performance? I have questions, and I’m still waiting for the great modern funk article.

But back to the nostalgia: it seemed like everyone got sucked in, a little bit. Even artists like Charli XCX and AG Cook, whose overall “things” are about pushing pop forward, made their 2024 hit “360” in the bubbegum bass style of hyperpop/digicore from around the turn of the decade (yes it’s possible to be nostalgic for four years ago). It’s a modern masterpiece that scans to me as retro, albeit the most recent that retro can be. 

Why did the past dazzle us so much in 2024? Maybe we are scared for the future of the world and want something familiar to make us feel safe. Maybe artists just have a special fondness for certain older music, and they want to share that with fans. I can’t call it, and I also don’t care that much, although if you have a theory please lmk. Music has no expiration date, and getting an education is cool, so if you got turned on to righteous jams from some time before you were born by a song that came out yesterday, hell yeah. 

Top 10 Songs

Fisherrr - Cash Cobain and Bay Swag

2024 saw Cash seep into the pop realm with his borderline unfinished yet seemingly scalable sexy drill, going on a production/features run outside his native New York, and lacing Don Tolliver, Travis Scott, Big Sean, and Bktherula, to name a few. But he saved his best song for home, a slow-building, half-drumsless concoction of sustained strings and just a few well-chosen chords, with lyrics about local hot girls who eat all the cabbage in the corner compartment of their Jamaican take out container. Fisherrr is unhurried in a way that most rap isn’t, which is refreshing, and durability wise builds Cash’s legacy of perfect songs, hanging with new classics like Slizzy Like and Vacant. Song of the summer, no doubt.

Yeah Glo! - GloRilla

Cowbell instance #1 on this list. Yeah Glo! is one of those rap bangers that hits right away and just feels right, the kind of song GloRilla should make whole albums of. But I guess this is mixtape Glo, technically. 

Stay With Me Through The Night - Fabiana Palladino

Currently Fabiana is making the dopest music of any Palladino, which is saying a lot since her dad Pino is a certified bass god, and her brother Rocko is crazy on the bass, too. Grooving on keyboards and singing about relationships, she dropped an album of perfect soulful pop songs this year, all in older styles. This one nails yacht rock. The video is sick, too, I love how it’s all about the music. 

Mire - 1010benja

There are several times when 1010benja, the best singer singing, catches an out of body flow on Ten Total album. Mire is the bangingest. Does the bass remind you of drill? Perhaps it’s intentional. The verses are about needing a honey, chorus about breaking up, it’s lyrically characteristic of the project as a whole, full of contradictions and confusions, however with a moment of clarity and an ultimate plea for assisted comfort: “I need your help / not your belt.” 

Million Dollar Baby - Tommy Richman

Sorry, it just needs to be here. Tommy Richman is maybe the new Justin Timberlake, whom we have moved on from, as a society, and guess what, he’s problematic, too. His album was uneven but he got one with Million Dollar Baby, some Virginia-via-Memphis funk that more than got the job done as an R&B banger. 

Hate the Real - MCVERTT and 41

MCVERTT’s best beat ever, slowed down Jersey Club with the most yearning sample of what is that, tenor saxophone? Definitely the beat is releasing hypnotical gasses. For their part, 41, drill’s Brownsville boy band, raps super hard about zoning out and facing blunts/depression. Who can relate? Even though I got 26 in 2024’s big 41/26 feud, I can’t deny this song was something special. 

Candy - Mk.gee 

I initially hated on Mk.gee thinking his guitar sound was a Jai Paul ripoff. I now know I was wrong, and he’s doing his own thing, and able to write perfect rock songs with a deep rhythmic pocket. Respect. And if he makes songs with Bieber, which he is rumored to be doing, more respect fuck it. 

Wickedest - Tems



This song helped me get my confidence up when I was feeling really shaky. Big stretch here but I’m three years into a career pivot into social work, now finished with school and starting my second job as an LMSW. Tems sings about being on for three years and the triumphant difficulty of maintaining her vision. Shit clicked for me a few days before I started my new gig: I got this. 

Hell of a Ride - Nourished by Time

Incredible build up to a song finally beginning, a world being constructed before your ears. Singular vaguely John Hughes esque dreamy synth rock songwriting that is sprawling and anthemic. Real auteur shit. 

360 - Charli XCX

This is a 10 out of 10 song, word to Will Anderson of Hotline TNT. And I don’t give a fuck, I was always here for bubblegum bass. I loved it in some of the earliest seedlings of hyperpop like “Bipp,” and I loved it in 2020 digicore on songs by quinn and d0llywood1. And Charli is here killing it for the last time? Probably not but she is killing it, and it doesn’t hurt that this song was beloved by my wife and kindergartener and was one of a few jams we all agreed on this year.



Best Music 2024: Main Idea and Best Songs

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Big up the homie Vivian Medithi for this casual, musically deep interview with the other homie, Finals [selector](https://www.finals.blog/posts/Recorded-Sets-from-Stakes-Is-Low-3:-Hua-Hsu-Mano-b2b-swoozydolphin) and [contributor](https://finals.blog/posts/Remembering-That-Recording-Is-About-Remembering), the mighty and multitalented swoozydolphin from Detroit. If you slept on swoozy's Omnibus album this summer, under his real name (sort of) Toriin, you lost. But it's not too late to tap into one of the most emotional, rangy, chill-yet-knocking projects of the year. I find it to be a hardwon triumph, a perfect version of his work in this particular wavy vocal/production chamber, great for soundtracking rough moments in life where you still gotta swag it out and survive with style. Real end of the year list material if you like rap, dance, and shoegaze music. And true to his prolific nature swoozy's already got more jams out, more DJ mixes, and everything's fire. Do your googles! 

<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 470px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1915470459/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://swoozydolphin.bandcamp.com/album/omnibus">OMNIBUS by toriin</a></iframe>

**Vivian: What do you usually watch on youtube?**

Swoozy: A lot of geartube unfortunately. Music gear, and ambient videos. I’m gonna put one on in the background right now because why not. Youtube is hard lately. 

**Gear videos like, I bought this new thing and here’s what it does?**

Pretty much. Or here’s the technique we used in the ‘80s and how to use it in a modern studio. 

**Do you find that platform agnostic technique transfer of using old techniques on new platforms compelling? Or is that just something you watched recently?**

I think it’s good. I jump from platform to platform. The nature of the job is I’m always getting familiar with something new. Recently a kid at work who was 19 wanted to get into beats, and I got him Ableton. But he wants to make beats that people don’t make tutorials for on Ableton. So I’m sending him FL studio so he understands that if you know what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter the platform. 

**A while ago you wrote something for Finals about making artifacts of sonic space in terms of recording. It’s interesting to think about the transliteration of these techniques from the 80s to now. In some ways you can’t get back that thing that was happening in that medium.** 

It’s cool because we’re in an era where the fidelity is not the issue. And virtual instruments make most things accessible. The harder thing is the spatial awareness and the mindset. Really not much has changed but our understanding has changed. People will make a song entirely in the box, all synthesis, AI vocals, and that point, where is the understanding of some real analog thing coming from? It’s interesting how far we’ve come. And how far we haven’t come. Cuz like Lazer Dim is raw. But if you could make beats like that in the ‘70s, and put it on two track, four track tape machine, and dude ripped that, it would still sound like Lazer Dim. 

**I’m sure everyone feels this way now, but there is a lot of rehashing across mediums. I think we see it heavily in music. It’s interesting to hear you say that because it’s like thinking about it in the reverse.** 

People been rehashing forever. Nothing new under the sun. Also means nobody’s new in coming up with original verses, original ideas. Everything is being accelerated now. I was watching a documentary about the blues in the Mississippi Delta, and this is not a knock on any of the original bluesmen and blueswomen, but you can tell they’re all pulling from the same well, and this is the ur, OG American pop music. Everything comes from that. You know the Lil Peep 2 thing? There was a blues guy named 1 and 2, that was how people referred to them. Sonny Boy. There was a Sonny Boy in Chicago, and a Sonny Boy in Mississippi. And they were like, OK, we can’t do this. So everyone knew if you were talking about Sonny Boy 2, you were talking about Sonny Boy from Mississippi. And his music probably didn’t sound too much different either. And that was 100 years ago. 

**My grandparents have the blues, I have dark plugg.** 

Basically. 

**Speaking of unoriginal people rehashing stuff, you had a tweet recently that was like “every Deftones sample/cover is better than the OG. That band sucks and I need people to be honest.” How do you feel about Deftones, swoozy?**

I like some of the stuff. I mean, I don’t want to draw the ire of Chino Moreno’s fans. Deftones, it’s fine. I feel like we all have way too rosy of an idea of nu metal and posthardcore, and post-grunge world. It wasn’t like the stuff was great or new at the time, it just sort of lasted. They had some slaps, but Deftones versus Smashing Pumpkins? Get out of here. When I listen to people who interpolate and take Deftones further, I’m like yeah this is good music. When I listen to Deftones 80% of the time I’m like, cool, this sounds like 90s nu metal. I feel like that’s more my taste. But also I don’t know, I don’t feel like we gotta retread the grunge/post-nu metal.

**We don’t have to talk about Deftones again. I know you are somebody who is interested in somewhat weird and esoteric music, I know you operate within genres that are fairly commercial, and work with people who are maybe more digestible like RXKNephew, or Dazegxd, or gum.mp3, people who are making, I don’t want to say any less rigorous or interesting work, but more accessible. Where does that impulse stem from for you?** 

In terms of being esoteric, I have a lot of interest and a lot of knowledge I’ve picked up, and it feels like a disservice to be like…I have all these things I could take from, and people I can reach out to… ANd if I hone in on one thing I get bored really fast. 

**How did you first start making music?**

That’s hard. It’s got an indefinite answer. The raw answer is i was 3 or 4 and learned how to whistle, and kept my mom up all night. At some point the local community college had piano lessons for kids, but I never stuck with it. But around 12 i was really interested in playing instruments. Bass guitar called to me. So i started picking up bass guitar and have been doing music since. DJing shortly after, producing around the same time. 

**What was the transition from instruments to a DAW like for you?**

I came up with the DAW. There’s always been a computer right next to me. Even when I got my first bass, and first interface when I was 13, I was tracking it to a rudimentary protools. The thing that made it come into maturity was learning more analog stuff, music theory, chord voicings, and then the DAW makes more sense because I know music better. 

**When you moved from playing instruments to composing your own music, what kind were you doing? People you were emulating? Sound or effect you were trying to go for?**

At the beginning, I was just playing around. Eventually I did some Dilla, ‘90s hip hop type thing. That was a fun practice, because I was like I understand this music I love. Then I started making stuff I thought sounded good regardless of style. But early influences were Dilla, more guitar stuff like MBV, Drop Nineteens, Victor Wooten. He had this sick six string bass. 

**Cool to hear you talk about MBV, because I can hear their love for reverb in the way you approach your music.** 

I’ve been really interested in the lyricism of the shoegaze movement, or lack of lyricism, like suggestions that get stuck in my head. Like what does it mean? There might be 12 words int he song but I know how it makes me feel. 

**A lot of rap I like lately whether dark plugg, or Quavo and Lana Del Rey, we’re moving away from overly constructed lyrics into something more direct and simple. Emotion coming much more from tone and delivery than content of what is being said.** 

I fuck with it. I’m not a great lyricist. And that’s the zeitgeisty thing going on, so I”m like maybe I should put out some vocal stuff again. I’ve never been an “i’m like this and they’re like that” rapper.” A lot of rap songwriting now is being cool, doing a vibe, maybe it’s being esoteric, but maybe I don’t have a lot to say about wearing designer or driving fast cars because I don’t do that. 

**I don’t think of your lyrics as esoteric. You’re not Ab-Soul. Rapping from the perspective of an astronomical body. Tomu was texting me the other night about Bad Dayz Good Jokez.** 

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I”m really interested in turns of phrases and putting words together. I come up with bars in a roundabout way, I’ll write down words or phrases that I like, and be like, how can i make a song out of this? I’ve been listening to melvin van peebles a lot more lately. You really get that he was a writer. His songs are some classic shit that a black guy in the 70s would do, talking jive but making it way different, rock, jazz, that shit is inspiring. 

**What do you take away from that?**

Atmosphere. There’s some direct influence, but I’m not about to record a soul orchestra. But the lyrical parts, where he puts you in a mode of stories told from people who were on the streets. He can make you feel like this is a song from someone who has been there. 

**When we’re talking about lyrics, are you producing and then writing a melody? What’s your process?**

It’s usually a really long process. I make the beats quick, I have 100s that just sit. When it comes time to make an album, I write to that, and freestyle. Omnibus, the beats were made in a week and a half. I had more of a hands on process, that was taking music that wasn’t even completely done, and I was writing the lyrics around the same time. The fun part for me that I’m getting into, is when I’m in the process, I’ve been feeling more comfortable looping stuff, making stuff into a song. Before, I was trying to push everything through. Now i’m more interested in scaling back. Where would I want the hook again? Would I want the beat again, here? LIke a radio song. 

**What feels different about the process when you’re working on everything in such a short span?**
 
I’ll just make an album when I’m really down bad in life, because I feel that thing Toni Morrison talks about, like when the world goes to shit, you go to work, becuase you’re not going to take it lying down. Omnibus was way faster, and also things were kind of shitty, but i felt more focused. So I guess the energy came from the focus, I guess. Considering everything around us, it’s a lot going on. That’s why I went by my own name, not entirely my own name, but i think this is me. I really put it together, this is what I think, how I feel. Versus before it was halfway, or 80 or 90 percent of the way to that. 

**That 10 to 20 percent difference of swoozydolphin and Toriin, where is that difference?**

It has to do with the range. Swoozydolphin is like me being a producer. Engineer, yeah. DJ, yeah. But mostly it’s me making sounds. With Toriin, it’s the sounds, but I also had something to say, stuff to talk about, and investment that even if the music doesn’t go far, it represents me. I put out like 20 albums. But this one was like, I stand behind it as myself, not totally, because that’s a weird thing to do, but i went and played my guitar, made some dance beats, made some hip hop, and I think the songs will make sense. 

**For sure. The headline will be “swoozydolphin is not standing on business.” Cuz what do you mean you don’t stand behind it?**

I stand behind it!

**Gum.mp3 is on here, and you were on his project earlier this year. I really fw both those songs.** 

<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/3uAHPIR6L2OxgpzKaf3HkT?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>

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Those two tracks are kind of related in that they’re both old. Gum is bro. I just did a mix for his show coming out soon. We make music. We send stuff both ways. And we’ll have stuff that has been sitting for a while. The one on his album, he sent chords and a few drums, and I made it a juke thing, and it’s been sitting since 2021. The next year he sent me the rough draft of his album to master, and he was like, it’s time. This one, the one on mine, it came from a pack we were making to build out for somebody, and I think he sent it, but they probably didn’t get back. It was sitting on my hard drive, and neither of us had plans for it. I was like, I want to use this. 

**How do you pick what old stuff to include next to what new stuff you’re recording in a fast time frame?**

I don’t know it’s just the feel of it. Most of Omnibus was new. The old ones that were used, were off the feel. The new ones, I knew where the sonic world was at. And you gotta exhaust all options. So I went back to listen to old beats to see if I was missing anything. 

**Was there any particular song that came together very fast, or took the longest?**

The hardest one was probably either Clearinghouse, because I didn’t know what to do vocally, and I gave up and did dance music shit, or Float, because it was really early and I didn’t know I was making an album, just wanted to make a song that was comfortable. And I freestyled the whole thing, and landed on some themes that I worked on over the whole shit. The fastest was Rotation, I did that in 30 minutes. 

**When you say Float felt comfortable, what feels comfortable about that song to you?**

I don’t know if everyone gets for it, but I got the vibe I was going for. From the mixing, to everything. It’s relaxed, but it knocks. I don’t have the lyrical aspiration to point to other stuff, I want them to mean something to me and other people. Float was like, I wasn’t trying to get too personal, but I still wanted to make something that meant something.  

**Sometimes do you think people get the impression that your music is more tossed off than it is?**

Maybe. This album, it was raw vocals. Auto tune for sure, but I didn’t pitch it up. I didn’t obscure it too much. And it wasn’t like, nothing phrases. There’s writing going on. 

**There’s distortion, but it’s not to obscure things. It’s more atmospheric. Versus in the service of hiding stuff, or making it more difficult to hear what’s being communicated.** 

There’s a continuousness, to the washed out vocals to the dry vocals. I like the dry vocals. Dean Blunt does that a lot, Doris does that a lot. Really just them talking into their phone sometimes. But sometimes I do my thing with auto tune, reverb, and distortion. 

**What is the same between your DJing and the music you make?** 

The distance is closing. DJing, I like it not being my voice. I like going all these different places, that might be really different. I came up with a term for my DJing which is “extended format.” That means, I’m gonna play whatever. Go beyond what you’re comfortable with. And it’s gonna make sense in the mix. With my music, it’s all me. So there’s not anywhere to point to. I would like to point to other places sometimes. Lately I think they’re merging. I’ve been DJIng more of my own stuff. And in my music I’m getting better at referencing. 

**When you’re thinking about what to point to in your DJ sets, how do you know what to select?**

In a lot of ways it’s methodical, but it’s also different every time. I keep crates. I came up under OG great DJs, like Mike Huckaby, and all the DJs of Detroit who are here, and of yesteryear. So I keep crates. That’s the methodical part. But it gets real free associative when I’m doing it. And feeding off the crowd. I might play a rock song, or a ‘90s hip hop song, or Lazer Dim, but I quickly go where I want to go. When you start a set, you want to lay down ground rules. 

**What are your go-to ground rules?**

It’s probably going to be fast, probably going to mix fast. I”m going to go a lot of places, a lot of times. And play stuff people haven’t heard. I don’t play familiar music. And I try not to play tracks again, really. 


The swoozydolphin Interview

Unfiltered Commentary: 41 vs. 26AR

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<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1896509526&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/rumoredtobeamongthebest" title="FINALS.BLOG" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">FINALS.BLOG</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/rumoredtobeamongthebest/finals-chat-no-01-iwaad-chat" title="Finals Chat No. 01, IWAAD Chat With Timmhotep Aku.mp3" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Finals Chat No. 01, IWAAD Chat With Timmhotep Aku.mp3</a></div>

Saturday we watched the flick at Tribeca Film Fest (*It Was All a Dream*, dir. dream hampton, 2024). Sunday we chatted about it and processed in real time (outside on Bedford Ave., pardon the background noise). And Monday, here we are, publishing on soundcloud and ye olde blog. 

This is me with culture worker and friend [Timmhotep Aku](https://linktr.ee/timmhotep), reflecting on an amazing documentary. While its wider release is still uncertain, *IWAAD* is highly recommended for casual rap fans and essential viewing for '90s music historians, featuring footage of Biggie, Snoop, Method Man, Dre, Leshaun, Nikki D, Guru, and others, depicting them in as casual a manner as you can imagine, in the studio, riding around in cars, in hotels, at photoshoots, and on the street. 

Regardless if *IWAAD* eventually shows up on Hulu or Netflix or whatever, it will endure as an underground cult classic, sparking conversations for generations. This is ours. It's not an exhaustive breakdown or anything, but rather raw thoughts from two people who were moved by what dream made and wanted to talk about it while still under the influence of the screening.  

For more info on *IWAAD*, read Mankaprr Conteh's interview with dream [here](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/dream-hampton-it-was-all-a-dream-interview-1235035536/), and Alphonse Pierre's review [here](https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/dream-hampton-it-was-all-a-dream-is-the-right-rap-documentary-for-right-now/). And for reference about the part where Timm talks about the PTP Archive Coalition, peep my interview with GENG PTP [here](https://finals.blog/posts/The-GENG-PTP-Interview) and follow [@genggrizzly](https://www.instagram.com/genggrizzly) for any upcoming events. 

Finals Chat No. 01: It Was All a Dream with Timmhotep Aku

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Hotline TNT: best rock band in America? My favorite anyway. 

*Cartwheel* (2023) is their pinnacle to date, and with that album in regular rotation still in 2024, I sat down on my stoop and talked to Will Anderson on speakerphone about his 15 year old musical project (if you count his earlier band Weed, which I do, since it's pretty much the same rock ideas). We also touched on how he makes his Hotline guitars sound so cool (open G tuning, Weed was open E), and the difficulties of maintaining a steady lineup EVEN when you're signed to Jack White's label, critically adored, and getting booked for nonstop tours and festivals (his four piece band is playing Gov Ball (smallest font on the flier) and Pitchfork this summer). 

Not everyone is built for the lifestyle. But Will is. He makes and sells his own merch, makes and sells his own zine, and does everything that he can DIY even though he's "part of the music industry" now. He's a few credits away from a school counseling degree and could easily just hang it up and pursue a different career. And yet, album after album, show after show, t shirt after t shirt, he keeps doing it and getting better and finding reasons to hang on.  

I cut some interview at the end about making [merch inspired by stuff Michael Jordan used to wear](https://assnup.bigcartel.com/product/yo-black-shirt), and the subscriber list of [Assn' Up](https://assnup.bigcartel.com/) (Association Update), his zine, because I liked ending on the stuff about playing shows, sick with lightweight meningitis. Hardcore, not exactly advisable, and deeply appreciated by fans. Seemed like a good note to go out on.  

<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 470px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3423234898/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://weed.bandcamp.com/album/with-drug-c-w-eighty-7">With Drug c/w Eighty 7&quot; by Weed</a></iframe>

**Finals: Earlier today I was playing one of my Weed 45s, the “With Drug” and “Eighty” 7”...**

Will Anderson: That’s the earliest one of all. FIrst thing I ever recorded. 

**First thing you ever recorded?**

Well, there was a tape or two. But first vinyl.

**Wow. I remember seeing you at this place in Seattle called Cairo back in that time.** 

Yeah, that’s where it all started. 

**Can you talk a little about that time and that place? What do you mean, ‘that’s where it all started’?**

That’s where I got my first taste of being part of any DIY community. We were a Vancouver band, but we recorded that 7” in Seattle with Jose Diaz. Do you remember him? He was in a band called Neighbors. He helped run a place called Heartland, too, maybe?

**Oh yeah Heartland was in the U District.** 

Yeah. And somehow I got it in my head that we should record in Seattle, with Jose, who actually I haven’t seen since until a month ago, because he lives in Berlin, and we were passing through Berlin [on tour], and he hit me up and we reconnected. But anyway, I was on tour with another band when I was 19 year old. And we played Healthy Times Fun Club. Did you ever go there?

**Definitely saw a few people there. It was in a basement in Capitol Hill. People lived there, and you could get vegan beans there.** 

Yeah. So I was in my first ever tour, tour managing this band, and they played a show at Healthy Times Fun Club and I was like whoa, I have no idea what the fuck this place is. It was my first taste of that. So eventually I move to Vancouver and I’m in Weed and I’m like we gotta play this place in Seattle, it’s underground, there are vegan beans. 

**Ha ha.**

And we did, and five people were there.

[phone cuts out]

Did you lose anything?

**No you were talking about Cairo, Heartland, and Healthy Times, and what the scene was like.** 

We played Healthy Times to five people. We were an unknown band from Vancouver. There was a couple guys who lived there who we met, who we hung out with. And they were like next time you come back, you gotta play this place Cairo. And I was like, I don’t know what that is but cool. This was all being coordinated on Facebook messenger. And we came down, and this guy Ian Judd set up a show for us. I’m sure you know that name. 

**Yeah I wrote a [story](https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/capitol-hills-cairo-presents-vibrations-festival/) about Cairo at the time for Seattle Times and they actually photographed him.** 

![Screen Shot 2024-06-02 at 8.35.41 AM.png](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/Screen_Shot_2024_06_02_at_8_35_41_AM_6f15a1a74e.png)

*Photo by Erika Schultz*

Yeah. We pulled up to Cairo, and Ian opened the door, and the rest is history. It changed everything. Started playing at Cairo, and I would drive down to see shows at Cairo all the time. It was a magical place, at the time. 

**Can you describe the magic a little bit?**

I don’t want to give Ian too much credit, but he was a really special curator of the vibe. For some reason him, and Travis from Naomi Punk, gave Weed the stamp of approval. I think they probably saw I was of the same feather, and cared deeply about DIY music, and not waiting for the music industry to give you the allowance to do things when you can do things for yourself. We became the Vancouver tentacle of this octopus that the Cairo people were creating. They showed me the way. I don’t think they knew they showed me. I was new to making a band, and going on tour, and probably didn’t let on how new I was. But i don’t know, it was a cool place, with a lot of interesting bands coming out of that storefront on Capitol Hill. 

**If I ever meet you in real life I’ll give you some artifacts of that time.** 

What do you got?

**I got a Stephanie 45, handwritten Sharpie…**

Stephanie was a band that, I knew everyone in the band, but never saw them live. I don’t think I ever even heard the records. But I’m still tight with Matt Lawson. We talk all the time. He came to our show in Austin. 

**No way, from Stephanie and Secret Colors.** 

Yeah we played video games a lot during the Covid lockdowns. And I see Ian Judd all the time, too. I don’t know if you see him. 

**I saw him recently at a fish narc show, and he tried explaining to me what he’s doing with Nina Protocol but I don’t know what blockchain is, really, and I don’t get it.** 

He’s explained it to me three or four times and I don’t understand it. He’s more involved in the electronic music world now, and has hooked Hotline up with some people who are remixing us. Like DJ Python, are you into that?

**I like Python.** 

Downstairs J is doing one, Physical Therapy is doing one. I know we got off track a little there.

**It’s trippy thinking about that Weed 7” as being your first recorded music because, you have five people in your band, now, or some big amount of people, but the sound has not changed, really. The style of rock music.**

Well to be fair, the recordings are all me, still. 

**Cartwheel’s all you?**

Cartwheel’s all me. 

**You’ve had several iterations, right?**

Yeah. The touring’s pretty intense, and people that think they might wanna do it, don’t end up liking it as much as they thought. I would love to have the same people in the whole time, but it hasn’t worked out. It started as a three-piece. I think five is my max. Right now we’re actually at four. That could change any time. 

**Have all your recordings been all you?**

Both full length albums were all me, and the last 7” was all me. The first 7” there was other people playing on it, when it started as a three-piece in Minneapolis. 

**What’s that like, starting all over again with new people all the time? Do you feel like the head chef of a restaurant?**

That’s a good way to put it. It’s very frustrating, and very stressful at times. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, this is it, I found the lineup, and then something happens, or some turmoil. It’s been hard. But for some reason I keep dragging the corpse around, and it seems like it’s getting better. But it’s difficult. 

**You’ve been doing it for 15 years.** 

Well including Weed, yeah. 

**Which I see as, again I hear Weed as similar, so this is your project, and it’s been going on for a long time.** 

The only thing I’ll say about Weed, is that after “With Drug”/”Eighty” it was me and my friend Kevin, it was a duo. But I was the one saying, we gotta go on tour, we gotta make connections with the people at Cairo, that was all me. 

**So how do you stay knowing people who will join the band? Because they’re younger than you, right?**

There was some younger people in Hotline, but that was a grave mistake. And now everyone’s in their early thirties like me. 

**A grave mistake, huh? Why’s that?**

Playing all-ages shows is really important to me. With Weed, we never played an age-restricted show. I think young people are really important for creating music and spaces. But I’m 35 now and it’s just different having people in the band who are a decade older than me. I don’t fault anyone for having different priorities, but at this stage, I just need to take it more seriously. Unfortunately, I’m part of the music industry now. I won’t go into all the gory details, but I just want to take it more seriously than some of the people had been. 

**Do you prefer a certain amount of people in the band? You have such a heavy guitar tone, maybe it’s better with more people in the band?**

That is true. I would prefer to have three guitars. But four people is workable. Two guitars. 

**The main characteristic of Weed and Hotline TNT is the guitar. Can you talk a little bit about writing riffs? Certain things on a guitar, are go-to rockstar moves that everyone can get behind. And you do that, but also play with time signature a little, or throw in some left turns. But you keep it really accessible. Does that ring true?**

Yeah. Not all of it is conscious but some of it is. I”m trying to write catchy pop songs at the end of the day, I don’t have a ton of interest in writing stuff that’s hard to listen to. But sometimes we do stuff that, where I want to string people along and surprise them a little bit. It’s hard to articulate what those things are. But I listen to mostly pop music. I like catchy songs. 

**What’s a catchy or perfect song to you?**

A recent example is “360” by Charli XCX. I love her music. That’s on my recent plays on my Apple music library. 

**What’s it like writing a song like “BMX.” It’s so huge. And you’re doing it all yourself, and it’s for the stadium, the arena or something.**

Actually it’s funny you bring up that riff. That’s the one riff in this whole band that I didn’t write. But this guy Jack Kraus wrote that, and he’d been in the band for a while, and he played it and I was like, what is that riff? He was playing it in the Hotline tuning, and he was like you can use it for the band if you want. 

**What’s the Hotline tuning?**

It’s like open G, but it’s not open G. I don’t know if it has a name. I may have stumbled across it. It’s like if you were playing a G chord. 3-2-0-0-3-3. It’s like if you tune a guitar to that, open. So far been two tunings. Open E, which is what Weed did, whole thing open E. But now it’s open G. It provides a lot of the power pop, jangly, ringing out at all times, quality. 

**Just more strings playing a complimentary sound?**

Yeah, you can pretty much always leave strings open and it’ll sound good. 

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**What about “I Thought You’d Change” do you want to talk about it at all? I know it’s pretty popular. It’s so good. **

It’s definitely out poppiest song. Let me think of what I can say about it. It’s like the peak, if I can be so bold, of my lyrics. I think it’s a catchy phrase. It’s so ubiquitous, changing your mind. I take a lot of…I’m trying to think of…ok take Hotline Bling by Drake. The fact that he says call me on my cell phone is so, weirdly the earworm of the lyrics. Nobody uses that phrase any more but it gets stuck in your head that he says cell phone. I get latched on to simple turns of phrase. I thought you’d change your mind…

**Text when you’re outside.** 

Exactly. But it’s very easy to be corny. Especially when you’re talking about technology. I feel like talking about texting in your songs, it’s hard to do. But i think I pulled it off on that particular song. 

**When I heard it last year, I was like damn this sounds like Weed. And I didn’t know it was you. And I was like this is what I have been waiting for. Now I see it has almost a million plays on Spotify. This is what a lot of people want to hear.** 

I think so too. It’s funny I brought up Matt Lawson because he’s been following my career this whole time, and been a great supporter, and he said when Cartwheel came out that he was really glad I kept it going. He said there’s always one more thing keeping your project going. One more tour. One more record. And people were connecting with it a little bit more, a little bit more. Seems like with this album, it’s so far the peak of that. 

**And “Out of Town” is so fucking good. And the way “Spot Me 100” turns into another song is so good.** 

Thank you. People are begging us to play that live. I think Mike, our drummer, could pull it off. We have a large catalog, and a lot of turmoil, and we’ve gotten through about half Cartwheel for performing new songs and that one hasn’t made the cut yet. But I would like it to. 

**Yeah that tumultuousness must take a toll.** 

I hate it. Most annoying part of this whole band. Number one thing I hate about it. 

**Well if you start doing bigger numbers and bigger tours, do you think it would be easier to get people to commit?**

I would have thought we were there. We’re making more money than I ever made. Shows are better than ever. And we had someone quit the band last week. I don’t know what else i can do. We all get along really well, too. I’m not trying to make it sound bad, but it is a lot of work to be on tour this much, be away from your girlfriend, or whatever. That’s what it comes down to. The lifestyle is hard for people to commit too. 

**Do you think, if it was more collaborative, than people wouldn’t quit so much?**

Well, I would like it to be. Every time someone drops out after six months, someone else says, well the last guy quit after six months. It’s just Will’s project, so I can quit too. It’s a self sustaining cycle. I would love to open it up to people, but I don’t trust that people are going to be around that long anyway. 

**Well I guess a song like BMX is proof of what you’re saying, that you are willing.** 

Exactly. Yeah the door’s open for the people that stay in the band. Have you heard the story of the little red hen? My mom read it to me all the time. Who’s gonna help me collect the wheat? Who’s going to help me make the bread? And everyone wants to eat the bread. It’s like, everyone wants to be a body builder but nobody wants to lift heavy weights. That’s the way I see it, and I’m not trying to be jaded. This last spring was a grind. And I got really sick on tour. 

**I wanted to talk about that. Did you get exhaustion?**

I think I got, no one gave me a definitive answer, but I think it was a viral infection. Meningitis, maybe. There’s two types and one is much more severe, and I think I got the more mild one. Maybe. For 75% of the American tour I would be on my back. 23 hours a day on my back. Get up, and play a show. Then go back to being on my back. 

**You got sick, and put your body on the line.** 

Yeah and there’s four people plus my tour manager, and I didn’t feel like I could stop. And we didn’t. And I couldn’t help with loading gear, or selling merch. It’s hard to ask people to do stuff like that. 

**Probably especially for you.** 

Yes, I pride myself on doing it all DIY. I didn’t fully recover until I got home. But now I’m ready to go back out. And not everybody is wired that way. 






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