No.1 How would you describe this week in a sentence?
How’d I describe this week in a sentence?
Hmm, that's a good question, in one sentence.
Oh my god, in one sentence?
It can be more.
All right, I’d describe this week as, "Fuck it." That's it. Just like, "Fuck it."
With the little shrug emoji. "Fuck it," shrug emoji.
Do you want to elaborate? We can.
I feel like sometimes as an artist you think, "Oh, should I try this? or, maybe I should spend more time on this? or, what if I try this?" And you're just like, “Honestly, fuck it." The worst that could happen is, it just doesn't happen, or it just doesn't work out, and you just try something new. So, "fuck it," plain and simple.
Thank you, that's great!
No.2 An artwork that inspired you this week. It can be anything, a song, movie, quote...
I was working on my album, and I noticed that some of my songs, they all had to do with ‘you’, kind of referring to whoever I'm talking about in the song as second person, and there weren't a lot of "she said this" or "she was", [not] a lot of past tense. So, I was like, "is there another artist who's done something where it's just ‘you’?" And the first person I thought of was Steve Lacy, because he always makes love songs. And the artwork inspired me.
It’s [called] Gemini Rights. The artwork is really good as well. But the whole project is really underrated, and I remember a tweet [where] he said, "I'm not gonna come out with another album until y'all really appreciate this." I feel like I've overappreciated this album, it's such an amazing album. I always, in the middle of the week, I'll be like, (singing) "Baby you got something in your nose, Sniffin' that K..” I'll be like, "Ah, that's Steve Lacy!" Anyway, yeah.
Thank you. This is wonderful!
Greg - Good fucking answer
No.3 A memorable moment from this week.
I was working on a song for my album, and it was supposed to be the part in the story where there's a breakup. There [are] seven stages of grief [and] there is a stage that is anger, and I was trying to make a song that signified anger. And as I was making it, the first part was anger, but then I couldn't really find myself being angry because that's just not who I am. I'm not necessarily an angry person. Even when something does happen to me, I'll be angry, but that's not who I am. And I was trying to make the song into this whole super angry thing, but I couldn't. And I was like, "Oh shit, maybe I should just put that in the song, why I can't be angry." Even though I could be angry at the world, I could be angry at certain things, but I don't have it within me to really hold a grudge for too long against somebody. So I put a cool beat switch in there, and although my intention from when the song started was for it to be the representation of anger, it turned into something else. And although I'm still making the song, I'm really curious to see how it's going to turn out and what it becomes. Because even though it's not what I initially intended, I think it sounds good. It's a little weird too-ish, but I just gotta keep going into it.
That's amazing. I'm excited to hear it.
And then the fourth question, when I asked Patrick, he had a tough time answering it, so now it’s a two-part [question], and you can choose either or both.
No.4 A motto you swear by, or an advice you received and would love to share.
You know it's crazy, I feel like I do have a motto that I go by. A motto I go by…
Or an advice.
Greg - Yeah I can see why that's difficult to come up with.
Yes, and I started with this one. So, we're drafting it as we go.
Maybe it's a mix between a motto and something that I've been given, and I’ve honestly probably heard it on social media somewhere, but basically, everyone works in different ways, and what works for others, may not work for other people. And so, as I watch other artists and how other people go about how they create, I notice that some of that shit doesn't work for me. For example, there are some people who can go on their laptop, make a beat in 2 seconds and then spit a whole freestyle, and be like, "Alright, let's move on to the next song." I can't do that. I'll be honest with you, I go through the whole overthinking stage where I'll have something really good, and then I'll go back and change small little adverbs, like "it" to "the" or, "maybe I should make this part, maybe I should change the perspectives, dates..". I go through that whole process, and I might spend two, three days, in maybe two or three hour increments or something, cuz I got work and shit, but I'll go through that, and at the end of my whole overthinking, maybe the song takes me two weeks to make, but it will be fucking amazing. And for me, to just sit there and not go back to it, and spend less time on it, I just can't do that. I spend a lot of time on songs, and that's okay. Bruno Mars was saying he takes a long time to make his music too, cuz he plays the drums, he’ll do the guitar, and do X, Y, and Z. And although I don't know how to play that many instruments, I understand the fact that you're spending [that] same amount of time, because that works for him. Why would he change up taking longer on his songs? for money or something? No. That's what got him there in the first place. So I just know my method works. If I'm in my house, in my basement, that's where all my creativeness comes from. If I'm somewhere else, sometimes it will hit me, but I like having a space, or a routine, or something that is just like, "this is my way".
This is great. And you could tell that you spend a lot of time on your music.
No.5 Last and final question. What would you like to share about Hope?
Hope is a song about hope. It's about overcoming the obstacles in your life and trying to encourage whoever listens to it to keep on going. Hope is not this complex thing to overthink. Out of all of life's complexities, hope isn't one of those things where you just think about it, and it's like, "you know what? I'm just trying to get over this. I'm just trying to do this in my life.” It's the light at the end of the tunnel, where you look at it, and you’re just trying to go to it. I could go into detail about the song so much, but when I do drop it I think it will speak for itself. It was really fun to make. The music video, shout out to you for the photography and everything. Shout out Leo [Caserta] for the cover art and putting together the video. Shout out Thurszday for helping out on set and everything, and Dylan [Berg] for letting us use some of his camera equipment. The whole project was really fun to make. It was definitely a little bit out of my comfort zone for the video, cuz I was literally making a dance. I was on YouTube the night before being like, "Alright, I gotta make a little dance routine." So I was in my basement looking up disco dances. I had to merge some with others, and I came up with something. I did it until 2:00 AM. I was like, "Alright, I just gotta do this." Because it was one take, that whole video. It was a one-take video that I did maybe five or six times. It was fun, but it was also tiring, but I'm glad that it all worked out. But yeah, when it comes out, y'all should listen to it.
I guess I'll also ask you if you would like to share anything about Antvgonist Studios, since it's your studio.
Of course, of course! So this is Antvgonist Studios. We started in December, so we're fairly new. We've got a bunch of stuff planned. We offer recording sessions, production sessions, production lessons, and we're actually partnered with Anti Social Camp, which is one of the country's largest songwriting camps, and we're super happy to be a partner with them. Big things [are] coming. If you're looking to make some music and you want a different perspective on stuff, and you really want to stand out, you should come by. It's me or Inigo Gonzalez [GNZ] over there and we'll definitely help you. We got you. We're going to make sure y'all get it right. So, come on by. Be the villain at Antvgonist Studios.
Snapshots by Rachel Bard
Keep up with Katrell’s upcoming projects -
LetOutThePressure - https://www.instagram.com/letoutthepressure/
https://linktr.ee/letoutthepressure
Antvgonist Studios - https://www.antvgoniststudios.com/
https://www.instagram.com/antvgoniststudios