To be so young and harbour so many creative gifts is a gift in itself, and Hamish Bloom, the mastermind behind Coy Fox, is just that. He is also the guest that has been requested the most so far. A phrase that comes to mind when describing Hamish is he is way beyond his years- not just for the uncanny ability to name any song within the first few seconds, which is very impressive in itself- but to have a host of different projects released as well as such clear philosophies at a young age is a testament to his mindset. We recently sat down with Hamish to speak about music taste, the very beginnings of his musicianship, and poetry.
Honestly it was a bit frustrating for me to find these questions. I like to do a lot of research on my guests before beforehand, but I don't know if it was because I just didn't find anything, or if it was because there's not much on you at the moment, but I still think I have a few good ones here that might surprise you. So first question: where did your love for music come from, and when did you decide it was your calling to become a musician?
For the longest time, music was a very private thing that was a very personal thing. I had this very deep admiration for it the whole time that I was growing up, and it was always very prevalent in my childhood. It wasn't until we got a piano, which was my uncle’s and it got given to us when I was 12. And so, the piano was the first thing I started learning. That kind of just changed music for me- instead of just being a listener, I was then also able to do it physically. It's always been around, and I remember really early on so much of my influence growing up as a kid was due to circumstance. It happened to be pop music, and then my music taste has just grown. I was really into rap when I was like 13-14, and I listened to that for a few years. But it’s funny, because it just completely went down in this folk-type road, and that was always still kind of there. When I started writing though, that obviously really amplified. To answer your question, I would say music has been around since I was maybe four or five, but the actual calling to become an artist happened when I was about 16, because I was introduced to people that showed me that this was a career path that was possible. I don't know if I would have done it if things didn't work out in the way that they did.
That's really interesting when you talk about your taste in music, because every single other person I've spoken to, and even myself included, we've all had the same, evolution of music taste. You start from pop when you're a kid, and then you go to rap, and then your music taste becomes more refined. That's really interesting.
I think lots of musicians end up like that when you really think about it. You go into all these different rabbit holes, and I think being able to harness that is the mark of a really good musician. You can get influences from anywhere. For example, I find you can even take things from really f*cking weird electronic music with drum machines and drum breaks and rework them in the context that makes sense within yours. But that happens naturally. I think you don't even need to think about it, and it just sort of starts coming out. You start looking back and thinking, “oh, that reminds me of this song,” and so on.
For you, you're still I’d say relatively young, but you have a lot of music that's out, whether that be albums, singles or EPs. Would you say you're still learning and trying to pull all those genres together still? Or have you got a specific genre that you know that you want to go into more?
I would say I know the genre of music- it’s indie. Anywhere from indie folk to alternative music. But in terms of the learning, definitely not in terms of recording at least. The first time I ever recorded music was 2019, and that whole craft is a different beast in itself. It's one thing to write music, but being able to record them to a level that is good is something that takes a lot of time if you want to get good at it. I'm by no means a pro at it, but I'm definitely heaps better than what I was.
With every project- and I've just finished recording an album, not for Coy Fox but a solo album- I did that all in my room. This room is by no means soundproof, but it’s fine for recording. You don't stop learning with every project. I've found that there are really specific things that I might do, and I’ll listen back to it on old tracks and think, “oh, that's not great. I never want to make that sort of mistake again.” But on the other side of the same coin, those kind of imperfections are what gives things character. There are deliberate things that I don’t want to clean up because everything from the start has come out of my room. It’s not spiritual, but there’s some kind of weird tone or character about this room that has inherently become part of my identity as a musician and become part of my sound. I didn’t set out to have this room as the place where everything happened, but that’s how the story goes, and it became that. The music I make isn’t super developed studio sound by any means. There’s a lot of things I’ve learned, but one of the things is the imperfections that come out of this room in the process is a really fun part of it. Learning to embrace, rather than reject.
So where did the name Coy Fox come from?
It’s funny- to be honest, and being completely honest, it came from nothing. I was on the Soundcloud settings when I put out the very first song I recorded. I was in high school, and it was asking me to choose a name. When I first thought of it in my head, I imagined a fox in the forest, or near some natural environment. The most interesting thing about that name is that over time, it has resonated with me more and more, because there's more meaning that I can point to now. It started off as just some imagery in my head that I liked, and it seemed like a cool name, but I think as time has gone on, I’ve come to relate to it more. Music is very personal to me. I talk about very personal things that inherently seem to relate to lots of other people, because the people around me and myself are still young. These are very universal feelings that everyone goes through. When I think about it now, there's this element of privacy that I like, but it’s almost like the topics can be slightly vague sometimes. So there’s that idea of a Coy Fox being in the themes of everything that gets spoken about- feelings that are on one hand really well known, but also to me they might have a completely different meaning compared to a listener who experiences that in their own way.
I like that. I think you're a bit interesting in a way because I was looking at a few websites, and you were talking about your inspirations. A lot of other Australian artists try and use this formula of indie rock artists, and they try to do that in the hope that that is what will make them big. But your influences are super interesting to me. King Krule, for one. That's one of my favourite artists. The Smiths, as another. Where did you find the love for these artists?
The Smiths was the first band that I ever got into, and I understood why people had such a reverence for it. It's hard to explain, because I mean it's obvious that people love music- that’s not a wild call. I think for me personally, it was the first time that I really connected with a band. I was about 14, and it was the first indie band that I really aligned with that type of music and that just progressed into all these other artists. Just the 80s in the UK, so much music was coming out of there at the time.
I found King Krule the year after that. I was on a school camp, and we were on the bus going there. There was no reception or anything, but I found this song called ‘Baby Blue’ on the web before we went to the campsite. I remember listening to it for the whole week that we were at this camp. I listened to it on the way there, and because there was no reception, I couldn't stop thinking about it. When I came back from that camp, I just went into such a deep dive. One of my best friends, Grady, who also plays guitar for Coy Fox, our friendship almost started from there because we would just learn different songs by him and show each other. This made me go on such a deep dive, and I went down a wild rabbit hole because he has such a bizarre cult effect.
I have to ask this question, because I ask this question to a lot of different people and I get all sorts of answers. Now that we’ve spoken a bit about Grady and your friendship being sort of built from music, are you influenced by people around you with their music taste? And if a friends of yours sent you something but it wasn't something you would normally listen to, would you say you've become influenced by that?
Definitely. But in ways that always end up interesting or surprising me. For instance, there’s this musician called Otis [Namrell.] He's really into Blues music. I love watching him play, and listening to him the first time was my introduction to real, classic Blues. But it wasn't necessarily only the sound, but it was also the energy of it. Regardless of the fact that I thought it was really good, I just had such an admiration for the feeling and impact of his presence. It means so much when you see something like that, and I think it's the effort that someone puts in and the respect that they have for the audience. Something that I remember really taking away from it the first time I listened to him was about the relationship between the audience and performer. It's just amazing.
It comes from different places and I'm constantly getting pushed by different influences and people. It kind of just depends on you, and how you take that influence on.
Another one of your influences I noticed was when I was looking at your page on Triple J, and it said under the ‘sounds like’ section, Mac DeMarco. How did you end up meeting him?
Wow, you went deep. You’re like Nardwuar or something, that’s so funny. So I work for a food truck, and one of my best friends’ dad is a guy called Raph, who runs Beatbox Kitchen, Taco Truck and Juanita Peaches. He ran a fundraiser for the bushfires at the start of 2020. They had this big barbecue and fundraiser at Victoria Park in Collingwood and I got a message from him asking if I wanted to work work there in the food truck. He said Mac DeMarco was going to be there, and I said, “I will definitely be there.” It was funny. It's a really weird thing when somebody that you listen to quite young is just in front of you and taking photos with people. It was very strange, but I remember I was 15 and really nervous. I remember the only thing I could think to say was that we were wearing the same brand of pants. It was very funny, because his whole persona of how he is online and on videos is exactly how he is in person.
Yeah, he's a great character. A lot of people say don't meet your heroes, but I think if you met Mac DeMarco, you'd get exactly what you see. Have you seen him live? Or what other concerts have you seen live?
I've seen him live twice. The first time I ever saw him live was probably the first time I went to a concert where I wasn’t a kid holding my mum’s hand. That was the first gig I went to on my own intuition. He was touring ‘This Old Dog,’ and I'd never been in a mosh pit or something. That was funny, because just realising that you really need to hold your own. He's great. I love how he just puts out whatever he wants. I think he really is a true ‘do what he wants to do’ person, like putting out albums that are 200 songs of just random demos is really cool.
Other live shows that I went to, I saw Matt Corby at the start of this year, which is one that over the last couple of years has become a massive inspiration for me. He really blew up in the early 2010s with the song ‘Brother’ and the whole wave of folk-pop music that was going on at the time. He's interesting because he has so many elements of jazz in his music as well, which I automatically gravitate to because that seems to be a big cornerstone of my inspiration. But he was just awesome. It’s awesome when you find an artist that you can do a deep dive on them and really love, and feel really glad that you found them. Especially when it's just different. Matt Corby is a weird one in particular, because he's not necessarily in a scene. If you think about Mac DeMarco and King Krule, or someone like Yellow Days, they’re all part of this wave of indie music. But Matt is not really in that. It's not really the pop music that you hear on the radio now, and it's this weird grey area.
So I saw the movie you made in high school, called ‘Motions.’ There's a bit of instrumental in there that is fantastic, and the visuals are also great, but also there's a bit of spoken word in the video as well. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you're pretty fond of your poetry. Can you tell us more about that?
I got into poetry probably after I started writing songs. I was saying this to my friend a couple weeks ago, but poetry is awesome because I've always found that with songwriting, there's a real sensibility to it. The songwriting can be whatever you want it to be, but at the same time, poetry is more fluid than anything I can think of. I think the first poet that I really liked was Bukowski. I feel like when most people get into poetry, it’s through Bukowski. It almost feels like someone is speaking to you. And when you have conversations with people- well obviously you're not under any constraint to speak in a certain way- but I realised that any sort of collection of words on a page is poetry in a weird way. At the start 2023, me and my friend Trinh put out this book. She’s a really great photographer, and we made this book together. It was a collection of her photos and all of my poems. Similar to this video that you're talking about, I had this idea to make five ambient piano tracks that were meant to correlate with five of the poems in this book, sort of like an audio version of the poems.
Poetry has sort of come into my life in the last three years, and it's a really good outlet. It’s similar to making ambient music. I'm also working on a new ambient album as well, and both of those mediums are different outlets for sure. They're very, very different. Even though songwriting is inherently poetry, poetry on its own I've always found different. In some ways it's easier, but in some ways it's a lot more raw and trying to harness that and make powerful art is sometimes a challenge.
Have you ever had songs that have come from poems, or vice versa?
Sometimes, yeah. I've had this book that I have been carrying around since 2019, and it's all filled out now. When I was writing poems for that book, I'd carry this everywhere. I would write sh*t on the tram because I realised that inspiration is almost like a window and it's only open for a certain amount of time. It's important to jump on that when you can, because people get writer’s block and they get stuck in not being able to make anything. You shouldn't take those moments for granted.
In your movie, the description said it was a movie about life. I read on some website there was a description of your work, and it said Coy Fox is about being hopeful but open about pain that everyone goes through. I want to hear a bit more about that. What are you talking about when you talk about that?
I think I realised that everyone as a teenager goes through sh*t. I don't think anyone gets an easy pass in terms of emotions that they feel and relationships as a teenager. I think the feeling of heartbreak or loneliness or even not feeling comfortable in your own skin, in some ways, is very familiar to people. Even older people because they remember going through that. Going back to someone like King Krule, I think I remember saying to my friend Vincent that part of the reason why I really became almost obsessed with them was because there was a strength in all the sadness that he was talking about, and at the time I really needed that strength. Regardless if it’s strength or passion in general, I found in my experience that depression was very lifeless and cold. There was no passion, you know? That's just normally how it is. The strength of understanding emotions is not something to shy away from.
I've found that I feel really, really lucky because I often hear lots of stereotypes about people that don't want to try and do art because they're worried about how it will get received. I feel really fortunate that people and friends around me have always just been positive about what I’ve been doing. In a way that has kind of lifted me up to feel confident and comfortable with making music that people can probably relate to. You make art for yourself, but it's also about trying to connect with other people. To answer the question, I feel as though things that I was going through were a lot more relatable than what I used to think, and I just realised that more and more I had people that would come to me and say, “oh wow, I really loved what you did with that song the other day,” and I always think that it’s so great that people can connect with my music in that way. I realised that it's way more common for these things to happen to everyone rather than only me, and there’s reassurance in that.
Would you say that you think about how your music is going to be received during the creation process?
I think inside of you, you need to do what feels right. Sometimes, it might be doing something completely different and you're not following any specific trajectory. In some ways, I do think about my music through the ears of a listener in terms of what it will sound like to somebody that is listening to it for the first time, but I don't necessarily let that be the end goal. I've found in my experience with making stuff, there's a fine line and it's all interwoven because you make art, once again, because it's an expression of yourself. I think my goal is to connect with people. A philosophy of mine is that I found music when I needed it, and it really helped me. The thought of providing an outlet for other people drives me because music and art in general takes you away from reality. I really needed that at the time when I was younger, so it's my way of paying it forward. It makes me feel good to make things that people can appreciate, and it's a nice feeling.
It's important though that you toe that line in the way that you can't let that drive you in terms of how people are going to listen to your music. You can't really start making stuff that you just think is going to get you listeners because people see through that. I think the whole skill and the whole magic of it is the people that can toe that line the best in terms of something that is really interesting and unique, but also something that is so universal that when people listen to it they think that it’s so obvious and not some really abstract concept. I think about Adrianne Lenker. She's one of my favourite lyricists ever. It's so abstract, but when you read it on a page and you understand the context of it, it's very simple ideas. That's the beauty of it because we can be very simple beings. The things that we go through are so well documented and happen time and time again throughout history. I think that philosophy of paying it forward as a musician is something I really resonate with. If there were people that I could meet who told me that my music really helped them look at things in a different light or it really helped them take a break from whatever they were going through, I would definitely be happy.
Well, for the next thing we're going to do, with all the musicians I do it with we have this bracket of songs. I have 16 songs here, and they go head-to-head until there is a final two. All you have to do is say which song you like more, and why. But the last two times I’ve done it, with a girl called Mia June and then Spenser, they had playlists at the bottom of their Spotify pages so I could go and see what they were listening to, but you don’t have that so I had to guess most of these!
Round 1: Slush Puppy by King Krule vs two reverse by Adrianne Lenker
I love them both, but I think it has to be Slush Puppy. I just remember the first time I listened to it, I just had to go and watch the live version on YouTube and I remember in the last line of that song it ends on a big crash. I got all these chills and sh*t.
I really love that song. It's been in my life for the last probably four years or whenever it released. But I love Adrianne Lenker, and I love that song.
Round 2: Back, Baby by Jessica Pratt vs aisastana[102] by Aphex Twin
Oh, I love this song! aisatsana[102]. I think I'm going to go with that. Back, Baby I remember I had a friend in high school that showed me that song, and in general she showed me Jessica Pratt. I love Jessica Pratt and I love that album because there's something very mystical about that sound. A friend described to me as pixie jazz, folk music. And it feels like that- there's this spiritual thing to it. But aisatsana, same as Avril 14th, that was the first time I listened to piano music, and I thought it was just really beautiful. Aphex Twin is a really, really big inspiration for my ambient music that I write. The simplicity of it is beautiful.
Round 3: Just Like a Woman by Jeff Buckley vs CYANIDE by Daniel Caesar
I have to go CYANIDE. CYANIDE for me in the last few years has been something special for me. I think I when I was growing up and as I've gotten a bit older through my teenage years, I really shunned pop music, which in some ways makes sense to me because I don't like the trajectory of music now. Mainstream music is just so depressing. But in saying that, it's not that I think that music as a whole is going down that route, I think independent musicians that are focused on their craft are making amazing things like they have been for the last few years.
Pop music is nothing like how it used to be. Talking about Matt Corby for one, he was in that era of pop music that I loved, especially in Australia. There was this really big wave of folk music. I don't really know when it changed to the state that it is now. But pop music was really just a four-piece band kind of thing, and it felt way livelier. Now I feel like these new people that are on the radio, they could just go on a stage with a microphone and have the backing track, and that's fine, but something about that feels missed. It's not people performing, it's just computers. That bothers me, but the reason why I chose CYANIDE is because that song made my outlook on pop music differently. When I think about that song, I just think that that's a great pop song. It doesn't feel overproduced, just all the instruments that you would naturally hear.
Round 4: Become the Warm Jets by Current Joys vs Asleep by The Smiths
I’m not familiar with that first one! That's one of those songs where I would have once or twice, but I really like Current Joys and his old stuff, but I haven’t listened to that album. But Asleep, I’ve been listening to that song for so many years now. It’s a great song. Very sombre, very depressing. I think when they were recording that they really captured the feeling they were out to get, which is super cool. Even if you take out the lyrics, it feels very hollow and lifeless. That was probably their goal and I think they've achieved that.
Round 5: Beach Baby by Bon Iver vs I Know It’s Over by The Smiths
Oh wow. Two very different songs. I feel sentimental to I Know It's Over because when I said before that The Smiths was the first band that I really got into, I remember that song was very prevalent at the time. I think Beach Baby probably would take it. That song, I remember finding it while I was going through a really crazy level of heartbreak when I was 16-17. That song and his first album, ‘For Emma, Forever Ago,’ was what I was sort of talking about when I was saying it's a paid thing forward. That album I really found at a time when I needed it, and I know that sounds cliche because a lot of people probably have that same experience. But that type of connection to make with listeners and composers can be a really hard thing. Finding that song and the whole feel of that song, I listened to it for hours on end, which probably in a way didn’t do me any favours, but the reverence that I have for that song is very high.
Round 6: Vampire Empire by Big Thief vs Seaforth by King Krule
Probably Seaforth. I'm biased as f*ck. For a genuine reason though, I think that song on that album that he just put out is such a cool transition into a different perspective on life. I remember when I was younger in high school during maths class, I would just spend my time reading interviews that King Krule did with different magazines. Hearing him talk about this new album is so cool because his music has been this cornerstone of sorrow and sadness, and it's very intense, but I feel like this one does have that, but it's different, and it felt like a different kind of sound that he was experimenting with the ideas that were being presented.
Round 7: One More Love Song by Mac DeMarco vs The Bug Collector by Hayley Heynderickx
With One More Love Song, I’ve got that CD in my car. I was saying to my friend that vinyls and CD’s, I don’t have them because of the sound quality, but the idea of having a bank of music. You can’t listen to those people who say you can just listen to it for free on Spotify! I think it almost as an art gallery.
I think out of the two of them, and again, both really good songs, but I really like The Bug Collector. That was another song that I made me go, “wow, this style of folk music is very vague and weird.” Lyrically, it's something I've always tried to capture as well.
Round 8: Say Yes by Elliott Smith vs Ocean Bed by King Krule
Elliott Smith. Man, it's so interesting, but this is just the only song by Elliott Smith that I know. I really have not gone into a deep dive of his work. It’s crazy that you picked that one of all his songs.
It has to be Ocean Bed. I mean that album influenced so much of my early sound when I was first writing, and it's very different now. Not particularly the band stuff, because when you hear us play live, it makes a lot more sense. But my solo stuff is way more folk-y, so I've had people say to me that they're very surprised that King Krule is such a big influence. But tonally and thematically, massive influence. And I love Ocean Bed.
Quarter Final 1: Slush Puppy by King Krule vs aisatsana[102] by Aphex Twin
There’s going to be some crazy match ups now! I will say Slush Puppy though.
Quarter Final 2: CYANIDE by Daniel Caesar vs Asleep by The Smiths
CYANIDE.
Quarter Final 3: Beach Baby by Bon Iver vs Seaforth by King Krule
Beach Baby. Beach Baby.
Quarter Final 4: The Bug Collector by Hayley Heynderickx vs Ocean Bed by King Krule
Ocean Bed!
Semi Final 1: Slush Puppy by King Krule vs CYANIDE by Daniel Caesar
Slush Puppy.
Semi Final 2: Beach Baby by Bon Iver vs Ocean Bed by King Krule
Beach Baby. But only just.
Final: Slush Puppy by King Krule vs Beach Baby by Bon Iver
I think it would be Beach Baby. I really love it. I mean, that's fair; that song is beautiful.
So I want to ask you about your songwriting process a bit. And it's not really about the songwriting process per se, but when you write a song, or even say when for example when King Krule made 6 feet Beneath the Moon, do you think the thing that he was creating or the thing that you are writing is going to be something special?
I’ve always thought that it’s been really important for me to back myself. The way I've always thought about music as a career is that I remember seeing Seth Rogen say this one time, and it's so true: “If you stop doing it, then it will never happen, but if you keep doing it, then it might.” It's a very simple thing, but in the last six months, I've felt like I've had this whole thing where I feel really convinced that something will come from music for me. That might come across a bit egotistical, but the thing is it's not that. It’s not like I think I'm better than anyone or anything like that. It's just that I know that there is nothing that would make me stop. Even this album that I've just finished, it's the first time that I've made a big project where I’ve thought this is really good music. That doesn't mean that I assume that it's going to blow up, but I know that it's good music, and I know that people will like it. But in saying that, it's not the driving force. It's just trying to connect with people. I think that can get misconstrued sometimes, that people are only in it to get popular, but I think sometimes people have an inclination and when you believe in yourself, you know that you've made something good. I think for someone like Archy Marshall [King Krule,] he probably knew that he had something to offer and that's kind of where I feel. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if it's going to go f*cking ballistic or through the roof, or if it's going to sit there for five years and then people stumble upon it later, when I'm older. Thats the beautiful thing about music. You can make it when you're 20, or 30, or 40. There's no barrier of age.
A great song is Can We Pretend by Bill Withers, which is off his album in 1974. That song means a lot to me. I was reading about him, and for the most part, he lived just a really normal, stock standard life until he was maybe 30. When he got into the music industry, he was quite old. He had some time in the military, and then he was an engineer and all this random sh*t. But I mean, look at him now. One of the best-selling artists of all time. If I could live in a house and feed myself through music, that's success for me. It’s not about living in a f*cking mansion.
I asked Spenser this one as well, but what are the ingredients for a song to become a classic in the future?
Good hooks! It’s a bit of joke that I have with my friends, particularly the ones that I play in my band with. They're just awesome. They're really lovely, and I feel really grateful and lucky that I met them. We can share music together in that way, because I've learned so much from them. Our approaches to music are very different. On one hand you've got Jarvis, who plays drums, and he has such a deep admiration for music. It's so rewarding because I think sometimes the stereotype with drum players is that they're just focused on their part rhythmically, and then they pack it in and go home. But he's always asking these questions like, “why don't we have this part, where it's really abstract and just lots of noise?” He just has this real love for sound and music. And then Josh is very theoretical- he loves trying to push the boundaries of what we could do in a theoretical sense, in respects to chord changes and harmony.
The reason why I say hooks is hooks are a big one. A good hook is what makes a song last I think. The song, The Less I Know The Better, by Tame Impala. When people think about that song, they think about that baseline. Same with CYANIDE. When people think about CYANIDE, the first thing they think about is that sort of crooning at the start. That is what's memorable about it. The hook acts like this thematic device or idea that goes throughout the whole song. Something that I was trying to do with this album is work on ways to harness that idea of wanting to make music that gets stuck in people's heads. That seems like a fun goal, but also trying to trying to keep it organic and not clinical.
Last couple for today. We've got a playlist of songs that our guests have chosen and each person has five songs. Normally for everyone else, I ask them their favourite songs of all time or what you listened to this week, but for you, you can have free reign. However you interpret this question, just give me 5 songs.
I love Seagirl by King Krule. I love that song because I love the idea that it's two people who have their own role in a song, and in this case, a girl and a guy in dialogue together. The way that they interweave the themes and emotions which is obviously like a relationship between two people. I guess you can still interpret it in whatever way you like, but I realised that song has this union between female singing and male singing, and they're kind of talking about things that involve each other. That's a really powerful song. The song Lover by Matt Corby. It's just a really feel good love song. But it's fun as well. There's not really anyone in my life that at the moment that I can pin those sorts of love songs to and relate those things, but it's almost like I listen to that song with a faith that whenever that rolls around again, there's another person in my life that I can relate those thoughts to.
What else? Marion by Bon Iver. Spencer and I were talking about Marion, actually. It's so simple, it's got this loop of chords that repeat, but it gets more powerful as it evolves, and again, that's just a great mark of less is more, which is a really big philosophy of mine. I love this song; Ram On by Paul McCartney, which is an older song in his solo career. It's just played on a ukulele, and it's similar in the way that it's just very stripped back. I think maybe the production on it as well, it just feels like it was made for people to connect to music. A lot of time it's about how it makes you feel. If you think about your favourite songs, they're probably your favourites because because of the feelings that it elicits. That’s a big goal of songwriters, you're trying to harness the feeling that's familiar with others.
I think maybe the last one that I would choose is a song by Sun Ra called Hour of Parting, which is a jazz song, but it’s a real classic from the 60s. I found it when I was in Prague, in Europe, and I walked around. I did a lot of walking around when I was in Prague and Vienna, just at night, listening to that song in the evening. I have lots of very fond memories of that time, but that song is one of those songs where there's no words in it, but I feel like it really sparked me thematically.
I've always found that with jazz music. It's like they're having conversations with two different trumpet parts. There's a song called Ruby, My Dear by John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, and I've always imagined it like they're having a conversation. When I listen to it, I can imagine an apartment in 1950s New York, and you get an insight into a man and a woman having some random domestic argument.
Ok, so last one. Do you have any words of wisdom, people to shout out, or anything to promote?
Words of wisdom, I think in terms of making art, a really big thing of mine is to find people that want to try and make art with you. I've grown up with my three closest friends, and they're all artists. We stand on the shoulders of each other all the time- and the shoulders of other people- that inspire you to make things and put stuff out. Like what I was saying before, I’m very, very lucky that the things that I've made have been received in the way that they have because it's lifted me up higher. There are also people that are older. I've got a friend who's always been a mentor to me, and he had a pretty big role in the music industry during that whole folk-pop era. He's been such a mentor, and really instilled in me that it’s possible to do all of these things in music. I’ve found all my closest friends are artistically minded. One of them is a jeweller, my friend Joey. One of them makes clothes, my friend Vincent, and then my other friend Tyke- he's just one of those dudes that's just good at everything. It's annoying! But we all push each other in this way, and there's no way I would have done anything or felt a drive to almost prove something to myself without having them being around. I know for a fact that nothing that I would be doing would be doable without them. So yeah, words of advice: surround yourself with people that lift you up, but also you have to follow your instinct and you need to block out any kind of concerns or shame. People are attracted to authenticity, and so you just need to do what you want to do and then people will catch on to that. It really inspires people to not feel shame in their own self, or guilt or worry.
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