Shamir Interview: A Post-Lil Nas X World
Photo by Marcus Maddox
BY JORDAN MAINZER
Shamir Bailey is a popstar--yes--but he’s also a pop master. Ever since his electropop debut Ratchet was released in 2015, he’s added a new dimension to his sound on every release. 2020′s self-titled record (one of our favorites of that year) even featured some country crooning, yet another feather in the cap. On his latest album Heterosexuality, out today and self-released, Shamir collaborated with producer Hollow Comet (Strange Ranger’s Isaac Eiger) to make an album inspired by dark, industrial music from Nine Inch Nails to The Haxan Cloak. It’s also the first record of Shamir’s to center around his queerness.
Though Shamir has been open about being nonbinary for pretty much his entire musical career and has talked about his queerness in past songs, Heterosexuality confronts it head-on. “I don’t wanna be a girl / I don’t wanna be a man,” he sings on “Cisgender”, essentially his ask to others to quit pigeonholing him and forcing labels on him. “I’m married to me,” he proclaims on funky bop “Marriage”, an anthem of self-love. Whether intentional or not, you could say Shamir does the same thing with his music by being so effortlessly varied in style and subject. Shoegaze guitars and stadium-sized snares back his blistering falsetto on one song; on the next, he raps. He closes the album with a bossa nova tune. And Shamir is also unafraid to tell stories from other perspectives. Standout “Caught Up”, a club track with acoustic guitar, propulsive beats, shiny synths, and ping-ponging arpeggios, is especially dark-sounding--“I couldn’t wait till I’d be killed,” Shamir sings--until you realize he’s writing a song from the perspective of someone whose friend is dying of cancer. It’s not that Shamir forces these dark thoughts onto himself; rather, his ability to empathize allows him to enter nadirs and come out changed--and with a song.
I spoke to Shamir over the phone last week from Washington, D.C. where he was on tour with Courtney Barnett. Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity, where we talk about Heterosexuality, Lil Nas X, cold brew, and much more.
Since I Left You: Why did you choose "Gay Agenda”, “Cisgender”, and “Reproductive” as the introductions to the record? Was it to present a newfound aesthetic?
Shamir Bailey: Looking back I probably wouldn’t have done “Gay Agenda” as the first single. The only reason I did is because it’s the shortest song on the record. The other two after that are 5 minutes, but people have been enjoying these 5-minute singles! [laughs] Maybe even more than the 2-minute singles. I definitely feel like the titles “Gay Agenda”, “Cisgender”, and “Reproductive” link up.
SILY: You’ve said this was the first album of yours to explicitly confront queerness. What made now the time to do that?
SB: I’m older and wiser. I think I even had the foresight when I was younger to not tackle something like this until I was fully able to understand how to do it correctly.
SILY: What does “correctly” mean to you in the context of this record?
SB: I don’t think addressing it was the problem, just making an album like this. I’ve talked about my queerness in past records and songs before. I think now what’s different is that I’m not trying to preach anything or teach anything. With the times, people understand a little bit better. When I was first premiered as an artist in 2014, the concept of a nonbinary popstar was very new, and I spent the entire time talking about that. We live now in what I like to call a “post-Lil Nas X world” so being myself as an artist isn’t that crazy anymore. I can talk about my queerness in a way without having to carry the entire community on my back.
SILY: Are you a Lil Nas X fan?
SB: I mean, who isn’t? If you’re not, I don’t trust you!
SILY: A few of these tracks have momentary background speaking or vocal samples. Where did those come from?
SB: That’s Hollow Comet. He likes that. His production isn’t based around clips, but he really likes them in a way that I can’t describe because I’m not him. But when we made the record, he had me make him a YouTube playlist of my favorite funny YouTube clips. He used them. There was one we wanted to have on the record that was distinctive so you could tell where it was from, but we couldn’t get permission. [laughs]
SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the lyrics of “Caught Up”?
SB: It’s an older song. I wrote it in 2016. I was watching this movie [Miss You Already] with Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore, and the Toni Collette character gets cancer, and they’re best friends. It’s so sad. I immediately wrote that song, so then I started thinking about if my best friend since eighth grade were to die. It made me incredibly sad, so the song is about what I would do or how I would feel if I were to lose my best friend.
SILY: What’s the significance of the line “cold brew and ginger beer to get rid of these nightmares” on “Cold Brew”?
SB: I am a cold brew addict. I basically made it my personality the past couple years. That song is specifically about how over the pandemic, on top of COVID and everything, I had just quit smoking cigarettes and weed, so my brain chemical makeup was readjusting. [laughs] For a good couple months, I was having crazy nightmares. I drank cold brew to stay up so I didn’t have to go to sleep and have these nightmares. “Cold brew and ginger beer,” I just liked how that sounded, but they’re two things that have caffeine.
SILY: Do you make your own cold brew?
SB: I do not, but I want to eventually for sure.
SILY: The final track on the record, “Nuclear”, is another aesthetic about-face: a bossa nova tune. What’s the inspiration behind that song?
SB: That song is basically me doing my own version of “This Masquerade” by Carpenters. I love Karen.
SILY: Are you playing these songs live right now?
SB: We learned a good amount of them, mostly for a session we’re gonna do, but on this tour, we’re doing “Reproductive” and “Cisgender”.
SILY: How was adapting the songs to the live stage this time around?
SB: Not that hard. Now that I know my live set up and have had the same live set up [for a while], I do write with it in mind. We’re only a three-piece rock band, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, so it’s a bit more stripped-down live, so I make sure the elements of my songs are still there so the lack of production doesn’t stand out.
SILY: Are you playing “Father”? On its own, that song is pretty stripped down.
SB: No, maybe eventually. We have an opening set, so I just want to do 2 new ones and plenty of self-titled, which I didn’t really get to tour!
SILY: How have the shows been so far?
SB: This was my first tour since the pandemic, so I was extremely nervous hitting the road, but it’s been going so smoothly I’m actually weary. It’s wonderful. [Editor’s note: Unfortunately, a day after this interview was conducted, the rest of the tour was postponed due to a positive COVID case in Courtney Barnett’s touring group.] Everywhere we go, people have been pretty good about wearing masks. It’s basically a quarantine tour, so once we get off stage, we just go to the green room. We don’t sell our own merch or go into the audience.
SILY: Are you the type of artist who’s always writing? Anything you’re working on?
SB: I have a whole other record already written and about a half a record’s worth of songs.
SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s influenced you?
SB: Heterosexuality was the first record where the influence is really clear, since I was working with Hollow Comet. Generally, I take inspiration from everything. Songs come to me. Heterosexuality is my first roughly conceptual album, so it’s funny going back to the older way I used to write. I haven’t been influenced by anything specifically. One of the songs is a really mournful tune about climate change, and another one is a really cinematic love story that’s not even mine, I just had the idea for it after watching It’s A Sin.
SILY: “Abomination” is the first time you’ve rapped in a while. Did you go into the record thinking you wanted to rap on a song again?
SB: Absolutely not. I have so much trauma about rapping, so it was actually really hard for me to do. I remember telling Isaac that I felt like I needed to rap on the song because I couldn’t sing on it, but I didn’t know if I could bring myself to rap on it. I’m glad I pushed myself to do it.
SILY: Do you have any upcoming tour plans?
SB: I’m not that eager to get back on the road. I’m only doing this one because I love Courtney Barnett.
