For Yuki, this is the shifting moment. This is the moment where the gear teeth align in his favor. It comes after the passing wave of his 18th birthday, a time of solidified adulthood, as well as after an enlighting collaborative experience. In many ways, you could say he’s beaten the final boss to the video game that was his adolescence. But then again, most successful games have a sequel.
Being a New Zealand based producer, it was quite the culture shock to be called towards Los Angeles to work with Jaden on his new album ERYS. He admits it being a slight drowning sensation, one where he could’ve gone under at any moment. His few moments with his head above water were life-altering, no doubt, but it was still a deep end without an eventual bottom.
But he survived. He swam. He succeeded.
And thus he stands now 18 and fearless. If someone else’s deep end cannot swallow him, then his own never will. He stands upon the horizon of a new album, one that explores the sinking sensation, but also the beauty within our head emerging periodically to smell the air of enlightenment.
And while he would’ve never told himself to do so, he is encouraging all to jump into their own deep ends, whatever it may be. He only does so because he knows that we will learn to swim before we drown. He knows we can break our environmental and mental shackles. He knows we can all be free.
Our first question as always, how’s your day going and how have you been lately?
My day today has been uneventful in a good way. Right now I’m very busy but very stagnant. There's a lot going on in preparation for big things but I feel like I’m not moving at all. It’s the busiest I've ever been while simultaneously having the most free time in my life.
And what does stagnation mean to you and what does it mean in your life currently?
The things I’m working towards aren’t within reach yet. I’m working towards a visa and it's a very slow process, I feel like all this crazy stuff is happening but it's not affecting my life directly right now. The great things aren't able to materialize yet.
What do you think, right now, is your most overwhelming and intense feeling within daily life? The one that hits most constantly.
If there was a couple, I’d say the feeling of being disconnected because I left LA and I feel left out from what's going on there. And a nervous excitement, a positive anxious feeling.
Do you feel emotionally whole within yourself or is there something you feel you're still looking for?
I think I'm pretty content with myself but I’m trying to be better at being me. I want to be able to learn to let things go and grow up. I’m in the last quarter of growing up. I feel I grew up very early and now I'm just learning all the little things, hence the album title. I honestly think once that’s done a lot will fall into place.
Well, let's talk about that album while you mention it. You’ve been working on it for a good minute now, but when did you realize you needed to start upon it and when did you feel it important to put yourself towards the turbulent process of an album?
When I went to LA I started working on an EP. I put a lot of my time into that over a few months and it didn't really stick with me so I scrapped it. I felt I hadn’t made a project in a long time so I was more excited to make music than ever. And especially working on ERYS was a whole other break of not being able to fully just do my work. So, I was bursting at the seams to express what I felt. It was the right time to focus on this project as I had so much to say. It is so draining to start an album because once you're in you can't stop unless you give up, which I hate doing.
Through the work what is that you needed to express and say and even currently what are you trying to externalize?
I think perspective is a big thing. I feel like all though this crazy stuff is happening a lot of it doesn't matter. I feel like a lot of artists feel very hopeless. Growing up is obviously a huge theme. Letting go of things and moving on from mistakes. Figuring out who you are. The album is pretty much just growing up, I think.
Let's compare honesty then, how much more honest do you feel is in this project more so than your last and do you think that's something you've gotten better at?
I think I'm definitely more honest in this project just due to being older. I got thrown in the deep end a bit with the whole LA thing. I think I was forced to adapt very quickly because I dropped out of school at 17 and then started living on my own in a whole new city with a new way of life. People drove on different sides of the road. People talked differently. I had to grow up to mentally survive. I feel like I’ve been the same mentally from 14 to 17, I’ve been the same since I became a teenager. But since becoming 18m and being an adult, it's the right time to express something completely new on this album.
Did you feel like 18 was a number that resonated with you as a sort of shifting moment in realizing this is the beginning of something more legitimate?
Definitely, I always used to say I wanted to be 17 forever because then if I kept getting better at music, I can be the gimmick artist who’s young and talented. But there's so much I don't know about life that I actually now want to grow up and learn about it. 18 was the moment that I can stop giving myself excuses about being immature and I can finally force myself to grow up. After years of finding yourself, 18 is a year where you can finally start to implement it to make your life the best it can be.
Well what does that implementation look like for you and what are the ways you've done so?
I think to make mistakes and coming back from them. Trying to move on and focus on myself more. I'm trying to take time out of my day to make me happy more and to not be focused on negative energy. I've learned that while music makes me so happy, I have to give myself the time to do nothing or watch a movie, collect magazines or buy some stupidly expensive candle.
Then is happiness what matters to you above all right now? Or is there another goal and milestone to grab as well?
Happiness and being sane through the ups and downs, no matter what’s thrown my way.
In your project right now, what are the technical changes you've made and the developments you’ve made into your sound and actual technical ability?
Going into the professional aspect of music with Jaden seriously opened my eyes up to new techniques and work ethics. I think I can flesh out my ideas ten times more than I could before. The production is better and my song ideas are better. This album is experimental, I fit so much into a song without making it feel crowded and it feels much longer as a song than the actual runtime. Pushing things sonically to where I'm overloaded but then refining it later. I feel I looked at this project like my Cherry Bomb, which is my favorite project, and asked myself how could I do my own “Cherry Bomb” album, relative to my discography. Taking the idea of going wherever I wanted but making it easy to listen to.
Well, the interesting thing with Cherry Bomb is that it’s an album where if you took all of Tyler's discography and laid it out in a line you can point at that as the shifting moment. So how do you feel you want everything to look after this shifting moment for you and what do you want it to lead towards?
I think there's a lot of music that sounds the same in the whole DIY bedroom artist scene and I feel like there's a stigma that comes with that. There’s the assumption that nobody has the resources to execute anything “professional” sounding or cleanly executed. so there's a stigma where it’s ok if it sounds like shit because it’s an independently released “bedroom pop” song. I want to make the cheapest but also the most luxurious album. I’m taking care to set up my mics and instruments properly, organize my files better and plan more. I’m also not mixing the album myself. Even just outsourcing work is something that a lot of independent musicians won’t do because they want to rep the “I did it all myself” title, shout outs to James Rim, my mentor, and engineer for this album, he’s so talented and amazing at overseeing things and being a huge enabler for me. . I want this to be a shift for me and others where we don't have to have a label budget but we can still push it to another level of musical expression. I want it to be a point where I’m serious about making the best music possible from my bedroom without the limitations.
You've been talking about growing up and youth but that's very familiar in the subgenres you're saying you want to break out of. Do you feel there are themes beyond those you want to touch on but maybe haven’t fully experienced yet?
I think I don't even know yet. I tend to talk about what's happened lately and it's an album about recent ideas like my stress from LA and social anxiety, but that I'll grow out of. I guess we'll just have to see. Every six months for me is a new phase.
Do you break your life into eras and phases?
What’s this era called then?
The ‘be free’ era. All my friends are working towards their own projects and are stressed and happy and sad but we’re all very focused.
So what does it mean to be free to you, you've also called it in the past ‘being free like Paris Hilton’. What is that concept in your mind?
The ‘be free’ side is being the most stressed you've ever been and getting to the point of breakdown but then releasing something beautiful or having something happen in your life and to just move forward. And the Paris Hilton side of it comes from the second version of Nikes off Blonde where this rapper raps in Japanese and says be free like Paris Hilton. I interpreted it is that she's this figure that embodies Hollywood and has embraced it and loves the red carpet, but she talks about feeling lonely and lost and not having a purpose and that she's missing out.
It's almost like Jim Carey said he wants everyone to be rich and famous so they can learn it’s not the answer to their problems.
Exactly and that's the Hollywood thing where there's dark Hollywood and the glamourous Hollywood coexisting.
You did spend a good amount of time in LA and for anyone who didn't know you worked closely with Jaden and worked heavily on ERYS, and you said it opened your eyes to the technical side and that it was a turbulent time, but what was the biggest lesson from the time working on the project as a whole?
I think the biggest lesson I learned was, as corny as it sounds, to believe in yourself. It's about telling yourself that you're special and knowing it and being proud of ourselves. I went into the studio as an underdog with these amazing producers, I had to use that energy to perform and succeed.
Does that mean to you that this journey in music is not about self-validation but more about fulfillment and building yourself and finding personal answers?
I think the thing for me is to achieve my goals and its above all being able to be in a happy state and constantly create.
Of the last year as a whole, what memory means the most to you and is one that stands out the most?
I was going to go on a tourist visa to LA to meet people but on the way, I went to Vancouver and I met Seungjin, the best human being on planet earth. I was so happy and I had shit going before I left but it really cleaned my whole palette. When I got back to LA I was feeling pretty hopeless and I was so close to giving up, but last minute I met Jaden and it all just steamrolled from there. Shit gets bad in life but how bad is it actually? I have a roof over my head, friends, supportive parents, clothes and food and water. Once you break it down and realize all the small stressful shit in your life means nothing, you start to appreciate the stuff that matters
So it was happiness instead in the mundane in life and the simplicities of daily existence?
Exactly, it was realizing that shit sucks in the moment but we always get over it. It always moves on.
On top of Seungjin and that friendship, this ERYS project was a lot of collaboration and you also work with a lot of other talented artists in your scenes, but what does it mean to you to be collaborative and how did you put yourself into that space?
I think it's about removing the selfish side of it, we all want to make something sick and be successful, but realizing we’re not here to just make a beat and then have our name on it but instead to help someone else shine, to help Jaden shine in this case.
What artists right now do you think you would be able to accentuate the best?
Lil Uzi Vert because when he gets a producer that makes him shine it's not even fair how good it is. I want to get on some K-Pop shit as well.
In your career and most of all through creation as a whole, what is that you’re trying to achieve as an overarching mantra?
I want to inspire people like I was inspired by people like Tyler and Earl and Mac Miller. I want to be the next generation' inspiration so I can create hope, even if it’s small.
So is part of it trying to create a wave?
Not even a wave, even just one kid stuck in their hometown having my songs give them the confidence is all I want. I want their lives to be lived to the fullest. There's a generation of genius kids stuck in the grinder, I want someone to make the decision about what they want to be and not what their parents want.
In your eyes, what does it mean then to be a hero or is that a concept that is overdone in art and music?
No, I think it can exist through both of those, I think as long as it’s positive. If you try to be a hero, super hard, you'll never be one. If your motives are pure and authentic you can harness that and you can teach and inspire others. Tyler’s focus was never to change LA, he was just being himself and the rest came. People will come when they come, the money will come when it comes.
How do you feel that right now your music is impacting others and how do you notice it daily?
It's crazy because looking back I’d never thought anything would ever happen. It's back to that sense of hope, even when things are slow, realizing that what you're doing means something to someone out there whether you know it or not. It's so crazy to even think about.
Going into the rest of this year and beyond, what’s your biggest goal and necessary milestones?
To release my album, and on top of that, my goals are literal such as getting my visa and living in LA. But above all I want to be free, that’s what it’s all about.
Do you have anyone to shoutout or promote? The floor is yours.
All of my friends: Maxwell, Luke, Tom. James Thorington, he’s crazy. And Seungjin. Seungjin is the man. The amazing producer, engineer, and mentor: James Rim.
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Words and interview by Guy Mizrahi