“Until They Smash the Manmade Order of Things, Race Having No Meaning Won’t be a Possibility” – mynameisblueskye Interview

Boston’s mynameisblueskye can often seem a little… daunting.

And I don’t just mean his extensive and creatively rich discography. Since releasing his first music back in 2010, Skye has rafted dozens of albums, EPs, artistic projects and other ventures, dedicated to exploring the limits and potential of his own art. Even the partial catalogue available on his BandCamp page presents a vivid kaleidoscope of lucid cover art and arresting titles. Guy once released a record called Diary of a Pretty Corpse. Dude is metal as fuck. And all this is before you even listen to his music, which is often the sound of black holes collapsing in on themselves but expressed through the smallest rocks in the galaxy crashing together. You could probably describe mynameisblueskye as ‘lo-fi’, but this is often less a stylistic choice and more a necessity of his real world constraints. He manages to create magic using just a few keyboards and a laptop. But only because he has to. If you offered him a forty eight piece orchestra and the St Winifred’s School Choir, he’d sure as hell use them.

No, interviewing mynameisblueskye also felt a little daunting to me. I know very little about the guy personally, but from following his dedicated release schedule for maybe four years since being introduced to his world through a Z Tapes compilation, and from following his frequent incisive Tweets… I kinda got the impression.. that he’s a really smart guy…

mynameisblueskye straddles the black, LGBT, autistic and creative arts communities, seems to have a deep understanding and respect for all of them and is able to consume and analyse the culture of all the communities he intersects. And he isn’t an artist worried his music might be ‘too political’. He’s always aware of big issues and always has the confidence to take them on. Even that song which I glibly described as having a ‘metal as fuck’ title is actually about the state murder of black people and how people often only care when they’re presented with a body: “Diary of a Pretty Corpse is about feeling like a black life that doesn’t really get his due in the world until he was dead, and when he does die by the hand of cruel people, they get the audacity to rule it as something dark as a suicide.”

See? How dumb am I going to look asking him about superheroes and professional wrestling? He even knows far more than me about music, any interview could be a bloodbath.

Still, the release of ‘One Last Look’ – a collection of rarities and songs recorded for various compilations over the past five years – gave me an opportunity to reach out, a chance to get a quick idea of how the world looks through mynameisblueske’s eyes. The interview went to some truly fascinating areas, and Skye really stepped up to nail and then elaborate on each question. He was a fantastic interviewee, and after reading this you owe it to yourself to investigate one of our most singular artists further. And have you seen that back catalogue? Best get started…

Do you identify as any gender?

Cismale.

When did you first realise that was your gender?

Never had a single doubt that I was anything else, although with currently maddening routes that some dudes are taking to try and express their manhood, it has got me wondering. Too many men nowadays are afraid to show their hurt, feminine side and are afraid to embrace and nurse that because they are taught to stuff it down and keep it moving. We have a generation of dudes who could give less than zero fucks about anybody yet are dumb confused about why such attitude has inspired everyone else to not give a fuck about them either. Doesn’t seem like it is going to let up till we got an antithesis of such a man in the game.

Why ‘mynameisblueskye’? Apologies if that’s the name on your birth certificate.

I explained this on Twitter, but I think it is better that I elaborate it here. I used to go underneath the name Charcoal Sketches of the Invisible Man (a much better name in retrospect). That name was inspired by a book I read years ago called From Brotherhood to Manhood. There was a story in one of the first few chapters of the book about how a black kid was a skateboarder who listened to rock and stuff, but he has this anger at the world for not acknowledging that people like him exist and instead wants to focus on the black stereotypes because they think THAT is what blackness is. Needless to say, I related to that and vowed to write songs that spoke to people who didn’t want to fit the stereotype of my identity.

Through that name,  I wrote songs that were mostly demo level, but created a whole album about having autism named humanbeyondrepair. One day, I was listening to Patrick Wolf and I imagined myself as a glam-rock/electronic artist named Lightning Pill. The concept was that I take a certain pill and wind up being the most electrifying performer on stage and on recording. Unfortunately, I can’t say that creatively, I was ready to fulfil that. So, I went ahead and changed my name to mynameisblueskye.

I got THAT name because right around college, that was a name I chose to blog on Xanga. I was minorly obsessed with post-rock bands such as Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, MONO at the time, so the name is what I would name myself if I did something to that degree. Nowadays, writing music without having to box myself into an expectation of what my “character” is supposed to be like felt like I was entering a new blog entry. Nowadays, it is hard for me to just approach writing music like that, and I wind up wanting to write a whole novel.

New blog entry! This means I can seamlessly move onto New Blog Entry, which I think is the best song you’ve ever done and gets a proper release on ‘One Last Look’. Do you think it’s even a highlight of the new compilation?? What do you consider the best thing you’ve done?

I honestly think I could have performed a lot better on the singing front [editor’s note: I fucking LOVE his singing on the song]:, but I treated the song exactly like it was supposed to be: a prelude into a promotional campaign that unfortunately became a runaway vehicle housing uncontrollable creative ambitiousness. It started when I said I would write 100 songs and ended with me wanting to make 10 albums with 100 songs containing lyrics. As we speak, lofty goals have gotten loftier with time. Lawd have mercy! Anyway, I personally think The Glowing Inside, as ramshackle as it is, is my best song because it is about quiet, introverted positivity. The song is about that subtle, magnetic, and unforgettable glow that is hard to really resist and describe much.

Have you ever tried to get an official number for all the music you’ve released, under all your names?

I ACTUALLY took some time to count how many projects I had created since I started making music, and they all add up to forty four, including old beat tapes, unfinished projects, some rough stuff I had put private. Forty six, if you count the albums in college that I had lost. Forty seven and forty eight if you count the tape I have finished and I am working on number forty eight as of right now.

I imagine a lot of people will be wanting to get into mynameisblueskye, but might be a little overwhelmed by the size of the discography! What would you say is the best introductory ‘listening list’ for new fans?

While you could start anywhere you want to, I recommend staying on my most recent stuff under my most recent name. The current form is the one that I have always wanted to be when I was Lightning Pill, and I am getting hella closer to everything . I’m more open from an emotional standpoint, more refined in my recording techniques, a better writer, a better singer and performer. I myself am the type of person who LOVES looking into people’s pasts and see how they got started, but if you want the best of them, I say fuck with my most recent shit. As cliché as this may sound, the best is yet to come

What’s the best Prince album?

I only heard ‘Controversy’, ‘1999’, ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Planet Earth’, ‘PlectrumElectrum’ with 3rdEyeGirl and ‘Art Official Age’. Out of all of this, I’d personally juggle ‘1999’ and ‘Purple Rain’, and this is based off of my fascination with blending funk with new-wave/synthpop to make this potent computer funk sound that I will never get enough of. The Minneapolis Sound.

What genre of music do you make?

To make it easier,  I say experimental pop, avant-pop, new wave, synthpop, synthpunk, lo-fi pop and so forth and so on. Whatever it is, it does not fit what one would usually think when they think of the genre, and I am stating this humbly and matter-of-factly. 😉

Do you think people will automatically make assumptions on the kind of music you make if they saw a photo of you?

They would probably assume that I, at least, made art rap like Open Mike Eagle or R.A.P. Ferreira or something. At least something nerdcore like Mega Ran, but I don’t think people would have gotten that I knew how to even play keyboards like that. I don’t think they would have assumed that I was a musician at all. I probably would have been on the way to a really good job as a kindergarten teacher or something. Such is the way of the world.

Can you point to a song, record or artist that originally convinced you to make music?

What point of time in my life would you like to hear it from? (laughs) I originally wanted to be in a rock band, but I had the worst luck in finding members, and often have an unexplainable anxiety that comes when someone actually wants to be a part of it. But in college, I was listening to labels like Anticon and happened upon an artist named Odd Nosdam. Two songs convinced me that I wanted to make music like his: Untitled Pt. 3 and Fat Hooks. Damn near spacemusic put over a beat and oftentimes a soundtrack to whatever rap artist signed to the label would create. I had, and still have, an affinity for music that sounds like it was plucked from the stratosphere. Spacey, synth-heavy, psychedelic music is just up my alley. He, Mogwai and Boards of Canada created three albums that just convinced me it was what I wanted to do. (‘Level Live Wires‘, ‘Happy Songs for Happy People‘ and ‘The Campfire Headphase’ are three albums I reference ALL the time.) As far as making beats and writing songs. I attribute that to eels, and to Madlib, who I really wanted to be, production-wise.

I’d never heard of Odd Nosdam before, but I can definitely hear the influence. Eels wouldn’t have automatically come to me, but the comparison makes so much sense. I remember that Boards of Canada’s Music Has the Right to Children was what it was REALLY cool to namedrop when I was a teenager. Knowing how big a Mogwai fan you are also puts you up in my estimation. Do you still keep up with them? They’re still consistently great to this day.

I just ordered their new album, but they put me in a hard position trying to go after Ghetts for a no. 1 album in their city [in the whole country], tho. I like Ghetts music and love me some Mogwai, so I did NOT want to step in the middle of a warzone.

The debate over who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman is a bit played out at this point. Instead, if both superheroes opened competing pizzerias directly across the street from each other, which one is likely to be more successful and why?

Superman has heat vision, which means that it wouldn’t take too long for the pizza to cook, so based off of convenience alone, Superman would easily take it. Batman just has more money and thus, has a wide amount of ingredients to choose from and probably more recipes he can come up with, but still as nice as having wide range of ingredients can be, there is nothing like a customer line that moves like water.

Everyone has a Marvel movies ‘take’, what’s yours?

I’m not really a comic book kind of guy, to be honest. So, my dog will not join this fight.

Talk us through One Last Look. I know we’re in the TL:DR era, as you say, but you can take as long as you want, I promise!

Long story short, I take songs that I had put on past compilations all over Bandcamp and put them all on one album for convenience. When I listened back to them, it reminded me how inexperienced I was when it came to mixing the music in a way that doesn’t take things like drums into the red. Some songs are fine, but plenty of songs just needed work as far as my mixing skills go. So, One Last Look is offering literally that before I drop an album or two highlighting my growth as arranger, singer, songwriter and mixer.

Any more teasers of the kind of things you’re looking to with your next couple of releases?

Well, in my LAST Twitter site,  I hinted that I had been feeling proggy for the longest. I’m working on a 16-song album right now, and have in the hole a 10-song epic project (tentatively titled ‘For a Tomorrow I Might Never See’), an equally epic 4-song project with no name and an album where I separate two sides using two different colours (tentatively named Spearmint and Raspberries) The last one is my break from chasing those ambitions and just writing ten random songs, but 5 songs each having different feels. This is just ideas I had held on tightly to. I said my ambitions have really runaway faster than I could catch it, but I’m excited to see what will come of it.

Is music/art a full time job for you?

Answering this would mean that I have to discuss the pitfalls of Social Security, the difficulties of putting together a show when you aren’t really a popular artist, and the inconvenience of creating for outcasts like myself, only for them to turn to more normal folk for validation of such. So, I’ll say that right now, I am self-employed as a musician, but cannot say it has benefitted me like it has benefitted other artists who got their break before and after me. The grind continues, though.

So it’s a full time job, but with nothing like a living wage??

It has to be for me. I’m still applying for jobs with the knowledge that I am on social security because I am disabled. Getting a job means that safety net will have to go, and doing jobs is…it will REALLY colour the relationship between neurotypical people and neurodivergents, I tell you.

Be honest, are there any successful musicians/artists that you look at like “Seriously? That’s the fucking person getting the breaks?!”?

Every time a copycat artist or a person trying to be America Most Famous Fuckboy gets famous, this thought comes up. I’m not as bothered if the music is good and there isn’t anything particularly destructive about the music or its artist, but too many people are really getting away with less. The same people say that they are working hard sound like they haven’t had any real creative growth since they started.

 Apart from your own, what is the greatest album/song from 2022 so far?

I compiled 43 songs so far that I would say is my favourite of 2022,* but if I had to choose one, it would likely be…Zora’s Runnitup. Every song I have from D Double E’s Roll Up to Dark Smith’s feel nothing has been my personal favourite, but Runnitup is a bonkers ass song that I just cannot stop thinking about or listening to. Out of all the songs in my list, that song has been playing in my head the most. As for greatest album…it is a tie between Shamir’s ‘Heterosexuality‘, Bartees Strange’s ‘Farm to Table‘, 700 bliss’ Nothing to Declare‘ and black midi’s Hellfire. Let’s give this one to Shamir.

(*I asked mynameisblueske if he was going to share this compilation, and he replied that he was “Really thinking of just dropping it at the end of the year“]

Love Shamir, have you ever had any interactions with him?

I follow him and have said a few things to him here and there. I submitted my work once to be a part of his Accidental Popstar roster. But really, the biggest interaction was the praise I heaped on them for their Heterosexuality album.

Thinking of Shamir’s relative achievements, can you think of anyone with what you’d consider the ideal amount of success (somewhere between absolute poverty and headlining Super Bowls)?

My ideal amount of success is making the kind of music that truly connects with people to the point where they will be your fans forever. It doesn’t even have to translate to super successful sales,, though that would be dope for my living sitch. (laughs) I admit to fantasizing about having that cult status that Kid Cudi has. Anyone who hears him either loves his music or hates it, but the ones who love it, love it because it saved their fucking life. It made them feel like SOMEBODY attempted to reach out to them in a meaningful way. Kimya Dawson, Elliott Smith did that for multiple artists, all of them got fans who decided after that, they wanted to start writing music or start bands.

I once went to a Blunt Bangs show, and got a chance to meet Reggie Youngblood of Black Kids. I told him how much of an inspiration he was to me as someone who never thought he would become an artist, and him and his Black Kids band were successful for a time. As much as I would love to put first my wish for music to be more lucrative, I feel like I have largely done my job if my music made someone pick up any instrument including a keyboard and start writing. I still remember a quote someone said about the first Velvet Underground album: “The first Velvet Underground record only sold 1,000 copies. Every last person who bought that record started a band“. Come on! How can you beat that?

Is there a song so good that it actually makes you jealous that it isn’t yours?

Jon Hopkins Monsters Theme. My past fascination with post-rock, classical and so forth has NOT waned through time, and that composition is just masterclass. I wish I had a real grand piano to have been able to create something close to it.

It was only yesterday that wider culture’s entire understanding of autism was based on the film Rain Man. How do you understand your own autism?

It used to be that my understanding came from positive impressions that came mostly FROM autistic people, but my understanding is looking at the negative characteristics, wondering what causes them, and tries not to let it control me and my life. For example, I found autistic people are some of the most giving people who aren’t likely to want to rock the boat. We like to make people happy, so as to keep the peace. Allistics know this and want nothing more than to use it against autistic people. That understanding only ever comes with you taking a look at yourself and the world you have to face, and realize that the only change you need is to refine yourself, so people can’t force that infantilization process on you.

How easy is it to navigate the world as a black autistic man who is also a member of the LGBT community? Have you ever had role models or people you look up to in similar positions to you?

I mean, I’m considered “straight-acting”, so I have a bit of privilege there. Nobody would know that I was LGBT if I didn’t say anything because I don’t flex the stereotypes that often, if at all. Also, I am married to a ciswoman. So, while I can move forward through being a black LGBT man easy, my life for the most part isn’t a reflection of what it is like to be that. Same with being autistic. People don’t really see me being autistic much, again, if I didn’t say anything. They just see me as this everyday eccentric being. That can only hold up for so long, till I have to talk on the phone and all. (laughs) But while I am doing the best I can (in public, anyway), it doesn’t really erase me being black. While I only had an argument with a policemen once over my sweater, I never got to the point where a policemen stepped up to me with the intent to shoot me. But with all three of those things, I see how LGBT people get mistreated, I see autistic people get mistreated and mishandled, and I definitely see how black people get it with the rest of these folks. The way policemen harass people when they are in their cars make me afraid to hell to get my driver’s license.

This is why I feel it is necessary to be open about what I am because people think because I don’t fit the stereotypes that they can forget those things about me, but their thoughts about autistic and LGBT people hit me from day to day. Me never hiding what or who I am is forcing people to confront the fact that something that has little to do with them shocks them to some degree.

Currently, who or what is the greatest and also the absolute worse autistic representation in wider culture?

I’m sure people want me to say Music, when it comes to being the worst ever representation, and there is no way at all that I will be able to disagree with them. It’s another Rain Man situation for sure. Though, I am not the kind of person who pays attention to what Sia does. Haven’t ever since that one Elastic Heart video, and that was merely a curiosity view. So, the best I can say is the greatest representation is all the people currently on YouTube or Twitter. Pastiche Graham, a motivational speaker, was recently on Undercover Boss, Chloe Hayden, as great vlogger, is on a show playing an autistic, Imani Barbarin is a total beast when she is vlogging about being a disability activist. The best representation of autism are ones that are outside of the films.

There is a film I always wanted to check named The Horse Boy, who is obsessed with horses, and moved his entire family to Malaysia, so he can be around horses all the time. So, if you wanted me to pick a good movie that represents it fine, you can always look towards that.

Who is your favourite professional wrestler?

Haven’t watched wrestling since i was in middle school, but always found The New Day very entertaining, even as they always pushed their cereal brand name Booty-Os. Stuff like that would always get me to check it out.

Your poem (if that’s how you’d describe it) Martin Luther Christ is pretty astonishing, can you talk us through it?

Max and relax! This is going to be a long one. So, let’s go through the story of Jesus Christ. He went around spreading the word of the righteous, people punished him severely for his crimes in going against law to follow the law of Christianity. People hung him on a cross, and the very same people who would have killed him and threw rocks at him look to twist his words as a way to deify him and make him look like a right-wing mascot.

Now, let’s look at Martin Luther King, a man who has spoken many, many times against white supremacy, got rocks thrown at him, called the most hated man in America, told by the FBI to kill himself, actually got killed, now Caucasian people (specifically right wing people) use his “I Have a Dream” speech against people every chance they get. The link is obvious. They both seek to speak righteousness into the hearts of men, and all people can do is repay them with violence and hatred while acting like they were all on their side, when they weren’t.

Really, the poem was inspired by Kyla Jenee Lacey, who performed a poem on YouTube named Martin’s Nightmare. The poem explores the same idea of how right wing people who killed him sought to try and make him a right-wing mouthpiece. It is through that poem that I was able to also see that right wing politicians do literally the same thing to Jesus. The comparison and the poetry wrote itself after that.

It’s difficult to think of a recent historical figure that’s been more ‘whitewashed’ than MLK. Which current day figure is likely to have their message and context twisted to such an extent in the future? Will schoolchildren 50 years from now learn how beloved Colin Kaepernick was as he protested the war in Ukraine?

If it were up to current politicians, everyone black who ever spoke something positive and spoke against injustice will only ever be acknowledged if they said something positive about white people, or spoke about a false dream of togetherness that will hardly be carried out by his racist fandom. Colin Kaepernick would still be confused for being kicked off the field because he kneeled for “the flag”, Kanye would have been considered young and inexperienced for what he said in All Falls Down… anyone that anybody considered revolutionary in any way WILL have their words twisted and it won’t be by those who heard them speak against white supremacy in a way. It will be those who heard a soundbite that they can use AGAINST the ones who heard the denounce white supremacy. A soundbite is something they claim to need to shut people up. That’s what MLK is used for, that is what Kaepernick will be used for, that is what I will one day be used for if I am big enough and I’m no Kaepernick.

Do you think the ideal end goal is for a person’s ‘race’ and colour of skin to be absolutely meaningless and for there to be no perceived or assumed differences between people, or do you think that separate communities and the differences between them should always be maintained and encouraged?

Unfortunately, if people had their way, the meaning of race would be for there to be a watered down version of such. I am personally a type of person who believes if a black person moves with a white person or a Spanish person, you can do that, but it will always behove us to move in silence because no matter who we link with, we are always stuck with a racial totem pole and our place in it.

When I interviewed JPEGMAFIA years ago, he had explained that the totem pole goes that white men are at the top of the list, white women are at the bottom of white men, and the last ones at the bottom are black men and black women. As long as people hold onto the ego that comes with acknowledging our place in the caste, then integrating with peace on the brain will never be possible as long as one side believes themselves better than the other. That is most definitely referring to Nazis who believe they are better than everybody, and people who may get along in the struggle, but see themselves as higher on the totem pole than black people.

Until they can truly seek to smash the manmade order of things, race having no real meaning won’t be a possibility. And as long as we are alive, we will ALWAYS have a difference in how we do things. That is how culture is. How I cook my food is different than yours, but this doesn’t mean that you get to suggest the way mine is done is shit, but all people will do with their “freedom of speech” is exactly that.

Do you think ‘freedom of speech’ is an overrated concept, or just horribly misunderstood?

Funny you ask since I Had JUST written a poem about what the word “freedom” means to two different people

Tell me one thing that will immediately make people lose all respect for you

Probably if I became a black version of Chris Taylor Brown of Trapt (laughs). If what I say thus far hasn’t made people lose shallow respect for me already, then I guess people are with me for the ride. I remember saying that black people have this obsession with wanting to take music back, but hasn’t recommended a SINGLE artist who is doing rock, alternative, country or anything outside of hip hop. Only probably one person had a problem with that, and everyone else respected it because the ones I named were fast blowing up since 2020. So, if anyone loses respect for me, its people who had hollow, common expectations of me in the first place. They deserve to lose me.

Where do you place yourself on the political spectrum?

Leftist, but if I had to go into a specific party, I say Green Party. Democrats just feels like another place that promises things and winds up all talk, but grassroots candidates never really get a chance.

When I Tweeted my disappointment of Regina Spektor’s Zionism, you were a lot more forgiving (“Where are those who are of Jewish descent to even stand on the Israel situation, tho?”). Do you want to elaborate?

As much as I understand the outrage concerning Israel invading Palestine and taking over their land, I feel a little uneasy dragging those who have Israel in their blood or in their religious faith into this mess. Besides Regina, Big Thief recently caught shit for planning to go to Israel for a show. They said one of the bandmembers just happened to be FROM Israel, so I didn’t make waves of it because who wouldn’t want to see their family? Regina is Jewish, and if I am not mistaken, Judaism is an Israelite religion, no? With that in mind, it felt kinda wrong pressuring her to speak against the very people she is connected to on a spiritual level, but for both of them, the least I could have done was to ask for Israel to cease the invasion and the destruction of Palestine, which has been going on for a long fucking while. Idealistic, I know, but small people have done bigger things before.

You live in Dorchester, which to me always brings to mind one of the cheaper cigarette brands I was often reduced to in my smoking days. What does everyone need to know about Dorchester?

Stop thinking that Dorchester is a “dangerous” city simply because there are a whole lot of black people in the vicinity, especially at a time where you can’t even go to the movies, take your child to kindergarten or even get yourself some dinner from the meat aisle at a grocery store anymore without people facing the gun.

I live in Manchester, England, what immediately comes to your mind?

I am trying so hard NOT to say Oasis. I know that band is king where they are from, but it is a drag to have that be the only thing people in America really remember about Manchester. All I remember, anyway.

Who is the greatest ever musical act from Dorchester? And from Manchester??

The problem with me doing this is that I pay attention to Boston acts, but am never really that interested in being specific in which specific town/county they came from. So, if you ask about the best act from Dorchester, Roxbury, Cambridge, I’d draw a blank. But as of right now, Haasan Barclay is doing his thing these days. He’s a musical chameleon that tackles psychedelic soul, with beat production, some punk rap stuff with Shaka Dendy under the name Camp Blood. Any other name would be hard for me to name because I only know artists from Boston. Nothing specific. I had to look up some Manchester bands and saw that The Chemical Brothers, one of my favourite electronic acts of all time, are a Manchester band. Anyone who doesn’t think The Chemical Brothers should be known as one of the best electronic bands to do it and to KEEP doing it…listen to ‘Surrender’, ‘Further’ and ‘Push the Button’ please. Also, listen to ‘Dig Your Own Hole’,  a highly recommended album by Chemical Brothers fans.

Nice. Yeah, the Chemical Brothers were a very big deal in the UK late 90s/early 00s, with a run of maybe a dozen hit singles. Though, admittedly, their biggest hit was Setting Sun, featuring vocals by… Oasis’s Noel Gallagher…

All things considered, he did a pretty good job, and I wouldn’t have minded if he explored it more. Supposedly, Prodigy’s Shoot Down was the Gallagher brothers’ attempt to try and top Setting Sun. I will leave up to you the opinion of whether or not they did so or not.

I know that I have a lot of readers who wish they could be creating singular and personal music like you do, what are your technical and philosophical tips?

Never be afraid to use what is at your fingertips to express what is on your mind. A lot of creativity comes from being able to work with what you have, rather than wishing for what you DON’T have. If you have chimes, timpani drums and a ukulele, you could really make something compelling with that easily, I say. Believe it or not, the usage of your imagination can lead you to eventually develop your own sound later down the line. I currently have four keyboards, three of which are at my house. Me being a big psychedelia/futurism obsessive, I treat the keys like I am building a whole different kind of orchestra because there are a lot of “instruments” in the keyboards as is. Strings, piano, brass, what have you. I once wanted to join a hard rock band as a kid, then shifted to making antifolk when my parents bought me an acoustic guitar in middle school, rather than an electric guitar (understandable because those fuckers are expensive man!). Now, after years of finding my sound, keyboard-heavy pop music is my permanent lane. Frankly, I think what I do now is the kind of music I would have preferred doing if I was younger. 😉

And since you’ve already mentioned him, I’ve got to ask you for your opinions of Kanye West. Has he ever been an influence?

Kanye was a hero to most, but never meant shit to me. (Kanye shrug)

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I wanted to go on, I wanted to hear mynameisblueskye’s memory of Public Enemy, I anted to talk about how they were the first rap band I ever got into as a skinny white kid in Tameside, I wanted to ask if he was as anxious as I am of their importance and their achievements seeming like they’re not as often celebrated these days, I wanted to ask…

But then I realised that what I was doing there was having a conversation. mynameisblueskye can have that effect on you, he’s a fantastic conversationalist without ever needing to lower himself to small talk. As an interview, I felt we were done.

Get into mynameisblueskye. Be more like mynameisblueskye. Be one of those 10’000 listeners wo goes on to make your own music.