Glaive

I hear an accent, are you Australian?

Yeah, my parents are from southern Europe, but I grew up in Australia, hence my fun accent. [laughs]

My aunts are living there. They’re not Australian, but they live in Australia, in Adelaide.

I don’t know many people who live or grew up in Adelaide. It is weirdly in the middle, and at the same time not in the middle. Everywhere in Australia does take a bit of effort to get to however.

I recently went to Australia. I hadn't been to Adelaide since I was a wee boy.

Australia is always fun, did you do a festival?

Yeah, a festival. I forget what the name of it is though.

No worries, but enough Australian tourism talk, let's bring it back to music. [laughs] Listening to your latest music, I feel a strong through line, but also a lot of ideas. Can you tell me a little about your process and how you ended up with a pretty unique sound?

I don't really like making an album where every song is kind of the same musically from an idea. I think maybe some of my previous albums, I have struggled from sounding like a bunch of songs that don't really make that much sense together. But this last album, I did create a line of continuity because of the writing, which I never really thought about before. Trying to get all my points across, I suppose.

We did the song “Alaska”, at a place like an hour outside of San Francisco called Nicasio, and then we finished in Asheville, North Carolina. I think that's kind of why a lot of the songs, production wise, are quite varied. A month would pass and I’m listening to a completely different kind of music. The third song on the album is called “Nouveau Riche”, and when I wrote it, I was listening to this genre of music called Moombahton, which is more electronic focused reggaeton.

Oh I know which song you're talking about, I can hear that influence.

I never even really heard of music like that, so the recording at different times allowed me to reflect on the past, but also make music influenced by whatever kind of music that I'm like a big fan of at the moment.

How do you find your influences? What makes you connect with these genres and sounds?

All my friends make music. Like my friend Kurtains. He loves music and all the people that I make music with really love music. People will text me songs and say, “Listen to this!” I’ll also whip out my phone a lot in public settings and be like, “What song is this?” I'm deep. I like music a lot. [smiles]

How do you differentiate between stuff you like, and the music you want to make?

I want to make every kind of music I like. I love 42 Dugg, Lil Durk, and Lil Baby, but I just know I'm never going to do that as well as they can.There's some types of music where I know maybe isn't for me, but I do genuinely want to make every type of music if possible, because it's like, why would I not do that? I made a song that sounds like reggaeton, but it also doesn't really sound like reggaeton. It sounds like me. I am maybe not musically inclined enough to make a song that really sounds like somebody else. I've never been able to do that, although I have tried. I think it is very much a gift.

What is your writing process like? Listening to you talk about your inspiration, it seems very natural to you.

It's not an enjoyable experience. I will sit on my computer, I can show you the exact setup because me and my friend are making an album right now. [Ash walks around the room showing a set-up in his living room] You can see a laptop interface, and microphone with a sock on it. I sit here writing notes all the time. It could be the most dumb thought of all time. I remember I was looking through my notes for this album, and I just wrote down words like ‘Santa Claus’ and ‘jingle bells’. I don't know what I meant by that. I will write down everything. If I think somebody in a conversation says something interesting, I write it down. I read a lot, which I think hopefully helps my writing be a little bit better. Whenever I'm about to go make a song, I look at these notes and if one of them stands out to me and like, makes sense, I then kind of expand upon that thought. Like my song “Nouveau Riche”, the song that I referenced, my friend Eric was in my house, and we were talking about nepo-babies. We both just kind of came to the conclusion that we don't really have the same respect for that kind of artist, as just a normal person that kind of made it out of nothing. I sat there and had that first line, which was ‘cocktail chic’. I had no idea what it was, and that's just like I wrote that down.

I feel you might have books of lyrics and songs?

I write a lot of songs, but I think it's quite obvious which ones are good.

So you’re not a tortured type, that can't make decisions.

No I can. Even with my friend I am writing with at the moment, I hope he doesn't mind me saying this, but I've been writing his parts and my parts. I love writing songs, but I’m not that good at melody or whatever. I don't personally think that that's my strong suit. I love writing a song, it's the most rewarding for me, obviously. I'm definitely not tortured. I've never had writer's block.

Really? That's amazing. I hear about people who can’t write for months.

I think a lot of creatives struggle with writing or anything based on anxiety. I've had my fair share of a terrible brain, like terrible things that go on in my brain, but I don't get anxious at all. I'm never super nervous to do anything, also even when I was really bad at writing songs, which honestly wasn’t that long ago in my opinion, I still thought I was great. I still think I'm great. The level of how good that song is varies, but I always feel like I need to explore an emotion that I'm feeling.

"I always feel like I need to explore an emotion that I'm feeling."

Do you think about how people will review or read into your music?

I was signed to a record label when I was 15, and I felt that way a little bit more like there was more pressure to be a successful musician. I'm 21 now, and I've been doing it for so long. So I don't compare myself to other artists, only myself. In my mind, I'm doing very well.

That's great.

Well I'm not doing very well, but like, you know what I mean? I'd probably be pretty upset if my album only got 30 streams, but as long as somebody out there likes it, this is really cool. I'm not, I'm definitely not making music for other people. I had that phase where I really cared what people thought about my music and liked even who I was as a person. I love saying this, which is very stupid because half a decade is only five years. I've been making music for a quarter of my life. Right?

Oh my God, it's true.

I got signed 3 months into starting my music career. My life changed pretty quickly. It was like the beginning of Covid. I keep referencing my friend who's not here, but we met when I was 14 on a video game. He was making music already. He showed me kind of how to record music. They might have been the worst songs ever made. Getting signed to a record label is not a marker that I was a great artist.

What do you think is different about your music?

I don't want to come across as cocky, but I definitely think I am quite cocky, so maybe it's best.

Is it generally not a bad thing, as long as you're nice.

I can agree with that sentiment! All I want to get across for the people that listen to it is that I really mean it. I really care a lot whether you think I'm a good songwriter or a bad songwriter. I really care about it. I think about the words and I think a lot of people my age, they make music, and don't care as much about the words. They care more about, like the fun of it all, which is fine. I think the difference between me and maybe another person who is similar to me, is that I'm real and honest, and I've never really cared about, like saying something kind of dumb if it like makes sense.

Do you think because you're based in North Carolina that offers you some space for creating?

I lived in LA from when I was like 17 to 19, and I moved back 2024. I was with my parents for a while, and now I got a house here. This is going to sound rude because you live in LA, but I think in comparison to my peers that live in LA, I think that my writing is a lot better than theirs, because I'm away from everything that's going on. I'm not in any kind of scene or any kind of friend group or whatever. My friend comes out here and we make music together and it's a vibe. I think my last album was more braggadocious. With my removal from LA, I was able to look at it from an outside perspective and be gentle without feeling like I’m being rude to people.

I've not been to North Carolina, how's the scene there?

There's definitely people making music, but is there anybody that makes music like me? No.

Researching for this interview, I looked into other artists, and found some cool bands, but nothing quite in your world.

There are some cool music. It's just not electronic music. Everybody here is super artsy and it's fun, but also everybody here is like 30 and I'm not. I can't even go to a bar legally.

You can in Australia.

True. I turned 21 at my show in Toronto, which is so funny because I could have drunk in Toronto for years.

If you're surrounded by so much more traditional music, what drew you to the electronic side?

I'm from Hendersonville, which is 40 minutes away from Asheville, and there's no music there at all. Only in the last like two years, did I even care about the fact that there were musicians in Asheville. I was online, and all my friends were super into electronic music. I met all my friends and all of them listened to electronic music. I think when I turned 17 and 18 was when I found out about bands. Only this year did I start listening to Oasis, like me and my friend are listening to Oasis a lot right now, but beforehand, I didn't know or care because I was just super into niche electronic music.

Growing up I went to lots of shows, electronic and non-electronic, and now the internet is so powerful in introducing new music communities to people.

Definitely. We were in Discord and a very online space, it was a bunch of super online kids really into electronic music. It was very easy to dive into it because it was all on SoundCloud. I didn't go to a show until I was already making music.

"My whole life is kind of built around this thing that I do."

From my conversations this is not uncommon. Not sure why I am always surprised when I hear it though. It was a period of time when maybe IRL interactions were not maybe important?

Yeah, I agree. I think especially like, I mean, after I feel like Covid and all that, like made people go inside and now it’s gone the other way to like, really want to go to people really want to be with people. It's not like people don’t love shows in Asheville, but like, in smaller towns, it's just not part of the culture.

How do you like performing?

I love performing. It's like it's your birthday every day. It’s the best part. I used to get depressed; maybe that’s too strong of a word, but maybe emotional is a better way to describe it. My brain was super young, and couldn't figure out how to balance the supreme joy that I was feeling. I used to really struggle with doing shows and then also like trying to be a normal person. I feel kind of grown up and now it's kind of like it's the best.

Playing live is such a high. If you're not good at recovering from it, you just crave the same high that you can't get in real life.

I think that's it. It's a tale as old as time, I suppose. [laughs] Like, that's why all those rock stars back in the day were, like, doing drugs. I think what I've realised is you just need to be cognisant of your emotions. If you think of the high as a reality, and normal life as being like a low, it would be crushing at the time. I don't come from a family of anybody who really is creative. My dad was a professional polo player, which is interesting, but not the same vibe at all. I love going on tour. I love doing shows. It is like the best part. Yeah, it's kind of cliché, I suppose, but it's really fun.

Do you get inspired to edit or change tracks to get the audiences to react in certain ways? Or does it inspire new music?

I have a song on my album called “Weird”, which is this really loud song, and there's not much there. The chorus however is weird and very simple, but crazy. It makes you want to make songs with a lot of energy. I think having a bunch of different vibes in a show to me is what makes it most interesting. I want to kind of have this whole thing, so moments where it's super crazy, but other times where it chills out and people get to breathe and take in whatever's going on. I love the juxtaposition.

The juxtaposition reminds me to ask about your aesthetic, North Carolina is not known too much for Britishness or the love of football, but your visuals have quite a UK feel about it. How did this interest come about?

I got really into maybe this is blasphemous to say, but soccer, because of this video game called Football Manager. [laughs] It's awesome! I was playing it on tour in 2024 when I was opening for somebody. I was just really addicted to it. In North Carolina, nobody gives like a flying fuck about soccer or football, as you say. Nobody cares. It doesn't matter, but I got really into this game and I started watching Italian soccer.For whatever reason, I think I was managing an Italian team in the game called Juventus.

Actually my favourite Italian team!

I have a bunch of old jerseys and stuff, which I've been collecting. Sporting people tend to be kind of boring, like American football players are kind of boring, normal guys. However in soccer, there's a lot of characters who are very eccentric. It’s like going through this emotional journey all the time. I also think the aesthetic of it is really beautiful. I love jerseys. I've always loved logos and iconography. It has like a bunch of emotional guys, which I love. I love an emotional guy. They look cool, and they're all successful, I suppose. I was just really drawn to it, especially 90s to early 2000s Italian soccer. There's this guy named Mario Balotelli who I became a really big fan of. The cover art is inspired by a player named Del Piero who's a Juventus legend. I started playing a little bit, but I'm pretty bad. I started going to the Asheville FC soccer games.

That is really interesting, especially in relation to the connection with the idea of emotional masculinity.

I don't know if that's the case everywhere, but in my mind that didn't exist in sports. There’s definitely characters in NFL football, but it's more rare. In soccer every person has some kind of lore. I don't know if it's because it's like it's an old sport or because it's such a watched sport. People really dive into players' lives. I was so intrigued by it because it's so foreign?

Similarly to what you discussed about genres, did the influence of this current passion help pave the way for the artwork and rollout for this record?

It weirdly fits with what I'm talking about. For me, it came together in a really nice way that I liked, but I wasn’t sitting there planning all this. It really just kind of all fits together. It was definitely not as much as I'd like to say. It wasn't a purposeful thing.

Are you really involved in the creative?

It was completely my idea to do soccer. I wish in my past albums I had people to help me because I didn't really know what I wanted to do. This sounds kind of embarrassing, I suppose, but I really now want to be involved with everything because I got more interested in other forms of art. Before I kind of really didn’t care about art. Now I realise the importance of the cover art. I get to cosplay as this soccer guy, and it’s super enjoyable and fun.

How does it feel now to hit a pretty big moment in your career? What do your next steps look like?

I think that out of all my albums that I've ever put out, this album is the one people have liked the most.

However nothing in my life has changed. It doesn't make me nervous to follow it up. I just hope every album I've made since has gotten better. In my heart of hearts, I’m praying that I just continue to get better and continue to enjoy it. If I stop having a good time doing it, I'd probably lose my mind. Like, I don't know what I would do because it's all I love doing.

Sounds like you don’t really stop right?

As soon as an album comes out, we're done. I understand that that's maybe not the most savvy musical genius industry billionaire idea, but I just don't stop. I'm sure there's a million musicians who have said this, and it's very cliche, but it really isn't my thing anymore. I put it out for people to hear it, and now people can feel however they want to feel about it. It becomes something else other than my thing. You know what I mean? I always love having songs in my back pocket and know I'm working on this. I'm like, working towards making this thing. I already kind of have the idea of what my personal next album is going to sound like and look like. I definitely feel like I need to keep going. Like if I slow down, I'm just going to lose my mind because nothing happens in North Carolina at all.

I was going to ask if you rest, but I think I have your answer. [laughs]

I definitely do, as I don't have a job. I don't go to work, or work all the time and it’s easiest life ever. So why would I not just keep making music? I have had thoughts before like I should go on like and chill. But what am I gonna do? Like, what am I supposed to do? Chilling for me is not that fun, like making music is really fun. All the music that I made my last three albums with the same three guys, and I love hanging out with them. I love hanging out there like three of my closest friends. My whole life is kind of built around this thing that I do. So why would I keep doing it? Especially while I like, feel like I'm getting better?

I feel that, so why would you take a break now?

Yeah, exactly. If I start feeling like it’s not sounding too good, then I might like to pump the brakes a little, but for now I'm like, let's keep it pushing. I got nothing else. I have no responsibilities. I guess I have responsibilities, but I have nothing that requires me from being anywhere.

You're on your own schedule, which is a nice situation to be in.

It's the thing that all my friends and I do. This guy I keep bringing it up, Kurtins. We talk all the time, but when we hang out together, we will make music. Before he got here, I had a week where I was just playing video games, writing and reading. Every day being bombarded with a million things. It's definitely not that vibe. I feel very well rested in life.