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Some of you may have read the previous piece written on the artist by the name of Witchy, and his album, Everything I’ll Never Say, being promoted on campus. This week I was fortunate enough to get in contact and discuss the project with his own insight as a creator, which gave much background context for the understanding of him and his music alike.
The album developed over a period of about a year, sorting through Witchy’s state of mind — both in message and musical process. Since the beginning, he’s had long lasting inspiration from well known figures of pop punk, “MGK and Kenny Hoopla. Those are like my favorites to listen to,” he remarked, “I wanted to make music because of Lil Peep and he’s still probably my favorite artist.”
Originally, he would find himself getting licenses from producers and bringing beats that gave off the right aura into the studio. After this, the musician exclaims that he began posting music on SoundCloud because the platform simplified releasing. Since then, Witchy has taken more of a personal approach to his songs.
“Now I actually work one on one with the producer and we can go from scratch,” he plans on continuing this approach in upcoming projects. Working closely with producers allows for music to be more personal with direction and detailing, adding freedom with structure. “For this, it’s like we can break down each individual track stem and just get really detailed with it.” The growth has been self-witnessed in his writing as well. Although EINS features some songs that were long in the working, the artist now lives spontaneously within the moments his emotion is conceived. “You capture the energy, whatever feelings triggered those thoughts are very fresh and it’s hard sometimes to go back and try and replicate that.” Instead of viewing a song as something that’s made, he expresses that it’s more so found “A song for me is a really quick moment that happens.”
Cover for single “Pouring Pain”
One thing that caught my eye was the dedication shown by Witchy, even through the album cover, which features Witchy with the title of his work freshly tattooed across his neck. Seeing it in person I couldn’t help but ask about the process of planning, and the title came before the tat. “Once I decided the name, then I went and got the tattoo and we took the picture and dropped the album the next week.” This was epic to hear and has got to be some of the more legitimate ties I’ve seen between crafter and craft.
This isn’t the only instance in which he shows dedication, as the rapper/punk pop musician has high ambitions for the future. At the moment, the focus is directed towards gaining a following to later put on shows. However, Witchy displays a go-getter attitude in goalposts for growth. “More is always better. I don’t really have like a specific goal, because if I get to that goal I don’t want it to be over,” and throughout it all “I’m just gonna keep working, keep making music.”
Pure motives shine through with an aspiration to share music with as many possible, building a valuable relation with listeners. “When you share an emotion with someone it’s an important human experience,” he states “If someone’s listening to you, they put their headphones in and it’s just you and them.”
This vulnerability garners personal value as well. Witchy says that he strives to be authentic in every lyric, even navigating his own train of thought. At times this was a difficult task, especially with tracks like “SPLIT” that had a very particular, and maybe somewhat odd, sound when paired with fellow songs, but held jostling emotional vulnerability for Witchy.
When starting your listening journey, the artist recommends starting with “Broken” because it displays the strong emotional and structural variation of the album. Afterwards, “Pricetag” holds weight as well. When it was written “That feeling in that moment was probably the strongest one, it was totally captivating. It took over my entire mind.”
This album may give us a good slice of emotional scenery with high energy sounds, but for the future songs (which may include singles coming out soon) “The lyrics are a little less directly emotional,” residing in the mindset of more experimentation and moving on from the past.
The dialogue closed with some advice for anybody on the same path. “First, always be genuine with yourself when making music,” followed by “The other thing is to not think about the audience when you’re making music…If someone else doesn’t like it, it’s fine. There’s not an artist in the world that everybody likes” The right people will come along when your music is a true reflection of yourself.
Overall, the interview I was able to have with Witchy felt like a pleasant conversation and gave me food for thought the next time I find myself streaming his music. I’m looking forward to witnessing that growth.
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