In this interview spotlight, we speak with Nashville’s Messyah about his brand of existential pop, the newest project and more.
Full Q&A with links and streams below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
I live and work in Nashville, TN.
Umm, I define my music as “existential pop”.
Musically, most of my influence is drawn from 90s RnB and 80s pop. A lot of electric piano, a lot of clean chorus like guitar tones.
Vocally, i use auto-tune. I’m not trying to be the next adele, and I like the effect.
Lyrically, I write to challenge peoples world-views. Topics like, religion, death, afterlife etc…
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
Honestly, music is more of a tool for me. A platform of sorts.
I don’t necessarily think I’m doing anything groundbreaking stylistically or production or song-writing wise. But I think there are very few artists out there doing what I’m trying to do lyrically.
Music is incredibly powerful, and emotional. And my thought process is, that if I can write lyrics that challenge your thinking, stretch your beliefs, or resonate with your emotions to do something with your one life here on this rock, than back those lyrics with emotional chord structures, that can be a very powerful and influential thing.
Have you ever watched a movie or read a book, where afterwards you just sat, and contemplated life? Like, the credits rolled and you sat on your couch and were like, “damn, I need to be a better person”. Or finished a really thought provoking book that altered some of your beliefs? That’s the type of music that I want to create.
I think modern pop music is kind of like super-hero or action movies. It can get you really excited but theres really minimal substance behind it.
I write pop music because it is emotional, and I write existential lyrics because I want to influence people positively do do something meaningful.
Anyways, I’m not sure if I answered your question. hahaha. Oh well.
Who or what are your biggest influences when it comes to your creativity?
Artists like Kanye West, and Bon Iver come to mind. Musicians that just want to stretch boundaries and create intensely personal but completely new sounds and music.
A lot of my friends here in Nashville push me creatively as well.
Like my friend Nate will sample anything. We were in a dive music store once, and he sampled this little circular xylophone thing with his iphone. And that sample ended up being on his latest record haha. Most of my stuff is created in the box with programming and stuff, so he pushes me to get out of the box.
My roommate hoops is probably the best programmer/producer that I know. Every time I hear one of his tracks I want to cry. So good.
I listen to 92.1 a lot in my car. hahaha. Honestly so many songs of mine have been written after getting out of my car and being influenced by a track I just heard on that radio station.
As far as lyrical influences go, mostly just books I’ve read and experiences I’ve had. I went to college to be a pastor, like as in, I have a bachelors degree in Theology. Whoops! hahaha, cause during my time there I left the faith and now am kind of an outspoken person against most organized religion. So yeah, I guess I’m influenced by those experiences more than anything else when it comes to the lyrics I write.
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
Yeah absolutely. The new album is called EXYST. Its around 16 or so tracks that all follow the theme of existence. Asking questions like, “why are we here” or “why do we exist in the world”.
Because of my religious background a lot of the lyrical content is aimed at systems of belief and challenging those systems.
I also wanted to write about just the everyday of life for a 20 something in 2016. Thematically talking about, thinking and analyzing life, and also feeling and experiencing life.
Its my first music released as an artist by myself, and its the first piece of music I’ve released since re-defining my beliefs and way of seeing the world.
I’m releasing a track every friday on my soundcloud until the release of the full album at the end of October.
Do you face any challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? On the flip side, how has technology helped you (if it has)?
I mean. If the internet didn’t exist I wouldn’t exist as an artist. Hahaha. Like, I haven’t played any shows yet as MESSYAH, Ive just released music online.
The down sides are the on-going battle of trying to get your music heard by people who aren’t your family and friends. I’m still figuring that one out, but I think if it were not for technology, it would be so much harder.
I mean, the biggest challenge is making money. Obviously. You can’t make money in 2016 as a musician unless you play live. And even then, you have to be at a certain level to do so.
How do you feel about streaming services? Any romantic attachments to the physical formats: vinyl, 8-track, cassettes, CDs?
I’m not against them. I think they have equally blessed and destroyed the music industry in the last 10 years.
I use spotify. Truthfully, most of my new music that I listen to comes from discovering bands on spotify. I think streaming is great for music discovery, but bad for music library. As in, most people find an enormous amount of new music that they never would have found before had spotify not existed, but they’re still not buying that music, cause they’re just using the streaming service as a library. I think the best way to do it, is to discover with streaming, but still buy music via digital or physical copies.
I have a CD collection that has grown since high school.
I always kind of wanted to have a huge library for when I’m older and need to reminisce. But
Where can we follow you online and hear more music?
That website has all of my music and lyrics on it.
Again, I’m releasing a track every friday
until my full album drops on OCTOBER 28th.
You can find all those tracks on my website or soundcloud.
Anything else before we sign off?
Tremendous thanks for featuring me here.
Thanks for asking pointed questions.
I appreciate all that you are doing for music in TN.
My friends that I mentioned above have some incredible music.
Check them out at these links:
