What he means is he is not after mixing sounds to create a new “sound” that he can call his own. He describes it with a house metaphor.
Spoke is the lead singer, instrumentalist, and sole member of his band of the same name, which highlights sounds of Punk as a musical concept. But the music in his third and newest album, Rezent, is a mix of everything.
“There’s no real ‘sound’ in the album, because it’s all different songs from different genres,” he said.
What he means is he is not after mixing sounds to create a new “sound” that he can call his own. He describes it with a house metaphor.
“You know how some people have houses where all the furniture and plates don't match but since none of it matches it all kind of fits?” he said. “That's kind of what I'm going for.”
Growing up, he listened to “Black/White music, popular genres of that but not really much about anything else.”
“My dad's Black and from Oakland, so I got all those styles like funk, rap and old-school soul,” he said. “And my mom's White from New Jersey, so I have that Bon Jovi type of style. I kind of just listen to a bunch of other stuff. I ended up liking most genres.”
The concept that he likes in his idea of Punk is that early Punk was against big record labels “and not be polished or anything, and that’s what I’m doing.”
That is expressed in the album’s opening song, “Come My Way.” The singer ridicules rich young musicians with all the trappings of success – houses, cars, girls – complaining of depression.
This is all set to an up-tempo, almost cheerful beat as the singer reveals that he is mired in hopelessness, and in the chorus laments, “Why won’t it come my way / I been up I been down / I been tossed all around / Why won’t it come my way.”
The contrast between the lyrics and the music is one of several seeming contradictions.
“I like songs that when you actually listen to the lyrics, they're depressing,” he said. “But if you don't listen to the lyrics, it feels upbeat. So, depending on your mood, you can listen to the same song and feel how you want.”
One example of this is this idea of “audience.” He states that “there is no target audience,” but then agrees that he is probably writing for a general demographic of people around his own age, 24.
“Whatever I want to write is probably for other people who are 24, kind of like the ‘Come My Way’ song like people feeling like they're falling behind,” he said.
That is mixed in with his feelings about the music industry.
“They always glorify these little kids, and then you just never hear from them again,” he said. “The music ties in with the music industry so that it isn't about music anymore, it's just all about attention.”
Here is another seeming contradiction. He told one interviewer that he doesn’t want any attention, but he needs it to stay “relevant.” Asked what he means by that, he said, “People just to know I still exist.”
He is fully aware of the contradiction. He admits to doing things “to be more marketable, like there’s no cursing in any of it.”
“And since everyone wants attention now, I think me not getting attention is kind of like counterintuitive in a way that'll get attention,” he said. “There's no good way to put it because I'm here for attention by telling people, ‘Don't pay attention.’ It's like going to Making Friends 101 and telling people to shut up I'm here to learn. That's kind of what I'm doing.”
His model is what he calls the “Daft Punk style of marketing.”
“I think they only toured twice in their 25-year career,” he said. “But they show up to events, wave and say hello, wearing masks and not really talking to anybody, and just leave. They didn't want attention, but they got a lot of it.”
Reminded that his music does get a lot of plays, he said, “Yeah, and I have to keep that going. I have to release an album every year, since I'm not doing any of that social media or touring stuff.”
He is not on much social media and says he will never do live recordings or performances. Hence the name of his one-man band, Spoke.
“Since I never plan on doing a live recording, everything I say was spoken in the past. So, I just did Spoke.”
You can stay connected to Spoke and his music, old and new, on these platforms:
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