Seattle-based carkeys is a perfect blend of trap and punk, and takes the rawness of emo music to whole new heights
carkeys is a major up-and-comer in the Seattle scene, and his latest EP The Epitome of Yin is a collection of tracks on heartbreak, loss, mental health and the duality of self.
A raw and emotional reverie, carkeys’ writing is poetic and daring, layered upon a mixture of sad, mad and sleepy sonics.
In conversation with Happy, carkeys let us in on his writing process, how the passing of his late girlfriend has inspired his work, and the versatile tracks on his upcoming project.
Check out the conversation below.
HAPPY: What are you up to today?
CARKEYS: Yesterday was my late girlfriend’s birthday, and I have a song called CPR that is about/for her. It’s completely recorded but I want to make it perfect so I am gonna be mastering it today so that I can hopefully release within a week or 2.
HAPPY: Tell us a little about where you’re from. What do you love about it?
CARKEYS: I’m from the place where it rains all the time. Seattle is perfect for an emo such as myself because there’s plenty of yin based beauties like the rain, the storm clouds and overall grungy atmosphere.
I love the scene here, I’d call it a revival but in truth it never died, it was just underground. Some of my friends run a venue called Animal House and it hosts local bands and there’s always people moshing and crowd surfing.
It is a good place to meet like-minded people. The fashion and music scene here has been popping off and I think it’s just a matter of time before we see some really big names come out of Seattle again. Possibly even myself.
HAPPY: The Epitome of Yin feels like a deep emotional journey. How did you channel your personal experiences into the music, and was there a moment when you knew the EP was complete?
CARKEYS: I once heard a quote that said something along the lines of you don’t really have to think too much about writing, it’s like your body and voice is just like a vessel for the music to be created through.
I just listen to the instrumentals and start freestyling over them and almost immediately I’ll have a hook that is made up of the words that are plaguing my mind.
I write inside out, so I make a chorus that just came from my soul’s voice, and then afterwards I figure out how to write intros, verses and bridges to get to that point and connect everything cohesively.
It’s like doing a maze backwards, I know where I wanna end up and then I use a lot of critical thinking to figure out how to get there, after I know the chorus is a banger and is worth continuing. I knew I wanted it to be a 5 song EP and coincidentally It’s Hard For Me sounded perfectly conclusive.
HAPPY: Your sound blends everything from trap to rock to punk. How did you land on this sonic mix, and who were the key influences that shaped the EP’s vibe?
CARKEYS: For this EP I wanted to branch out and show off where I feel I’m “in the pocket”, and that’s usually when I’m belting or screaming. I looked for shoegaze beats because I heard the song “Your face” by Wisp, and after hearing that I made my song “Die in My Arms”.
The beginning of the chorus when I say “Baby please just wait” is 100% inspired by the super high pitch vocals from Wisp over shoegaze instrumentals.
I have been inspired by Peep the most; I have an average of 12 vocal layers for every song because I love the depth it offers, and Peep inspired me to go that route.
I think I’ve done a good job to be inspired by, but not fully copy anyone. Anytime people are like “hmmm, what do you sound like?”, they end up realising that I have my own sounds that don’t exactly mimic anyone.
I knew I found my voice when I made “Die in My Arms”. I’m trying to do as many genres as I believe I can, everything from 2 22 indie, to screamo, to pop punk, to Cigarettes After Sex style stuff. My next singles are gonna really show my versatility.
HAPPY: You’ve mentioned battling with depersonalization disorder. How has your mental health shaped not only your music but also the way you approach life and art?
CARKEYS: My song “Dream Boy” takes inspiration from DPD; I smoked weed one day in 2017 and my life has been taken hostage ever since. I view the world through a dream-like state, I’m permanently zoned out and it feels like I’m a spectator in my own life.
My best moments were lived watching on the sidelines and I hate it because I look healthy to anyone who sees me. It’s very lonely because if I had some visible illness at least people would be able to see I’m suffering but in this case I suffer silently.
I see life so differently. There is nothing subtle about it and I always say I don’t have a survival instinct anymore because I really don’t associate with my body. So it’s a big reason why I make emo music, and sad stuff in the first place.
HAPPY: Survivor’s guilt plays a big role in your lyrics. How has this feeling affected your growth as an artist, and do you feel like music has provided any sense of closure?
CARKEYS: Any sense? Yeah. But not much, honestly. I have lived through so many overdoses and people say that its because its not my time yet and that there’s a purpose to me being here, but in my song “Survivors Guilt” I say “they die and I don’t” over and over at the end and it’s just rough knowing that there are so many people who loved their life and passed away, but I was embracing the possibility of death and have always woken up.
I think all I can do now is live my life and convert these negative feelings into beautiful music so that other people know there’s someone out there who gets it.
HAPPY: There’s a rawness in the way you talk about your late girlfriend. How do you navigate putting such deeply personal stories into the public domain? Is it cathartic or more of a challenge?
CARKEYS: I sometimes wanna scream from the top of a building that she was a person and she was beautiful. I have no difficulty navigating how I put it into the public domain because I’m an open book, and I want people to know about it.
It is therapeutic for me. I always have written about the deepest depths to what is driving me insane and she died right after I started writing the first song, “Inconsistent”, so that was what was mainly running through my head, and I love when music hits you with that utter gut wrenching feeling.
My favorite songs are ones that are just so fucking brutal to listen to because of how raw they are. So I serve it on a silver platter with no sugar coating.
HAPPY: You describe your sound as “sad, mad, and sleepy.” How do those moods translate into the themes and emotions you want your listeners to take away from the EP?
CARKEYS: Okay so for sad, I would want people to be able to cry to my music. Sad stuff has helped me kinda have background music to stew in my sadness with, and my favorite art is material that can invoke so much emotion in me that I actually cry to it.
For the mad stuff, I want people to be able to let their built up rage for the world out and scream their hearts out. We have all been wronged by ex’s, abusers, parents and it’s helpful for me to scream at the top of my lungs so I wanna encourage that, haha.
I owe a lot to sleepy music. I would say “Survivors Guilt” is kinda leaning towards my sleepy side of the spectrum, because I kept falling asleep to it while making it. I have to sleep with music on and a lot of my favorite songs are the ones that relax me so I wanna put more of that in the world to help with insomnia.
HAPPY: Looking ahead, what’s coming up?
CARKEYS: Like I said earlier, I have a song called CPR that will be coming out next. It has Cigarettes After Sex vibes and is a very sad story-telling song.
I think it’s beautiful and it is so so so different from anything that has been released thus far. I wanna show off my versatility because I can’t think of many people that have tackled the styles that I have tackled in my archive right now.
Also, my next project will be named Pity Boy. I have a handful of songs already and I think the production on this project will be levels higher than my last because I’ve learned so much since then.
HAPPY: What makes you happy?
CARKEYS: Women
