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Interviews

pinkiscool: “we don’t focus on why we’re happy when we’re happy”

pinkiscool has dialled up the energy on Forget About Me, but according to the artist, there’s even more energy that’s yet to come.

Until lately pinkiscool has always proclaimed himself as another sad boiTM songwriter. But his new single Forget About Me is less James Blake and more Dua Lipa, an absolute jam held together by a late entry into 2021’s best bass lines.

Obviously, something has changed for pinkiscool, so we decided to find out what.

pinkiscool 'Forget About Me' Single Cover
Image: ‘Forget About Me’ Single Cover

HAPPY: You started out in music as a producer and DJ, but then started releasing these beautiful, softer tunes as pinkiscool. So was there always a desire to come back to something that could get people moving?

PINKISCOOL: Yeah, absolutely. At least for the start of it I was writing a lot for me, as weird as that sounds. All of the sessions I was doing were purely based on emotional catharsis for whatever I was feeling at that time. Then one day I was going into the studio and my mum was like “how come you’re always writing such depressing songs?” and I was like… true. So we went in and wrote the first demo of [Forget About Me] and I realised that being an artist is a multi-dimensional thing, it’s not just ‘I’m sad so I’m going to go write about it today’.

HAPPY: When you say it’s not for you… you’re talking about your crowd in a live show? Or is this written with a friend or someone in mind?

PINKISCOOL: Not necessarily, but definitely crowd focused. I started thinking, after that comment, so much about what I wanted to be as an artist, and why I started doing it in the first place. And it came back to this one idea of just connecting people, and I figured if you go to a show and everyone’s just standing still or crying the whole time… not much room for people to connect, you know? So I wanna definitely encompass a show that people can come to and make a bunch of friends at, have a great time at, and go home feeling good, rather than just being like ‘oh that was sad, cool’.

HAPPY: Those shows do serve their purpose, but I tend to agree there’s a special type of bliss that can only come from dance gigs.

PINKISCOOL: Absolutely.

HAPPY: And do you think all that time working in dance music, digging – basically learning to have an ear – do you think that taught you anything about the quite different music you’re making now?

PINKISCOOL: Ooh. It definitely influenced it, like whenever I go in to write with somebody or write by myself, there’s always an influence from somewhere. I don’t think I’ve ever written a song without having an ulterior influence or aspiration, so it definitely has. But coming forward into my career, I’m focusing more on the people involved; what my friends think of the song, how it performs when I do it live, and stuff like that. I’m kind of still figuring it all out – especially live shows, under this project.

HAPPY: That’s because of the pandemic?

PINKISCOOL: Pretty much, basically. We had a whole plan for an EP and everything that was meant to come out ages ago, but it’s all been pushed. Which I’m still very excited for! But it would have happened like a year ago if it wasn’t for all this.

HAPPY: I might be making a massive assumption here, so bear with me. Would your ultimate goal be to make music that can do both of these things? Have that emotional quality, but also have the energy a live show needs?

PINKISCOOL: Absolutely. I mean, going back to influences, bands like The 1975 or Twenty One Pilots, guys that make really meaningful music but you go can and mosh to – it’s such a goal of mine. To have people come to my show and really connect to the lyrics behind what I’m doing, but also be able to absolutely go crazy, would be a dream.

HAPPY: Nice. So assuming that the stuff releasing is a few years old now, is stuff that you’ve been making since going in that direction? More energetic, more lively?

PINKISCOOL: Yes. Way happier! Every session I go into with a new person, they’re always trying to do a really sad acoustic guitar thing and I’m like, ‘hold on, let me show you what I’ve been working on recently’, and they’re like, ‘oh shit, ok!’ I think we really focus one why we’re sad when we’re sad, but we don’t focus on why we’re happy when we’re happy, because we just enjoy it. So I’ve been trying to focus on that idea and figure out what actually makes me happy, and what makes other people happy, and how do I put that into music that’s still meaningful?

HAPPY: I think that’s what people need.

PINKISCOOL: I hope so.

HAPPY: I really like your take on relationships in Forget About Me. Do you think the way relationships has been talked about in pop has evolved recently?

PINKISCOOL: Oh, hell yeah. There’s always been the trope of classic breakup songs for as long as I’ve been alive and before that, but the way we address that has changed now because it’s so temporary, and transient. All my friends that are not in relationships don’t date or anything – they just sleep around until they find a person to get locked down with, it’s so weird. Even in high school it was so different to how it is now. So you could listen to any pop song now and it’s so different to how it was. For me especially, it was really interesting to go into why that is.

HAPPY: And why do you think it’s that way?

PINKISCOOL: I don’t know, I think people are scared in some way. It comes with modern attention span I think, stuff like endlessly scrolling. It’s the same with relationships – everyone just wants to feel something, and if you can do that 20 times in a month instead of once in five years… that’s just what people are doing.

HAPPY: I think people are potentially less scared of the moving on thing as they were, too.

PINKISCOOL: Absolutely!

HAPPY: It doesn’t feel like lost time anymore, or something.

PINKISCOOL: That’s a really good point.

HAPPY: Thanks – relationships have just become so much more three-dimensional.

PINKISCOOL: For sure, that’s cool.

HAPPY: I can tell you really love pop and you’re really a student of pop, so where did that love affair begin?

PINKISCOOL: I think I’ve always been so attracted to the idea of pop music and the glamour and glitz behind behind it, but also the songwriting behind it is objectively some of the best in the world. It’s very, very simple but it’s done so well. The songs that are in the top 100? Every song deserves to be there, and it doesn’t matter that they had 27 writers that were paid whatever to make it that good, they are insanely written songs.

So getting behind that and working with people that have a foot in that, and learning from them, and figuring out what’s important when it comes down to them. I think it comes back to this idea of connecting with people, like if I really want to make a difference, I want to reach the most amount of people that I can. So once I do that, I feel like it all ties in together.

HAPPY: Good take. Was there a specific moment along the way where you said, ‘I think I can make this music’?

PINKISCOOL: I think the first time I realised was when I released a song called Monday, it was my first song ever, I wrote it as a joke to see how ‘triple j’ I could write a song. And it’s almost on 800,000 streams now! I put it out and was like, ok, so people actually like it. And then I started actually writing stuff like that seriously.

From there I started working on it with people and they started working on it with me – so I think collaboration. When other people started to focus on it as well, it made a lot of sense. I was like, ‘we can do this’.

 

Forget About Me is out now. Stream the single here.