Happy has an electric chat with Berlin artist, WEIRDO coming from the release of his latest single, Transcendence.
The ultimate WEIRDO, producer and singer/songwriter, pulls back the vibrant layers that colour his world and the inspiration behind his electro-indie music.
From offering advice to new-time producers to sifting through his heart-tugging lyrics with a fine tooth comb – nobody can doubt that talent and imagination is dripping from WEIRDO’s fingertips.
HAPPY: Hey there WEIRDO! Where do you find yourself today?
WEIRDO: Hi there Happy Maggers. I’m currently sat in my parent’s garden thinking about travelling back to Berlin after summer.
HAPPY: WEIRDO, where did this name come from?
WEIRDO: The name popped up during a little time of self-reflection and self-analysis. I looked in the mirror and saw a rather freakish dude staring back at me and thought – let’s rock n’ roll. WEIRDO’s the name, music’s ma game.
HAPPY: Massive congrats on the release of Transcendence, tell us a bit about the track
WEIRDO: It’s a song I wrote at the end of a tough time with both myself and someone I was surrounding myself with. The love we had was built on broken foundations, but it had something so honest in there, that we kept on battling for that transcendent love. It exists but it’ll have to be in a different lifetime, not this one.
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HAPPY: The relationship themes behind the tune are incredibly confronting, how did you translate such emotive and hard-hitting ideas into lyrics?
WEIRDO: It was extremely natural. I wrote and produced the song in one day. I mixed/mastered it the next day. It just poured out. Like diarrhoea.
HAPPY: Let’s talk about your music video for the track, it’s incredible! Did you create Transcendence with this 3D surrealist concept in mind?
WEIRDO: Initially, I was going to tell my biased story about the relationship and all of the things I had to go through, and witness and be a part of. But I took a deep breath and thought, what’s the point? I’d rather try to understand and portray the perspective from a female POV.
I asked one of closest female friends and my little sister to listen to the song, and read the lyrics and imagine they’d written this. I asked them what would they be thinking and feeling, emotionally and visually? They helped me come up with a majority of the ideas.
You have to really watch closely to work out all of the small details and to what effect they have in sync with the lyrics and the story that unfolds. It’s very smart and the team who created it with me, NotReal_Virtual are a talented team who without them, this wouldn’t have turned out so well.
HAPPY: What are you hoping your audience can take from the visual project?
WEIRDO: I hope they just feel something. Anything. Feelings are all we have left. The rest of us are on the internet.
HAPPY: What advice would you have for artists wanting to get into producing?
WEIRDO: I would suggest saving up for a MacBook, getting yourself some music production software and just starting somewhere. These days you can record vocals on your iPhone, you can play with plugin FX and you can still write a good record – just reach into your soul and save the impact you feel from your traumas and experiences. They’ll guide you towards better creativity.
HAPPY: Transcendence was released ahead of your upcoming LP! Is the track a sonic hint of what’s to come?
WEIRDO: I think the LP has a whole range of genres and ideas hence why I named it, A MIXTAPE FOR HEARTBREAK. I mean it’s all alt-pop sounds and DIY productions from a dark, sad, cold and lonely bedroom studio in Berlin, but it’s a mixtape in the sense of its so many ideas congealed into one big blob of work.
Music taste is terribly subjective – I don’t regard myself as some supersonic mixing engineer, or sound-scape guy, and I definitely don’t think I am the next Paul Epworth or any other world-renowned producer – and hell, I don’t wanna be! I’m a songwriter and storyteller who creates cinematic, honest and transparent songs for whoever fancies listening to it.
HAPPY: Thank you so much for your time!
WEIRDO: Mwah. You too!
