Quannnic on Mario Kart, Virality, and Being a Backward-Thinker

This is a free post from Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter. Paid subscribers get one or two email-only Baker's Dozens every week featuring music I've been listening to and some critical observations around it.

If you subscribe to the newsletter's paid tier then you've seen me write about Quannnic's music recently; they just put out a very solid new album out on deadAir, Warbrained, and it marks another really fascinating release for one of the most fascinating label stables going right now. I'm always interested in talking to young, internet-native artists about their creativity and how they navigate being online, and it was really nice to hop on a call with Quannnic last month and break down how the evolution of their career has gone so far. Check it out:

I'm curious to hear you talk about the notion of making friends and building a community of sorts online as an artist. How has that been for you as you've exited being a teenager?
I wouldn't say it affects me too much anymore, but it definitely played a major part in my life and my career a couple of years ago. Building a community and having a bunch of friends that make music off of SoundCloud helped me majorly, but I feel like everyone that I meet now is either on tour or through friends here in L.A.

But I think it's really great to be able to meet musicians off of Discord, Soundcloud, and Instagram—to be able to collaborate with people that share the same taste as you, especially. I'm from Florida, and around the time that I started making music on the internet, nobody around me cared about the genre that I was doing—but there's a huge community on the internet for it.

Do you remember the first time you ever used the internet?
Yeah, I was, like, two years old.

What did you use it for?
I was playing this Wiggles game on my mom's computer.

You started playing instruments when you were pretty young.
Yeah, I started playing guitar when I was, like, five. There's a bunch of people that play instruments in Florida.

Do you remember what the first thing was that you learned how to play on the guitar?
I don't even know. I think it was some Nirvana song.

Word. That's one of the building blocks. When I was playing guitar as a kid, the first thing my guitar teacher taught me how to play was 311's "Down."
I was just talking about 311. I really like that band, actually.

Tell me more about that.
I think it's pretty harmless, fun music, and I don't mind it being on for sure. I grew up playing Guitar Hero, and one of their songs was on Guitar Hero World Tour, and that's when I fell in love with them. I feel like it's music that kids really like. I heard it everywhere when I was a kid. I was like, "I love this." But I think they're harmless. When they were on Eric Andre...they're just a fun band to me. When I was a kid, I really liked Beck as well. My mom had "Devil's Haircut" on her iPod.

Did you ever have a period of time where you were collecting music in a file-sharing way or otherwise?
I definitely have a ton of vinyl. I grew up collecting vinyl. Digitally, I had some iTunes music from pirating it—but it's always been vinyl and CDs for me.

What role do video games play in your life in general?
I mean, without Guitar Hero, I don't think I'd be making music. I got Guitar Hero for Christmas when I was, like, three. I fell in love with the concept of playing guitar, so I got guitar lessons. I am a video game fan. I love Counter-Strike and Silent Hill.

Anything you've been playing recently that you've enjoyed?
Melee and Counter-Strike are my main two games.

Did you get a Switch 2?
Oh yeah.

Have you been playing Mario Kart World?
It is really good.

It's very good! I've seen a lot of grumbling about it, and I don't get it. It's more Mario Kart. What could you possibly complain about here?
I just think Nintendo fans have a lot to complain about all the time. I had my friend Shane over, and we were playing Mario Kart World for, like, three hours, just trying to get it gold on every track. It was really fun.

Your sound as Quannnic has taken a few different shifts over the last five years. Reflect on your own sonic evolution for me.
I become very inspired by different projects. I really like what Bowie did in his career, where every album sounds different while still sounding very professional. Every style that he's done, it seems like that's his only style, because he's so good at it.

I really like being dissonant now. My chords have definitely changed, and I think that's due to listening to Pet Sounds—how good the melodies are. I wanted to translate that into guitar music. With Kenopsia, I wanted it to sound like it was exploding, and for Warbrained I wanted it to be as melodic and weird as possible while still maintaining a cleaner mix.

Have there been moments where you've been experimenting and trying out new sounds where you've had to pull back or discard your efforts completely?
For sure. I mean, some of the stuff on Kenopsia is pitched down by three or four semitones. I stopped doing that just because I feel like I don't need to do that anymore. When you're doing other styles, I don't think pitching down your music is as cool.

One thing that I've observed about your career—and it's something that happens to people with some regularity at this point—is that you've had these moments where your music has underwent a sudden increase in popularity, almost beyond your control. There can be real pluses and minuses to that experience. Tell me about the good and the bad of that.
Having a song that blew up a year and a half after making it was pretty crazy. Obviously, I don't think anyone expects that. Creatively, it changed the way I wanted to make stuff, because I thought that having my big song be so simple, chord-wise, was a little weird to me. I wanted my biggest song to show off a little more of what I could do, so I made Stepdream as a response to that. It sounds like the complete opposite side of the rock spectrum from "Life Imitates Life" on a couple of tracks.

But I don't think I hate "Life Imitates Life" being my biggest song, and I don't think it negatively affects the creative process—like, I'm not super anxious going into making music. But when it was initially blowing up, I was like, "What do I respond to this with? What do I drop now?" It took a lot of thought, but I think I made the right decision.

You also opened up for Slowdive last year. Talk to me about that.
Before that tour, I was definitely intimidated by the Slowdive crowd. I thought that they would be very judgmental and elitist. I feel like there's like a side of the shoegaze fanbase that's super gatekeep-y about who they want in their genre. But playing to the crowd and talking to them after—because I'll sit at the merch booth and talk to fans or whatever—they were super nice and welcoming, and same with the band. Like, I've never met a nicer band. It was a really fun time on that tour. I talked to a bunch of people that were, like 40 or 50 years old, and they were like, "This is fresh, I didn't expect Slowdive to tour with a kid, and it's good music. I had a really fun time watching your set." I really appreciated that they were willing to listen to what I have to play for them.

What was the first concert you ever went to?
I don't know. I'm trying to think, because I was going to festivals a lot when I was a kid. When I lived in Florida, there was this festival called Sunfest. I think the earliest show that I can remember was Paramore.

Tell me more about growing up in Florida in general.
Music scene-wise in south Florida, there hasn't been much until really recently. We do have, like, a good hardcore scene—we have Tracheotomy. But as far as the stuff that I do, or related to it...there's this band easterlin that I really love, and they're also from South Florida.

Living in Florida impacted the way I make music kind of negatively. Everyone around me was more rock-centered, in a cover band, playing '80s rock. I had to hide in my room to get inspired. I don't hate Florida, but that is definitely the truth.

I'm always interested whenever deadAir is putting out an artist's stuff, because the releases always seem pretty forward-thinking to me. They've definitely become that type of label for me over the last couple of years. Tell me about being an artist putting stuff out on the label.
I really respect the other artists that release on deadAir, like Operelly and Jane Remover and Dazegxd. I view them as super inspiring, and they're definitely forward-thinking, musically—but if you talk to any of them, they won't call themselves that. I'm very glad to release alongside and be in the same circle as them, because I really respect them. [Co-founder Jesse Taconelli] has a talent for finding young artists that are quote-unquote forward thinkers—but I definitely would not call myself that. I'm more of a backwards thinker.

Let's talk about notions of being boxed in as an artist. I was saying to a friend the other day about Jane Remover—they confound expectations with every release, and it seems like the expectations generate more conversation than the actual music.
Yeah, it gets in my head at times, seeing what people say on the internet—"They're only good at this," "They should stick to this sound." That's why I really respect Jane. Every time they drop an album, it's the most respectful "Fuck you." Every album is different, and it's always so good. I want to do the same, while still having guitar in my music. What Jane did, going from Census Designated to Revengeseekerz, was something that I could never do. But if you put yourself in a box, you're only harming yourself artistically. You're here to make music because you want to make music, not because you want to make money. So why would you put yourself in a box?

Obviously, I think we've all witnessed numerous examples in the last five years of people who have put themselves in a box for money—and it has not gone well.
I think getting out of that box as far as possible is what ends up being the best route.

Let's talk about the financial viability of being an artist. What is that like for you at the moment?
I think I'm able to live comfortably off of music, but I don't let it affect the way I think about music at all. Even if I had zero dollars, I would've created Warbrained.