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00:00 Hi, I'm Gene Dawson and this is On Your Radar.
00:02 So the first time I ever felt successful
00:03 was I made a song before college.
00:05 It made me cry.
00:07 And I think that was the first time I ever seen myself
00:11 for exactly what I am.
00:13 Not as a crybaby, but as somebody that can express myself
00:17 enough for me to see myself.
00:18 First time I met a personal idol, when I was
00:22 21 years old, I went through like a big depression
00:29 and I didn't know, look at the hair, he's so emo.
00:32 No, I went through a big depression and
00:35 I met God
00:40 at a point where I didn't wanna live anymore.
00:46 And it's not like I physically saw anything,
00:50 but I felt hugged by something.
00:54 And I feel like that was the first time
00:58 the only idol that I ever care about
01:00 showed me that I had a reason to live.
01:03 So that was the first time I ever met an idol.
01:07 The first time I ever performed live
01:10 was at this place called Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep
01:13 because I'm not, it's fuck them.
01:15 But it was a venue, a small venue in San Diego, California.
01:19 My mom signed me up to do this kind of showcase thing.
01:22 And it was a bunch of grown people
01:24 at this like smoker's lounge kind of thing.
01:27 Yeah, it was real fun.
01:28 I was super nervous and I was performing
01:31 in front of like 20, 30 year olds.
01:34 And I was probably like
01:36 14, 13, 13 years old.
01:42 I got on stage and I wasn't nervous.
01:43 And I was like, oh, cool, I can do this.
01:45 And yeah, that was the first time I ever performed.
01:50 And it was fun.
01:52 I didn't forget my lyrics
01:53 and I was really afraid that I was going to.
01:55 And I didn't.
01:56 And after I got off stage,
01:57 everybody was like, the fuck was that?
01:59 First time I achieved a goal that I wanted to achieve
02:03 was probably giving my mom some money.
02:07 Now I like on a single parent household.
02:11 And one of my goals was, you know,
02:13 is still to take care of my mom.
02:15 And I think the first time I ever gave her like some money,
02:18 I felt very accomplished.
02:19 Nobody had ever given my mom anything.
02:21 So she took it very hard
02:22 'cause she didn't know how to accept it.
02:24 But it was really cool to be able to be like,
02:29 this will never begin to repay you
02:32 for the amazing woman you've been for me in my life.
02:35 But you could go buy yourself a purse.
02:38 And then she didn't.
02:39 She just put it in a savings account.
02:40 She's like, 'cause one day you might go broke.
02:42 So I'm gonna save this.
02:44 And it made me upset, but I was like, that's just my mom.
02:46 She's always thinking about me.
02:47 But yeah, I think, hopefully she spent it by now
02:50 'cause I've given her a lot more money
02:53 than the beginning, the first time.
02:54 A song I wish I wrote would have to be,
02:58 fuck, that's a good question.
03:00 There's mad songs I wish I wrote.
03:03 Probably number one would be "White Ferrari."
03:05 Other than that, then it'd probably be something
03:07 from Bob Dylan's discography.
03:09 Anything from Bob Dylan's discography.
03:12 And then The Who's "Bob O'Reilly"
03:17 and then Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."
03:21 If I could go on time travel and kidnap Freddie
03:24 and just be like, you're gonna write this song
03:27 and I'm gonna give you the words for it.
03:29 And then I'm gonna sing it horribly at that.
03:32 I think I found my sound by, for one,
03:37 pulling from a lot of source material.
03:41 So I think being a product of being born in the '90s.
03:47 So being an adolescent in 2000s and stuff.
03:51 My reference pools could have been from anything,
03:53 from Bjork to Apex Twin to NWA and everything in between.
03:58 So since I've had an array of music,
04:03 I guess my musical IQ came in with steroids.
04:06 So I knew what not to do to sound like other people
04:09 with taking source information from other people.
04:12 It's like sided works when you're in college.
04:14 And I think the way that I continue to find my sound
04:18 is continue to try and understand who I am
04:20 while I'm changing.
04:21 And that's gonna be a task that I feel forever
04:23 because I think life is a very large coming of age film.
04:28 And by the time the credits roll,
04:30 I wouldn't even have noticed that it's over.
04:33 I think the way that I went from music maker
04:36 or music consumer to music maker to music consumer maker
04:41 is probably when I was about 13,
04:46 I started recording with my best friend.
04:49 His name changes all the time, but I call him Red.
04:54 Red pretty much showed me how, not easy,
04:59 but how much you didn't need to actually make music.
05:05 How much could just be utility and creativity.
05:08 So I think as soon as he opened Pandora's box,
05:12 which was like, I have this British program
05:15 that's super easy to use and I have a microphone,
05:18 we can make music.
05:19 It was game over where I was like,
05:21 this is all I wanna do all the time, every day.
05:24 I started writing these songs
05:28 trying to be different interpretations of my whole self.
05:37 So I wanted to fractalize myself.
05:40 So there's a project called Escape
05:45 by this artist named Phoenix
05:46 and it's Gene Dawson as Phoenix.
05:48 So it's kind of like a chapter book
05:49 where I'm just another character
05:50 or an anthology series rather.
05:53 Phoenix was the part of me that is like the rock and roll kid
05:56 and that does feel very much acknowledged
05:59 by kids that were disaffected
06:03 or feel some sort of like dissociation
06:08 with or less profound thought of a human being.
06:12 Whereas the following project could have given me,
06:18 which was Gene Dawson as Nightmare.
06:22 Nightmare is the four-year-old bedwetter that I had been.
06:29 The kid that was afraid of the dark,
06:32 the kid that has a lot of anxiety,
06:35 the reason why I take anxiety medication,
06:37 the reason why I take antidepressants
06:39 and I wanted to allow him to speak for Gene Dawson, I guess.
06:44 So that stuff came after a breakup
06:49 and it was kind of like allowing me to have resolve.
06:53 So I think I packaged these things
06:56 as like an anthology series
06:58 because they don't need to connect
07:00 in a way where I'm the connection.
07:02 Just because sometimes writing as Gene Dawson,
07:06 his entirety, I have to acknowledge
07:08 every single small part of me.
07:09 And sometimes I just don't wanna acknowledge the fact
07:11 that I care about X, Y, and Z things.
07:13 Sometimes I don't wanna care about those things.
07:15 So I think allowing yourself to break yourself apart
07:20 kind of gives resolution to some parts of your problems
07:26 that don't necessarily line up
07:28 with the entirety of that you are.
07:29 I've been privileged enough to be able to make music
07:32 that felt fluid in how I feel.
07:34 I've never tried to constrain myself in a,
07:39 I don't know, people say like, "I'm getting boxed in."
07:41 It's like, no, you're not.
07:42 Actually, nobody can ever make you do anything
07:45 that you don't wanna do, especially perceive yourself
07:47 in a way that you don't wanna be perceived of yourself.
07:50 You can't control the way people perceive you.
07:52 So if they think that you're that,
07:54 then you're just that and that's sad,
07:56 but I can promise you that the only person
07:59 that is ever gonna be thinking about that
08:00 more than one time is you.
08:02 So I come at music as a film writer.
08:07 So setting's important,
08:10 giving background on the character is important.
08:14 When I'm transitioning from,
08:16 oh, I wanna make a folk record
08:17 to I really wanna make a trap song real bad,
08:22 I think it works fluidly because I've never told myself
08:28 I couldn't do those things.
08:30 I don't have an imaginary constraint
08:31 via some external factor like,
08:35 oh, I'm perceived as a rapper, so I have to rap,
08:38 or I'm perceived as somebody that does folk music,
08:40 so I have to do folk music.
08:42 It's like, don't ever perceive me in your life
08:44 'cause you're gonna be wrong
08:45 because I don't even perceive myself.
08:46 Matter of fact, I'm not real.
08:48 I don't exist.
08:49 I was working on a song I didn't have a title for.
08:55 I kinda was hitting dead ends on an idea of that song.
08:59 Sometimes you just have to walk away.
09:03 I randomly get a DM from SZA, Crazy.
09:10 And I'm like, oh, sick, I love SZA.
09:14 She asked me to come to the studio
09:16 and just listen to some music and hang out.
09:19 So I go to the studio and she's showing me things
09:21 and I'm showing her songs.
09:25 I don't, she speaks truth to a lot of the things
09:29 that I understand about myself.
09:31 And it's really weird watching somebody talk to you
09:35 that feels like you're talking to a mirror.
09:37 So our collaboration came about
09:42 almost very organically in that way
09:45 where it was autonomic, like breathing.
09:48 So kinda when I was working on "No Seasons,"
09:51 I kinda, I brought it to her and I was like,
09:53 what do you think?
09:54 And she's like, yeah, I'd love to do something.
09:55 So she was like, what do you want me to say?
09:58 And I was like, SZA, I don't fucking know.
10:01 You are, it's like asking Picasso how to paint.
10:04 I don't know what to tell you, dude.
10:05 I can't give you any advice
10:07 other than just being vulnerable.
10:10 And SZA has that superpower for her vulnerability
10:13 to feel very akin to your own.
10:15 So she's writing it and recording it
10:20 and I'm just like, it's crazy.
10:23 It's like watching somebody do magic
10:24 and then show you how they do magic
10:26 and you still don't understand it.
10:27 Transitioning into the video aspect of it,
10:30 making film and more specifically right now making videos
10:35 allows me to work a song in a format
10:38 and a dimension outside of the one that the song exists in.
10:41 There's a character in that video
10:44 that I created named Reality.
10:46 And yeah, oh, it's poetic.
10:48 It's not, it's, Reality's scary.
10:50 And that's just all it is.
10:51 When you're a kid, you see things in two-dimensional form.
10:54 That's why the kids are drawing the entire video.
10:57 A two-dimensional shape means that
10:59 they don't understand depth.
11:00 Like their depth perception isn't there really.
11:03 And I mean that in a figurative sense
11:05 because they can obviously feel depth.
11:07 But they don't understand when your parents are arguing
11:12 that might mean divorce.
11:13 They don't understand that the first time
11:15 you experience death, that won't be the last time
11:17 you experience death.
11:18 They don't understand that the way
11:21 that they're perceiving the world
11:23 is like an innocent perception
11:25 'cause you just don't have the information
11:27 to know otherwise.
11:29 And then, Reality hits.
11:32 Then it starts to quickly descend into you knowing too much.
11:36 And with that knowledge comes a lot of fear.
11:40 And I think part of what made the video special
11:43 was that SZA's part allowed me to express
11:48 you know, people being seasons.
11:51 Mine was kind of like,
11:53 seasons aren't necessarily like a temperate thing
11:57 or a temperature thing or an environmental thing.
12:00 A season is the rate and change that we experience life.
12:04 The two children that played me and SZA
12:06 were Bliss and Brave is what their names are.
12:09 And they're amazing kids.
12:11 I gave them the direction from like,
12:16 you guys are experiencing life,
12:17 but you're doing it in a way where you only want to draw.
12:20 And you're gonna understand that these drawings
12:22 don't really mean anything.
12:24 They're just what you're seeing.
12:25 But when you get older, you'll see kind of like
12:28 how messed up that could have been or whatever.
12:31 So yeah, I was really happy that I got to express that
12:36 in that video form.
12:38 I think making music
12:39 is an exercise
12:45 of two to three things,
12:48 an exercise in vulnerability,
12:50 an exercise of bloodletting,
12:52 not physical, but,
12:56 and an exercise of truth telling.
12:59 I guess conversely, an exercise of lying as well.
13:02 But I think it takes a certain amount of staunch approach
13:06 to want to express yourself on a large format.
13:11 Well, I mean, anybody can.
13:14 I tell everybody they should make music.
13:16 And by and large, I think music,
13:19 the conception or the creation of making music
13:21 is a very, very
13:23 instinctual process.
13:27 I think people do it in all different forms.
13:30 Like I think when we make music,
13:33 it's like when you talk to your mom
13:34 on the phone for two hours, when you,
13:36 I don't know, some people have diaries,
13:38 some people, it's all in the same thing.
13:41 It's just, it's meant to evoke something.
13:44 And sometimes those diaries entries are not.
13:46 But I think for the people that do want to evoke
13:49 somebody's foot tapping or do want somebody to have
13:52 some background music to the life that they live,
13:58 something really beautiful about wanting to share,
14:00 because the more we share,
14:01 the more we realize that we're not alone.
14:03 And the more we realize that being alone
14:06 is kind of made up.
14:09 If you just have the kind of like the audacity
14:12 to express what you're thinking,
14:15 nine times out of 10, good or bad,
14:16 there's somebody that thinks the same way.
14:18 And that's a very cool thing
14:21 and also can be a very dangerous thing.
14:23 So I think it's just very important to understand
14:26 what you're putting out into the world to share
14:29 and what you think other people are gonna find
14:31 akin in the words that you speak.
14:36 That's why I think it's a,
14:38 it's an exercise in truth telling.
14:41 Tell the truth.
14:42 Sometimes that truth is scary and we know the truth.
14:44 The truth hurts.
14:46 Ain't that the truth?
14:47 Funny enough, before I went on my first ever tour,
14:50 there's an artist of a band called Show Me the Body.
14:53 His name is Julian.
14:54 He's amazing.
14:55 He's the front man.
14:55 Before I went on my first tour, I asked him,
14:56 I was like, "What's tour like?"
14:58 And he said like a bunch of stuff.
15:02 But the thing that like really stuck out to me,
15:05 he's like, "Man, being on the road
15:07 is where a person really finds themself."
15:09 And I'm like, "What in the fuck are you talking about?"
15:12 And then I found out what in the fuck he was talking about
15:14 when I went on my first tour.
15:15 I was like, "Oh shit, it is crazy out here."
15:19 Touring is super special to me
15:21 because I spent a lot of time in my life having no friends.
15:25 I had a hard time connecting to people as a kid
15:30 in like, yeah, my hair's over my face and blah, blah, blah.
15:33 Like it has nothing to do with the fact that I look like
15:36 I still go to Hot Topic.
15:38 I just had a hard time connecting with people
15:40 because I feel like I was like self-aware.
15:43 Like, you know when you can feel awkwardness
15:46 and it's palpable?
15:47 I felt like I was like that for a long time in my childhood.
15:50 And I'm like, "Oh, this is awkward. I hate it.
15:52 I don't want to experience this."
15:54 I just stopped talking to people.
15:55 So I'm like introverted and extroverted at the same time.
15:59 But tour allows me to feel like
16:03 I have all the friends in the world.
16:04 So I feel super,
16:06 oh, it's like,
16:07 like when people ask what it's like to be on stage
16:10 in front of people, like, that's cool, sure.
16:13 But the best part is like after,
16:15 when you go say hi to everybody
16:16 and they're stoked to meet you and all this other stuff.
16:18 It's like, you just got off a flight
16:19 and your family hasn't seen you.
16:21 And that's what it feels like.
16:22 So it's a very special place.
16:25 I think touring is like one of the loneliest times
16:30 I think a person can have.
16:32 And also one of the most like overcapacitated
16:37 times one can have.
16:39 Like you're feeling extreme highs and extreme lows
16:42 all at the same time.
16:44 And it's, you do a show,
16:46 you get the most love you've ever felt in your entire life.
16:49 And then you get on a bus for seven hours, 13 hours.
16:54 Then you get into a city that you don't know anybody.
16:57 Then you get the most love you've ever experienced again.
17:00 Then you get in a bus and you do it again and again
17:02 and again and again.
17:03 It's like a constant rollercoaster,
17:04 high and low, high and low.
17:05 I think the place you find balance,
17:07 and I think a lot of people have a hard time
17:08 finding balance 'cause like that loneliness
17:10 breeds a lot of other shit.
17:11 Like you can breed alcoholism, it can breed drug use.
17:15 Thankfully, I'm sober, Isabelle, which sucks also.
17:19 Not because I don't like being sober.
17:21 I love being sober.
17:22 But I'm sober because my mental health would suffer a lot
17:27 if I wasn't able to cope with the reality
17:29 that I already live in.
17:30 So when I'm on tour, it's an exercise
17:33 and my coping mechanisms of like,
17:36 damn, I feel extremely lonely right now.
17:38 But I know that's a lie because in about two hours,
17:42 I'm gonna perform in front of 4,000 people.
17:44 I have a bunch of projects that I'm working on
17:46 that I'm really excited about.
17:47 I think I am excited to write more in Spanish.
17:54 I've been working on a lot of like Spanish records.
17:59 In Spanish, meaning that I'm doing the same thing
18:02 I've always done, but just in Spanish.
18:04 People don't really know that that's like my first language.
18:06 I'm going on tour with Lil Yachty.
18:08 We're going to Europe.
18:09 I'm going to be supporting his beautiful run
18:14 of all of Europe and thankful that he's thought of me
18:18 to come aboard the big boat.
18:21 So I'm pretty excited.
18:24 It's gonna be fun.
18:25 It's my first time ever in Europe.
18:26 So I expect to eat a lot of things
18:29 that I may or may not enjoy.
18:31 I expect to see a lot of things that I'm gonna enjoy.
18:34 They have Highland cows.
18:35 I don't know if you know what a Highland cow is,
18:37 but Highland cows are the furry, fluffy cows.
18:39 So if I get to see one of those,
18:41 I think my mission is complete.
18:43 I have a bunch of like ideas that I want to execute on.
18:45 And I think I actually have the time to finally,
18:48 it's been like kind of an upward climb.
18:50 This is a song that might be the last thing I do
18:52 for the year, but I don't know.
18:55 I change my mind every five minutes about everything.
18:57 So I wouldn't put it past myself.
19:01 Like maybe I put an album out before the end of the year.
19:03 Maybe I don't, most likely I won't, but who knows?
19:06 I don't know.
19:07 I don't even know who,
19:09 I don't speak for tomorrow's Gene Dawson.
19:11 I only speak for today's.
19:12 Tomorrow's a whole nother dude.
19:13 I don't know that guy.
19:14 (whooshing)
19:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]