Is Sugar Pit the same as Passion Pit? No, it's actually cooler.

Anthony: Hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. Hope you're doing well. Thank you for coming through and watching this exclusive conversation with the one and only Sugar Pit. We have Kian on the line with us. He is a songwriter, a multi-instrumentalist, a producer who has a new record out via Atlantic Records, Shhh...Don't Jinx It.

If you follow the main channel, hopefully you saw my review of this very fun and entertaining unique debut. I was hoping Kean would shed some light on his creative process with this record and just what the current state of things looks like for young, up-and-coming independent artists at the moment because one of the first things that struck me about you and what you do and how you present yourself on social media is I was like, 'Man, this guy's doing it raw. This guy's really seemingly doing it on a DIY budget.' And it's punky, it's lively, it's subversive, it's fun, it's tongue in cheek, it's weird. It doesn't seem like you have, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, it doesn't seem like you have a team of marketing handlers up your ass telling you what to do, and you're just figuring it out on the fly.

I just wanted to get some thoughts from you on how exactly you're pulling off very tough balancing act of engaging in this very saturated social media age that it feels like all artists are obligated to engage in, regardless to what level they're at, while also staying true to yourself and your music and a point of view and a message that might not necessarily be everybody's cup of tea. It seems like you're playing the game in a very creative way, from my perspective.

Kian: Yeah. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. I don't know. I've been doing this for a while. I started the project in 2016, in my bedroom in Illinois. And it's always pretty much been this setup. It's always just been me in my room, the drum kit and guitar, and on the computer. I don't know. I love doing it. This is my whole life. I mean, I recorded the whole record in my room, like I've been doing it for the past couple of years. I feel like it wasn't until... I feel like I didn't start getting really any traction until I really started focusing on social media stuff. I moved to LA two, two and a half years ago. I don't think it was until then that I really started focusing on, trying to video, trying to make stuff that would go viral. I always liked making promo videos and stuff. It's a way to build out the world., and I like doing it. It's fun.

Anthony: From your own perspective, branching off of a lot of what you were just saying there, what headspace or thought process do you feel like you put yourself in when you're writing a song or thinking of a way to push a song when you're like, 'Oh, this needs to go viral' or, 'This needs to get traction'? What things or checkboxes are you trying to check when achieving that goal?

Kian: I mean, I'm not thinking about that when I'm writing this song for sure. It's more just like an afterthought when I'm making the Reel or the TikTok or whatever. I think the main time I was thinking about that was when I made that Walmart video for customer service. And that was just my friend's idea. The original idea was to do a full band performance, a live performance at a Walmart And we were trying to figure out, maybe we could bring in a generator and power the amplifiers, or maybe we could sneak in an extension cord. And it was too hard, obviously, to figure that out. And so I've been in the Walmart. I got the Walmart vest from eBay and did it myself. I don't know, just doing a public stunt thing was where I was coming from with that.

Anthony: Yeah. No, it seems like a lot of TikTok content and Reels content is based around that idea and concept these days.

Kian: Which I hate. I don't want to do... It's not something that's sustainable. Especially that vibe of going in, like pranking people in public is not like... That's not a great vibe in general.

Anthony: No. Look, I'm actually going to play devil's advocate here, okay? And not to advocate for pranking people. I don't feel like making content out in the open or at random in spaces where people don't expect it necessitates pranking them in a mean-spirited way or doing anything to make anybody feel uncomfortable. But I feel like doing art and doing performances in contexts in which it's surprising and people don't expect it, I feel like is a challenge to the very mundane norms that were forced to exist in everyday life. You know what I mean? Again, a public performance and this type of content doesn't need to be mean inherently. It can be a means of introducing people to something, I think.

Kian: It's a fine line. It's a fine line because that Walmart video was very funny and light-hearted. But in another sense, I'm also fucking with the regular guy workers who are working there and have to kick me out.

Anthony: Yeah, they have to chase I got to get you down, I guess.

Kian: Which is like, it's okay. But I did also just do this video in a DMV where I lip synced and performed in there. And that has a little bit of a different flavor to it for me because it feels, I don't know, It feels a little bit more meaningfully subversive, in a way. The DMV is just... I don't know. It's just a feeling. I don't know. Just the DMV is so brutally stale that I felt more like I was entertaining people in a positive way.

Anthony: The DMV has less vibes than Walmart is what you're saying.

Kian: Yeah, I guess so.

Anthony: You feel like you're bringing more light into people's lives than the DMV.

Kian: Yeah, it's a dark place. It's totally soulless.

Anthony: I feel like, generally speaking, though, there is an acknowledgment of those types of energies in your music. You don't seem like a big capitalism guy. I'll say that. It seems like on a lot of these tracks, you're like-

Kian: Dude, I love capitalism.

Anthony: It seems like you're poking fun a little bit at the 9:00 to 5:00 and the normal work and employment expectations that a lot of people are fed into against their will.

Kian: Yeah, I think what I was writing a lot of these songs, I had been working a lot of just random, shitty jobs, especially when I moved to LA, too. That was really when it was reaching a fever pitch for me. I was working at this coffee coffee shop in a mall in a kiosk, and I was doing... I was a valet, and I was just doing all this. I was interviewed to be a birthday clown at this listing that I found on Craigslist and just all this shit. Especially living in LA, too, it is just fucking impossible to be... When I moved here, I was surprised by how many people, especially doing music, are supported by... They've just got a hookup. I don't know. They've got some hookup. I don't know. They've got something or other. They've got a rich family or they got hooked up with a sick job.

Anthony: There's like, neppo baby stuff going on. Or what? They're already making six figures as a social media person or like...

Kian: I don't know. I don't know how it goes exactly. But I was just... Yeah, I was just raw dogging it with just... It's impossible to be working regular minimum wage jobs or even, I don't know, if you make 17, 18, 19, 20 an hour in LA, it's just like you have to work so much and you're stretched so thin, especially if you want to pay for car insurance and health insurance. And your rent is $1,700. And also you drive everywhere. So there's all these gas expenses. And I don't know, it just felt fucking impossible. And so that's a lot of where I was coming from with a lot of those songs.

Anthony: And do you feel like... I'll rewind for a quick second. I feel like with all those jobs that you were talking about there, you've basically rattled off three or four potential music video ideas for the future... I'm just saying, I'm just saying, birthday clown video would pop off. Also, a ballet video where you're doing donuts in the car, maybe, would also pop off. I'm just saying, a few decent ideas right there that you just threw out there.

Kian: The birthday clown one was crazy. It was a listing that I found on a Craigslist, and I went to this lady's house, and she was like, cat lady vibes. She was hosting this seminar on how to tie birthday balloons in her yard with all these other people from Craigslist. She had tons of cats running around, and we went to the inside of her house. It was all like... It just smelt like cat shit. It was just such a crazy vibe. She had this shed full of all these costumes on the ground. Whatever. It was just a funny vibe.

Anthony: Going on from there, though, you're really getting to the heart of a lot of the economics that independent musicians and up-and-coming musicians are facing these days. Do your connections with Atlantic Records actually soften the blow of a lot of this stuff, or do you personally feel like it just doesn't end up balancing out at the end of the day because of the lack of decent residuals that a lot of people talk about from streaming and so on and so forth?

Kian: Ask me again in a couple of years, when I've spent all my advanced money, but for now, getting signed was the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's amazing. It's not like I got a huge deal with a ton of money, but it's totally enough. Just being able to have enough money to get this place, upgrade my gear a little bit, and just being able to focus on this every day and not constantly being able to sit down and be able to write a song all day and really get in the zone, go to sleep, and wake up, and keep the momentum going, just that alone is like such... It's like a blessing. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. Big sign. It's awesome. It's amazing.

Anthony: It sounds like, at the end of the day, the biggest resource or the most difficult resource to come by is time in a way, time.

Kian: It's time. It's totally time. Especially when you're doing everything yourself. I would go to work, and then I'd start a song at 7:00, 8:00 at night. We work for a couple of hours and then go to sleep. And then you wake up juiced up, ready to keep working on it, and you have to break the flow and go to work. And then, too, when you're trying to figure out, shoot music videos and try and send emails to playlists or blogs and shit and all this other random shit. It's hard to find time, and it's hard to keep the momentum going.

Anthony: I want to dig into this a little bit further because something that seems like a disconnect or a little confusing for me, and I want to know from your perspective how this looks, because you're putting a lot of these messages into your music in terms of your lifestyle, your existence, the work you're putting into your art, the work that you're putting into your career, the work that you had to put in order to get to this point, which is really a lifestyle and a perspective that I think, frankly, a lot of people could relate to. Across the board, more people certainly than the shit that you hear in your average Drake song. Obviously, no, we're not shading Drake. We're not hating Drake. We're just saying a lot of the lyrics in your average track from him reflect a lifestyle that 99.9999% of people listening to that track are never going to experience or have any personal connection to. What you're doing on a lot of your tracks is it's the shit that your average person has to deal with on a daily basis. Do you find that that's a message and that's a perspective and that's an experience that when people stumble across what you do, are they receptive to it? Are they into what you're saying and sitting out in your music because they themselves have experienced similar things? Or do you see that a lot of people prefer to listen to something that's more escapist in tone or aspirational or reflective of an experience that they wish they could have instead? As opposed to dealing in something that's like, oh, yeah, this is actually how I'm fucking living in the type of shit that I have to deal with every day?

Kian: Yeah. The people that follow me relate to it for sure. I don't know how to answer that. Yeah, it seems like it from what I can tell. People reach out to me, especially, I think, with songs that have a super clear message, like "Customer Service" or "Pay Me". Yeah, I get people reaching out all the time.

Anthony: And do you also get people reaching out saying that they relate to "Sex Party"? I imagine there's no "Sex Party" relation fans, none, none whatsoever.

Kian: No, no, no, not so much on that one.

Anthony: Was that also based on a personal experience or, you know?

Kian: Yeah, a little bit.

Anthony: Oh, okay.

Kian: I had a friend – a little bit, yeah. But it was also, I also brought it up. It's like half fantasy, half experience.

Anthony: Right. And you said you had a friend, presuming the sex party broke things up and you were no longer able to be friends after that, is what you're saying?

Kian: No, no, my friend brought me to one when I was living in San Francisco. And I checked it out. I thought it was sick. I thought it was just such a cool vibe. And so I wrote a song about it.

Anthony: Okay. All right. I mean, hopefully they can play it at the next one.

Kian: I hope so.

Anthony: Where for you does the importance of humor rank in your creative process? Because it does seem like with a lot of what you do, there is a really strong sense of humor.

Kian: Yeah, a lot of the stuff I'm just trying to make myself laugh or entertain myself. I've always thought that listening to Ween stuff – Ween is one of my favorites – and I just think that there's something so cool about musicians who... They're obviously such amazing musicians and producers, and they put so much effort into these just such dumb songs. I don't know, that just feels really good to me. It feels like myself, and it feels rebellious and just not so serious. I like that.

Anthony: What is your experience and process when it comes to the actual technicals of assembling the music that you make and producing it and recording it? What exactly is your background in terms of producing and engineering? Is this something that you took a long time studying or you just did a lot of trial and error on the fly experimenting to eventually get to the sound that you're at right now?

Kian: I actually had a bit of formal training in the field.

Anthony: Oooh, some FORMAL training.

Kian: Yeah. I started recording just on Garage Band shit when I was 14 or 15. And then the big deal was I got this scholarship to go to this NYU recording summer camp thing for high schoolers, and they taught us how to use EQ and how to record in Logic and shit. So I got back and I got an interface, and I started figuring out how to do that out of my bedroom. And then I went to college in Philly, and I studied audio engineering, and they had all these studios that we could use whenever with really nice microphones and boards and nice stuff I think when I was in college, the program was meant to turn you into a studio engineer was the end goal of it. And I used to intern at recording studios and stuff in Philadelphia.

Anthony: Oh, okay.

Kian: I was really focused on mixing. I thought it was going to be a mixer. I was like, 'Oh, yes, I'm studying mixing, and and I'm going to get really good at using compressors' and stuff like that. But once I started interning at studios, it's not fun unless it is for you, unless you're built for that thing. Just a very mathematical, level-headed way of thinking that's not fun to me. But it gave me a lot of practice just recording my own stuff and microphone choice and mixing and how to use a compressor and shit like that. So that is my formal training.

Anthony: Yeah. I mean, with, I guess, the rough, raw, punky direction that esthetically a lot of your music goes in, how much of this know-how do you feel like you end up actually using in the process of what you do? And how much of it do you feel like you totally throw to the wayside because you're like, well, if I did it this way, maybe it would sound too clean and I want it to sound a certain other type of way.

Kian: Yeah, I just stopped. When I was in college, and I was in that program, I was really focused on, I'll record the drums in stereo and what's the stereo image of the song and all this bullshit? And I found myself really… I was also writing a lot of songs on the computer, too, really focused on production, starting things with a cool sound from Splice. You know what I mean? Building it that way. And a couple of problems were one, it just wasn't that much fun to do it that way. And also, it was taking a really long time to be so focused on the details like that. And when I graduated college I was just left with my real minimal... I couldn't use the studios anymore, and I just had my one microphone. I started doing it like that, and I threw away a lot of the perfectionist technical stuff that I had been doing, just being like, fuck it, I'm going to rock with this one mic, and I'm going to do it quick and dirty. I think that's around the same time that I started focusing more on what is this song about? What the fuck am I saying? What am I trying to say? I stopped thinking about coming from a producer standpoint, thinking about my voice as a texture in a layer, like producers do sometimes, and just start thinking about my voice more as the main thing that's getting a message across. And I think that's when I entered into a new era of what I'm doing there.

Anthony: As opposed to what? What do you feel like you were thinking of your voice as before? Like a layer or a texture.

Kian: It's just another instrument. No, you transitioned to feeling about it that way.

Anthony: What was your prior thought about it? What conception about your vocal did you have to break to get to that point?

Kian: No, that's what I'm saying. That's where I started at. I'm thinking from a producer mindset of being like, oh, this is a weird arpeggio, and, oh, this is a weird texture. My voice is just simply a melody line. The voice is just a melodic instrument, and the words don't matter.

Anthony: Got it. It seems like here you're also discovering your process of keeping the intensity of your creativity up and making it fun and actually getting to a point where you're completing things. What's maybe digging deeper into this? Some other advice that maybe you would have for other young, up-and-coming creators out there who might be struggling with the idea of, I have all these ideas, I have all these things that I want to do, but I can't actually get it done. I can't actually complete it. There are either these hurdles in front of me or I can't seem to get a thing complete from start to finish.

Kian: Just go quick. Just go as quick as possible and trust your gut instinct. Go with your first idea and finish it when you start it. If you're on a roll, just keep going. I try and finish songs more or less the day that I start them. Obviously, I'll go back and touch it up. But if I start a drum beat in the morning and I've got to guitar thing and I've got a melodic idea, or just if I have a concept in mind, all those parts are there, just go for it, send it. Go with your first idea and just get it done and don't think about it. And another thing to not do that I see a lot of people do is they'll get halfway with something, with the song idea, and then they'll bounce it and listen to it on their phone for a couple of days and try and hype themselves up about it or something. Don't listen back to things that they're not done because it cements it in your head as the way that it is, if that makes sense. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's my advice.

Anthony: Go quick and trust your gut.

Kian: This is just from my own outsider perspective, somebody who is not trying to write songs every day. But when I see a lot of people complain about this and where they get stuck where they get trapped. It seems like producing yourself and writing yourself and recording yourself and doing everything in these digital audio workstations, a lot of people are forced to these days when they are working completely on their own. It seems like it makes it easy to get engrossed or get distracted in the process in a way to where you're writing and you're also fine-tuning at the same time. But you can't fine-tune something you haven't finished writing yet. That's what I'm talking about with people bouncing out the songs and then listening to them. They're trying to, in their heads, figure out. They're trying to fine-tune it already by listening back all the time. And I think mixing in the box or working just off the computer, you have so many options between how precisely you can finetune stuff and just all of the plugin options that you have. Especially once you start working with virtual instruments and samples, too, that's a whole other thing. I feel like a big part of my process is just I have the drum kit. Got the drum kit. Boom.

Anthony: Nice bongos.

Kian: Yeah, I got the bongos, the amps. And then I just really use just the one mic, pretty much. And that helps It helps me a lot go quick. It helps me a lot go quick...

Anthony: So quick that you're not even finishing your sentences.

Kian: Haha. It's just like, I don't have to worry about how am I going to mic this drum kit or worse yet, what sample am I going to use? I've got the one mic, I stick it over the top of the drums, and then I play it, and that's all that it can be. And the same thing with guitar pedals and shit. For this album, I really was only using a couple of guitars, four pedals, three or four, and I just stuck to those. And so, yeah, limits are helpful.

Anthony: As far as elements of a song, producing a song, finishing a song, at least for you, and everybody's process is going to be different, what are those top-tier first-order things that you feel like need to get finished first before you're worrying about those second-order details that are like, These are things that I'll just go back and add or finish or work on? What are the basic bare minimum things that to you that when they're complete, you're like, okay, song done, and I can now go back and worry about this other stuff? What comes first, what comes last, or second, or third, or whatever?

Kian: Usually, I try and get the concept of the song dialed in ahead of time. Not that I need to have all the lyrics written out, but just like, what the fuck am I talking about? What am I trying to say?

Anthony: So it starts with a point of thematic inspiration?

Kian: Yeah, totally. I also notice sometimes people will... I hear people say, I wrote the song, but I got to write the chorus still. It's like, what are you talking about? All I've got left is to write the main part of the song.

Anthony: The thing that hopefully is going to make it a hit. It's just like, for me, commercially speaking, the most important part, the song is done except the...

Kian: I wrote the thesis. I wrote all of the supporting paragraphs, but not the thesis. I think, too, those are the two parts. It's getting the structure. Where does the song go? Get that mapped out. You don't need to write... Sometimes you don't need to do the whole thing. Sometimes you can write a verse or a chorus and a little a B-side idea, and that's sometimes enough, and you can work it from there. And also, you can't write in loop. I see people do that a lot, too, is they'll be building an idea on a loop. They'll have a drum beat and they'll have it looping. And they'll be like, okay, here's the guitar idea, here's the synth idea. They're like, okay, I've got that section done. Great – I made a section of a song – and then you have to move the loop over eight bars, and you're like, all right, what section comes next? It's impossible to work in. Just write all the way through. If I'm going to do a drum take, I'll try and just imagine that I'm doing the whole song in one take, and then I've got two and a half minutes. Just not working in a loop, you know what I mean?

Anthony: When you say that, do you mean working with a single loop of a thing?

Kian: Yeah. Rather than trying to work, I don't know what the word is, linearly or whatever.

Anthony: Got it. Do you feel like that's essentially what's the hazard or the danger of doing that?

Kian: Because you're not thinking about how a song develops or what's going to happen. You're just building it section by section. And when you work that way, it's just like a disconnected song.

Anthony: Okay. It does seem like there's a prevalence of very popular tracks out there these days where it does seem like the beat is just the same looper section over and over and over, regardless of whether you're hearing the verse or the chorus. Either the melody doesn't really change or the beat doesn't really change. It just feels like the same thing from beginning to end. But there might be a few variations on top of it, and that suffices, I guess, in terms of song development. But you're saying, nay, don't do it that way.

Kian: I say, nay. I say, nay.

Anthony: You say, nay.

Kian: I say do not work with a loop. Yeah, those guys are probably working with the loop, an eight-bar loop.

Anthony: Okay, got it. We're talking a lot of technical stuff here, which I think you've given us a lot of insight on. People are free to take your advice and develop their own style and own direction from there. What I'd like to know more about, though, is you personally started out as this DIY musician. You're still holding to a lot of those I guess I want to say you're still holding on to a lot of that ethos right now, but simultaneously, you're assigned to a label, you moved out to LA. Starting with that, how essential do you feel like having moved locations has been to your growth and career as an artist? Does it put you in proximity to stuff that's been vital to your career, be it resources, or collaborators, or different perspectives? Do you feel like you'd be able to accomplish what you've done back where you started, or did this need to move to LA or move to a different place in order for it to grow into what it is today?

Kian: Yeah, I think it needed to move. I think more than anything, it's just the energy of the city and being around everyone else who's trying so hard. Everybody is pushing so hard to get what they want here.

Anthony: So you feel like you found community in a way?

Kian: Yes, in a way. And then in other ways, just random people that you talk to and just being around, just seeing people on Instagram in LA and going to shows and talking to people. That seeps into what you're doing. And there's just a competitive energy that I find motivating. I don't know. There's just something about the energy of being in a city. And also resources for sure. And I put together a live band when I moved here, which I had been doing in the previous cities that I lived in. I would – what's the word? – recruit a group of musicians to play this stuff. But when I moved here, everyone is so good here that just the caliber of musicians is higher and how seriously people take it is... more.

Anthony: And how essential do you feel like... I mean, the energy can be essential as far as drive and inspiration. How essential do you feel like the label connections have been in terms of getting your work out there and seeing the benefit off of what you do? Because there is really a range of very hugely contrasting opinions out there these days from artists at multiple levels of the music industry as to whether or not their label or their deal or whatever is benefiting them or working out in their favor.

Kian: Yeah...

Anthony: I guess to what extent you could talk about that, because obviously, I don't want you to have beef with Atlantic or anything like that. I guess think of it as a word of advice to other people who might find themselves in a similar situation as to yours. How important has this been for you? And what do you feel like they should look out for if they are approached by somebody to work with them on their music?

Kian: I would say if you need the money and you get a deal, you should definitely take it.

Anthony: Well, everybody needs money.

Kian: That has just been the biggest... Not everybody.

Anthony: Yeah, not the neppo babies. We've established The neppo babies don't need the money. We've established that.

Kian: But just getting the advance and being able to have money to live on and being able to focus on making music all day has just... You can't compete with that. Working at a job and trying to do music on the side for someone like me now who is able to do it all day, I'm going to beat you. If I have all this time to work on it all day, it's the way. It's the only way.

Anthony: It's the way.

Kian: It's the only way. It's the only way you can do this. It's truly so. I mean, that's just been a blessing for me. And it's just fucking awesome. But that said, there is no button that a label can push to make you popular. And there's no... maybe they can hook you up, they can send an email to so and so or whatever. But if you're at a starting stage and still pretty small like I am right now, there's no magic button they can push to get you a bunch of streams. And if they do, it's not sustainable. Maybe they could buy streams or some shit like that, but it's not like... There's no way to force organic growth.

Anthony: Right.

Kian: But also on the other hand, having a touring budget is such a huge deal. I just went on tour with... I opened for Fidlar, which came at a total financial loss to the project, which the label was able to cover. I wouldn't have been able to do that at all had I not had the label.

Anthony: You're talking a lot about the growth of the project and the competition that you're the competitive spirit that you're engaged in, doing what you're doing. You've hit this point that a lot of people might see in terms of getting signed and getting this industry credibility. This is a peak that a lot of people work a long time for. Now that you're at this moment, as an artist, it seems like in order to continue your success, you're wearing a lot of hats, you're having to do a lot in order in terms of just continuing your output and maintaining your popularity, what you've grown of that so far. Where do you feel like your aspirations are pushing you from here? What's next? What's the next thing that you're focused on now that the album is done? What's the next thing that you have to do or accomplish in order to continue this momentum that you've hit this stride?

Kian: Second album. I got this second album ready to go. It's in the chamber. It's ready to rock. What had happened was in the process of writing this album that I just put out, I was like... I had just gotten signed to this label, so I was able to stay inside and work on music all day. I was just writing incessantly. I was getting to this point where it was getting to be just an unhealthy lifestyle of just staying in and writing on my computer all the time. I kind of stopped writing these fun songs and started writing these intense, gnarly songs that I wasn't thinking about releasing even. It was more songs that I was writing just to get something off my chest thing. I don't know, I just kept doing that because it felt good and it turned into a separate album, which I think is really good. Anyway, I've got a bunch of songs that I'm excited to put out, that I'm a little scared to put out because some of them are freaky.

Anthony: When thinking about new music or releasing new music, especially given how much of your promotional effort needs to be conceived by you. It's not the label, like you say, making you popular. You're the one putting yourself out there on social media in order to push what you're doing and get people excited about and get people into it. Does that put you in a space when you are writing and you are creating, you're having to think predominantly about what the audience is and who the audience is, what they're likely to enjoy or not enjoy? Who are you writing for and how do you conceive of presenting it in a way where the audience will receive it well?

Kian: I don't know. I haven't really been thinking about that lately. I try not to. I don't know. I don't really have an answer to that one. I don't know. I'm not really thinking about it.

Anthony: It sounds like something that you're probably also in the process of learning as you go along.

Kian: I think that's true.

Anthony: Because like the process of writing and fine-tuning, you can't do them at the same time. And also writing and creating, but then also thinking of how to get it in front of an audience, which, again, is also a lot of... It's a hat that a lot of musicians are forced to wear now in the social media age. Back in the day, it was maybe more the label who was handling the whole PR side of everything. And nowadays, it seems like, well, just get there on TikTok and just do whatever the hell you want. If it floats, it floats. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

Kian: Yeah, and I think another part of that is I don't have that many fans yet. I don't have that. I just put out an album, so it's like there's not really a... I don't feel a super specific demand for anything. I mean, people obviously relate to songs about money and working and stuff, but I'm not going to write a bunch of job songs over and over again, so...

Anthony: So do you feel like essentially at this point in your career, this is really like the label taking a chance on you and investing in the potential of what you do based on how it's coming out so far?

Kian: Yeah, totally, totally. It's definitely taking a chance on me, which is, it's fucking awesome. It's awesome.

Anthony: And, it's like, how exactly Again, I guess without getting you in trouble, but how exactly does that relationship work? Is there some guy who picks up the phone and is chomping a cigar and is like, 'Hey, Kian, the next record's got to do 50K.' Or da, da, da, da.

Kian: This will never sell, kid. This will never sell!

Anthony: We heard the new song. This is not a hit!

Kian: I did show them this second album that I'm telling you about, and they were definitely not super into it. But what's the relationship like? It's kind of like, if you need a little bit of money to go on tour, then here you go. And if you need a little bit of money to shoot a video, here you go. But yeah, it's mostly me running socials and figuring out content and booking shows. I book a lot of my own shows still. And things are really not that different from how I was doing it before. I'm still doing a lot of reach out myself. Just this week, I've been DMing a lot of music review accounts and shit myself and booking house shows. I make all my own merch and everything.

Anthony: From your perspective, just get a quick assessment on this... The fact that you are doing all these things and are at a point where you have to do all these things, do you see all of this as more of a burden or more of a freedom?

Kian: As a freedom. Because the other side of the coin is a label could have assigned me for a bunch of money and come in with an attitude of like, we're going to make this work.

Anthony: Right. And they're essentially telling you everything to do in order to get it to their liking.

Kian: Yeah, exactly. But my situation is I feel like it's a small investment for them, and they're taking a chance on me. And it's a little bit of an experiment for them, I think. And they're like, we'll see if it works or not. And so that gives me a lot of freedom to be like, I want to do it this way. I want the videos to look shitty. I don't want to look polished. I don't want to go to a studio. I'm going to keep producing it with one microphone in my room. And so, yeah, overall, I feel super grateful for my position.

Anthony: Yeah. Okay. Well, Kean, I appreciate you coming through and just being an open book about your process and everything and just shitting light on that and this new record, which I'm enjoying a lot of. I hope chat is enjoying a lot of. And I appreciate your time, man.

Kian: No, I wanted to say just thanks for the review and thanks for having me on. For a lot of years, I was trying to send my songs on SubmitHub, and you know what that is?

Anthony: No, I don't.

Kian: SubmitHub is this bullshit page.

Anthony: But it sounds like I mean, it sounds like what it sounds like.

Kian: It's bullshit. Yeah, it's like you pay for credits to send to these shitty tiny blogs. I've just been doing shit like that and trying to find... I remember when I moved to LA, I was trying to find Instagram accounts of people who ran rock playlists that I would DM and be like, 'Can you please get me on your playlist?' So anyway, just to say it's just so cool to be here. And thanks for the opportunity.

Anthony: Well, maybe if you want to say one more thing, because there is a cottage industry around that stuff. In your experience as somebody who's worked through a lot of that and done a lot of trial and error, from what you've tried in the past, what have you found promotionally is like bullshit and snake oil and what hasn't been? What are the moments and things that you engaged in that ultimately ended up being a rip-off and what actually felt like it ended up adding value to what you do and the spread of what you do?

Kian: Any shit with like, playlists is bullshit. Getting on user playlists is not...It's whatever. Trying to get a write-up is whatever. It doesn't really matter. I think the only thing that is real and is sustainable is people who are fans, real people who are fans. And it is very slow-going to convert people into fans who follow you. But that's the only thing that matters at all. Just playing live in front of real people is big. Being consistent on social media and just consistently being yourself. I don't know. Just being honest on social media and being honest in your music. Just being consistent and connecting with real people is the only thing that matters.

Anthony: That's killer fucking advice, man.

Kian: Hell, yeah.

Anthony: Again, thank you very much for coming through and giving it to us.

Kian: Thank you so man. Appreciate you.