Blake Coddington estimates he can play 16 totally different devices and commenced studying producing software program on the age of 9. In faculty, he was recognized for recording different folks’s bands, bringing his friends right into a recording studio in-built a shed in his household’s yard. Despite this, in his personal phrases, “obsession” with music, he by no means actually envisioned himself as an artist.
“I’ve always been a big fan of the underdog,” he says. “The vocalists in bands aren’t normally the underdog. It’s like the Batman quote where you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I didn’t want to ever see myself become the kind of person that I didn’t like.”
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A change flipped in quarantine, which prevented Coddington from leaving his house in Indiana, the place he’d solely simply moved. At his most alone, he turned to creating music on TikTok to fill his days — and a hell of lots of people wished to pay attention. “The fans dragged me into [being an artist],” he defined. “Once you hear stories about people telling you that you saved their lives by the thousands, it made me feel like I had to.”
With his jangling but melancholic debut EP, Crying In The Shower, having come out earlier this 12 months, there’s no higher time to get to know Letdown.
You began the mission in quarantine. How did that come about?
I used to be residing in Indiana working for a music distribution gear firm, after which lockdown occurred, and I had simply moved there. So I hadn’t made any associates but. I feel it was per week after I moved there. So I used to be thrown right into a one-bedroom house within the metropolis I’d by no means been to earlier than and advised I could not depart — nothing was open. So I used to be actually essentially the most alone I’ve ever been in my life. I downloaded TikTok and Instagram and simply began posting. The very first put up I made on TikTok, I feel it did over one million views the primary day, and I acquired like 200,000 followers from it. That [made me think], “Oh shit, I could probably I could probably make something out of this.” I simply began posting movies on TikTok and finally acquired round to releasing a pair songs on Spotify, and it simply took off from there.
Was this your first-ever correct try at a musical mission?
I used to be all the time in bands and stuff — I did the factor most musicians do, [where] they have been simply in a number of bands, and nothing ever went wherever. But I’d given up eager to pursue an artist factor. My predominant ardour has all the time been producing and engineering, and that is what I simply did for different artists. I by no means thought I’d ever be an artist, and I did not actually wish to be, to be sincere. Even after it took off, even after I signed my document deal, it nonetheless did not really feel actual, like [it was] one thing I should not be doing till I performed my first present. It bought out, and I wasn’t anticipating 10 folks, not to mention 1,000 to care about me. I used to be like, “Oh shit, I should probably keep doing this.”
You’re fairly interested by music that sounds pleased however then has darkish lyrics. What do you discover so fascinating about it?
It’s extra like a mirrored image of me. I do not actually attempt to make music that sounds pleased, but it surely simply comes out. I feel it has one thing to do with the pure method that I’m all the time fairly cheerful, and I’ve lots of enjoyable, and I prefer to be round those that have enjoyable, and it simply appears all properly and good, however I’m fucking dying on the within, and every part hurts. I simply suppose it comes all the way down to music, and I feel the cool factor about that’s that each single individual I speak to feels the precise direct method — at the very least the those that hearken to my music, and I feel that almost all artists are fairly black and white. A tragic track is a tragic track, however all of us fucking really feel each [happiness and sadness] on a regular basis. So why cannot we simply have each?
What would you say your big ambitions as an artist are?
I’ve two modes — I do not do one thing in any respect, or I do [it] at 1,000,000%. I wish to promote out fucking stadiums. I wish to be the most important artist on the planet. I wish to change the fucking sport. I really feel like artists get so big after which they fully disconnect, and my mind would not know tips on how to perceive that the extra those that love you, the much less you wish to join with them. I do not perceive the disconnect in any respect. Because hanging out with my followers is the best factor on the planet.
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