Give us a general description of you as an artist. What cultures and experiences cultivate this persona or identity of yours?
Hello! I’m Simon, I’m a music producer/composer/songwriter from Canada. I work on my own music as a creative director and producer, and on other artists’ records as just a producer. The main artists I currently work with are Babebee, DPF, and Kurtis, but I’ve also got some really interesting placements coming up. I released an album called “poisonedcheeto.com” late last year, which I directed, produced, mixed, and got some of my amazing artist friends to do vocals on.
I’ve been told by Jerome (my manager and good friend that has supervised my creative decisions since we were in high school) that my music is ‘eclectic’ and I feel like that’s a good descriptor. I was raised on the internet, as a lot of us were, my attention span isn’t the greatest, and my goal is always to make something I would enjoy listening to, so I often revel in excess.
Frequently adding elements, changing progressions, and structuring beats in an off-kilter way. In composition and texture, I’m definitely inspired by the 2010s electro-pop/EDM I grew up on, especially old deadmau5, everything he tapped into melodically I see as super influential. Also, JC Foster’s music was a really big influence on the album specifically. He released a tape called 109 900 earlier last year and it really opened my brain to how to make an album live inside its own world diegetically.
How has your experience in the industry been thus far?
Very mixed, to say the least. I wouldn’t say I’m in the music industry cause I haven’t interacted with labels or distributors that much, but the one time I was in talks with one was very strange. A lot of label execs and non-musical creatives in the scene spend more time romanticizing their own success and what it means for their self-image than actually working and I think that’s an extremely toxic and narcissistic mindset.
Underground labels are cool, though. I’ve worked with Lauren Records on a project, and they’ve been fantastic and extremely considerate. Also, let’s be real here, the SoundCloud scene is a really scary place to be a part of a lot of the time. I’ve met some truly amazing people like Keelan, Kurtis, Cricket, Branden, and Alisynn but it’s always a gamble associating with people cause you never know who’s morally bankrupt. I had to cut some musician friends off recently because they were being really weird to my manager on Instagram.
Do you have an outstanding moment since you got into the music industry that makes you realize how important it is to make music like this? If so what would that be?
I dropped a song called “settle” on SoundCloud last summer. It was a song I wrote as part of an album I scrapped, and I didn’t realize it when dropping it but it was the first time I had released a solo song that was entirely written by me, as everything else I had on my page was remixes. And I was scared to release it both because I personally don’t like my own vocals and because it’s a pretty ugly and toxic song, and it also happened to be insanely personal.
I wanted to release it just to put it out there, I didn’t even make a post about it. But it did better than anything I had done before and I got a lot of new listeners because of it. I played it in a set I did for Goop House last year and people were saying in the chat that they loved the song and especially the lyrics, which was really cool to me. I just hope the people who like the song recognize that it was born out of obtuse pessimism and that you really shouldn’t think like this.
What do you think personally sets you apart from the rest of your peers in the music industry? What do you bring to the industry that you believe no one else has the ability to bring?
I think I’m more songwriting-focused than other producers in the scene. I’ve been told by producers I work with that the way I structure my beats is dynamic and that I know how to really flesh out a song, and that’s really cool to hear cause one of the main things I stress about is constantly giving the listener stimuli so that they never get bored.
I’m not super good at sound design or mixing, my priority in music is to compose a track that is solid at its core, and then add some quirk to it. I record all my instruments, I don’t use loops, and I try to have as much control over the finished product as possible. No disrespect to more sound design-based producers, as I believe it’s a much more skillful art and I really admire them, I just prioritize composition in my own creative work.
Is there any one song that you’ve made that stands out from the rest? Any songs that people should listen to that will get people hooked?
It’s definitely “LET THE SPEAKERS BLOW”. I love that one so much. And I was really happy to finally get a song out with IKTL and alt and IAMDEAD, we’ve been friends for a while and we’re all really happy with how insane the song turned out. Other than that, I’d say marionette by miind, SOS by cybertrash and reef, and NAUSEOUS with liza, blaise, kurtis, and aftrr from my album. Also stranded by babebee, which also has an incredible music video.
What keeps your current audience listening and why should people start listening?
I don’t have a super large audience but a lot of people keep coming back to my album, which is really cool. I guess there aren’t a lot of concept albums in the scene. Also not to toot my own horn but I think it’s paced really intensely and doesn’t waste much time, so it’s probably a fun listen for people every once in a while. And people should start listening cause I’m just a silly little guy who loves to have a little bit of fun.
Who do you listen to on a regular basis?
Jane Remover is an inspiration for most people in the scene but her music is extremely close to me personally and she’s made like 5 of my favorite songs ever. Quadeca, Brakence, The Weeknd, and Quinn have also had amazing records this year, especially Quinn, I love how she structures and conceptualizes her projects.
Other than that, a ton of Bladee, I think he’s one of the most satisfying vocalists ever and his songwriting is just so goofily charming and has a real optimistic beauty to it. If we’re talking about the scene, Viizzi is probably my favorite artist ever. He’s made some of the most amazing bangers I’ve ever heard: suicidefreestyle, Murder For Hire, Monster, Faker, Save Me, all incredible songs, and I’m blessed to have him as a friend. Reef is also extremely promising and already has a great EP under his belt.
Are these the same people who inspire your sound? Or are there other factors that come into play?
These people all influence my sound and my creative process.
What do you think is the most important aspect of music as a concept, personally and objectively?
Personally, I feel like the emotion displayed by a song is its most defining aspect. More than any skill displayed or compositional prowess, what’s going to stick with you after a song is done playing is the feeling it left you with. I try to go into every track I work on with a feeling or general vibe I wanna capture, over any tangible melody or progression. And a lot of the time an artist I’m working with will let me know the emotion they want to capture and I have to make sure I’m on target when I compose and record.
What was the main inspiration for poisonedcheeto.com?
When I decided I wanted to make an album, I had a lot of demos of songs I made with artists that they didn’t want to upload. The songs make me bleed, darkness, one dance, and undead were basically done and just needed features (in the case of undead, it was originally a remix of zombie by rouri404 and Vaeo so I needed new vocals altogether).
I was working at a grocery store at the time, just pushing shopping carts and tasks of the like, so I had a lot of time to think about a way to get these songs out. I always loved album titles with digital handles or domain names on them, just cause I thought they looked cool. From there I decided I wanted a really over-the-top announcer voice like there would be on sites like audiojungle and traktrain but way more ridiculous, and creepypasta-adjacent implied lore about the artist who made the website.
After that, I worked out that I wanted the record to have a breakneck pace, and for the announcer tags to represent the producer basically venting through his work, while still being majoritarily comedic. I then started working on new songs for the album, starting with Let The Speakers Blow, then Nauseous, then 2nd Place, then For Your Mind. True Religion was added at the last minute because I bought one of Viizzi’s opens on impulse one day and ended up making something way better than I expected.
Getting everyone’s vocals on time was really tough because I set myself a deadline for the record (I have a bad habit of letting records stay on the back burner until I stop caring about them) but I really didn’t want to rush anyone. I really loved working with everyone on this record, all of the vocalists on here are amazing artists and people in their own right and I’m super grateful to have crossed paths with them.
My manager Jerome helped me a lot with the visual identity of the record. All the pictures I had up on social media in the lead-up for the record were taken by him. We have a very similar sense of humor, and we both understood what type of character we wanted to create. He and his friends helped set up fake poisonedcheeto missing posters around a local college, which was hilarious, and ended up returning a decent amount of pre-saves since we had the domain name printed on all of them. Speaking of the website, it was something I wanted to do in the lead-up to the album but I hadn’t coded html/css in years. Still, I was able to make the website, and I’m pretty proud of how it turned out, even if leastfavorite did the website promo thing way better than I ever could.
Also, massive props to Don Sharpe for the voice acting on the tags, he did an incredible job and followed my vision perfectly, and was overall really nice to work with. You can find him on fiverr here: Sharpvoiceovers | Fiverr
So yeah, it was basically just a recontextualized collection of unreleased songs that I overcomplicated and built on and somehow turned into a concept album.
What are your top 3 favorite songs from the album?
Number one would be Let The Speakers Blow, next would be Make Me Bleed, and then Nauseous. I mean it’s been months but I still can’t get over Grayson’s hook on Let The Speakers Blow, I definitely need to work with all of these guys a lot more in the future.
How long did this album take you to make?
I came up with the concept around July 2022 and finished it in October, one week before release. I can’t lie, it was a lot of effort, especially since I was in school at the same time. I would spend more hours on the album than on my schoolwork most weeks.
And trying to handle promo, the website, publishing, looking for features, mixing everything consistently track to track, and freelancing at the same time to cover expenses was pretty crazy. But I’m super proud of how it turned out and the wonderful people I’ve met through this project.
JC Foster’s interpretation of what he believes is a “poisoned cheeto” is probably the best explanation I’ve ever heard for such an eye-catching name. Do you believe this album will help those listening to try and question the difference in importance between commodity and reality?
Before I get into the explanation thing I just wanna say JC Foster is one of the coolest and most creative people working today and you owe it to yourself to check out his youtube channel, his work is hilarious, ambitious and deeply human. Both his sketches and music have been a huge inspiration in both my personal sense of humor and in the way I conceptualize projects. Here’s his channel, he did fantastic voicework on this album: JC Foster Takes It To The Moon - YouTube
Now I’m going to be completely honest. I wrote all of the skits, interludes and tags on the album, and the intermission was the very last thing I added, and it was basically only for one reason. Since the word “cheeto” is in the album title, I can technically get sued for misleading labeling if the work doesn’t reference the product. So I wrote this whole huge paragraph, bringing up modern politics and philosophy and the horrors of neo-liberal capitalism basically just as a bit to set up how the name means nothing and I just came up with it when I was 17 and really dumb.
Now I still agree with everything said in the interlude, rampant consumerism is ruining our ability to feel empathy and I really tried to hammer that point home in a more empathetic way in the outro. I just find it insanely funny how a ton of people reached out to me saying they found real insight on society at that point on the album when I just wanted to do some trolling. Also, one dude texted me saying he listened to the album on acid and that interlude made him start bad tripping. And I think that’s really funny but I still feel bad for the guy.
What features would like to see on your next project?
Definitely babebee. I didn’t know them when I started work on the record but I love everything we’ve worked on together and hope I can get them on a project soon. Also definitely Vaeo, she’s absolutely amazing in everything she makes. One of the best and most expressive vocalists working today. I’ve also been in contact with Glitch Gum and Jahhlu recently, really hoping to get a song out with both of them sometime.
Lastly, what advice or experiences would you like to share with your peers or anyone else who is up and coming in this industry?
Be humble. Put a priority on the finished product you make instead of indulging in the mentality of being an artist. Talk to as many people as possible and try to make a legitimate connection with them. Treat fellow artists like friends instead of seeing them as ways to grow your own success. Most of all, have fun. It’s important to remember most of us won’t make it or become super successful. If you’re in it for the money, you will realize you’re in the wrong business when you get your first Distrokid cheque. Make sure you’re doing music out of love for the art form and a fondness for the creative process. Thanks for interviewing me, sheku.