Music Mondays had the chance to catch up with Gothie Couture and see what he's been up to since our last interview. We get into a lot of details and some good life as well as music tips in this MM Exclusive Interview.

7/8/22

Rei: How have you been since we last met? Any developments musically or career wise?

Gothie: Honestly, learning more about the music business & industry has been helpful for me to navigate the path of being a recording artist in 2022. Career wise we just hit one of our yearly goals of gaining 100,000 views within this same year on YouTube (from just releases in 2022) & that has been a huge accomplishment. I'm proud of myself for being consistent enough to reach. We also just got our first gig out of my local scene so I’m excited that even people outside my community are able to discover who I am, what I represent & for the supporters to know how they can help uplift our efforts as well.

Rei: Tell us about your #GOTHIEGANGSHOWCASE ?

Gothie: It’s a brainchild of mine that allows for me as an Artist to be both a fan & supporter of other artists for their consistent support of the #GothieGang , my support network. I do it this way to help eliminate those who don’t wish to support their fellow artists & community from being able to be uplifted on this platform, no room for selfishness in the #GothieGang.

Rei: What artists are you most excited about putting on?

Gothie: Honestly Up & Coming artists , I want to be able to help give a lot of young artists their first show in LA , as well as equip them with a press kit to be able to go & book another for themselves after the show is over as well as even help them register on ASCAP to receive their first checks for performance so that we can educate artists as well to the many ways they can profit from their hard work & time. I would definitely love to even help out artists from the underground community elevate & break out in LA by being able to host shows with promo pages, other event companies that share our mission & framework as well as artists themselves who not only support us but feel they can bring out a crowd & need the support of the #GothieGang to help pull it off. Main goal is to unite the music communities & be able to have fun seeing each other live, paying each other to perform & entertaining our community with fun, engaging & thought provoking artistry.

Rei: What are some differences between the gothie world and pure ignorance releases?

Gothie: Sonically the main difference between the GW & PI series have been the tone of voice, perspective I speak from & even the overall vibe including beat selection & vocal chain effects to fully immerse you into the feelings I’m trying to give you whether it’s mania or tranquility. Visually the difference is night and day , I’m very influenced by principles of Buddhism & believe that there is a balance in everything that life touches , music included.  Morally the difference was one that I was having trouble facing because I didn’t want the music from PI 2 to be out without having an alternative album for those who need to hear those messages just as much as they want to hear the ones from PI 2.

Rei: Specifically how does your story and storytelling ability come in use for writing songs like Already did and Take It There?

Gothie: Man this is a tough one for real. Really I don’t even know if it’s an ability or just my brain needing to get out all the stress of being independent & really seeing all the steps I’ve had to take in order to be in the position I’m in today, capable of doing these productions , shows & videos as well as acknowledging all the things I didn’t do along the way too. Already did is really a sad song to be frank: it tells you that I’ve met so many people that have hurt me that I’ve learned to prepare for it & even make plans to prevent myself from being in positions to be hurt, which unfortunately is something I have to do as an artist who is trying to be profitable with what I do. Don’t take it there is really like the dark version of Already Did covering even more adult topics like drug abuse, death, crime & loneliness after losing people you care about , this one is still a tender subject for me. I will say that in hindsight having the ability to recognize when my story was happening around me enough to put into words is definitely something I am proud of because now I can help even more people with my story.

Rei: How do you reconcile the dualism between braggadocio gothie and humanitarian gothie?

Gothie: This is the one I’ve been waiting on since I started GOTHICCOUTURE. So the definition of reconciliation is to cause us to coexist in harmony & I feel that in life there should always be some sort of balance where you can see the duality of humans. As an artist I felt like it was important that I display this duality within my music as early as possible so that the people who listen to my music can subconsciously know that even when they are feeling low that I feel the same way & to not feel isolated because they feel like “how could I be happy one day and sad the next”, you know? An artist who really inspired this from me was actually Future , he was the first artist I saw to openly display his larger than life persona then came with personal, emotional songs like Codeine Crazy & Throw Away on the same project from someone you didn’t expect to think this way, which is something I definitely am building up to for my audience.

Rei: How have you been finding the balance between self care and working on your career?

Gothie: Honestly it’s coming along nicely & more easier than I’ve thought it would be but I have to acknowledge that it’s because I’ve invested several thousands & several years into learning what recovery is & into making sure that I can recover in an extremely quick amount of time so that my consistency isn’t diminished or tarnished as a result of my own mismanagement or just lack of planning. As far as working on the career it’s been a job full time literally every day with no breaks or time to call off so it’s very demanding but the rewards come periodically enough if you’re going at that pace as well.

Rei: Do you think artists like Kid Cudi influence you to speak positively and open up about how you feel?

Gothie: 100% & Artists like J. Cole, Jay-Z & Rakim taught me the knowledge of self and that it’s not corny to be smart, Tupac taught me by example that there’s nothing wrong with being sensitive enough to let people into your heart. Even Michael Jackson’s spirit to me has inspired a lot of my humanitarian efforts to feed & the passion to educate our youth as well as I feel it is our responsibility of being an artist in this day & age to then make sure the staples of the 90s and the messages are then repeated in new context so that a new generation can receive the lesson too.

Rei: Who else influenced this project?

Gothie: Really life man- I loved and had experiences I had to let out of my head to be honest: the journey of me being an artist, trying to take care of my family, building with my girl, giving back to those in need after being a person in need, helping artists get shows I wished I had help to get have all inspired this album & the art that comes out of it all it’s really my heart you’re hearing, truly.

Rei: What can you tell us about your music video creation process?

Gothie: Okay this is a trade secret but I will share some sauce. I make treatments for usually every other video & I shoot each one within the first 7 days of the month including editing, shooting, vfx & storyboarding. It’s an extremely grueling process & it takes a lot out of you to continually do it so I rest & also try to limit myself to what I can do within 7 days only so I’m not focused too much on production value rather than making sure the actual songs video is providing more detail or explanation of the song.

Rei: How much creative control do you have since you do everything in house?

Gothie: Well literally I have it all being the owner of my own Independent Label , Production/Animation/VFX House & Event Company the possibilities are essentially limitless as I continue to grow & move forward. I will add that on shoots I do relinquish some creative control to my peers so that we can have some sort of input into the final product. I still even send the songs I record on producer's beats to them to see what they think & where they think the song can go so they have an input on the promo & release of the record if they choose to take that responsibility.

Follow Gothie: twitter.com/officialgothie 

Stream Gothie: soundcloud.com/officialgothiecouture 

Gothie Official Merch: gothieworld.com/store/ 

Written By Rei Low: twitter.com/_rocktimist 

STREAM GOTHIE'S NEW VISUAL FOR "DONT TAKE IT THERE!" LIVE ON THE MUSIC MONDAYS YOUTUBE CHANNEL: