In this exclusive Music Mondays interview, we got the chance to sit down with Pidge to discuss their recent project "Shock Therapy", influences in creativity, and much more. Don't miss this breakdown only available on Music Mondays.

2/17/23

Em: So, where did the idea behind [Shock Therapy] originate from? 

Pidge: So, it came from, I had a bunch of tracks that I was just sitting on that were very different

that were originally all gonna be for different projects. But I realized that’s way too much to do and also would muddy up, kinda my releases. So I decided to kinda replicate that feeling of almost whiplash when you like, go from one song to another on say a playlist that’s just like “oh that should not work” but it does. 

E: Totally

P: Um, and then I was also reading about like, early 20th and late 19th century electrostatic therapy and like.. how awful it is, but also like how they were so convinced that it worked, and kinda relating that to my growth as a person

E: Interesting okay,  so with that being said what are some of the influences you’d say that your production style draws from?

P: So, for the album itself there’s definitely y’know chunks of the album that are inspired by different people. Um, all the more, like pop oriented songs are definitely inspired by, y’know- actually a lot of my peers but also like a lot of the heavy hitters so-to-speak from y’know the, I don’t know if we can call it the hyperpop community anymore?

E: The remnants!

P: Yeah the scorched remains of what was once hyperpop, and then, y’know there’s songs like  that are more guitar oriented like ‘(I love my) Studio Apartment’ and ‘Scene Change’ Scene Change is very clearly just a shoegaze song, pulling from y’know My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, and even newer people like Parannoul from out in Korea who is unbelievably talented. 

E: Okay

P: I love my studio apartment is one of those more like classic indie-pop tracks, and then there’s also references to y’know 2012 big room house like with ‘David Guetta”

E: Oh yeah totally, I love that song by the way

P: Thank you, but yeah so it’s all over the place. And then, additionally for the more aggressive sound design y’know when I start to like kind of just mangle the song, um, people like machine girl, especially on like that midbridge section of  ‘Go! Go! Go!’ and the end of ‘Act Don’t Speak’ I was really just trying to break my speakers.

E: So on tracks like ‘Go! Go! Go! I specifically noticed like um, a Sybyr influence, would you say that’s fair?

P: Yeah! Absolutely yeah no, Sybyr is- I mean everyone from Antiworld like: Sybyr, Eric North, Shark, all those guys kinda started everything. I mean they were like 15 or 16, at least I know Eric was, um just making songs and like essentially inventing what we now know as like, y’know the trap metal aesthetic or whatever you wanna call it. And like we wouldn’t have people like NASCAR ALOE we wouldn’t have, honestly any of Spidergang really in my opinion. You know like, everyone that I’ve talked to cites Sybyr as like a huge influence, but I feel like in the mainstream he doesn’t get enough credit-

E: Not at all.

P: He’s also just a nice guy 

E: He’s literally like a fucking originator in every sense of the word.

P: Yeah, and he’s a good person like I’ve talked to him a couple times and he’s just like, a good guy.

E: Awesome um, could you speak a little bit to the Neurosis influence?

P: YES! 

E: I haven’t personally delved into their discography but, I do know that they’re an influence

P: So yeah Neurosis for me- and the thing with Neurosis that’s interesting is they became really popular when they started making more like Doom Metal very slow stuff, but they actually started as a hardcore band. It’s less sonic influence for me and more like the way that y’know like thematically carry their projects really pushed me and additionally like how crushing a lot of the songs are like its just some of the heaviest stuff ever, and they’re hopefully not problematic but they are very good. Because you know, as someone who grew up listening to a lot, a lot of different stuff, but a lot of metal um I know that a lot of my favorite bands growing up, a lot of those guys are horrible people

E: Oh for sure, I mean that goes for like so many facets of the music industry

P: Oh it does, it’s so, it’s real bad

E: It’s real bad

P: But yeah definitely, there’s a lot of metal influence. Whether or not it’s directly you know sonic is up to interpretation but I definitely have that kind of stuff in mind, um, and I am starting a metal band so-

E: Oh really?

P: That’s, yeah that is very much in-

E: the works

P: it’s in the works, we haven’t really recorded anything yet though

E: That’s okay! That’s actually really exciting

P: Yeah, it’ll be fun to kind of have something separate from kinda like the Pidge Cinematic Universe

E: Mhm! Um, so what was the recording process like for Shock Therapy?

P: So, It started in April of 2021 with ‘Lovesick!’. I made that song with this person I was working on an album with I had in mind that ended up falling through; and I was sitting on it for almost a year while also working on these other tracks from the album which was just me in my apartment, one idea a day, and then if something sticks I keep building on it. But then I joined the whatever I want collective and one of the members Calvin Kingston was over and he did his verse in like ten minutes and it was just unbelievable. But that was the general feeling of the album was I’d have something I had been sitting on for a while, and I’d bring someone in to help me and we’d figure it out in a matter of minutes.

E: I like that, um, so could you talk about the making of the song ‘4x’?

P: Yeah, so ‘4x’ was, um, I don’t remember when exactly we made it. I think we made it in, like November of 2021. I had taj, one of the members of the collective over, and it was actually our first time working on anything, and he laid down the bass and some of the synth work and I did the drums. And I decided I wanted it to sound like you were in a club but like you were in hell at the same time. We actually recorded that in the afternoon, and then we recorded all studio apartment the same day

E: Oh awesome, I’d say studio apartment is probably, top 3 on the album for me, I’ll have that on repeat when I’m just like sitting alone in my room

P: It’s definitely, I’d say people I feel like know me a lot for you know ‘Lost Cause’ and like the more aggressive stuff, but I like making some silly songs every once and a while, that and ‘Go Fish!’ are the best examples of it.

E: Mhm, and like hyperpop girlfriend ‘HPGF’ 

P: Yeah that one actually, that whole song came about because Golder texted me just like “Oh me and Griffin”- who goes by printer friendly “we had an idea for the name of a song, hyperpop girlfriend!”, and I just, I was in class and I just made the entire chorus for the song in that class without even making the instrumental.