03 February 2022
Newsdesk
Rex Orange County joins Hanuman Welch on ALT CTRL Radio on Apple Music 1 to discuss his upcoming album ‘Who Cares?’, being mentored by Tyler, The Creator, trying to keep the long from album alive, listening to his own music, feeling compelled to switch things up musically, why touring is his favourite part of making music, and more.
Rex Orange County Tells Apple Music What He’s Been Listening To During The Pandemic…
In all honesty, I've listened to myself more than anyone. However, that may sound, I've most time spent listening to not music that's out, but music that's being worked on. But it's often songs that are done, songs beyond this project that I've announced. I have many songs that's in rotation that are all things that stay in my head. But hey, no, that's not to say I'm not a fan of music. I was listening to a lot of classical music, actually. When the pandemic came, I was getting obsessed with Chopin and romantic period of just those type of chords. But that as well as, I don't know, I mean anything and everything. I was down for whatever. But if I'm honest, mostly just listening to the stuff I'd been writing.
Rex Orange County Tells Apple Music How He’s Feeling Creatively As He Prepares To Release New Album ‘Who Cares?’…
I'm feeling incredibly productive. I mean, I'm trying to make music all the time now. I feel like 'Who Cares?' Is something I'm very proud of and I love, but it came together quite quickly. And I feel like since it coming together, I've made a lot of other music. And this year, I feel like I'm desperate to switch it up musically. Not that I haven't. I feel as though I have sufficiently switched it up here and there, but my favourite artists, my favourite albums, are when artists really change it up and go do something different. And I feel as though there's many corners of music I haven't quite touched and done it all in one go, and I'd love to go elsewhere next time musically. I also haven't done a really long album yet, so I'm thinking next time I have to do much longer than 10 songs kind of album.
Rex Orange County Tells Apple Music About Tyler, The Creator Being His Mentor and Keeping The Album Format Alive…
I'd completely agree that that album and 'Igor' and 'Call Me If You Get Lost' all are him transforming, to me, in three very specific, different ways, which is amazing. That's what I'm talking about. I love that. A lot of artists do that, Kanye, Kendrick. But it's a lot within hip hop, actually. It would be nice for me to be doing that. Tyler is... I've spoken about him a lot in interviews, because it comes up naturally, and I understand. I would want to know. But he's really like a mentor. And I saw him just the other day, recently, and he's really, really passionate about keeping the album alive. What he was talking about the other day was just things getting really, really short. People's attention spans are getting very short. Songs and clips are really short and we got to keep the long-form album alive. We all know he's super passionate about everything, but especially about music, but he's really genuinely concerned about music getting too throwaway and we got to keep it going with long-form, because that's what we fell in love with.
Rex Orange County Tells Apple Music That Touring Is His Favourite Part of Being an Artist…
Oh man, that's where it's at for me. I love touring more than anything really. I do enjoy making music and I enjoy all the other bits, but just the hour, hour 30 on stage is my favourite thing. I don't know what that is, whether that's just some form of need for people all staring at me at once and having that attention or something, probably, but I enjoy it so much. I cannot wait. Then rehearsing and band as well, we all just been hungry, man. We're just waiting for two years. I'm bored now. Now I'm ready, and we are going to go. And when we do, we're going to go and it's going to be crazy, and I can't wait.
