Interview: Experimental Electronic Pop Artist Caleb Hurst Talks About His New Single/Video "love is over", Feat. logan
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“...Working solo is kind of a double edged sword. You have total freedom, which I certainly do appreciate, but it’s also totally up to you to get things done. ”
How would you compare the experience as a music creator on your own as a solo artist, to that of when you were in the band The Honeysticks?
A band dynamic is of course much different than being a solo artist. I learned a lot in my time with The Honeysticks. It taught me a lot about the industry, music itself and helped me understand myself more. It was super valuable to be able to bounce ideas off other people. Working collaboratively is cool because the finished product is always something that would have been different if you had made it on your own.
But at the same time you can't necessarily do whatever you want because it's a group effort. So working solo is kind of a double edged sword. You have total freedom, which I certainly do appreciate, but it's also totally up to you to get things done. And that can be really hard at times especially if you tend to procrastinate like me. But I do think I've been getting more comfortable with all the responsibilities of working solo and I've been finding my artistic voice as an individual which is critical.
Congratulations on your new single and video "love is over"; tell us about your creative process for the song itself and how you connected with logan, who is featured on it.
Thank you! Logan Beckham is one of my closest friends. We're both from Katy, Texas and have known each other since we were really young. I was actually best friends with his older sister Carly growing up and then he and I got close in high school.
Last year we were living with each other here in Los Angeles and that's when "love is over" began. He had come up with this guitar loop and was experimenting with these pitched up vocals that I liked a lot. I added some synth parts and drum machines to the ones he had already made and wrote another verse for it and we kinda just kept going back and forth with it, writing and producing little by little.
Toward the end of last year Logan moved back to Texas. I kept editing it after he left and eventually brought it to Bruce Wiegner who finalized the mix. Bruce and I had worked together earlier in 2020 on a ridiculous song called "Now I'm a Baby" with my friends Garrett Watts and Andrew Siwicki. That song was made in less than 24 hours and seeing him work on that made me confident that he would be able to carry "love is over" to the finish line.
Regarding the video, describe the experience directing it with Jacob Bottorff and Ruby Westkaemper at your apartment complex.
So Logan had actually directed and edited my first two music videos, "Borrow Your Gun" and "(Baby) Blue" and I definitely wanted him to be involved with this one but when the pandemic started I realized there wasn't going to be an easy way to do that since we're in different states now. But my amazing girlfriend Ruby and I moved in together recently and we started brainstorming what we could shoot just within our apartment complex.
We have a pool so I bought a waterproof phone case and started conceptualizing. To me, the song is moody and existential while simultaneously being kinda fun. So I wanted the video to lean into the melodrama at times but then switch gears and not take itself seriously. And Jacob Bottorff, who I've known for many years, offered to be a part of it which I'm so thankful for because he has a great eye and is super creative. He's also a very talented editor and he was able to cut a portion of the video for me which was a relief because I was literally learning how to use Premiere as I was editing this video.
You started with "All of Your Love", and are releasing a new song and music video each month. What compelled you to start this regiment and what can we expect next month?
All of the songs I've released so far, I was intending on putting on an 8 song album called "It's Not Me, It's Me." But I think the vision for that project was holding me back in a sense because... well I was just overthinking it all really.
I was getting into my head and struggling to bring any of the songs to a finished state. And then one day I was venting all of these frustrations to my friend Julia Nunes. She and her music partner Chase Burnett have been doing this whole "song and video each month" thing since the beginning of the year. And after listening to me complain and run into mental roadblocks she essentially said something like "You're thinking too much. No one cares. Just focus on one song at a time and start putting them out." And I was like "Damn. That's exactly what I needed to hear."
So I just followed suit and decided to release one each month. It can be daunting because the pressure's on to finish in time but it also somehow creates a lot of freedom because you can't really allow yourself to overthink anything. I think it's helping me detach from the results too. If people respond positively to something then great! But if not who cares? I'm gonna keep making things and learning along the way and getting better.
August's song is called "Create." It's partially inspired by a book called "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. It's about the creative struggle and the spiritual side to being an artist.
So is the “It’s Not Me, It’s Me” album no longer happening?
"It's Not Me, It's Me" definitely meant something to me as a whole. I was originally wanting these songs to be heard in a certain order and to tell a certain story and I would love for people to still be able to experience them that way.
Recently I've been thinking of putting it out as its own project later, after most of the songs are released as singles. So at that point I guess it would be more of a compilation album. But I've never released anything on vinyl and I think that would be a cool thing to do a limited release of at some point. We'll see.