“Tright here’s no fucking mendacity on this album,” says 18-year-old producer, vocalist and songwriter Glaive, “I actually saved it actual”, he provides. The North Carolina-born artist – actual title Ash Gutierrez – is chatting with NME from his New York resort following our rooftop photoshoot within the metropolis for this week’s Cover. The imminent launch of debut album ‘I Care So Much I Don’t Care At All’ is taking him to some lofty heights, however he’s rather more centered with staying near earth, it appears.
It’s been a speedy journey, having clocked up greater than 100 million streams since breaking by in 2020. After educating himself to supply music at the beginning of the pandemic, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than the “shy and quiet” then-15-year-old began making and releasing songs made in his bed room.
Bored and remoted within the distant mountains of Hendersonville, a metropolis with a inhabitants of simply 15,000, Gutierrez casually uploaded angst-y tracks like ‘Astrid’ to SoundCloud beneath the alias of Glaive (a reputation taken from the online game Dark Souls III). In 2021, his ‘All Dogs Go To Heaven’ EP obtained five-stars from NME, describing it as “a outstanding indication of the instructions glaive may go in subsequent: all of them.”
Underground notoriety adopted and, alongside 100 gecs and teenage friends ericdoa, midwxst and aldn, he grew to become a frontrunner of the burgeoning US hyperpop scene. The internet-born microgenre, recognized for its fusion of glitchy digital maximalism and distorted bass, grew from a DIY on-line neighborhood to turn out to be one of the vital talked-about sounds. Its sonic origins stretch again to the mid-2010s and the early bubblegum-pop releases of A. G. Cook, PC Music and SOPHIE and their subsequent amped-up collaborations with Charli XCX.
After hyperpop discovered a worldwide viewers by way of TikTookay through the lockdown years, the broader music trade began taking discover – Glaive and the brand new wave of the scene went mainstream, transcending past the URL world. Such a meteoric rise noticed Gutierrez head to Los Angeles for recording periods, signal to main label Interscope (Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish), tour Europe and the UK with The Kid LAROI, collaborate with Machine Gun Kelly and launch two EPs. Having additionally taught himself to play guitar, by this level he had transitioned from being a “fake musician” into one thing extra critical. A speedy rise, then.
Full of teenage angst, nervousness, and existential uncertainty, ‘I Care So Much…’ (out now) finds Gutierrez at his most trustworthy and open. Having wished to duplicate the atmosphere through which he made his first songs, Gutierrez headed to a windowless storage studio in LA final summer time. “I actually don’t like making music in anyplace aside from my bed room, and this was the closest we may get,” he says earlier than detailing his day by day routine. Recording periods would start at 5pm and end the next day at 10am with Gutierrez curled up on the carpet. Wake up, hop within the bathe, again at it: lather, rinse, repeat.
“I’ve by no means put out one thing that’s so true to myself”
That life-style left him burnt-out, and Gutierrez quickly discovered himself taking a extra introspective method to songwriting. “After some time, I simply had nothing to fucking discuss,” he says, having recorded 50 potential album tracks with producer Jeff Hazin. “The aim was by no means to make an album the place I discuss myself and the way I view myself on the earth, however that’s simply the way it panned out.” Delving deeper than earlier than resulted in his debut turning into self-evaluative – purely as a result of nothing loopy was occurring in Gutierrez’s current. “There was no different approach to get there besides by myself and asking ‘what’s up with this man?’”
Making the file grew to become a type of self-therapy for Gutierrez, who describes himself as “probably the most emotional man on the earth. I really feel a whole lot of issues.” Channelling his vary of emotions into music has all the time been part of his artistry, however this assortment felt completely different. “Not to say that I wasn’t making trustworthy music earlier than, however I simply didn’t know how you can enunciate it in a means that I really feel like I do now… I’ve all the time been attempting to say this stuff, however I simply didn’t know the way.”
Take the stirring opener ‘Oh Are You Bipolar One Or Two’, which transitions from delicate piano to stadium-sized drums and uncooked feelings. That monitor’s creation adopted “probably the most grownup 12 months in my life”, Gutierrez says, including that writing it helped him course of his personal prognosis. “I don’t wish to be right here at fucking all, I’m wondering if tomorrow would’ve been higher? In all honesty, it don’t even matter in any respect”, he asks within the track. Later, he equally recounts suicidal ideas on the heart-wrenching title monitor.
“I used to be overthinking and over-analysing every part on a regular basis,” he says. Since, nonetheless, Gutierrez’s outlook on life has modified. “I’m extra aware that I’m an precise present human being,” he says. “When you’re 16, you’re not likely pondering that – you’re simply going by life seeing what’s occurring.”
“I’ve all the time been attempting to say this stuff, however didn’t know the way”
This honesty noticed Gutierrez open up about his bisexuality to his followers. Having lately come out in an Instagram Live video, he retrospectively thinks that he “in all probability constructed it up and was extra nervous about it than I ought to have been”. However, Gutierrez makes it clear that he has no intention of speaking about it extra in something aside from songs.
“It’s simply the reality,” he says. “I’m not attempting to show it right into a commodifiable a part of myself,” he provides. “Like it or dislike it how the fuck you need. It’s not gonna change…” Being a part of a musical neighborhood that has lengthy been a refuge for a queer artists, Gutierrez says that his followers have equally been extremely supportive.
In protecting together with his newly-reached maturity, Gutierrez additionally wished one track on the file to start out off quiet and “nearly like speaking”. This led to him sampling a part of Timothée Chalamet’s monologue from the off-Broadway play Prodigal Son, which was one of many Hollywood hearthrob’s first roles. “Why do I’ve to take heed to you when you might have zero to say? Because I’m younger? All my life I’ve been younger So I by no means get a flip!” Chalamet shouts frustratedly on the monitor ‘As If’, which ends with him assuring “I’m gonna discover my place on this world, rely on it”. It’s a story and perception that chimes with Gutierrez’s personal.
“It took so fucking lengthy to get this six second monologue,” Gutierrez laughs. The pattern needed to be cleared by Timothée’s crew, the playwright and the play’s publishing home. “But I believe it’s value it,” he provides, describing Chalamet as “probably the most attention-grabbing and well-known younger male actor proper now”. To Gutierrez’s disappointment, they’re but to fulfill however he needs to hyperlink up with Chalamet and, er, slight doppelganger Finn Wolfhard “so unhealthy. I want an image with these two, I believe it’d be lovely!”
The album serves as a sonic departure from Gutierrez’s early releases. While his debut EPs thrived on glitchy digital synths, his pop-rock sound has now elevated due to pounding drums and stadium-sized singalong choruses. Influenced by a large scope of artists and sounds – starting from Modern Baseball, The 1975, Bon Iver and lately discovering ABBA’s again catalogue – Gutierrez’s present music style is constructed on a mixture of digital music and unhappy acoustic guitar songs.
Fusing parts of indie, pop, rock and emo, most of the album’s tracks sound like they had been made to be carried out reside, for instance ‘The Car’, whose fuzzy, feedback-heavy guitars add to the track’s anthemic vitality. Similarly, Gutierrez is levelling up the manufacturing for his upcoming tour. Previously, his gigs have had extra in widespread with rap exhibits, consisting of Gutierrez leaping round energetically whereas singing to backing tracks; when he hits the street within the US and UK from the top of this month, he’ll have a full band together with reside guitar and drums.
Despite this transfer away from hyperpop – a style that Gutierrez advised NME “would by no means die” – his long-time affiliation with the scene would possibly imply the connection by no means drops. While previously, this used to hassle Gutierrez, he’s now detached to style descriptors. “At first I used to be actually upset that folks had been giving my music a style, and I’ve gone by completely different phases,” he says.
Going on to debate the evolution of hyperpop, he means that it’s now tougher to inform what hyperpop truly is due to the time period’s commercialisation and the music’s consequent homogenisation. “Everyone had an thought of what a stereotypical hyperpop track seemed like and I don’t take heed to that sort of music anymore, as a result of a whole lot of it isn’t very impressed,” Gutierrez says. He additionally means that some newer artists are “attempting to make hyperpop purely for financial or societal acquire”.
Contrastingly, Gutierrez and associates from the hyperpop scene that he got here up with have naturally developed their sound over time. “We’re all busier, however we find time for one another the place we are able to,” Gutierrez says of his friends midwxst, ericdoa and aldn. “It’s very simple to be associates with individuals who have had related experiences to you,” he provides. “I like these boys!”
He continues: “I’m not attempting to make any particular kind of music, I’m simply attempting to make music that’s trustworthy.” If that was his intention, ‘I Care So Much…’ is an simple triumph. “I’ve by no means put out one thing that’s so true to myself, and I’ve not felt that with any of my different music,” Gutierrez says. “It’s scary as fuck and I’ve by no means been this scared for stuff to return out. But what I do know is that I wish to do that endlessly.”
Glaive’s debut album ‘I Care So Much That I Don’t Care At All’ is out now by way of Interscope
Listen to Glaive’s unique playlist to accompany The Cover under on Spotify, and right here on Apple Music
Words: Ben David Jolley
Photographer: Sam Keeler
Label: Interscope
Mgmt: Dan Awad / Chris Begler
