Interview with Guard

This past week I had the incredible opportunity to interview Guard, a meme maker and anti-pop artist whose single “Pineapple Crush” has been featured on Spotify’s ‘Young & Free’ playlist.  With five original songs released under his belt and an EP scheduled for soon release, we talked about his relationship with the music world, how it relates to his online presence, and what he’s got in store for 2018. Why did you decide to get involved with the music industry? Music has always been my passion. I have been writing songs for as long as I can remember and started making demos to shop around a few years ago. It became more of an artist project quite early on and I just knew that this is what I was meant to do! What encompasses the anti-pop genre?  How would you define/describe it to someone unfamiliar with it? For me, anti-pop isn't really a genre, it's more of a concept that I am working towards. I guess it's about blurring the lines between genres as well as focusing on concepts rather than commerciality. I love what the guys over at PC Music are doing... They take elements of mainstream music & just completely mess with them to create something totally new. What does your song creation process look like?  What’s your favorite step in creating a song? Every song is different, but usually I'll start with melodies and just freestyle on voice notes. I get really inspired when I am driving or at like 4am when I should be asleep. I'll often take a fully written song to a producer and work on it or else we'll just start from scratch in a studio session. I love being in the studio. I feel complete there. Who are your major music influences, and what contemporary artists do you find yourself inspired from? My main influence is The xx - I also love Banks a lot. I listen to a lot of indie rock stuff like Tame Impala and Foster The People as well. l gravitate towards artists with cool concepts in their music. All of my songs stem from the concept of duality, more specifically the dichotomy of technology & humanity - this will be explored more in my new releases lol. How does your online presence relate to your music career? Basically, I'm a professional meme maker. I have been making memes on Instagram for a few years and have managed to gain quite a big audience. My biggest pages are @tindervsreality & @mycringe and I have used them as a platform to promote my music. Memes are so prevalent in current society… Rappers like Lil Pump, 6ix9ine etc are blowing up almost overnight because of memes & internet culture. I guess people that know me online understand my warped sense of humour. It has been great to see people that follow me for memes appreciate and engage with my music. I'm trying to tap into a new market here haha meme pop music. You’ve mentioned on your Twitter account that your 2018 goals include an EP and an album.  Is there anything that you can reveal so far about that progress, or the content to be included? Yes! My first EP is 99% finished. I experimented a lot with guitars but there are also elements of electropop. Looking forward to putting this out very soon! It's very conceptual but also really personal to me. It will feature all previously unreleased music yay! Is there any song that you’re looking forward to release the most? I have a down tempo guitar driven song that I wrote with TYSM who is an amazing singer/writer based in Nashville. It was such a chilled session and I'm really proud of what we made. Hoping to put this one out asap! Do you plan on going on tour? Yes 100%, I am organising a live show as we speak! Going to be a lot of fun. “Pineapple Crush” recently hit 1 million plays on Spotify.  How did/does that feel? So dope!! It was really unexpected...I wrote it myself & had one of my friends in Melbourne (sb90) produce it. It's quite an unusual pop song and I am so surprised and excited that it has found an audience. I put out a weird music video for it as well which was amazing to create. My meme followers roasted me pretty hard for my dancing in the video but I am so glad that people are digging the song. We made a follow up for “Pineapple Crush” called “Distorted” which will be on the EP! Do you have a favorite song that you’ve released? “Die Online” is definitely my favourite. That song saw so many different versions before the final release. Felix Snow really killed the production on it and I can't wait to perform it live. What would you want to do for a living if you weren’t in the music industry? I dropped out of film school but I am trained in graphic design.... definitely something creative!   For more information on Guard and to track his progress in the music world, you can follow his twitter (@guardsounds) or his Spotify. By Emme Ostrander