Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 6 months, I’m sure you’ve heard asiris’ music. Whether it was his break out single “my friends toyota,” or any of the music that ended up on his EP ‘really, after everything?’” he has been everywhere. This past week I sat down with him to talk through all of that and more, and I’m happy to share our conversation with you below.

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How are you dude? How've you been?

I’m good dude, I just moved into a new place in Virginia. It’s so new it doesn’t even have an address yet, but honestly I’m just excited to move out of here sometime soon hopefully.

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Where would you want to move?

I really want to move to Florida. I’ve always enjoyed the culture and the beach there, and we don’t have that here at all other than Virginia Beach, but that’s just different.

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Since we've never talked before this interview, what was your earliest memory of getting into making music for yourself?

I probably started playing guitar when I was 8 years old, but the first time I ever recorded was when I was like 13. It was horrific haha, like really really bad. My friend actually went to the Apple store on my 13th birthday with a hard drive, and basically stole Logic Pro from one of the computers, and then gifted it to me without telling me how he got it. I always wondered why I couldn’t update it or anything, but when I eventually found out he stole it, I ended up buying it for myself later on.

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Do you think anything from that time period has stayed in your music today? Whether it was a production style or anything like that.

*sighs* Man, I hope not haha.

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Haha it can’t be all bad. Even if it’s worse than you would be now, it still is the foundation, right?

I mean I went into production as a 13 year old using only stock sounds, and it was all really really bad. My writing definitely progressed too, but the main thing that stuck with me was the consistency. And my influences back then were all really pop based, which I still have some of, but it just was a very different style from what I do now.

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That’s actually a perfect segue into the next question. Your recent music can generally be categorized as a kind of folk, but it’s clear there are a lot more layers to it than that which includes a dose of hyper pop production and even rap-like flows from your album until the fire dies out. What artists have been your biggest influence when it comes to the music you make?

I love that you said hyper pop because that used to be my favorite thing to listen to, which is so 180 of folk music.

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Agreed, but they sort of have had a similar surgence in the mainstream over the past 4 years which is interesting.

Yeah, definitely. My inspirations though originally started with Jon Bellion because he’s just a wizard. He’s one of the best to do it. Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler were all big for me in high school and I’m still on that wave big time. And then I picked up listening to brakence, eric doa, glaive which I still listen to a little bit – just a lot of hyper pop and indie mainly. Even though I make music in the genre, I don’t listen to a ton of people in it other than a bit of Noah Kahan, also some Kid Laroi which isn’t folk at all but still worth mentioning.

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To continue on with your influences, when listening through your EP that we’ll talk about in a couple questions – I noticed that there were a few mentions of God in your lyrics. Does your faith impact the music you make in any way?

Yeah absolutely it does. That’s something I talked a lot about during the record label hunt because it’s something I never want to stray away from. I don’t make Christian music, but I make music about my life and God is a big part of that. I feel like as a Christian too we’re called to reach people, and even though I don’t make music in that genre, it’s cool that I’m still able to do that some way in what I release.

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Like a lot of people on social media, I first heard your music because of the break out moment for my friends toyota. What did that time feel like for you?

It was a wild time. And to touch back on my faith too, that was a period of my life where I wasn’t sure if I could keep doing music. I was in constant prayer about whether or not I should pursue internships over the Summer and look for realistic jobs, or if I can do this music thing. And I told myself this for months. I ended up posting 2-3 times a day for a month, all at the same time every day, and literally the day before those applications were due, one of them finally hit. My manager Felipe & I’s emails started to blow up, and I really feel like it was all God’s timing. It was surreal because I’ve been working at it my whole life. Of course I hope this isn’t my defining moment, but it’s nice to see people connect so much with a song I made in my dorm room.

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I’m sure it could be hard to mentally follow up the success of a song like that, and at least for me, I know I would have been stressed to take the next step. How did that affect you when it came to releasing your next single, “fifth avenue”?

It was a little scary because you always want to follow up your last release, but as an artist you really can’t let the algorithm or anything external define you. I don’t put music out that I don’t like, and even if it’s not picked up by anything, I’m going to keep making music anyway. I’m just going to trust the Lord’s plan and keep moving forward. We were on track to release a single a month already anyways too, so that made it easier to keep going.

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Even further down the line, this led you to releasing your EP earlier this month, ‘really, after everything?’. How has it been having that out in the world?

It’s been really really cool, that EP means a lot to me. It’s just kind of the story of the past year of my life. It’s been sick to have it out, and I’m excited for the next chapter of music. I’ve been on a few recording trips lately with some really cool people which has been a lot different from the usual process of recording all on my own. I’m excited to put all of that music out too – we recorded more songs than the entire last EP in only one week.

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You had your first performance ever at Liberty College recently. How was that, and do you have plans for more shows in the near future?

It was crazy, we had a really good turn out of about 400 people. Liberty was the school I went to at the time which really helped, but there were even people who traveled 8 hours from New Jersey to come see the show. I was super nervous for it, but when I stepped on stage I totally went into autopilot. I feel like I stepped into an entirely different personality and I lost all control, but it was really really cool. We played the entire EP and a few singles that will probably never get released, but it was really fun. We definitely have more shows in the works too. There were two artists who reached out for opening slots, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

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Lastly, is there anything fans should look out for in the near future when it comes to releasing music?

I’m planning on doing an EP this Summer, and we have a single coming out at the end of the month. And we have a single coming this month unless we push it back which comes out in a week [at the time of the interview] and I need to promote more haha. After that we’re planning a few follow up singles, and then the EP – which I am genuinely so excited for. We’re also working on a line of merch which hopefully we can get out there soon too.

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Awesome dude, thank you for taking the time out for this interview.

Of course man, I’m happy to do it and thank you for having me.

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This was one of my favorite/most successfully conducted interviews, and I hope it gave you more insight to one of the most exciting up and comers in the game right now. You can stream my favorites of his on my playlist here, and make sure to give his EP, ‘really, after everything?’ a listen below.