Vancouver alternative indie-rock star EKKSTACY is about to blow up in a major way. Not that we need to tell you that – he already knows it himself. To mark the release of his self-titled third LP, the musician talks songwriting, scenes, and staying stress-free.
EKKSTACY won’t make an album the way he made his self-titled again. Not if he can help it, anyway. Following the release of his 2022 second record Misery, his touring schedule was so relentless he barely had a moment to sit down, let alone book a studio for a decent length of time to start building the foundations of his next era. His creative engine only sputtered to life in fits and starts, meaning his third album was pieced together in small fragments.
“I kind of hated how I had to do it last year,” the Canadian artist – real name Khyree Zienty – considers. “But I think it’s good that it did it like that one so I don’t do it again. I feel like I kind of learned how to make an album properly after making this one. I think I’ve finalised my process; I just need to sit down and do it.”
It’s not the only lesson EKKSTACY has learned about what not to do when he’s creating. Next time around, he also knows he’s going to fight the urge to listen to whatever he makes until after it comes out. “The weird thing is, I’ll make a song, have the most fun, feel amazing and then listen to it a million times. Then a week later, I’m like, ‘This song sucks,’” he frowns. Despite his initial dissatisfaction with the album, though, his mindset shifted when those songs were released. Able to hear them with other people’s ears, he was better positioned to appreciate that, actually, he really wasn’t so bad at this whole music thing after all.
The self-effacing critic in EKKSTACY’s head looms large and speaks loudly. Indeed, when Kerrang! first interviewed him back in 2022 and asked him to describe his music in a handful of words, his response was a perfunctory, “Boring, boring and fucking even more boring.” He recalls his manager reminding him he’d expressed similar negativity towards Misery despite him not remembering doing so, and now, the cycle appears to be repeating. Perhaps there’s a streak of anxiety behind his self-critical talk – “It’s nerve-wracking dropping records. Once it’s been out for a bit, I can appreciate it.”
On top of that, EKKSTACY is more “scattered” as a body of work than the artist would usually see himself making, which he attributes to the fractured process of its creation. “It’s cool and not cool at the same time. It’s cool that you can do a bunch of different sounds in one project and it attracts a lot of different types of people,” he reasons. “At the same time, I love cohesive records. All the bands I like, all their songs on a record sound the same and there’s one or two that stick out.”
He might not see it now, but the variety in the record is one of its greatest strengths. This is a subtle quirk; the spectrum of sounds is closer to a mix of darker and lighter shades of blue than clashing, competing neons, meaning it does still have that cohesiveness EKKSTACY likes to hear in other artists’ records. It’s a gently bright, atmospheric listen conjuring images of summery, orange skies, long drives in breezy weather and strolls by the beach, almost with the vibe of a coming-of-age film soundtrack. The energy ebbs and flows – goo lagoon vibrates with a jittery sense of anticipation while also paying worship to The Cure, while problems is an intimate, twilit acoustic affair. Other times, songs will combine the best of both worlds, with get me out surging from moody, strummed chords to bursting into a huge, heavier passage to stunning effect.
While the album’s indebted to indie and surf rock with gothier touches, its fluidity when it comes to genre means there’s no one category it sits neatly in. Indeed, its two collaborations feature names from completely different worlds in the form of hip-hop acts Trippie Redd and The Kid LAROI. “I don’t think I’m in a scene at all,” EKKSTACY says. “I know there’s some kids that sound similar to me, but I’m very different, I think. I’ve always thought it’d be cool to be part of a scene, though.” It must be freeing, but on the flip side, is it ever lonely? “I think everything’s kind of lonely.”
On a similar note, despite its brightness, the darkness in EKKSTACY’s life isn’t far away. He’s frequently spoken about experiencing anxiety, but music isn’t the form of therapy it used to be – the way he describes it, it almost appears that he’s built up a tolerance to it. “You can only do it so many times.” When asked what he does instead, his response is blunt: “Vodka. Or gin.” Does that not worry him? “It could be a lot worse. I could be doing worse things.”
Although his self-titled album is only just seeing the light of day, EKKSTACY’s already living in the future, having started working on his next record two months ago. “The thing I learned last year is that I’m only going to make music when I want to now,” he says. “I forced myself too many times when I didn’t need to because I was stressed out and felt pressured. But now, I have so many songs that are so good sitting on my computer. I’m just like, ‘Okay, I can relax and just make music and have fun and feel everything that I need to instead of being scared and upset about stuff.’”
EKKSTACY doesn’t know where his self-titled album is going to take him, but if he squints further into the future, he has more of an idea of where he sees himself. “I know where the next one is going to take me. By the end of this year, I’ll be at least 10 times bigger than I am now.”
What’s given him that shot of confidence? “Just a hunch.”
