Sunny with a chance of heartache: Tayo Sound on his easy breezy break-up hits
This is A HOT MINUTE WITH, a quick-fire interview series championing all the rising talent catapulting into fashion, art and music’s fickle stratosphere. From pinch-me moments to bad dates and even worse chat-up lines, think of it as an overindulgent conversation – like the ones you have in sticky club toilets at 4.A.M. Except these guests don’t regret the overshare…
Courtesy of @tayosound
NAME TAYO SOUND
AGE 18
LOCATION Reading, England
STAR SIGN Aquarius
BIGGEST PET PEEVE I don’t really have any, I’m a pretty chill guy.
Remember the Nokia? Long before the explosive rise of TIKTOK, phones were more of a household-bound brick than a meme-churning hub at our fingertips. To that end, Nigerian-Scottish singer Tayo Sound at only 18-years-old is on the cusp of millennial consciousness, but recalls the mobile as his clear entry point to lovelorn alt-pop: “My older brother would always download songs that he’d then use as his ringtone. He used to show me and then we’d find the videos on Vevo or our TV. Before that, all my musical exposure came through church so that was really my first experience of commercial music. From then on, I was hooked.” Making infectiously happy yet perpetually sad songs, his take on music is quite the oxymoron.
Despite his age, Sound’s introspection on romance is a relatable, heart-wrenching tale felt by many. It revives the age old anti-fairytale: Once upon a time I was in love. They dipped for someone else. The end. It’s not all ugly tears and self-pity though; with some nifty guitar-work, his songs land blissfully amid REX ORANGE COUNTY and BROCKHAMPTON territory. There are occasional twinges of gospel like in the recent Demos: Vol 1 EP that is driven by a cool, stripped back tempo. Earlier songs Heartbreaker and Cold Feet marry an addictive beat to sunny synthesiser tones, happy enough to blast from your Cadillac on a summer road trip yet still a solid contender for the break-up playlist. The kind of jab-in-the-chest lyrics that place perfectly in a teen rom-com soundtrack. No coincidence then, that he finds inspiration in the early ‘00s, a time when the movie tree was ripe with pop culture pickings like Legally Blonde. Multifaceted-music at its best.
Not only are the tunes versatile, their creator is too. Tayo Sound self-mastered his first samples from the four walls of a bedroom in Reading, where he lives, making the whole feat a DIY-nosedive into the industry. “I didn’t have any proper recording equipment until I was about 16, so I always used to record as a voice note through my phone. I often tried to replicate songs that I was into using GarageBand,” he says. Beyond this, 10-hour days of busking ensued until the artist could splash out on some professional software. To say those hours more than paid off is an understatement, as Sound birthed his newest audio brainchild into the world last Friday – music that’s been two years in the making. The Runaway EP is an easy-to-digest, amorous dessert “full of slow, happy bangers.” Expect more DOMINIC FIKE-esque vocals with the same nostalgic pop dose his prior tunes have you craving. Who else could make you feel so peppy about a relationship falling to pieces?
Courtesy of @tayosound
Alice May Stenson: What’s the best comfort food for when you’re heartbroken?
Tayo Sound: Ben and Jerry's Phish Food.
AMS: If you could time travel, where would you go?
TS: That’s a great question. I might go back to when they built the pyramids to find out how they actually built them or I'd go and meet my great-grandfather at the point when he was leaving Nigeria. He was like 14 and made some mad journey on a ship so I'd probably go and chill with him.
AMS: Okay, I’m letting you choose three headliners for a fantasy music festival – they can be dead or alive – who are your picks?
TS: Bill Withers, Avicii and Vance Joy because I'm loving him at the moment.
AMS: Would you rather read minds or predict the future?
TS: Read minds!
AMS: Which fictional character would you take on a date?
TS: Lola Bunny.
AMS: Most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?
TS: Not necessarily the most embarrassing, but definitely one of the most recent. A year ago, I was at a doctor’s appointment and the guy that I was seeing had a super strong accent. South Africa had just won the Rugby World Cup and I was so certain that this guy was South African that when he was walking me out, in the waiting room in front of everyone, I was like ‘Congrats on winning the World Cup!’ He just looked at me all confused… turns out he was actually German. I could feel everyone in the waiting room staring at me.
AMS: What has lockdown 3.0 taught you?
TS: To get on with it.
AMS: Why are there anthropomorphic space monkeys on your album artwork?
TS: It's a long story. Eventually I'll reveal the full concept behind the Space Monkey but right now we don't have time.
AMS: Can you name your favourite music-related memory?
TS: I played a show in Brighton in 2019, that was a lot of fun.
AMS: You can only wear one outfit for eternity. What does it look like?
TS: It's black. Black top, black jeans, black shoes.
AMS: What does love mean to you?
TS: I'm still figuring that one out.