BRISTON MARONEY
Hot off the release of his latest single “Freeway” and its accompanying Tarantino-esque music video, Briston Maroney is showing no signs of slowing down. The Nashville artist continues to hone in his raw, gritty sound: the sound we’ve all been falling in love with from his 2018 release “Freakin’ Out on the Interstate” to now. Maroney is set to put out his debut album in March, off of which he’s already released singles “Deep Sea Diver” in August and “Freeway” last week. In this interview, he talks about what we can expect from this LP and how he hopes to use his platform to uplift other voices.
INTERVIEW
Interview by Bridgette
October 28, 2020
Today I’m sitting down with Briston Maroney! Thanks for being here!
Thank you for having me!
Where are you joining us from?
I am now in my bedroom in my house which is in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve been back for a couple of months now.
Right, with everything going on. I know you’ve been busy for the past couple of months; congrats on the releases of “Freeway” on Friday and “Deep Sea Diver” back in August!
Woo! Thank you so much!
Yeah! “Freeway” just dropped on Friday which is awesome. I love the Tarantino-esque video for it. What was the inspiration behind that?
Thank you! That was one where Joey, the director, and I spent a lot of time living in the headspace of what are our limitations and what can we do that’s eventually going to make us just crumble physically, as far as pushing ourselves. (Laughs) This was another video where we were like why don’t we do something insane and see if we can find a new limit. So we took a cross country roadtrip, which was the safest I have felt during the pandemic, funny enough, because we were never around anybody. We went up to Maine and ran around in the woods and the beach, and everywhere remote, and really kind of lost our minds for a week or two. So the edit of that video certainly captures how insane it felt to not stop shooting for ten days straight and just connect with the song that’s kind of silly, but really sincere about acknowledging how crazy the feelings that song is about are. So I feel like the video connects with that really well.
Yeah, for sure! You definitely get the sense of that energy and momentum, which I love.
Aw, thank you!
When you put out “Deep Sea Diver”, I know you mentioned it was the most fun you’ve ever had making a song. (Laughs) What was the process like?
The process for the song or video?
Well, for both honestly, because the video is also really cool!
Thank you! I mean, it was a similar process. This whole record really has felt like a lot of me finding limits and finding where I’m comfortable spilling it all out, emotionally. So yeah, with “Deep Sea Diver” there was just a lot of really leaning into ideas and feelings and being a certain kind of person for each song. “Deep Sea Diver” was definitely me leaning into being the 21-year-old angsty boy with a guitar and embracing that really hard, and trying to find some levity and some other silly feelings that feel really real when you’re 20 or 21 experiencing them. So yeah, we wrote that one out in California with Dan Wilson. We hung out. It was a very pretty day (laughs) it was a good time.
(Laughs) I can definitely see that. It feels really personal listening to it and a lot like a sort of coming of age. More specifically, what was the inspiration behind it lyrically?
I finally had my rock documentary moment: I was in LA and I’d been writing for two weeks and just couldn’t get anything— a pile of paper by the trash can kind of scene. It was my last day and I was going to go write with Dan, and I just woke up and finally had the moment where I had the lyrics in my head and I was like “I don’t know what this is but we’ll see what happens.” I ended up going to Dan’s house and showing him the first verse, and we didn’t have a chorus. In his little songwriting room, his daughter had painted a picture of a scuba diver and it hit me really, really hard. Immediately, I was like, “dude, we have to give some props to how awesome this painting is,” and it just fit in perfectly with this idea. It was a really cartoony kind of painting— I really loved the idea of deep sea diver being in a very serious, tense position where there's a lot of pressure in every way, but then how cartoony the painting was, relating to how silly a lot of the things we worry about are.
I love that! That’s such a cool juxtaposition of a very serious role drawn by a kid in a very cartoony way. That’s an awesome visual. You’re talking about your writing process and I’m sure it’s changed with everything going on. How exactly have you had to adapt to the past several months of change happening?
Dude, it’s been a really insane thing. (Laughs) It’s been a really ridiculous crazy thing where some days I feel like I’m having this midnight fever, up all night, striking gold every time I put the pen to the paper— this insane romanticized thing. And there are other days where I’m like “I don’t know why anyone would want to hear my perspective about anything.” So it’s been a really interesting up and down of just re-prioritizing what songs are to me, and how delicate it is and not to be taken for granted that a song can be a proclamation of how you feel. I mean, it’s a crazy time as far as social change goes, and I’ve struggled a lot with looking at the songs I write and how often songwriting is a cathartic thing for me, not to sound too cliché. But we are in a time where I don't know if my story is the most important story that needs to be told. I have had to figure out ways to still love the side of myself that writes songs and wants to share these stories, but try to tap into the best ways to use these stories just to connect with other people and let them be pedestals to let other people tell their stories. I don’t think the world entirely needs me, Briston Maroney, graduating from Knoxville Catholic High School saying that life is hard. (Laughs) I think that there’s a lot that needs to be said in other ways, but I want to be able to help people tell their stories.
I like that self awareness and acknowledgement of the bigger picture, and I agree if these past few months have done anything, they’ve renewed that consciousness. Though I love to hear that these songs come from a very deep place inside of you. How have you been staying inspired? Are there things that you’ve been listening to or seeing that have been inspiring you?
Yes, for sure! I have been doing a lot of really silly, dumb things that I love to do. I’m in a relationship that is very happy, so that’s good. I’ve been very inspired there. I have re-fallen in love with doing shit that I did when I was 12. Like right when we got on the Zoom, I was walking through my neighborhood, which is what I do all the time now. I‘ll just let myself stop and play with an anthill for an hour if I want to do that (laughs), just like letting myself have fun and try to see the beauty within day-to-day life right now. I love the outdoors a lot, so I spend a lot of time out there. I’m always inspired by a camping trip or just hiking with my friends or something like that.
We can definitely see that love for nature in your videos, so that’s awesome to hear. It’s also been really cool to see the resurgence of “Freakin’ Out On The Interstate,” since it originally came out back in 2018. Now it’s really blown up, which is awesome. Did you expect that at all?
Thank you for saying that! Yeah, I feel like “cool” is a really gentle way to put it. It’s been terrifying to see (laughs) this happening. It’s definitely made me reconsider if I know anything about life at all. Literally all because of TikTok this has occurred (laughs) it’s insane! It blows my mind— I don’t get it at all. It feels like a joke. Sometimes I slip up and look at my Spotify numbers, which I don’t think is the right thing to do for your brain or for making music, but I’ll look at the number of streams that song is getting and I’m like dude, whaaat? Are you kidding me? (Laughs) Why on Earth are people giving me their time? But it’s been awesome! I’m super stoked and I can’t wait to play that song when we hit the road again, whenever we can do that, to see the reach of how many people have heard it now. It sets it up for some cool moments, when everyone can be hanging out again.
Totally! I love how you’re saying it feels like a joke. Like you’re expecting to wake up and be like, just kidding! It was all fake!
100%, yeah. (Laughs)
But the reality is that it’s just a really awesome song, so congrats to you! You have a lot to be proud of. “Deep Sea Diver,” which came out in August, and “Freeway,” which just came out, are the first two singles off of the full album that’s coming in March of next year. What can we expect from that album?
Thank you! I just want it to be out. I’m like so ready. I was talking to my friend about this, and I said it out loud before I realized how much I meant it. I was like “Dude I just want this record to be out so I know whether or not people hate it. (Laughs) Like, I just want it to be there.” I would put it out today just to know if people are like “you suck, man.” I’m just so excited to share it. I’m so stoked to have time to develop a relationship with it, cause the more I look back on it, especially post-quarantine, it feels so much like a time capsule from where I was when I was 21: recording this first major label record, working with the dream producer, and going to LA to do these big things. I was terrified and fragile and just trying to be myself the whole time, and I think the record totally feels like my attempt to rise above these outside influences and be like, hey I’m still a person, I have very big dreams, but I am still just a kid that is less aware than ever of how I’m supposed to go through this. So yeah, I’m really stoked!
Well, we’re really looking forward to that! Thank you so much for coming in today and doing this interview!
Thank you for having me! This has been so fun.
This interview originally aired on WNYU Radio with Bridgette Kontner on October 28, 2020 on The New Afternoon Show at https://wnyu.org/archives/2020-11-11-the-new-afternoon-show