Mustard had the pleasure of speaking with Brooklyn’s Eevie Echoes. Together we had the pleasure of speaking about their Twitter, their influences, their recent cover of “Beat it” on “Songs for Moms Volume 2”, and their latest single “I JUST WANNA PEE” that recently debuted on BeardedGentlemenMusic. Check out the interview below!
1. Mustard would like to thank you for joining them! How are you doing today?
With the current state of the world, I’ve definitely been better but I’m trying to stay positive and hopeful despite everything. I appreciate you taking the time to learn a little bit about little old me.
2. You’re a professional complainer. Occasionally inspirational. Mustard is curious about this dichotomy. Is there an equal balance? Or does one outweigh the other?
That’s a good question. I think the dichotomy shifts from time to time. I definitely tend to harp on the negatives and engage in doomer mentality a bit which is admittedly a character flaw of mine, but I try to find reasons to keep fighting for a better future and look on the bright side. In my songwriting, you’ll see more of that dichotomy in future releases.
3. Who (or what) influences you?
Lots of different bands I listen to and love but lyrically I’m heavily inspired by the things that I’ve experienced. I have a saying that there are “no bad experiences just more songwriting material” and in my case, I think it rings true. I pull a lot of songwriting material from situations I’ve been, things I’m feeling in the moment, or relationships with people and it helps me process things. Songwriting and making music are really therapeutic and cathartic for me. Some bands that I take a lot of sonic influence from would include Against Me, twenty one pilots, RATM, Nirvana, pre-MANIA Fall Out Boy, Green Day, early Blink 182, the Lovely Little Lonely album by The Maine, and a little dash of Sir Chloe in there too I think.
4. Mustard loved your cover of “Beat It” on Songs For Moms Volume 2. How did you choose this song? What inspired it? How was it like working with Tape Girl?
Thank you so much! So funny story about that it was originally supposed to be a full band production where I had some drop D riffs and a really killer ska/metal fusion breakdown (I still have voice memos of how I imagined it would go) and I planned out a really killer Tom Morello-y style solo but then I had mic trouble. So backstory, my
at-home studio setup is really rudimentary and before the last couple of months I was using one condenser mic for all my recording and it suddenly just shat out on me midway through recording so I was trying to finish the cover with some spare drum mics I had that I really didn’t love. But I couldn’t figure out the new setup and I was having tons of latency issues so I ultimately scrapped like a month’s work and the deadline was in a week so I panic texted Chris and I’m like HEY CAN THE COVER BE ACOUSTIC and explained my situation and he was basically like yeah whatever you need it to be just make sure you can get it done by the deadline so I made an acoustic cover. I have to say I’m really happy with how it all came together. I picked the song Beat It because my mom is a big fan of the Jackson 5 and I grew up listening to a lot of Michael Jackson because she really likes his work so I thought it would be a great pick. Working with Tape Girl was really great! Beth is really sweet and she’s mixed work for me before (she mixed my song estradiol) so I was really excited when she said she’d like to mix my cover and I couldn’t be happier with it.
5. What is your creative process?
It’s really hard to dictate because every song is different and has a life of its own. I usually get song ideas and riffs that just pop into my head when I’m on the subway to work or something but it’s almost always on the train and nowhere near my guitars that I get creative ideas. Some songs pop into my head fully formed and recording is just about translating the song in my noggin to recorded sounds but some songs take a long time to fully get together. I don’t want to spoil too much about the upcoming album but the first track 24 (The Growing Pains of Capitalism) popped into my head completely formed when I was on my way home from work and the opening riff was really inspired by Rebecca off Against Me’s Shape Shift With Me album. Other songs like Odd Man Out, the closer on the album, took a few months of rest between songwriting before I felt fully satisfied with the lyrics and arrangement of the song. But no spoilers yet I’ll you tell more about the album when it’s closer to release. Generally speaking, I approach songwriting lyrics first, kind of like a poem and then I add music to it later.
6. Your first EP “Notes of a Mad Trans Woman” celebrates your discovery and was recorded during quarantine. Could you share more about this EP? Will “Diary of a Mad Trans Woman” be an EP or a full length?
Wow a deep cut! Mustard certainly did their homework. I originally envisioned “notes from a mad trans woman” as “diary of a mad trans woman” and it was supposed to be a 5 song EP with the tracks Man Up! being the second track and Authenticity being the 4th track. Authenticity is a blues-rock kinda jam and Man Up is a hardcore track more along the lines of my new single I JUST WANNA PEE. I had recording issues with that release and lost all the audio files from Authenticity and Man Up because Logic corrupted my files (thanks Logic very cool) and I was so distraught over my months of work being lost that I just continued with the songs I was able to salvage. Diary will definitely be released at some point after Wallflower and I think it might be a long EP or a short album (depending on how you classify) maybe 7-8 tracks and I want to add a few more songs for context because I’m much further along with my transition now than I was when I wrote Notes. I would love to do an alternative version of womanly for Diary and base it more on the way that I perform it live because live the song takes on a totally different energy and it’s my closing track for all my shows.
7. Mustard enjoys your Twitter feed. Who are some accounts you recommend readers follow? Is Twitter your preferred social media platform?
Thank you! I use Twitter as my public diary and I just talk about whatever comes to mind. Twitter has definitely become my preferred platform for talking shit and chatting with folks but I feel like my Instagram is more “professional musician” oriented and more representative of my music. There are longer videos from live shows on there that don’t translate to Twitter because I can’t post longer than a minute of footage. I would highly recommend people follow @oncloud_e because she’s really funny and she posts pretty out-of-pocket tweets that I enjoy.
8. Mustard wonders what you think humans can do to become more open-minded and empathetic?
I appreciate that Mustard is so thoughtful and informed on the ways that humans interact. I think the main thing is to lead with love and check our own egos. There are ways to be kind and cordial to people even if you don’t like the things that they do or like the way that they are living their lives. You don’t have to understand a person’s life to respect the fact that it’s their life and they can live it however they please. I think coming to that realization is what taught me to be more open-minded. I maintain though that if their behavior is benign it’s not my business or my place to judge but if they are hurting someone then there are grounds to intervene. As a society, I think it’s also important to celebrate differences and recognize that variation doesn’t make us weak it makes us human. Biologically speaking, If we were all the same and shared the same genetics, we’d all die because a virus that makes one of us sick would wipe out all of us. Diversity is the key to what makes humans human in my opinion and being open-minded is as simple as recognizing “this isn’t my business and everyone’s experiences and lives are different, it’s not my place to judge”. I don’t comprehend how Mustard is a sentient condiment but I respect Mustard and appreciate the work that they do regardless.
9.You allowed Mustard to preview your latest single “I Just Want To Pee.” They are slowly recovering from it. Could you share the inspiration behind this?
I’m so glad they enjoyed it and I hope that they have a quick and speedy recovery. The sonic inspiration behind the new single is the band G.L.O.S.S. a trans punk band out of Olympia that dropped two incredible EPs and then broke up. Their tracks Trans Day Of Revenge and Masculine Artifice are two songs that I took a lot of inspiration from and they’re my favorites from their discography. Lyrically the song is very serious and talks about the unfounded fear that some cis women have about trans women using the same public restrooms. There’s a lot of fear and discrimination against trans women that is really pedaled by conservative talking heads who stoke the fires of ignorance and make people like me out to be depraved rapists and make women like myself appear to be a threat. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m usually terrified to use the women’s in public regardless of how feminine I might look that day because part of me is scared that my peeing noises will out me to a cis woman in the next stall. I don’t talk or make eye contact when I’m in the women’s restroom because I think I might be “clocked” by someone and they might assault me or call the police on me. These are very real fears that I have to be concerned about because I recognize that as a trans individual there’s a lot of stigma and hate directed at me because of the misinformation spread by people who don’t know better. The song is an anthem of frustration with the stigma and the misinformation and just a declaration that I just want to be able to pee in peace.
10. Do you have any upcoming projects?
Yes! As I mentioned earlier, I am in the process of working on my debut album. It’s called The Cons Of Being A Wallflower and I’m hoping to drop a single off of it before the end of 2022. The album will be 10 tracks long and it’s a very loosely tied together concept album with a recurring theme of growth, finding your place in the world, battling social anxiety post quarantine, and, reinventing yourself. There are a lot of cool philosophical aspects to the album lyrically that I think a lot of people can relate to and/or interpret in different ways.
11. Where can readers listen to your music? Do you have a preferred streaming platform?
Readers can listen on all streaming platforms. Distrokid is really great for getting all the obscure ones too so even Deezer fans can get in on the tunes. I don’t necessarily have a preferred streaming platform just wherever you get your tunes is cool with me! I hope you enjoy I JUST WANNA PEE and keep your ears peeled for some Wallflower content soon-ish. Thanks, Mustard and their human intern for the opportunity, you both have been so kind and rad.
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