Mustard had the pleasure of speaking with Vancouver’s Dayton King. Together we discussed being born into royalty, their musical inspirations, mental health, and their newest single “Take Me Away.”
1. Mustard would like to thank you for joining them. How are you doing today?
Thank you so much for having me, I’m doing great today!
2. You are a King. Could you share with the readers how you came to power? What are some policies you have in place within your kingdom?
Yes, I am a King and I came to this immense power from being born to a mother with the last name King. The number 1 policy I have in my kingdom is mandatory consumption of my music.
3. What song or album inspired you to want to make music?
The album Igor by Tyler, the Creator was definitely the main catalyst that made me start making music. That album has had such a huge impact on me, especially around the time it came out and I’m always just striving to make something that can impact someone else in the same way it has impacted me.
4. Who or what influences you?
I try to consume as much music as possible so I have inspirations from all across the board, but right now some of my biggest inspirations are people like Injury Reserve and jpegmafia as well as Lingua Ignota and Black Country, New Road.
5. Mustard wonders what is your creative process?
It’s kinda just all over the place but usually, I’ll just think about some concept and then think to myself “if this feeling/concept was personified how would it sound” and then I just try to create an instrumental that represents that. Then after that, I write the lyrics and record it and do all that fun stuff.
6. Mental Health is a motif throughout your music. How does songwriting and making music help you with your own mental health? What do you like to do to help keep the negative thoughts away?
Songwriting is just the easiest way for me to express how I’m feeling and especially over the past 2 years I’ve been struggling a lot with my mental health and just trying to learn how to be content with life so that’s why mental health has been a big motif for my music and I can assure you that that’s probably not changing anytime soon. One of the main ways I try to get rid of some of my negative thoughts is by going to therapy, I know therapy can be really expensive and inaccessible for lots of people and I wish that wasn’t the case because I recommend therapy for everyone, it has genuinely saved my life.
7. In 2020 you released “The Apple in the Orchard.” Could you share more about this release? What inspired the concept?
Lots of my music around the time that I started making that album had to do with people in my life like my family and initially, I wanted to make a song called The Apple and the Tree that was going to be about my relationship with my family and that went on to become the first song on this album but I kind of just started playing with apple metaphors and then getting a little too lost in it and coming up with an entire concept for an album. Basically, the story of that album is that there’s this person who starts making music because they’re really lonely and the first song that they make is about their dead grandmother and the song makes them famous, and then basically every song after that song which is called Granny Smith is about them feeling like they’re taking advantage of people and specifically taking advantage and profiting off of their grandmother’s death and that’s kind of the general gist of it.
8. A year you released your sophomore album “Masculine Deficiency” that tackles identity and learning to love yourself. It ends with “U Are Worth it.” What are some ways you remind yourself of that? Do you recommend other humans try to love themselves too?
I have mixed feelings about that album. I was in a very tough place mentally while making it, I had just been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, I had just quit my job so that I could try and help my mental health and so while making this album I tried to challenge myself to make it uplifting by the end, however looking back on it I don’t particularly like it because I’m always trying to be as honest as possible in my music and I just was not happy with myself at the time and so looking back at it I feel like it was dishonest for me to make a song like U Are Worth It. Now that being said obviously I’m not saying you can’t be happy at all, you totally can but I think it’s also valid to just not be happy and I don’t think that you should stress about being happy the same way that I used to stress over being happy. So really the best advice I have is to just validate your own feelings, whether those are bad, whether they’re good. I think not demonizing my own feelings has been the best thing that has helped me over the past little while.
9. You just recently released “Take Me Away.” Could you share more about this single? What can readers and fans expect with Take Me Away?
This is the first single off of my next album. It’s kind of a big departure in sound for me, going for a more experimental sound with just heavy distortion on everything. The song is about this idea of belonging somewhere and how terrifying that can be, specifically in the song I’m talking about how the only place I feel like I’m meant to be is dead, it’s very grim but in the context of the album, it’ll make a lot more sense.
10. What’s next for Dayton King?
I got a lot of exciting things coming up. I got a music video for my song “Take Me Away” coming out Friday, Sept. 23rd. I’m also busy at work on finishing up my next album and there will be a new single in the next month or two and just a lot of content in general that I’ll be releasing. So now is a better time than ever to keep up with my career.
11. Where can readers listen to your music?
You can look up Dayton King wherever you get your music or go to my linktree to find all the links you need https://linktr.ee/dayton_king
Music Shelf With Mustard 