Going Rogue With Brittan Smith
By Mai Ly Hagan
Courtesy of the artist
In the music video to “Peach,” Brittan Smith’s latest single, the artist dances in the middle of a flower field, while he sings of opulence and decadence: “The angels talk about us too / Say that we found a new forbidden fruit / And they, well they'd like a taste.” This is the third release from Smith's upcoming EP Going Rogue, a project he’s been unveiling throughout the year. Through three tracks, we see Smith’s growth from the dark and techno inspired aesthetics of “Cyborg,” to the colorful rebellion of “Fiend,” and finally, the sweet orchard of “Peach.” I had the pleasure of meeting the man behind the music and hearing his own story, where we discussed life as a musician, identity and our shared anxieties about society.
Mai Ly Hagan: Welcome Brittan! To start, could you introduce yourself?
Brittan Smith: Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me. I'm a dark electro pop musician originally from Kansas but now I'm out in Los Angeles. In my music, I like to talk about the different things going on in my life. I'm really focused on telling stories in a way that is kind of fun, kind of a beat in a dark electronic way. I like pairing films with that and preparing any other art form that I can … so that's kind of me in a nutshell.
How does LA compare to Kansas?
Well, there are definitely things that are great about Kansas, like how there's a yin and a yang to everything. I feel like there are great aspects to California and being in Los Angeles, like it's very open. It's big, you can do whatever you want, and you can be whoever you want. While that's not as much the case in Kansas, there's also more of a community there, which allows you to be more interconnected. Everyone knows everyone a little more. In LA I feel like people aren't as open to connecting. So I would say that's the strongest difference between the two places. Still, I'm thankful that I grew up in Kansas. Having those roots is something I really appreciate. I feel like it made me understand people in a different kind of way.
[The move from Kansas to LA] was a sporadic decision. I had some friends that had moved out here and they kind of convinced me, so I came in and stayed on their couch for, like, six months. After that I lived in an artist's commune of sixty artistsー which is just as wild as it sounds. Life in LA was definitely an interesting transition, very contrary to the rigid life of Kansas. Moving here, I had to grow up fast. I had to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do - fast because, you know, rent is expensive and I had to make money. I really had to make up my mind, and up until that point, I hadn't had to make decisions. So yeah, it was a major change.
What impact did your upbringing have on your music now?
I grew up on country music, and, like, metal and rock. I think it really served me because, you know, I get to incorporate a lot of different styles. Personally, I'm drawn to electronic and EDM and stuff that's a little heavier and darker. But bringing in those rock elements and sometimes country has been a fun little experience. I have a lot of things to pull on, and that makes music a little more interesting.
Yeah, I’ve definitely noticed a glam rock aspect to your performance, which makes sense considering you’ve cited one of your idols as Bon Jovi. Who inspires your music?
Yeah, I was definitely a little obsessed with Bon Jovi. I think my key influences are obviously a little bit of rock from Bon Jovi, but I also loved Evanescence. I still adore Amy Lee to this day. I always try to bring in that emotion found in Lee’s singing and lyrics. I also love Linkin Park and Chester Bennington, Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin ... a lot of darker rock along with my pop influences, like Halsey, Ellie Goulding, and Lady Gaga, of course.
You also mentioned video games, fashion, and dance as some of your influences. What impact do these other art forms have on your music?
I love being able to play with, well, everything. I think fashion is definitely the way I used to express myself. Growing up in Kansas being a member of the LGBT+ community, I wasn't really able to fully express myself because I was growing up in a really conservative area. Obviously, things were very different than they are now. We weren't as progressive. So for me, fashion was the main way of expressing myself outside of music. I've also always escaped into film. Art is definitely a sanctuary where I felt like I could embrace myself and the oddities in the world. I’m a major fan of Hayao Miyazaki, movies like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle … all these films that made me feel like there's like this other world that you can live in.
Did you always know that you wanted to be a musician?
Since I was, like, eight years old. I was sitting in the car with my mom and I just turned to her and said “I want to be a rockstar.” Ever since then, that’s been the one dream that’s stuck with me, you know. I definitely had that phase where I was like, maybe I should be more realistic, like, just really focused on getting a stable job. But I guess that stable lifestyle was just not in the cards for me. I was like “I guess we'll do the hard thing and do music” and it paid off. It's been worth it to just get to go on the journey.
Seeing as live shows have been halted for a while, how has the pandemic impacted your career and performances?
Yeah, the pandemic absolutely changed everything. I mean, we all had plans in 2020, so it is what it is. My life was absolutely put on hold. Looking at the upside, I think it gave me time to sit down and question what kind of art I want to make? Like, what really impacts me? Before I felt like I was obligated to put out music as fast as possible. I was basically forced to sit and think, so I'm really thankful for that aspect of it.
My music became more introspective, I suppose. A lot of the songs are very much about being by yourself and kind of wanting to connect with the outer world. While I was working through the later songs on the EP, I started also looking for inspiration from outside myself. Like, I needed to go outside or meet people because, you know, there’s only so much inspiration you can get from just buoying yourself up. You need those other connections as well.
Let's talk about your upcoming EP, Going Rogue. So you've released three tracks for this EP already, so guide me through your vision for the rest of this project.
Yeah, so the title is Going Rogue and basically what I mean by that is, you know, behaving in ways which contradict societal norms. I view the rogue as a term as someone who has been punished or ostracized for crimes and treated negatively for it. Basically, I want to reclaim that title. Because I think another aspect to the rogue is that they’re someone who will simply act in their own way. So each song kind of embodies a different principle of rebellion.
The first track, “Cyborg,” is very much about fighting the system, not refusing to be numb, refusing to just kind of like tap out or just go into autopilot through life and really just try to live fully. I think that the easy thing is to go on autopilot, to just not really challenge the system and not challenge myself. I felt myself slipping into battle a little bit with quarantine, basically like staring at my wall drinking monster energy thinking, “what am I doing?” And I realized that this wasn’t how I wanted to live. So that was really the inspiration for Cyborg. Um, which one's next?
The next track, “Fiend,“ is about reclamation of self and being like whoever you want. I think an important quality is being able to support yourself, like being your own friend. It’s hard to cheer for yourself because people are often judged for it. So the message is basically, that people can judge away and it won’t affect me. At the end of the day, you can call me a fiend but whatever, I’m still myself.
Finally “Peach,” which is the single that just came out, it's probably the lightest of the releases. It’s about the sexual evolution of myself and kind of coming together with my queerness, framing this piece of myself as positive. Because I grew up thinking that my type of love is bad, thinking I was going to hell for loving someone else. I really wanted to remind people, including myself, that love can be good and kind.
There’s an interesting transition in your music videos from, like, very dark and technological imagery to natural and bright. Tell me more about the visual aspect of the music videos.
Yeah, I think the EP is definitely going through a journey. While I'm really drawn to dark and almost cyborg-like aesthetics, I want to challenge myself to have a range. I don't want to be put in a niche where I feel like I have to act a certain way. I think that happens to a lot of artists and they end up breaking from their original niche, most recently with Billie Eilish with becoming lighter both aesthetically and in her music, and that really reflects her growth. I think that artists should be allowed to have that range because, well, life has that range.
What was the process like behind making the music videos?
I loved the process behind making music videos. I worked with a really good friend, creative partner, and co-director Heather Ballish. Together we really are a power team. I'm just incredibly thankful for her. “Cyborg” was really fun, and definitely the biggest production. I had my own outfit designed and everything, like this custom body suit, that was my rockstar moment. But yeah, it is a very in depth process, and it involved plenty of troubleshooting. I’m an independent musician, and so are all the artists I work with, so it was nice to find that network in LA and work to make everything happen. A lot of thought went into the story and visuals of “Cyborg”. “Peach”, on the other hand, we just went out to a flower field. The concept was put together as we were doing it. So I was really just dancing in a field. Still it ended up becoming its own video with a storyline, which is cool. I'm really happy with how it turned out.
How did you meet Heather?
So we actually lived in an artist’s commune together. We just kind of met and we hit it off and we found a couple of earlier music videos together before doing like the EP music videos. When I first started releasing music, it wasn't the right people, and it was very stressful. I was on edge. So then getting to team up with people that you connect with and, like, “Oh my god, I'm having fun. I'm relaxing. I'm having fun and it's allowed to be like this.” I realized creating didn’t have to be stressful. Like, I didn’t have to be so stressed out all the time. Working with Heather, we’re just in sync, and it’s wonderful to have a creative partner like that.
Tell me more about the commune, it sounds very fascinating.
So here's how the commune happened. The person’s whose couch I was staying on got married, so I realized I needed to find a place. So I ended up staying at an artist’s commune. It was quite close knit, and everyone was really sweet, and of course everyone's doing something artistic. The commune grew to around 60 people, and you know how artists are … So you have like 60 people who are highly emotional, you know, all from different parts of the world and working through a lot of things. Plus, there's a lot of young people that are new in town and working through their own trauma. Basically, you have all of these people in this communal experience, while also trying to figure out who they are and how they're going to do what they want to do. If I could have recorded anything like that it would have been like a solid reality show. But it was really good for teaching me things … I met a lot of friends, even had my first relationship. Like, I'm so thankful for it, because some of those friends are my creative partners now, like Heather, or just people that have stayed in my life that I'm just super connected with. But it is a unique experience and I think you have to be a certain type of person. But if you're drawn to it and you want to meet like a community of artists, I say go for it.
What has it been like using technology to connect with your audience and other artists?
Yeah, I think it’s been a really interesting challenge. I don't actually love being on social media a lot. Like, it’s just not my thing. I really worked through that and started to share when I actually felt like it and wanted to, versus because I felt like I had to. That was like a healthy paradigm shift, I think that's made social media feel a lot more natural. Now I see a lot more people responding to my music and connecting on a personal level.
I have a lot of thoughts on social media and how it impacts society as a whole. I think there are obviously some negatives to social media. There’s this pressure to be a certain thing. I also think there’s this whole echo chamber of. like, only plugging into like, the same belief system as yourself or like, people who agree only like with certain points of view, and that leads to dangerously radical beliefs. At the same time, though, I think there are benefits. Like there is something very cool about TikTok in that people are sharing all their thoughts and it's very candid and open. It reminds me a bit of YouTube when I was growing up. I think it's so good to have all these different people sharing their experience and allowing people to connect. Social media served a lot of good for younger generations and myself. As someone who wasn’t really able to connect with my community, I was able to seek resources online and find people to look up to.
That's really sweet. You've also mentioned a lot about mental health, how do you approach these topics in your music?
I can literally talk forever about the state of mental health care and how we can change things, so that's kind of what I advocate for in music. I really, really believe that we are meant to live happier lives. We are meant to be at peace and to live and really just engage with our lives versus, like, being put in this system where you work forever. You work to keep up with everything, work to keep up with your bills, or keep up with your rent. I think there's just so many things that kind of dilute the human experience. In turn, I think that's why we see such a spike in like, depression, anxiety and a lot of other mental health tribulations is because there's so many things about life, they're so challenging. So I just want to challenge those paradigms. I think that you know, a lot of us, especially younger people are looking at the world being like, there's so many things we can do better. I think that hope paired with like intentionality will really lead to a better place and a better world.
Yeah, I’ve definitely noticed those themes. I feel like growing up now, it's like, you don't really have that same freedom that you’re promised. So, unless you’re born into privilege, you're kind of stuck in this system of, like, working nonstop just to stay alive.
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot that everyone is up against now, and just the way the system changed. Like, even if you want to go to college, there’s so many student loans and older generations don’t really get it. They say “Oh, you know, I worked a summer job and got along just fine.” Like, I worked three jobs in college and still needed scholarships. So I wanna say that “No, no, we're not a fair playing field. Like, we're not comparing apples to apples here. This is very different.” So I think, you know, being up against all those things, is such a challenge. But also, I love that younger generations are just saying “no, like, let's not do this anymore.” Like, no, let's change this. You don't have to do this, you can make your own art, start your own business, do your own thing. I feel like especially after COVID, everyone has switched mindsets, and we're realizing that this system doesn’t work for us. Like, I want a life I actually enjoy while I’m here.
What is your plan moving forward, with your EP and with yourself as a musician?
There’s two more songs coming out from “Going Rogue,” next one is a ballad. It’s about, ok this sounds dramatic but bear with me, not wanting to die alone. I think that was a fear a lot of us had at the beginning of the pandemic, that if the world were to end now I’d be ending it alone. I wrote that song literally walking around my neighborhood on the night LA shut down, it was the quietest I’d ever seen LA. So that’s coming out in August and I’ll have one final one that is about self emergence in the Fall.
I have ideas for the next project, but I also want to see where life goes. I’m trying to do a bunch of new changes, really switch things up and find new inspiration. So who knows, maybe I’ll do something crazy or even travel the world, if that’s possible. Whatever it is, I'm excited for sure.
Do you have any advice for young queer artists?
Well I can only speak from my experience, and that is constantly changing as I grow. The biggest thing is being your own advocate and being on your own side, that’s something that took me a really long time to learn. Being like, “Hey, I’m the one that’s in charge of my life and I get to make decisions for myself.” That was really a game changer for me, being able to make major changes like moving or switching jobs and really making decisions for my own happiness. I think that’s especially hard for people from the queer community ‘cause we’re up against a lot of things and sometimes the narratives of other people creep in and you start thinking, “Am I not good enough?” So I think being on your own side and being able to say, “Fuck off, I don’t give a shit. We’re fine. We’ve got this.” I think that’s been the biggest thing. ◆