N33T On the Making Of “insecure”
What was the creative process like for “insecure?”
“Insecure” was initially written over two years ago in June 2022 and is one of the few songs I've written that has gone through several very distinct versions. Its initial version most closely resembles the one that ended up on the album but it involved me completely deconstructing the original and rebuilding it from scratch, as I ended up falling out of love with its original form and needed to breathe a new life into it for my own sake.
In addition, there was a brief moment where the track was this almost folktronica-style ballad, vaguely inspired by Phoebe Bridgers, but that direction ended up being scrapped as I felt the song was more compelling and exciting to me in a pop format.
All these prior iterations of the track heavily informed the final direction of the track, and recontextualizing the song in different styles and genres helped me internalize the core of what this track was to me.
Was there any challenge that you encountered while making "insecure?"
The key challenge with “Insecure” is similar to the challenges I experience with the rest of the album; I couldn’t sing (not very well, at least) I still don’t believe I’m a particularly proficient singer or lyricist by any means, but I, at the very best, understand how to use my voice and words in a way that I view as serviceable to my art. The 3-year process of writing this album has essentially been a self-taught lesson in writing and performing pop music from my foundation as an electronic music artist. So, the initial vocal performances to most of the songs on the album were pretty bad, including on ‘Insecure’, and honestly the only way I overcame this was by singing more. there wasn’t really much else to it outside of a brief period where I took vocal lessons as a part of my university course.
The lyric writing had also proven to be a difficult hurdle, especially with this song. There was a year and a half-long period where the first verse was missing, simply because I couldn’t write anything that felt right for the song. Only after revisiting and remaking the song, its new context helped shift my perspective and I ended up getting it done in a couple of hours.
I’ve since been able to speed up my writing process slightly but I still consider myself an incredibly slow lyricist 💔
How do you feel this track represents your artistic identity and fits into the album as a whole?
I see this whole album almost as a coming-of-age movie, as corny as I’m aware that sounds. I view this album as one written by a 17-year-old who romanticized their own mental health issues and then revised slightly in post by a mildly less mentally ill 19-year-old. So the entire project is embedded in this transitional period of adulthood that I've always associated with coming-of-age media. In viewing the album from that perspective, Insecure functions as the celebratory credits roll/epilogue, at least sonically. The 8th note synth bass, the ‘dad rock’ esque guitar riffs, and the closing guitar solo (performed by ‘D’art-’) just feel so cinematic and exciting in a way I find really cute. They give it this almost endearingly cheesy finality that to me feels deeply reminiscent of ’80s music and coming-of-age films (in some vague sense). It felt perfect for an album about a teenager dramatizing their life and treating it like a movie. I don’t know, I think it’s kinda cute and campy.
It ties together this era of my art and, in isolation, this album. It was important to me to keep this project truthful to my former self and to give myself the closure of finishing this album after 3 years. With Insecure being the closing track, I strongly associate it with the conclusion of that part of my life and it’s provided me with a point to evolve from artistically.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started in music?
My initial love for music was found in dubstep. My dad introduced me to artists like Skrillex and Knife Party at the age of 10, and that became my whole world. Then, after being introduced to Soundcloud at the age of 12, the chemistry of my tiny twelve-year-old brain was permanently changed. I got super obsessed with nightcore music and artists like The Living Tombstone and Panda Eyes. I remember I found a reupload of what I had later found out was a Living Tombstone song on Soundcloud. Not realizing the person who re-uploaded it hadn’t made the song I asked the uploader how he had made that song? He told me he had made the song with FL Studio. Happily unaware that I had been made a fool, I asked my father for FL studio as it was my birthday. After generously being gifted a copy of FL Studio, I stuck to making electronic music for the first 5 years of making music.
I don’t really remember exactly why I initially shifted to pop/vocal-centric music but it was likely due to the release of Porter Robinson’s album ‘Nurture’ (which continues to be my favorite album to date) in addition to discovering more music outside of my electronic niche. I also found myself in the online/underground hyperpop and alternative pop scenes at a similar time in the early 2020s and it completely shifted my perspective on the music I wanted to make and what I regularly listened to. I think that scene particularly struck me during this transition as it was filled with artists in a similar position to me; people who started in electronic and shifted to more vocal-centric music. As a genre, it was the perfect middle ground between those two worlds.
I’ve tended to follow any creative path that excites me at that given moment, and since then I’ve really found my voice in more pop-adjacent music and I don’t really see a future where I'm not primarily singing my own songs, even if the music behind it changes completely.
How do you stay inspired and motivated to continue pushing boundaries in your art?
I’ve always admired artists who have distinct eras and sounds from project to project, I think sometimes there’s a tendency for artists to fall into a niche and stick to a singular sound, whether it be to appease a fanbase, personal burnout, or some mysterious third thing and I really don’t think that’s fertile ground for creativity. It’s important to leave room to evolve, change, and grow as an artist. The artists I admire most always follow what excites them unapologetically and aim to reinvent themselves with every given project. it’s a creative philosophy I’ve often found myself trying to emulate, even if not super consciously.
I also think listening to and discovering new music plays into my personal desire to try new things and experiment with aesthetics and sound. I hold the belief that we live in a relatively post-genre world musically, and that’s an incredibly exciting thing to explore and play with. Viewing my own art outside of the context of genre and the conventions that come with it has been really liberating artistically, and I'm far from the only one who shares this sentiment. I think there's something to be appreciated and learned from with any music. I don’t really believe limiting yourself to the conventions of any given sound or genre is particularly fruitful within the context of creativity and I've always admired artists who continue to play with those conventions and blur those lines.
Despite how easy it is to be nihilistic about certain aspects of the music industry, we live in a super exciting time for music and innovation, and the prospect of being even a small part of that is what really keeps me motivated and excited about creating my own art!