TAI VERDES: HIGH ON MUSIC

BY DENISE MALLABO

TAI VERDES, a singer-songwriter, is one of many who rose in the midst of a global pandemic, and we couldn't be more grateful.

“Sorry for that siren. "That's how you know I'm in New York," musician Tai Verdes says over a Zoom chat for this interview. He was recently on The Late Late Show with James Corden, where he performed his latest track "Two Sugars" for the first time. To say Tai is creating waves would be an understatement. The man just understands that he must strike while the iron is hot. It also helps that he is incredibly tech savvy and understands how to use the internet to his advantage.

FASHION STYLING: OTHTHSAN BURNSIDE, GROOMING: PATRICK SANTA ANA, PRODUCER: LOUISE BARRETTO, PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: MERYL PESTANO

It was certainly difficult to start something in the midst of a global pandemic, but Tai's music was in the right place and at the right time. Tai went viral while others were stuck. “I have a pretty positive outlook and I'm not really going to stop. I'm like ‘shit! This is a small business; we're trying to stay in business over here.’ I can figure out how to market myself and move forward. You only live one time so I was just trying to do what I do,” share Tai. Who would have imagined that after working a 9 to 5 job, he'd be playing at music festivals, talk shows, and in the middle of a tour performing in front of thousands of people? The 26-year-old tried his hand at many different things. With a height of 6'7, he was a basketball player in college, a model, a stand-up comedian, and he participated in reality TV shows, but it was during his time in music that he really stood out. “I think people would say that ‘Hey, did you have a light bulb moment?’ I more had moments of ‘this is what I don't want to do’ like I don't want to work in a 9 to 5 job. I don't want to be a model, because I was a Nike model and I didn't want to do it. I don't want to be a reality TV star; I didn't really want to do that,” says Tai. “I always loved music. Playing music. I didn't realize that it's career that could happen until I went on the medium that I loved. I was always still pursuing it. I was doing all those things at the same time but then I just focused on one, so that's where I'm at right now,” he continues.

He released his first album TV in 2021, featuring the song "Stuck in the Middle," which catapulted him to viral fame, and he hasn't looked back since. He just kept going by increasing his online visibility and releasing songs from this 13-track album. As previously said, he performed a new single off his just released new album HDTV, and he will also be touring this September with 20+ concerts in the US and overseas. When asked about his touring and experience, he had this to say. “It feels great. It's so much fun to going to places and I think, seeing the world is so cool. It gives me perspective on what people are going through and how they're receiving my music.” Continue reading as Tai discusses with A BOOK OF the power of the internet, HDTV, and dealing with feedback in general.

Tiktok is one of the platforms that helped people learn about you and your music. What effect has your success had on your life?

It just changed my life in a way with what my career is doing. I've always had this passion to move forward, innovatively marketing wise. Not that I was successful in the beginning but I was on Facebook, trying to push things on Facebook. Then I was on Youtube, I saw Justin Bieber from Youtube became Justin Bieber. When I was on Vine, I saw Shawn Mendez on Vine became Shawn Mendez. Then I was on Snapchat when DJ Khalid on Snapchat became DJ Khalid. This marketing that people are seeing is not new.

Specifically? What changed my life was just my passion for innovating with marketing. I don't care what happens next to Tiktok because I'm going to move on to the next thing just like Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendez, and DJ Khalid, they moved on to the next things. What also changed is that my company is bigger now. I think of every artist as a business. There's a lot of artists that don't think of artistry as a business, that's why longevity wise, it's hard for them to move forward. That's just me speaking for me but also, I don't really take lightly the creative impact that creative direction has on an artist. When I study the great people in artistry right now when you think of Tyler the Creator or Drake or Taylor Swift, those people are having meetings wherein they're trying to connect the album art to the music videos, to the visuals, to the photo shoots to find their eras. If you're not defining your eras as an artist, it's hard for you to separate yourself and the best part about it is that nobody knows. It's so easy for me to run circles around these people because they're not trying. The only reason why I'm so confident because every artist thinks they're too special to have a business meeting about their creatives. Everyone's like "oh, I'm so misunderstood, you can't understand what's happening with me." But in reality, are you more misunderstood than Kanye? Because Kanye West has a creative director, Tyler the Creator has a creative director so I don't really think of people trying to understand my vision. I think of it all as business meetings, how can we pull this all together and produce things?

Social media is clearly a powerful tool. Do you find it challenging to maneuver at times?

No. That's why it's fun for me to do it. I don't complain about attention. I think a lot of people are like "Why isn't people listening to my music? Why aren't they buying my stuff?" I'm not a fan of anyone. The only people that I'm a fan of would be Kanye West and Childish Gambino, and Andre 3000. But other than that, there's a select few that can get me to say anything because even then, I'm still coming for them.

From marketing your music on the streets and social media, to performing on huge stages. What is it about performing that you find most enjoyable?

Just being able to go to places and sing songs to people. It's a community, it's providing escapism to people. It's great.

How do you handle negative feedbacks?

I don't think that feedback in general is real. Positive feedback? Fuck that too. People who are super fans of my music, they are like "oh, I can't wait to hear more music," I'm like "cool." But I'm not really making it for you, I'm making it for myself. It becomes negative feedback when you try to make stuff for other people. I know what I made for this next album, it's amazing because I like it.

What were your expectations when you released TV, were you able to meet them?

I don't keep expectations. I really don't. I think the only expectations I had was that I wanted to be nominated for Best New Artist in the next seven years or something like that, and that's a long game play. But I don't have any expectations. I was just like "okay, things are going up" that's all I need to know, that things are going up.

Congratulations on the release of HDTV. Aside from it being high definition, music wise, what has changed from this album to the songs in TV?

I think it's just more production. I'm a producer. That's the biggest thing for me, making sure that my production fingerprints are all over this like how I make songs, the ones that make you feel something. Hopefully, the ones that make me feel something. I think it feels sweet when you listen to it.

What made you decide to shoot your music video of “How Deep?” In Australia?

Because recently I'm becoming even more invested in the amount of creative control that I have over everything. Before, I would wait for other people to “OK” the ideas, but in reality, I'm making all the ideas; investing in all creative directions. I think I have one of the best creative directors of all time on my team. When I do have that arsenal of somebody who can produce something or edit something, why would I not flex that on people? Just to say that "hey, I have that kind of idea and execute it like this and you can't do this." And that's why I wanted to do all my stuff; I just want to flex my artistic muscle.

One of your earlier performances would be in Lollapalooza. How does it feel to perform your songs for fans there?

It was me realizing that I needed to get their likeness. it was just like a data point for me. What do I need to work on? Is this fun for me? And it was fun for me and I think that I worked on it so hard to where now I've been a vocalist for two years now, I've been putting live instrumentation on my shows, like me playing the instruments as well. I'm just making it as good as possible. Was I nervous for the first time? Yeah but preparation makes me least nervous. Now that I've gone to a certain point where the show I can do is at the back of my hand, it's time to put the new songs in and make myself nervous again.

What advise do you have for musicians that wish to launch their careers like you?

That nobody cares about you. Stop making it about yourself. Stop giving yourself a two-year runway. You should give yourself a 40-year runway. Use the internet. The internet is the only thing that's going to make you different than everybody else. Try to care about every aspect, not just the songs. Everybody is trying to be like "I guess if I want to be an artist, I have to do photo shoots and care about the cover art" YEAH! You do. You know why? Because if you do not, you're just a glorified songwriter and a lot of artists these days are glorified songwriters and we don't want to talk about it but they are. They don't want to do the whole art piece, they just want to write songs, okay, that's cool. If you see Kanye build a house in the stadium and you think your music deserves to be listened to, when you don't even care about the cover art of your next single, then that's why he's up there and you're down there. You can talk about budget all you want but budget doesn't matter. Tyler the Creator ate a bug in a room, that doesn't cost anything, it just cost imagination. Do something different or do something the same. Just do something. Stop complaining.

Have you read a good book lately? If you were a book, what kind of a book would you be and why?

I just read the internet all the time. Twitter is my book.

I think the first book that I read was Outliers, the 10,000-hour rule. I think every artist can be the best artist in the world if they put the time in and whatever task that they want--if they put the time in on production, singing and all that. That's my favorite book. Malcolm Gladwell, kill it.