Hadji Gaviota: The Interview
New York-based artist Hadji Gaviota's new album PURGATORY is out now. Catch his 8-song set at www.majorstages.com/virtualconcerts at 7 PM EST tonight.
Hadji Gaviota’s new album, PURGATORY, is out now, and he has a show tonight at http://www.majorstages.com/virtualconcerts at 7 PM EST. The Right Kind Of Brownies caught up with the recording artist in New York for an exclusive interview.
Follow Hadji Gaviota on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, Bandcamp, Discord, SoundCloud, and Audiomack.
What's your earliest memory of music?
I definitely grew up with pretty big music listener parents, not necessarily musical themselves. But, I remember driving with my dad in a Honda Accord. He used to have these cassette tapes that would have thirty different songs. The tapes had The Ramones and The Clash and stuff. I listened to a lot of old British punk rock and shit. I asked him to play a lot of that stuff in the car, some Green Day too.
When you were making Purgatory, did any of that influence the album?
I’m always trying to mix genres and play with different influences. On this album, a little bit. I actually mention The Clash in the first song. I was listening to a bunch of different stuff. Some songs were a year apart from each other when they were made.
How much of this album was made with live performance in mind?
I actually got the chance to play one of the songs live at my last show in New York. It was really fun to get to do that. That was Runner’s High.
We played a really cool rendition of it. For the live show, we did a totally different version of two of the songs. They came out really cool. We also played 1-800-PURGATORY completely live on the keys, which I’m really excited about also. That song is built for a live performance particularly.
What can fans expect from your upcoming concert?
We did a really cool job with the visuals, which I’m super excited about it. Shout out to all the videographers who helped me make videos for the albums in the first place. I ended up chopping them and making background videos for every song. We did a good job with that. You can hear totally different Telescope and Hot Air versions, which I’m really excited about it. You should be able to feel like you’re in the world of the album I created for one last time before I start working on the next stuff and start releasing the stuff I’ve got for this year. If people watch it, I also play one of my next singles that should be out later this year.
Have you ever thought about doing a live album?
I’ve never personally thought about that. I’ve never really listened to live albums too much. There are some particular songs that I like live, like Kanye’s “Pinnochio Story” or Erykah Badu’s “Call Tyrone,” where it’s like there’s not a non-live version of those songs. I’m a huge Frank Ocean fan. There are a couple of songs where he’s done live. where there really isn’t…. there is no CDQ. There’s a version of Acura Integurl with a second verse that’ fire. He said he never finished it because his neighbor filed a noise complaint that night when he was recording it. He was, like, fuck it. It’s usually stuff that’s not already available in CDQ. In doing this album, the version of Telescope especially that we did, I like it so much that I probably would release it.