When you're willing to suffer for your art

9:10 · 1,715 words of transcript · watch on YouTube

1. The method is to deliberately walk into difficult experiences and record what comes out, with Ruban Nielson saying he is willing to suffer for the work even if it damages his life.
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2. He trained as an illustrator at New Zealand's most prestigious art school and only turned to music after his father gave him a guitar at 19.
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3. Insomnia and that guitar are the origin, and he co-founded a punk band with his brother before constant tension pushed him out of music altogether.
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4. He moved to Portland to work as an illustrator and considered the music career finished and childish.
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5. The restart was deliberately anonymous: a track recorded after work on cheap gear, posted to Bandcamp with no name attached and only a contact email.
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6. Blogs were hunting for the artist within three days and labels were bidding within weeks, before anyone knew who had made it.
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7. The debut aimed at a specific feeling, going through his father's record collection and being weirded out and excited at once, with everything recorded to tape for the lo-fi sound.
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8. Touring it on a policy of saying yes to everything left him back home depressed, sleepless and, by his own description, a shell of who had left.
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9. The basement became the studio because New Zealand houses rarely have them, so it functioned as a room sealed off from everything else.
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10. For the latest record he reversed his usual process, commissioning the cover photograph before writing anything and then making an album to match it.
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