AUSTIN CARR TALKS TAME ME?

Interviewed by Culture Coast Talks editor Daniel John. Interview transcripts might have been edited for length and clarity.

What is 'Tame Me?' about. What inspired you to write this song?

I got this idea for 'Tame Me?' a couple years ago. When I was bored at the gym and started playing around with this concept of a sexy cat-and-mouse pop song about a power struggle in a relationship. In my own dating life, I’ve had some experience with the type of person who thinks it’s their duty to “save” you and mold you into a suitable partner without really knowing much about you. When I meet people like that my immediate instinct is to run in the opposite direction and get as difficult to handle as I can be. So that was the inspiration for the push-and-pull dynamic in the song.

There’s more than one reason to be excited about this release, it’s also the first track from your upcoming sophomore EP. How has working on it compared to your first EP, 'Imaginary Boy', three years ago?

Making this new EP feels incredibly different than the process of making my first EP. When we recorded 'Imaginary Boy' it was the first original musical project I had ever put into the world, and I truly had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know who I wanted to be as an artist, I didn’t know anything about how the industry worked, or the steps I was “supposed” to follow, I didn’t even release any singles for it, and while I’m still proud of that EP, and it means a lot to me personally, I’ve had a lot more time to develop who I am as an artist and better figure out what I want to say and where I really want my music to sit in the folk, twang, indie pop-spectrum.

How long will you leave us wanting more?

I’m gonna be teasing out a couple more singles before the EP gets released, but I’m shooting for an EP release in April of 2024, if things go according to plan. My next single called 'Cool Kid' is coming out December 1st.

Your music often blends genres in a way that feels seamless, and enriches your sound, rather than cluttering it. What does your songwriting process look like?

Doing a bit of genrebending in my music is really exciting to me, particularly taking a classic folk or country storytelling lens and adding modern instrumentation to it. Pop and folk have always been my favorite genres, so I think it just turns up in my writing kind of naturally without me having to put too much thought into it. When it comes to producing the song I usually come in already having a vision for how to “twang it up” and then it’s just a matter of blending those elements with the rest of the song in a more subtle way. For this song, I wanted to mix a retro synthy pop sound with a little country rock. I described the idea to my producer as a “sexy, late night desert dance party with some 80s influence” and we kind of built it from there. While most of the song is pretty heavy on the synth and electric guitar, we added a pedal steel country guitar solo at the bridge to get a little taste of country in there.

A rosebud is the connection between a situation, or a life-event perhaps, that played a huge part in getting us to where we are today. As an artist, what would you say is your rosebud?

I feel like I’ve probably had a few different rosebuds, but the most direct one was what helped me get the guts and the motivation to start recording my first EP, before I did music I was living in LA and was pretty dead set on becoming an actor. I was auditioning a lot and modeling to make money on the side. Over time some demons I had been pushing off for a while finally caught up to me mentally, and almost overnight I lost all my hair from stress-related alopecia. It was confusing and sudden and devastating and it kicked me on my ass for a while. But since it was always a goal of mine to record and release some of the songs I’d written over the years, and since I didn’t want to be anywhere near a camera, it ended up being the nudge I needed to give music a try. Now I find songwriting to be a much more fulfilling and creative outlet than acting, so while I’m not necessarily happy it happened, I weirdly appreciate that it did.

With pop culture, it's common for artists to cater to all audiences, whether to make the work widely relatable or to let fans project onto them. You however write very directly about your own life and wants, as a gay man. Has it always been important to avoid pretending and instead be wholeheartedly yourself in your music?

I definitely think it is totally fine, and valid, for artists to want more mainstream appeal and sometimes I wish I could train my brain to write like that but it honestly has just never been very interesting to me. The artists that I love to listen to write very personal music that are observations of their own experiences and the meaning they’ve pulled from those experiences. I’m ultimately going to make music that feels honest and worthwhile to me, even if it means some people won’t be able to relate to it. That’s a trade-off I’m totally happy with. I feel the same way about being a gay artist. At this point it’s a little cliche to say, but when I was growing up, I didn’t know any young gay artists who just wrote about their experiences and relationships. There wasn’t really a reference point for that, especially not in folk or country music. So when I started making music, it was always out of the question for me to hide my sexuality in my music or keep it vague if I was talking about girls or boys. I think that would be disrespectful to my younger self. I also just think there’s a lot of weird, interesting emotional baggage that comes with being gay that most people don’t ever put in music. And that sounds much more exciting to write about.

What first drew you to writing your own songs and kept you with it and is that still the reason today?

I was a pretty lonely kid so I think I developed songwriting as a coping mechanism without really realizing that was what I was doing. When I started out, I wasn’t particularly good at singing or writing or playing instruments, so it wasn’t like I stumbled into it when I discovered I had some natural talent for it. But for whatever reason, whenever I got an idea for a song I had to sit down and write it, and that’s been the same my entire life. Even before I ever had any plans of releasing music, anytime I’ve gotten an idea for a song I’ve absolutely had to sit down and see it through or it drives me crazy. Now I just occasionally like letting other people hear it too.