S/T 007: B11ce Is The Next Great Musical Cult Hero
The awesome thing about music is that if you have the talent and the drive, you can always find a fanbase. Musicians’ followings develop in unique combinations, even if they have similar styles: Post Malone and Saint Jhn, for example. Both rely on a combination of hip-hop and R&B production and pop-style vocals, but Malone rose to immense stardom through a steady flow of hit singles, big-name features, and a strong backing from their label. Meanwhile, Saint JHN spent years as a medium-tier artist only to blast into the mainstream after a remix of his song “Roses” went viral on social media. Two artists, one sound, and two vastly different roads to becoming household names.
Every act’s road to an audience is different, but just because these roads end at the same place, that doesn’t make them equal. Acquiring a fanbase is only a small part of the journey; the real challenge is keeping it. Plenty of people have gained fanbases initially only to end up as one-hit or one-album wonders. This is normally the result of a severe dip in quality, inability to progress artistically, or attaching oneself to a trend that wasn’t built to last. That’s why I believe, at least, that smash hits aren’t the best way to build a successful career in music. Some of the biggest hits in history were written and performed by people who could never come close to recreating it, and quickly fell out of the public eye. The best way to ensure a long, fruitful artistic career is instead to assemble a cult fanbase, a group of people who will buy every release and piece of merch and attend every tour.
It’s a simple argument, sure, but assembling a cult fanbase is incredibly difficult. You need to both consistently produce excellent music while also finding a way to stand out in a sea of creative minds in order to gain a passionate following. For the most part, it also requires artists to abandon their dreams of #1 singles and diamond-selling artists, and focus on making the best possible music. There are hit-makers who have achieved this type of fandom, but it’s usually reserved for those who have managed to consistently churn out hits and attained a godlike status with a rabid group of supporters (such as those who think Jesus Is King is good, or the wild world of Barb Twitter). Yet, by choosing to move away from chasing hits, artists are able to make whatever pleases them, and carve out a niche for themselves that can form a smaller, but more engaged audience.
Artists who are successful in creating their own cult fanbase often exist in one or more of three specific spaces: regional notoriety, extreme experimentalism, or alternative takes on popular styles. Regional notoriety is pretty straightforward: musicians that are popular where they are from, but for one reason or another, never find the same success nationally or globally. The second space is filled with the world’s most obtuse genres, scenes that are too left-field to ever find a spot in the pop zeitgeist- everything from ambient soundscapes to ear-splitting industrial.
The final space is by far the largest, and contains some of the greatest music ever made. It’s populated with those who attempt to take all their influences and mix them into one, no matter how strange the result, while adding pop sensibility that gives it just enough of an oddball appeal to get stuck in your head. It’s where the trends of pop music’s future are created and where global superstars look for inspiration. It’s umbrella encompasses Cocteau Twins and their dream-pop disciples, the proto-punk of The Velvet Underground and Television, and the noise rock epic that is Daydream Nation. It also includes the person being interviewed today, Texas pop-experimentalist B11ce.
I don’t want to put too much pressure on B11ce (pronounced “bice” by including him in with those names, but he does work in the same way and with the same goals as they did. Across the slew of singles he’s released to the public, you can catch hints of indie pop and rock, hip-hop, beat music, Latin genres, experimental electronica, art and glitch pop. Normally, when someone wears this many influences on their sleeve, it can come across as pretentious, or what is often referred to as “critic-bait”. B11CE does not sound like that. His influences are definitely on his sleeve, but that sleeve is being used as the wick for a Molotov cocktail. Ideas bounce in and out of songs and off one another in a way that shouldn’t work in theory. The drums often rattle in a way that will remind listeners of a marching band snare. B11CE screams, raps, and softly sings, sometimes all in one song. Amid all this chaos, it’s that pop sensibility mentioned earlier that holds the song together, with melancholy timbres and melodies to offset some of the madness in what almost feels like the musical equivalent of someone trashing their bedroom out of anger and sadness.
B11ce’s unique blend of cacophony and harmony places him in a prime position to gain a cult fanbase, as fans of acts like Death Grips, Xiu Xiu, and 100 gecs will find a lot to love in the dichotomy of his sound. Sound Over Time sat down with B11ce to discuss how he got to a place where he could make such unique music, his love for samples, his outlook on the future of the music industry, and more.
Growing up, what kind of music did you hear from older figures in your life?
B11ce: My dad and my uncles played most of the music that I grew up on. They played cumbia and tejano music. I live in Brownsville, which is on the border of Texas and Mexico, so that’s the type of music that’s often what’s on the radio. My uncles were DJ’s, so they would mix CD’s and tapes of that kind of music at barbeques and such.
Do you think that listening to music that wasn’t typical for an American teenager at the time changed how your music ended up sounding?
In a way. I don’t make the type of music that I heard when I was younger, but I’ve always been inspired at how loud and bass-heavy it was.
When you were in your early teens and starting to develop your own taste, who were the artists you were most drawn to?
I grew up during the advent of the Internet, so I would mostly just torrent stuff. I was pretty genre-agnostic at the time. At one point, I told myself that I was going to look up a giant list of artists and listen to every one from A to Z. I remember starting at 311 [laughs].
That’s a journey.
Yeah. I was convinced I was going to listen to every artist in existence [laughs]. The things that touched me most at that time were definitely sample-based music and hip-hop. I can’t even remember where I got it, but I had a Wu-Tang CD at one point and was just amazed at how raw it sounded. I needed to know how they make beats.
As I got more into it, I became one of those backpack rap fans. I listened to a lot of Madvillainy and Endtroducing…. I was obsessed with MPC’s, and I wanted to learn how to use it. I eventually got an MPC-60, but it was too archaic for me to learn. I still find that using samples, and making something completely new out of music that’s already been created, is the method of music-making that I find most fun.
Did you go deeper into sample-based music outside of hip-hop, stuff like The Avalanches or even French House music, or did you stay within rap once you realized your love of samples?
I branched out, for sure. Daft Punk was a big one, because it’s machine music, but they were also a gold mine for finding new artists. I’ve heard plenty of stories about artists who look into who [Daft Punk] sampled and found amazing funk, soul, and disco artists. Everything electronic, too. Aphex Twin was a big one. Anything, really. But hip-hop was always my favourite type of machine-based music, because I love the art of rapping on top of the samples.
Do you look into your favourite artists’ samples as a way to find samples for yourself like those stories about Daft Punk, or do you have other ways of finding samples to use?
It has been a way, but I like the randomness of going to record stores and buying the coolest looking LPs in the five-and-ten-dollar bin. There’s a lot of gold to find doing that. If I liked anything I bought, then I’d look in the credits and see if I recognized any names. I haven’t done that since COVID-19 started, though.
Now that COVID has made it tough to go to those record stores, have you found a way to recreate that feeling of randomness when finding samples in the age of social distancing?
I usually just try and find random stuff on YouTube. I don’t do it anymore, but I used to buy cheap DVDs and see if I could find samples in the soundtracks of obscure movies.
Was there an album that made you want to move away from sample-based music at times?
Yeah. In high school, I got really into Animal Collective, and I was really intrigued by how they mixed their own sounds and sampled vocals. Especially the way that Panda Bear did it.
Panda Bear did that style of music so well on Person Pitch.
Definitely. That album was huge for me, because it showed me that you were able to create your own stuff on top of loads of samples. I know it sounds super obvious now, but I thought it was so cool at the time. I also was already looking for a way to make more than beat music, and include the voice I had in my head. Person Pitch gave me a blueprint on how to do that.
It makes a lot of sense that you draw inspiration from Animal Collective, given you said you grew up on bass-heavy music. Their later music features a lot of low-end, and their engineer, Ben Allen, is renowned for his ability to create great-sounding bass and was the mentor of Alex Tumay, who mixes all of Young Thug’s music.
I didn’t know that Alex Tumay worked with them. Young Thug is my favourite rapper, and I didn’t know there was a connection there.
Is there a record or artist that you think people would be surprised to hear you’re influenced by?
Maybe. I’m a huge fan of dub and reggae music, and I don’t think my music sounds like any of that. I also like a lot of classic rock, and I don’t sound anything like them. I wanna make a song as good as “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac, something that has very little frills but is just so good at its core that it doesn’t matter.
It’s tough to get there. Most great artists don’t have more than a couple of songs that feature them operating at their absolute peak like that. It’s like capturing lightning in a bottle.
I guess you just have to do what they were doing during Rumours, dating everyone and doing a bunch of drugs. Then you’ll make a bunch of hits [laughs].
It seems like the less control some artists have over their vices, the better their music becomes. Maybe the key to great artistry is just being a mess.
I mean, I’m a bit of a mess, but I don’t think it was a choice [laughs].
Plus, there are exceptions to the rule. Someone like Frank Ocean, he makes amazing music, but he seems to live a really cool, relaxed lifestyle.
When Frank opened up his Instagram, I was pretty surprised. He lives a pretty badass life, but it seems very chill. That’s the goal. Frank Ocean lifestyle.
Are there any albums you’ve heard recently that you feel will influence your music in the future?
When I first heard SOPHIE’s music a few years ago, it felt like hearing someone who was doing the music I’ve always wanted to make. The music she was putting out in 2015 is what people are trying to get to now. Before her, I was listening to a lot of Rustie and Hudson Mohawke. I love that type of music, it sounds really sugary but it’s also super hard.
Hudson Mohawke is a name I haven’t heard in a while. He had a great run a few years back.
Yeah. Same with SOPHIE, when she was producing for Vince Staples and Charli XCX. I love Charli too.
Charli XCX is a really interesting story, just because she went from being a mid-tier pop star to working with people like Yaeji and the PC Music collective. It turned her into a super critically acclaimed artist, and she’s super experimental for the space she exists in. I’ve been wondering if her wave will catch on in the mainstream in the future.
Charli is my favourite popstar. You can really tell that she makes the music that she likes, instead of hopping on trends. I think that sound will end up being the future. The biggest artists now, they have a ton of label backing and so not all of their support is organic. But Charli has grown an organic fanbase, and so I think she’s a bit bigger than people think and her peers are a bit smaller than what’s reported.
You can definitely tell the difference between a pop star that has a real cultural impact from one that is pushed mainly by label marketing, just by going outside.
Yeah. A lot of artists just get placed on a bunch of playlists through deals that their labels have with streaming platforms, and so they get all this exposure. Since their music is super easy to listen to, people will play it and eventually start to like it just off the fact that they heard it so many times. It happens to me all the time. It’s not a bad thing. But it’s hard to not hear a new Drake song a bunch of times if his face is plastered on every single Spotify playlist.
As you continue to grow, do you worry about the consequences of making music that isn’t super playlist-ready, since streaming services pay so little per stream?
As far as money goes, my only concern is to make enough money to live a decent life and continue making music. I don’t need anything more than that. So I don’t think it will affect my process, because I’m not someone who is motivated by profit incentive. I think it’s more just the typical musician anxiety of actually making enough to survive.
With the music you make, I don’t think that is an unrealistic goal. People who make more experimental music often attract fans who are more willing to support them directly.
Yeah. Having steady fans and making money off platforms like Bandcamp, that’s all I really care for.
Having a community of supporters is very important if you aren’t a huge hit-maker. I think Bandcamp does a great job at allowing smaller artists to be supported directly by fans.
I completely agree. Dirty Bird, who you interviewed before, does a great job releasing limited editions collector’s versions of his albums, and they all sell out super fast. That’s the type of career I want. Anything bigger than that would just be icing on the cake.
I think that route of being independent, and using artist-friendly platforms like Bandcamp to make a career out of music is probably the most sustainable way to work in the industry, unless your music is built for Hollywood stardom.
Yeah. I’m not anti-mainstream, though. If I found commercial success, it would be cool. But I’d rather be able to make what I want, and communicate with people directly. I think my music could possibly go viral, but it would take time. And I don’t cater my music to go viral
You don’t make music with a TikTok dance in mind.
Honestly, I think I would be selling myself short if I didn’t at least take that stuff into mind. TikTok made me realize how short the attention span of people my age has become; nowadays, it’s hard for me to read a book. And so it made me want to make a full album of songs that are all between thirty seconds and a minute in length, reflecting my own attention span at this point in time.
A lot of punk music is like that.
Yeah. And Donuts. A lot of great beat tapes are like that.
I like the concept of short songs, though. If you only have one good idea for a song, why make it three minutes if you can just get that idea out in a third of the time and keep it moving?
Yeah. Unless there’s a feature or a beat switch, there’s almost never three verses in a rap song anymore. I think it’s cool. You don’t have to just make songs in old formats. That can get really boring.
Most of the time, those old structures have already been done in the best possible ways. Your music feels naturally drawn towards pushing the boundaries of the genres that you work in, structure wise.
Totally. That’s why it can be hard to think of exact influences, because they aren’t structure-based. Traditional song structures are good, but I’d rather just shoot at the hip and do whatever is most exciting to me. It feels like the best way to approach art. Most of my favourite artists do the same thing. Pop, but a bit tilted. I love stuff like that, familiar but alien at the same time. That’s how I want my music to sound. I’m constantly trying to find ways to throw a wrench in a track without making it a straight-up noise song, or figuring out how to incorporate a weird sample into a song I think my mom might like.
It sounds like you see traditional structure as an option, not a requirement.
For sure. You’ve got to learn the rules before you can break them. I want to learn lots of technical skills, but just so I can figure out how to manipulate them to make something even cooler.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Follow B11ce on Instagram and Twitter @B11ce
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