Gallant

GALLANTshot by LamontRoberson II

How are you? How is your mental health and overall well-being? great man— happy that the album is fina never really had the voice for it until now

The current state of R&B...is the genre in a good place and describe your place in the current climate? i think its in a great place— I know when I was first putting stuff out online, hype machine and the whole m radio, and people like me in R&B who were doing something a little different felt like they had to wear tha

but now I think we’ve gotten so used to the multiple shades of R&B that it’s breathed new energy into the g

What has been more impactful to your career: the internet (social media blogs) or being outside (touri touring was crazy for me because i spent so long making music in isolation that it was hard to imagine a c and everything speak to— it made me realize that even if sometimes I feel like the black sheep in my neighb waiting for an opportunity to get together.

The first time someone you idolized co-singed your work...could you describe that moment? the first time i ever came to LA i went down a rabbit hole of real ambient shit— mostly older things I had s sufjan stevens had just put out a ridiculous album that wasn’t like anything else I had ever heard before...

after I finished the project I got an email from one of the people responsible for putting together his tour fo would fit with the all-sitting type of show he was looking to bring on the road. we met for the first time at t like that before being booked as his opener, so i didn’t know to expect. plus, I was in the middle of making than I think he was expecting, so I was almost in the back of my head thinking I might get kicked off the tou have imagined I would get from someone at his level. yeah, it was surreal. and to become friends after tha

lly out, proud that I was able to make the kind of music I’ve been wanting to make since I was a kid but

How do you fit in amongst your peers and collaborators? usic blog space were finally giving people an alternative to what we were hearing constantly on the t “alternative rnb” label to differentiate their sound from that commercial sound.

enre as a whole— i’m proud to call my stuff R&B— no ‘alternative’ needed anymore in 2019.

ng, interacting with fans)? rowd full of people who are coming from the same place musically that I am— who the lyrics and vibe orhood, or on my block, or in my city— there’s a world full of people who might feel the same way

aved like aphex twin but also a lot of new-at-the-time things like how to dress well— and I remember

r that new album— it was out of nowhere— they said they heard my song Manhattan and felt like the vibe his coffee shop outside of the first venue we played— I had never even, like, seen a tour bus or anything my album Ology at the time and my show was way more high-energy with the new songs I was writing r or something— but he was mad cool and gave me a bunch of positive feedback which I never would t and keep collaborating years after that tour... never would have thought that could happen.

New album man, what can you tell me about "Sweet Insomnia," not the content or inspiration the fans will listen to and hear it...I want to know 13 songs 35 minutes, why 13, and why 35 minutes last album was 16 and 53?man I just wanted to keep it short and concise. with my first album, there was a lot that after the fact i kind of felt might have been a little distracting. sometimes i think even if I were making ology again now I would have probably taken off ‘episode’ and ‘open up’ and ‘counting’...

short and sweet just felt right for this one.

You studied music at NYU but went to the West Coast, from a musician standpoint, what does the west coast provide that the east does not and vice versa? for me, it was just a quality of life— when you’re struggling in new york to make things work, you’re REALLY struggling.

being from the suburbs I was just more used to a way of life that let you take breaks, regroup, find your own space and do your own thing; LA and the west coast in general had more of that for me without sacrificing the connectedness that being in a big city gives you.

I don't want to take away the importance of a full project, but is there a specific song on the new album that means more to you than the others?

for me ‘hips’ captures that east coast autumn feel— and a more lo-fi angle sonically that i’ve been wanting to get into for a while... and I wrote it about a girl from my childhood back in maryland... if there’s a song on the album that’s there more for me than for anything else, it’s that one.

1. The difference between a debut album and sophomore album? I feel like you have your entire life to write your debut album. But the second album; that's the real challenge, wow write about everything that has happened since. Did you face this difficulty?

I got in my head about it for a bit and then realized how quickly thinking like that derailed the entire process. I’m glad people connected with my first album but that was just the first thing I put out there, so to put it on a pedestal as if it’s the greatest thing in the world is completely counter-productive... and it limits yourself right off the bat... so when I tried to write what I thought people would want to hear based off my first album I knew I couldn’t put it out there; i didn’t connect with it at all.

when I got back with stint and just started basically from scratch around November of last year I was in a much better space to learn from the mistakes of my past few attempts and write something that made me feel complete regardless of what anyone else thought— the same feeling I got when I was working on my first album—

as a result a lot of the older ideas and songs I had lying around couldn’t be a part of this album, but I got something that I could stand behind that helped me through 2018 and 2019 personally the same way my first album helped me through ‘15 and ‘16.

I hate to do this to you because lists are annoying haha, BUT since it went viral on twitter, I have to ask, greatest R&B singers who are your top 5 no order necessary. Phillip Bailey, Bilal, Maxwell, Curtis Mayfield, D’Angelo, Babyface, Usher man so many—