Mr. Elusive prepares to release his new track titled Blue Lakes on February 21st. The song was crafted while traveling around New Zealand and was written after a weighty heartbreak. It is a testament to resilience and determination. The infusion of pop-punk vocals adds an extra layer of raw emotion to the song, also showing versatility as an artist. Continue reading to find out more about Blue Lakes.

Your new single Blue Lakes is coming out on February 21st, It’s a melodic hip hop song with some pop punk elements. Can you take us through the track and what it means to you?

I went through a pretty horrific breakup and my life did a pretty big 180 at the time. The track is me processing those emotions and exploring how I was feeling and how it made me feel: more motivated, strong and powerful. It’s a really meaningful song to me, and I hope it resonates with some people as well.

You were traveling around New Zealand at the time you wrote the song, how has traveling and being in nature helped shape this song for you?

I was doing a lot of hiking, I feel like hiking is another thing that helps me get in my head. Instead of having all this noise and all this stuff I have to do all the time, talking to people, you’re just on a mountain, on your own. You’re able to go through the emotions in your head and I think it helped a lot just letting me figure things out. 

I wrote the song in a van. I got back from a hike and legit just got in the van, cracked a beer and started writing, and it all came out, it happened literally just in the night. I didn’t record it, but I wrote it all down then as soon as I got back to Sydney I was like alright let’s do it!

The pop-punk element of the track – was that a natural progression or did that come about in a way that surprised you?

I have a wide range of music that I love and when I was younger in high school, I would listen to Blink 182 and Sum 41. I think that genre of music was something that related to me when expressing emotion and then the progression happened really smoothly.

The beat had a pop punk drop in it and I was just singing and wanted to make an emotional part and as I did that I accidentally screamed a little bit and I was like woah I didn’t know I could do that. I really leaned into that and got some screaming in there and it’s the first time people are going to hear me scream. 

Do you think this is something you’d like to incorporate more often?

I think so, I’m exploring that a little bit. I do have another track that’s kind of similar that I’m working on, it’s not as screamy but has the pop-punk aspect. I do have screaming coming into my backing vocals, making certain lines more powerful if I need it to.  

What is your creative process when it comes to making music? Do you always have a plan or is it ever-changing?

I’d say it’s changing pretty often. It’s insanely busy trying to get all this stuff going, and then when I can have a free day, I like to just go in my room and write to things that I’ve already pre listened to. A lot of the time on my way home from work or something in the car I’ll just freestyle, then I’ll find beats that I like and pick and choose which ones I can use. 

I’ll have a list, go in with an idea that I’m motivated about and sometimes I’ll have a spark instantly come to me and I’m like ok I’ve got to go right now and get this out.

Who are your inspirations for making music?

I’d say musician wise is Juice WRLD and Scorey, who are both American artists and they’re both melodic rappers and even XXXTentacion who does a lot of that scream rap which I really like.

Outside of that, people that just strive to get stuff done. People like Kevin Hart for instance, the drive they have and all the stuff they do, it really inspires me to reach out and do the best I can and keep going. 

What is next for you – more music, live shows?

We’ve got this song, then I’m working on two more. I’m trying to piece together where I want my music to go forward genre wise, because I’ve been under an umbrella genre to figure out where I wanted to go with it.

Looking for gigs now, I don’t have anything coming up but I am doing some secret things to get my performance strong because I want to come in solid. This year for sure we’ll look at setting up something big.

Follow Mr. Elusive here