Remember the male vocals on Rihanna‘s hit, “Stay?” That’s Mikky Ekko and that man has so much music that you need to pay attention to NOW! We recently got to sit down with him at Governors Ball to discuss his upcoming sophomore release, FAME, how he writes and records new music, breakfast and much more. Check it out now:
You recently dropped your latest single, “What’s It Like Now” and it’ll be off your upcoming sophomore album, FAME. You also just released an EP, Advance Copy, a few months back. Is it exciting to finally get all of this new music out there?
For me, it’s sort of a fresh start. Every album is a change to rethink who you are as an artist and what it is you have to say. I don’t even know if excited is the right word. I just feel very at home in what I’m doing right now and I feel more comfortable than I have ever been as an artist and that’s the only thing that’s important for me.
What are your writing and recording processes typically like?
How do you like to eat breakfast? It’s like, what kind of breakfast do you want? Do you want cereal? Do you want cereal with marshmallows? Do you want pancakes? And if you have cereal with marshmallows, do you start with the oats or do you start with the marshmallows? What kind of person are you? So for me, what I’m always looking for is that whatever strikes me first. In the studio, I’ve got a ton of different instruments, so sometimes I’ll bring in other people. For this album in particular, what I can speak on is being able to bring in my touring band and we wrote a ton of the album together because it was really important to me as they became my brothers on the road. We had all of these shared experiences that felt needed documenting because they knew me better than almost anybody else.
Alright, cool. Is there anything you want people to take away from the new music?
Yes, always. You know, all I know about what this album is, what’s most important to me that people take away is just whatever resonates with them, which is what I think people tend to take away with them. You hope that every song resonates with somebody. For me, every song is very eclectic from front to back. So I realize it requires more for somebody who might be into one particular song. So as far as that’s concerned, you want everyone to take away as much as they can but for me, you flick through it and find what you like and explore.
So you’re currently out on the road with Fitz & The Tantrums, on top of doing festivals. How’s the tour going so far?
Great so far! We’ve admittedly only done one show together but Noelle [Scaggs] lives in Nashville and we’ve got some mutual friends there. Already, it feels really familial. Fitz has been really awesome. Their whole crew is really great. I think anytime you’re out on the road, all you want to do is create a family. It’s about creating the family on stage and the family with the audience. You just look for those moments. Only being one show in, it feels so good.
Aside from touring and the highly anticipated FAME release, what else can we expect from you this year?
I’ll be putting out a lot of additional content. Here’s the thing, I took a lot of time off. I left my old label. I asked them to let me go. It was just like a dating relationship that wasn’t going well. Just people headed in different directions. At the end of the day, what I really needed to do was go out and find myself and I really leaned hard on my friends and people I really trusted to help me accomplish that. So in the meantime, we’ve been doing a lot of behind the scenes. I never want to keep my fans waiting. I hate waiting that long to put on new music. It’s insane to wait that long! For me, it’s just about what they can expect is never having to wait so long for me to put out music ever again.
Anything else you would like to add?
Cholula is my favorite hot sauce! I used to think if you were a freak for breakfast, like LOVED breakfast, then something was wrong with you and now I love breakfast.
What’s your favorite breakfast food?
My favorite breakfast food, fuck. It really depends honestly. It depends on if I’m hungover or not. I like to drink too. I love tequila. One of my favorite meals to make is, and this is so bachelor of me but there’s this shit that comes in cans called El Pato. They’re like tiny 69 cent. That and ground turkey breast and Baked Lays is just the best!
