Having grown up in New York City learning classical and jazz violin, Theo Kandel has been on a rather musical journey since he was young. That journey has so far seen him receive critical and fan acclaim, and earn himself more than 100,000 followers across several social media platforms. His new EP, ‘Spin Cycle’, is a complex collection, both in terms of instrumentation and its lyrics, and PopWrapped caught up with Theo to find out more about the creative process behind it, the bands and artists he’s most inspired and influenced by and what he’s most looking forward to in the weeks and months ahead.

When did you first realise that you wanted to make music a career? Has it always been the goal for you or did you have other career plans first before you set your heart on being part of this industry?

Okay, story-time: I’m 11 years old, absolutely ripping through Rock Band on my Xbox 360. I decided to attempt the song “Dani California” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers on hard – a classic, but a mouthful. I’m not going to lie – I nailed it, 100% I think? Anyway, I’m basking in the cheers of the simulated crowd, and I literally had the thought: damn, maybe I’m actually a decent singer. The rest, as they say, is history.

I went through all the classic career goals as a kid: astronaut, baseball player, archaeologist, blacksmith, concert violinist, chess grandmaster – all of it. I started playing guitar when I was 12 – influenced by Rock Band and Guitar Hero definitely – and that was also about the time that I began writing songs. Terrible songs, gut-wrenchingly cringy songs, you know how it goes. 

The more I wrote songs, the more it felt like the best way to combine a lot of my interests into one focus. I remember playing a song of mine at a small performance in high school when I was 17 – everyone was totally silent, and after I was done, one of my friend’s dads came up to me and said, “You know, that was a real song.” I can always point to that moment as particularly inspiring. 

You grew up learning classical and jazz violin before picking up the guitar. In what way does your ability to play these instruments filter through into the kind of music you make?

 Honestly, I think learning violin was probably the most important thing for me as a singer and writer. I started playing when I was five years old – if you know anything about violin, you’ll know that two of the most important things are intonation and passion. Maybe that’s not entirely true, but that’s how I see it. Violin is like singing in that way; there aren’t any frets or keys or plugins, just your own muscle memory and the influence that you have over the strings or vocal chords. 

Which bands and artists are you most inspired by and why? How do those inspirations and influences impact your own work?

I started out basing a lot of my songwriting on 60s and 70s folk music. A lot of Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Townes Van Zandt, you name it. Recently, I’ve been listening to a bunch of The Eagles and Jackson Browne – not too different – but interspersed with some more random pop artists like Ashnikko and Rina Sawayama. Oh, also a bunch of pop-punk/emo music from the 2000s – the stuff I grew up on. Not really sure what to make of that, or if that’s influencing me in any way, but I do like the smorgasbord of music I consume. 

Tell me about your new EP ‘Spin Cycle.’ How’d you come up with the title?

I was writing a song with my friend Claire Flynt and we came up with the line “spin cycle again,” which ended up inspiring the title of the song itself, even though I only sing it once in the song. It’s kind of the perfect way to describe the type of circular thinking you can get sucked into after a breakup, where you keep finding yourself back in the same place no matter how much progress you seem to be making. That’s what ‘Spin Cycle’ is about at its core – despite having a chronology, ‘Spin Cycle’ ends the same way it started, both literally and emotionally with the line “how could anybody.”

Is there any particular story or message you’re hoping to get across through the collection? 

‘Spin Cycle’ is supposed to function like an anthology of sorts. The general ideas are change, loss, and pain, but I wanted to find little snapshots of those feelings and make them into vignettes, kind of like short stories in a collection. There’s a loose storyline in there, but each song on its own tries to capture what I was feeling at a given time. It’s definitely sad music – I know – but I find a sort of solidarity in sad songs. I imagine that if enough people are listening at once, there’s a sense of community in that. 

Could you pick your favourite track and if so, which is it and why? 

I think it’s gotta be “Anaconda Hearts.” I wrote that song a while back, and it was inspired by one of my favorite artists, Shakey Graves. He writes a lot of his songs in 5/4, and I wanted to figure out a way to make a song in 5/4 that kind of sneaks up on you – an accessible 5/4, if you will. I recorded it with Ben Pleasant (Beep), one of my roommates and an awesome musician, and we tried to infuse it with some pop production. I think the production really shines – there’s the chugging acoustic guitar part throughout the song, but it’s woven with some interesting textures, like the saxophone sample we chopped up, the banjo towards the end, and the light percussion pattern. 

You’ve been championed by the likes of Ones to Watch and Flaunt but do you pay much attention to what critics and the like say about you and your music, or are you more driven by your own pride in what you do and think if people like it great, if not, that’s okay too?

That’s a tough question. You can’t really create or release music in vacuum – even if you could, or did, you’d be completely isolating yourself from the rest of the world. Music is only as important as how people interact with it; that’s why anyone puts out music in the first place. If you didn’t, then who are you making it for? Yourself? If you’re the only person that’s going to listen to it, then what’s the point? Maybe that’s a bit cynical, or maybe it’s actually kind of optimistic – in a super cheesy way, I make music because I can’t express how I’m feeling any other way. I’m pretty shitty at communicating my emotions in my everyday life, and the music I write is often my attempt at getting people to understand what’s going on in my head – or my heart – yuck. If no one likes it, then whatever – I’ll still have said what I meant to say. I guess what matters to me more is just that people hear it. It’s my desperate shout, you know? Everyone just wants to be heard. 

With the world slowly finding its feet again and the vaccination rollout well underway, what are you most looking forward to as an artist in the weeks and months ahead, and what does the rest of the year have in store for you? Can you think that far ahead or are you just taking each day as it comes at the moment?

Oh, I’ve got some plans, baby! I’m gonna play a bunch of shows, meet a bunch of new people, mess around in Los Angeles – I just moved here in May – and keep working on new music. I do have a good batch of new material I’ve been working on, and no spoilers but it’s got a bit more edge to it, a bit rockier of a vibe. I think people are ready to have a good time this year, especially this summer, and I’m just along for the ride.

Give ‘Spin Cycle’ a listen below and for more information on Theo Kandel, visit his website, give his page a like on Facebook or follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Header photo credit: Nathaniel Clayton.