Remi Wolf is my favorite kind of modern artist: a young music-maker who truly doesn't give a flying eff what genre names folks might use to try to neatly categorize her sound. Remi knows that, as she once said, "genres are pretty obsolete at this point." She continued (in this interview with Spin): "I think artists are their own genre, where every artist is creating such a world for themselves that they are becoming the sound and the thing." The world Remi has created over the course of the past several years and two full-length albums, including her awesome new sophomore LP Big Ideas, is kaleidoscopic and soulful and trippy and funky and full of humor. I had a blast talking to her about her childhood experiences with music and her own creativity, and how they overlapped with her experiences as a serious athlete who was involved in competitive skiing until music proved to be a stronger calling. We talked about the stuff she heard around the house -- Prince, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin -- and the artists she got into on her own when she was a little older, from My Chemical Romance to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Amy Winehouse to Snarky Puppy, and how they informed her own music. She also shares what she learned from her brief experience as a contestant on American Idol back when she was seventeen (you can see her audition here), and how she found began to find her own sound as a songwriter during her college years. Remi and her band just started a huge North American tour and you can get tickets here.
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