CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS 141: LATE JUNE ON ALL THINGS MENDING RELATIONSHIPS AND FRIENDSHIPS

Interview by Zac Farr.

Futuremag Music sat down with Aotearoa-based producer Late June, to talk about his latest single, forthcoming album, and being selected as part of Converse’s All-Star campaign for a workshop with Tyler the Creator.

FMM: So, you come under the artist name, Late June, and you're releasing Mending on the 6th. Is that correct?

Late June: Yes, on the 6 December. I'm very excited.

FMM: Okay, tell us about the album. You released some house tracks on a little EP earlier this year, which we absolutely love. Now, we're coming out with, I'm assuming is like an ambient, deep-house vibe kind of album. Tell us a bit about it.

Late June: I wrote this album about getting older and noticing I had to work harder to mend friendships and stuff. Mending is about mending friendships and relationships, but also mending the mental idea that maybe that's over. Maybe that part of your life is gone, and it's time to adapt and change and stuff. So, it's quite a heartbreaking album. Quite a sad thing, but it's also like a process of working through it and working through things as you go through the next stages of your life, I guess.

FMM: That's super powerful, to be able to capture all that emotion. Just listening through your music before this, you create these worlds that you take us to, and it's really, really beautiful. Even just with your single, Focus, your ability to use those vocal chops to leave a little bit of ambiguity for your listener is sick. You really capture a lot of that emotion in that single, at least. Tell us a bit about the creative process of capturing that emotion and then translating that into music.

Late June: Yeah, I think for Focus, that was a tricky one. I'll just use that as an example. It was like a mix of where I was at the time. I was at the beach with my daughter and there was a beautiful sunset. It's where I got the artwork, actually. I was thinking a lot about my place in music and how with the landscape of things changing drastically, like, algorithms on Spotify and listening trends and things I was dependent on in the past. Any YouTube feature would just carry me through the year five years ago, but now that’s not the case at all.

It’s very much like each single, you just have to work through it and wait for something to click in the audience and whatnot. A lot less passive listening, which I think is good as well. I was just thinking about all this, as always, just stressed out about it. I sort of had a moment where I was like, I am now just spacing out and was just there with my daughter. And I'm like, look, my daughter won't think about any of this stuff in 20 years. She won't ever consider me sitting here thinking about it, and I don't want her to look at me and I’m just stressed out, so I stopped thinking about it. It was that idea of just focusing on her or focusing on the task at hand instead was a nice thing for my brain.

Then, I think a chord progression kind of hit me there because that's sort of how it works. Writing music is always either some sort of chord progression will hit me or I will have a good memory. In the process of having a good memory or thinking about the memory before, I adapt a colour to it and then I just go home and try recreate that colour and recreate that feeling.

That’s how Focus came about in terms of how music is written. As I was just right time, right place, thinking about the wrong thing. The more I worked on that track before, it didn't really have a sample or anything. There was no vocals. It was just very deep, mousey style song. I was being a DJ one night and I just saw people just enjoying themselves and a couple dancing and grooving with each other. I think it clicked in my mind. I'm like, well, there is way more to life than stressing about music and then being at the beach, it was just like, there's way more shit to that. So I was just kind of like, oh, it's interesting to sort of bring a romance element to the song.

I think with deep-house music and tech-house music, there's a lot of romantic energy, sexual energy, sensual energy, so I had the sample in mind. I'm like, oh, this is focused on me. Feels good. I know you want it. The whole idea of that could be a dance or that could be me focusing on stress and getting through a stress addiction and just being like, this feels good to think about sometimes. It does, you know, stress is addictive. It was such an ambiguous song that I like that it can kind of work through anything.

And as a person who has to constantly market music now, I was like, oh, this can work in any situation. Someone could listen to this on their laptop. Someone could listen to this in the club. So fucking easy going.

FMM: And then, as an artist, you also dabble in photography, creative arts and writing. What's the day-to-day look like for you? And how do you use those other kind of creative outlets to inspire your music?

Late June: Yeah, well, such an interesting question. I think through the lens of photography, writing music is definitely drawing on from memories and just using that as a photographic device in my head to sort of screen play out the song and how it's going to go and what I was thinking about and how there are ups and downs at the moment. I say this a lot to my friends; the best inspiration for me is always just going back to some house party I was at and thinking about talking to someone outside at three in the morning. I’ll just slap that in the song. It's such good motivation for music and stuff.

But in terms of the creative outlets, I’d say photography helps sort of ground myself in nature, which I don't do often, and that is always a good source of writing music as well. Pretty plants photograph really easily. They’re not people. They have a lot of character, but they don’t move. You don't have to arrange them in a way. They're kind of just nice, you know? I'm just trying to think, because I do music for the moment full-time, so I'm like, there must be more to my day outside of my tactics.

FMM: And then you're raising a kid as well, which is huge.

Late June: Yeah, some weeks I go and go on hikes, and I'm all nature-y and creative and amusing to myself, but most of the times I am just listening to podcasts and playing games.

FMM: I love that. What's the go to podcast?

Late June: Oh, there's this brilliant one called The Yard, the American podcast by a youtuber. It started with a Youtuber, his roommate and the people who helped with the videos, and then now the podcast is huge, so all those people are big as well. The ongoing joke throughout the first 50 episodes was that he was too busy for all of them, and now they're all famous and big as well, and they're all kind of busy for him. It's like my comfort food. I love that podcast.

FMM: And then you've done a bunch of house gigs and you've also done the clubs and the fun things, but then you also have this really beautiful ambience to your music. And like you said before, you create music kind of for both spaces, and you really, really love to bend the lines of genres, which I'm all for; it's so fun. You love the studio, you’re a fantastic producer, but what would be your dream place to perform as you’ve mentioned you love nature and culture?

Late June: Oh, man, I thought about it a lot. There's been such a trope in dance music recently where, I think I can even name five of my friends who have done this kind of set. You see the hill, and they’re on it. There’s a sunset, I think. I think I can name five of my dj friends who have recorded something like that. I can't do that. But, I think Darby, as well did one where he just did a show in a plant shop, if you've seen that.

FMM: No, I haven't, but that's sick.

Late June: It was sold out, dude. It was one of those things that whenever I see a friend do something, I’m like, ‘you stole that from my brain.’ It was so sick. I'd say something similar to that, I think. I obviously want to do, some sort of huge menu; I think that’s the goal, but I think before then and even after then, I think I look to Anjunadeep a lot for inspiration. I wouldn't have said this five years ago, but I've really changed; the person who's having a kid. But I think just any sort of outdoor poolside thing, something that's not taken too seriously. I think a Boiler Room set is definitely something I'll do, but with plants everywhere. That would be really cool. Winter Gardens, something like that. Something that’s just really pretty. You’re not just staring at a screen, or staring at me. You’re just enjoying yourself. Any place that encourages people to make friends, I think is good, because when I'm in a club and I don't know anyone, I'm just like, I just want to get out.

FMM: You've been in the industry for a while now. What are some changes you've seen that you've loved, and what are some changes you think just as an industry we need to kind of look into? Drop some wisdom for us.

Late June: So many opinions on this. I love the community aspect of stuff. I'd say in my own genre, we kind of have people like me who are a bit nomadic, who just sort of exist to write music and don't really care to get involved with stuff. I think a lot of people who are in my genre are kind of like, I've made some good friends in my genre from Australia and stuff, which is really great, but I said said the community aspect I really like because all my recent friends in the Auckland scene are all dubstep dj and I don't love that.

I don't listen to dubstep. Going to the gigs is fucking horrifying, you know, like I'm not a big fan of music, but those are my homies, you know, so I gotta. I gotta go. I gotta support. I gotta dance, so I'd say the community aspect of things is really good. I'd say something that needs to be looked at. I'd say New Zealand wise, like any EDM radio station we've got and it's just the one big one, likes to do, you know, first streams of music, first plays in music, which I think is great. However, they seem to only like to do that for remixes and things. I can name artists on my hands that have had this song debut, including mine on there, but it's in a bad slot or whatever. It's like you hand in a garage remix or something, and it just gets played instantly because they know. I think no-name people can do that, which is fantastic because they need radio plays.

I say the New Zealand industry has got it all backwards because the conversations I have with people from universal to Sony to Warner, even, like, local distributors, is it's all like any sort of conversation of like, oh, how can you push, because we've had these conversations with all sorts of labels before we pick someone. I'm always just like, how are you going to push the music? So I want to see what their answer is. And the answer is usually like, we'll get you on New Zealand radio. We'll try some festivals. And I was like, oh, more than someone else would, do you know? And then they just start listing stuff. It'd be like, if you're in a local town and you were like, where do I get a chair from? They go just there. You know, that they don't think of anything outside of New Zealand.

And I sort of was like, okay, well, what about, like, Sirius XM radio play or what about Triple J radio play? Do you contact anyone outside of New Zealand for playlisting or, you know, anything like that? And it's like, why would we do that? And I'm, like, quite small minded. The New Zealand market's really small, but, no wonder none of your remixes are doing well. And it's not thinking too small. It's just like, I said it, a backwards way to do it because, 30 years ago, it would make sense. It's like, unless you got picked up, then an international label would distribute in their country. It's not like XYZ person’s song goes live in Auckland and it doesn't in New York. It goes live there as well. You know why? The global market has, what, like, 200 million people in it. What are we doing?

FMM: Oh, yeah, so then thinking open-minded and loving collaboration of the industry, what would be the dream kind of collab?

Late June: Local, there is a guy called Monroe. I would love to even get a coffee with. I need to catch up with him. He's recently going to become a father as well, so I’m probably stoked to hang out with him. I'm like, finally one of my friends, but his music is fantastic. Same genre. He's a lot more dancy. He is a lot better at producing. You could say significantly better at producing, which is cool. His concept's really cool as well.

Internationally, apart from friends overseas, like Ed Apollo and Pines and stuff that I want to collaborate with, I'd say my dream would be a Finnish-Swedish producer by the name of Nora En Pure. House producer, old-school techno producer. Everything she does is related to ocean. She'll do shows and she'll have like a giant screen that has hours of wave footage and stuff. She’s all for the environment and stuff, which is already a plus in my book, but the music is also fucking awesome. She plays violin and stuff. It's some of the most beautiful, organic house music on the planet. I want the collab. She'll incorporate these old soul samples and it’s just gorgeous instrumentation. When I found her, I was like, Oh, wait, someone’s doing this.

FMM: I heard you did the Tyler the Creator Converse thing in Sydney. What did we think of that? When was that?

Late June: Oh, 2022. I'd say two years ago. More than two years ago. My child was three months old. This was an opportunity that looking back, because of how it went, I'm like, ah, shouldn't have done it. I should have just spent that time with my daughter. But, you know, I have all the time in the world. But, yeah, that was fun. That was an interesting message to get one week before I got flown out.

FMM: What was some takeaways from that?

Late June: It was weird. I went into it being like, okay, they picked me. I'm gonna make a ton of videos for it. I'm gonna make a reel every day and I'm not gonna get burnt out. I was definitely gonna do it, and I didn't. I'm gonna try and make friends as best as I can because I was very lonely at that point. I had a thing to get my friends in, in like four months. It was very interesting, but so takeaways from it were, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be a social media person. All the people I met that were musicians were very cool, and they were very low key. They dressed much better than I ever could in my life.

FMM: I love the Oak Milk cap, bro. It's sick.

Late June: Thank you. Nothing better than an Oak cold brew. Nothing. But, I know that's what I'm going after this. I'm just gonna say, oh, the meeting's going on for five more minutes, and we'll just fucking get in there, get a coffee, and then hop in the car.

So, yeah, they were really cool. I'd say the more social media people were incredibly fake, like, very hard to get on with. And from that, I was kind of like, well, yeah, I think there was a lot of musicians that were there that had done a lot of shows, had gone on a lot of tours who were quite big on Instagram. But again, this might just be growing pains of trying to get your music out there, but numbers weren't there. It was hard to see. All I thought in my mind was, oh, I definitely need to help with this. I don't know why. I think girl dad was just like, oh, I have advice. I'm going to give them advice if they ask for it, because they're signed with labels. They should be able to do all this. But, they were people who, as soon as I introduced myself to them, they were super stuck up.. They thought I wasn't there on the trip. In my mind, I'm like, don't want to give you advice. Not that my advice would be good at all. It would definitely be unsolicited. So I was like, all right, I'm just not going to introduce myself to anyone because they all think I'm not here for the trip, which is fucking wild. People were in very, like, social climbery position.

So in my mind, as someone who's super low key, I had nothing to offer, which was great. So I didn't get fake talk to it all, which is fantastic. I made two or three friends who were a bit weird, but a lot of people on this trip were, like, 19 or 20. I was 25, and I was just like, I'm not trying to make lifelong friends with 19 year olds, so I'm fucking good. I'm just gonna chill. I just hung out with the people who are running it.

But, it was good for the most part because I got to go into the studio for the first time. I got to have Tyler The Creator listen to something I made, which was cool. That's not an opportunity you get every day not. If the six-hour studio session had any of my production in it at all, it would have been great, but the people I was working with wanted the beat made in about ten minutes. So, me and the audio producer quickly went through guitar samples, flat, put me together. I helped a tiny bit because I don't know Ableton very well and they were very rude. The producer just kept whispering to me. He's like, I'm sorry.

I was like, we'll just get going. He put 808s in it and stuff. I was just like, fuck, I don't know. I don't want to be here. And then I thought about it, five and a half hours of people recording, which was interesting. I haven't sat through that before, so it was cool. But it was very like, I'm going to record. Everyone get out of the room. And then I was like, okay. She says to record. She goes, yeah. I was like, so just me? And she was like, I guess. I'm like, cool. And then I walk out. I walked out and ran into the Rolling Stone person who was doing an article.

So, I got in easy and then Hwls was there as well., who I hadn’t met, so I was very happy to meet him. But, yeah, they were like, what are you doing out of the studio? And I was like, yeah, wow, okay. Strange experience. I said, oh, they're doing something out. I completely was like, don't go in there. You don't need photos in there, and then they took a photo of me in the studio and then got out. It was so funny. I was like, my opportunity is gonna be way harder.

Tyler was very nice, which was cool. I got a photo with him, which was good for social media, but yeah, I think the whole time I was looking at flights, trying to get out early. Before we met Tyler on the last day, I was just trying to fly out. I just didn't want to be there anymore, if I'm being honest. Strange experience.

FMM: But, I think it just speaks numbers of you, bro, and your character, and we see that authenticity all through your music. I love it. You're just down to Earth. We can tell that you're with the culture, with the people, and it's not fake. It’s just from my perspective. Thank you for being like that, man. We need that in the industry and we need that throughout all music because it's what we're here for. And I think people can tell, usually. Your numbers are pretty awesome on Spotify, bro, so I wouldn't stress there.

Late June: Yeah, yeah. You know, it is what it is. It was really funny on the last day, I went down to the bar downstairs and it was like 2pm and we were getting picked up at like five for the plane back. I just got like an old-fashioned. I just sat down and the night before was a party. This is the last thing I'll say about it. The night before there was a party. I pretended to have food poisoning and didn't go 100% because I wanted to call Sophia before she went to bed. I wanted to talk to my friend because they're all excited about hearing about Tyler. And I was like, I don't want to go to a party where we're all going to perform in front of each other and then get drunk. I was like, I'm actually done partying with 20 year olds. I think I'm going to fucking stay home.

FMM: That's valid, bro.

Late June: Yeah, and so next day, stayed home. One of my friends who was there was like, we should play Sunny's music. And everyone was like, does Sunny make music? They had no idea and word got out pretty quick. At the time, I was for labels, so my numbers were pretty high. The next day, I pretty much betted people away while I was having a drink. They were asking to collab or asking me very aggressively if I botted my music, which I was like, it's ambient music. It does itself well. People, last minute connecting.

It's weird when people see numbers. It was very much like, you have 200k on Spotify, but you don't have 200k on Instagram. And I was like, yeah. And they were like, once they understand, I'm like, I love this. What do you mean? Like, you can do the math.

FMM: Well, man, it's been so good talking to you, bro. And we're very excited for the new album, and the heart behind it is spectacular. And, bro, if you're ever in Sydney, hit me up, too. We can hang out. We can go grab some cold brew.

Late June: I love it. We'll get some cold brew, we’ll get a grog. It sounds good, man.