A punchy and elegant dance tune, ‘Retail Therapy’ sees San Francisco-based creative James Atlas indulging in anthemic EDM stylings, then drenching it all into meaningful lyricism. Narrating the complex relationship humans have with the possession of things, the track explores modern materialism with playful character and enhanced charisma.
There’s a lot to discover in the record; although it might appear as a simple pop piece on the surface, in reality, there’s a whole lot of introspection and technical work behind it. Atlas will guide us into it though, don’t worry: intrigued by ‘Retail Therapy’, we caught up with James to find out more about his artistry and future goals.
Interview below!
Hey James, how is it going? some of our readers might not be familiar with your project, how would you describe yourself, in a few words?
I’m a singer from San Francisco, originally from Australia, and I have just made my first album. The album has many styles of music in it so I’m not sure what to classify it as.
Your current work is the result of a long journey; What first drew you to making music?
First, it was the drums. I played drums for 10 years. As I studied the drummers of the bands I liked, I would pick up on how the music was put together, and when I wasn’t practising drums I’d be singing. I never had plans to make my own music back then—it’s been a natural progression and I’ve always found music very alluring.
If you had the opportunity to pick any artists in the world for a collaboration, who would be your first choice? (and second choice, perhaps?)
I’d love to collaborate with Ed Sheeran or John Mayer. They were both big influences on me picking up the acoustic guitar to write my first songs.
You recently released an evocative and meaningful single, ‘Retail Therapy’. We find it quite curious, as it contrasts a playful instrumental with deep and reflective lyricism. What does the song mean to you?
I wanted to word it in a way that you can take your own meaning from it; you can go as deep as you want with it and there’s more than one way to perceive it. To me, it’s me laughing at my own shopping addiction while also revelling in it.
You mentioned there are some intriguing samples on the track… can you take us deeper into its production process?
I thought it would be humorous to add some samples of credit card swipes and cash registers. There’s a lot going on in there, so just like the lyrics, you can listen deeper and deeper if you want to. However, there’s still the option of listening on a surface level and it would still be totally satisfying.
Do you feel more confident writing music alone, or within a team?
I’m confident writing alone, I did this for years before working with someone who would produce the sound for me. It was an important part of my development and now when I work with someone as talented as DJ Sever, it’s a very good situation. We have the best of both worlds and we’re both totally confident in what we do.
Artistically speaking, what challenges have the last two years presented you with?
The artistic part comes easily to me. Although it was pretty crazy going for about 9 months writing non-stop to music. It took a lot of dedication and persistence. Things happened in life during that time that could have stopped me and I just kept going until it was completed.
What are the next steps for your project? Anything exciting on the horizon?
I’ve 3D-modelled a rocket that will be the physical copy of my album. I’m 3D printing one rocket a day and in the porthole of each rocket will be a QR code that will take my fans to my album. This will be released before the digital version is released. I don’t think this has been done before, so I’m very excited to see how it plays out.
