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With her new single ‘Kiss’ leading the charge, BLU DETIGER‘s ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’ marks a bass-driven indie-pop evolution, capturing her distinctive path through personal growth and imposter syndrome in a debut that challenges the status quo. Check out the latest cover story for our New Music Friday playlist edit, The Cut.
Words: Abigail Firth.
Sometimes, a person is born with such a name they cannot pursue any career except pop star. Think Madonna and Beyoncé, more recently Dua Lipa and Harry Styles. Add to those ranks Blu DeTiger, whose preferred instrument, the bass, would normally see its player pushed to the side, but Blu is having none of that.
An almost lifelong bass player, Blu rarely, if at all, saw female bass players front and centre growing up, leading her down her own path all the way to her debut full-length ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’.
When we meet via Zoom to chat about her album, Blu is back in her native city, New York, following a trip across the Atlantic to London, then LA, then back to NY, where she’s not tired but rather looking for a Valentine’s Day party to go to that evening.
The past couple of weeks for her feel like a snapshot of the hectic few years she’s had since her bass covers gained traction on TikTok in 2020. Offline, she’d built a name for herself as a touring musician for acts like Caroline Polachek and Fletcher, as well as playing bass for Bleachers and Olivia Rodrigo. Alongside that, she’d been making her own music, dropping the EP ‘How Did We Get Here?’ in 2021, which she also toured extensively. Phew.
“It feels weird,” says Blu from her bed in New York, “because I feel like so much has happened in the past few years. I was basically touring an EP for years, which is kind of crazy, just waiting for that moment for the album.
“I’ve done quite a lot of stuff since my EP came out,” she downplays. “So yeah, we’re in a whole new wave right now.”
First picking up a bass guitar at the age of seven because she was inundated with girls who could sing and play guitar, but hardly ever bass – “I just wanted to be unique and a little bit different,” she says – and noticing how it went hand in hand with the drums, which her brother played, she fell in love with the instrument and never put it down.
She notes how lucky she was to find her passion early on, landing herself gigs at a very young age, including one at Manhattan’s iconic club CBGB before it closed in 2006 (Blu was born in 1998, if you want to do the maths). She also credits her upbringing in New York as a crucial component in developing her early interest in music and, eventually, her solo sound.
“I think the energy of New York, like the hustle and the grit and the edginess, comes across on a bunch of the tracks. When you’re born and raised here, it’s always gonna be ingrained in you no matter where you’re writing or wherever you are. And the influences of the people that have come up playing in New York, just getting that energy there was really important.”
“It’s about growing up, and learning to love where you’re at”
Blu DeTiger
That grittier vibe remains on ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’. It’s cool and effortless, never ramshackle or thrown together, but certainly not blindingly polished. It’s a coming-of-age record at heart, developed over the course of three years, give or take, and almost by accident – some of the tracks date back to her first writing sessions in Los Angeles in 2021 – and follows Blu’s journey as she moves from her hometown to LA.
“It was definitely a big transitional phase for me, where I was like moving to a new city and living on my own for the first time,” says Blu. “I was dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome. I just signed to a label; everything happened so fast with the pandemic and building a fan base online. I went through my first relationship and breakup throughout the whole album process, so there are some songs about that.
“Honestly, it’s about growing up, and learning to love where you’re at, no matter where you are. If you’re at an extreme high and you’re loving life, learning to love that, and then also, if you’re at a low and you’re heartbroken and whatever, also learning to enjoy that almost and learn from it.”
One of the record’s quieter moments, bluntly titled ‘Imposter Syndrome’, is an older bass ballad that almost didn’t make the final cut, but Blu changed her mind when she realised how honest and relatable it felt.
“As an artist, it’s really easy to doubt yourself. When you’re making an album, especially since it takes so long, you really have time to sit with it and be like, wait, is that song bad? Should I put that out? You know, there are so many decisions you have to make. I had to deal with that a lot over the past few years, kind of learning to trust myself.”
That became easier when she started collaborating with cult indie pop legend Uffie for the tracks ‘Expensive Money’, which features Blu doing up Uffie’s talk-rapping over a laidback tropical beat, and ‘Latency’, a gristly, urgent Le Tigre style indie banger.
“She is such a legend,” Blu says of Uffie. “Any lyric she thinks of, they just sound cool, automatically. Having her in the room also gives me the confidence to trust myself a little bit more, too. She’s such a good energy; sometimes, if you’re in a session and you think of something, you’re like, oh, that’s stupid or whatever. She’d be like, no, that’s actually so sick, and I’m like, wait, you’re right. It’s nice to have someone there that you trust to confirm your weird thoughts.”
Elsewhere on the record, Blu brings campy breakout pop star Chappell Roan into the writers’ room for ‘Hey You’, the sassiest track on the record, boasting lyrics about Blu’s Forbes list inclusion (“I’m flirty, and I’m 30 under 30”) amongst others about reinvention.
The rest of the album’s influences read like Spotify’s Indie Sleaze playlist, as Blu cites Robyn, Gorillaz, The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, CSS and The Ting Tings as artists who’ve inspired her over the years. “It’s the stuff that I grew up listening to, very New York,” she adds. It’s her most experimental and expansive work yet, not just pulling from her old favourites, but veering off into ballad territory (‘Imposter Syndrome’), breezy indie-pop (‘I’ll Never Tell’), and 100 gecs-fuelled distortion (‘You Say’).
“As an artist, it’s really easy to doubt yourself”
Blu DeTiger
Blu’s instrument taking centre stage makes ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’ one of the most bass-heavy breakthrough records since Thundercat’s rise in the 2010s. Although her playing on tracks like single ‘Kiss’ easily recalls his, Blu admits she found few female bassists who were doing what she wanted to do growing up.
“There’s definitely a bunch of female bass players that I love, like Tina Weymouth and Este Haim and Meshell Ndegeocello and Carol Kaye. They weren’t doing the exact same thing, but their playing influenced me for sure.” And Kim Gordon? “Oh yes! I don’t know why I forgot to say her because I’ve been thinking about her so much. Sonic Youth is the dopest shit ever.”
With her foundational years behind her and a debut on the horizon, Blu is looking forward as she continues her one-of-a-kind artist journey. While it hasn’t always been easy for her, she’s positive about the way she’s navigated the industry so far.
“What I’m realising more and more is that I’m creating my own path and my own lane. When you’re an artist, there are different kinds of artists that come before that pave the way, and I feel like it’s been harder for me to find someone that I can really relate my experience or my artistry to. There are different people I can point to that have inspired me, obviously, but in terms of, like, the lane as an artist of a female bass player who sings and produces in the mainstream pop space, it’s hard. Like, I can’t think of anyone else. It’s been quite interesting doing my thing and just trying to figure it out along the way.”
While she might not have it entirely figured out, the future looks bright for Blu. The album rollout promises more touring in 2024 – her favourite part and, of course, the place where she’s been able to really hone her craft – featuring a show built on the knowledge she’s gathered from touring with the big leagues. And until the next album comes around (she jokingly suggests it’ll be called ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything Part 2’), she’s learning from her own lessons to feel happy with where she’s currently at.
“I don’t think anyone will ever have everything they want, you know?” she concludes. “So that’s the point of the album title. It’s like learning to be satisfied with never being satisfied. Of course you want it all, you can have it all in different capacities, but I definitely really love my life.” ■
Blu DeTiger’s debut album ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’ is out 29th March. Follow Dork’s The Cut Spotify playlist here.
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