The Midwestern bedroom producer sticks to his routine as he navigates quarantine in the internet age
Photos by Aidan Mastbrook
“The buzz of a lifetime is coming,” Knapsack announces over Zoom from his parent’s Midwestern home in the Chicago suburbs. The 19-year-old bedroom producer is quarantining for the summer far from his college campus at NYU, but he assures me that the pandemic has hardly affected his musical process. He’s still managed to perform alongside acts such as Hannah Diamond and Phoebe Bridgers (in Minecraft) and party with the likes of Laura Les (on Zoom). Recently, he dropped his first single of 2020, a bittersweet marriage of spacey synths and upbeat affirmations titled “Twelve Degrees.” But this is not the buzz that Knapsack has been hinting at on social media since The Before Times of the pandemic. The buzz of a lifetime is still on its way, and for now, “Twelve Degrees” urges us to simply stick to our routine—and that’s okay.
As a quasi-quarantined bedroom producer, Knapsack’s routine involves striving for pop stardom as he always has: online. Long before traditional IRL performances were halted by the wake of a global pandemic, Knapsack was DJing on Discord for his friends and making Soundcloud-worthy beats on his laptop. So why should a world-wide lockdown get in the way?
“My process for making and recording music has always been in my bedroom, wherever that is,” Knapsack admits into the oversized mic that is clearly used for this very purpose. “As a group of kids who’ve been doing this for a while, we kind of have a leg up on the quarantine culture, cause we all stay home anyway.”
This humble admission is emblematic of the DIY bedroom producer ethos that permeates online spaces, such as Soundcloud, Discord, Zoom, and even Minecraft. From August 14–15, Knapsack will be performing at Lavapalooza, a two-day Minecraft festival organized by Open Pit and headlined by acts such as 100 Gecs and A. G. Cook, but Knapsack is no stranger to this type of venue.
In early June, Knapsack performed in the block-based building game alongside his NYU collab group, Papaya & Friends, at Elsewither Academy’s String Formal. Elsewither is a virtual recreation of Brooklyn club Elsewhere, that was shut down due to pandemic protocol. Being New York-based, it made sense for Knapsack’s collaborative side project to perform in a virtual space that was reminiscent of the real-world club they could no longer access.
At String Formal, Papaya & Friends were billed alongside a myriad of hyperpop and EDM acts, including PC Music princess Hannah Diamond. However, Knapsack said he was most excited to “share the stage” with indie rock darling Phoebe Bridgers, who is currently one of his favorite artists. Bridgers’ hauntingly melodic style is an obvious influence for Knapsack, especially in “Twelve Degrees”; but there is no denying his affiliation to EDM, which is currently driving the increasingly popular genre of hyperpop, associated with Diamond. Knapsack attempts to couple these influences into his own distinct sound, but ultimately he claims to be making pop music.
“It’s not that important to have a genre if you’re coming up, as long as the music sounds good and you’re trying something new,” Knapsack continues. “My music becomes this sort of hodgepodge at a certain point, so I’ve been saying it’s pop music as a kind of statement.”
While Knapsack is riding the wave of artists who are attempting to subvert the face of conventional pop music, his end goal is still pop stardom. With millions of collective Spotify streams already under his belt, he’s still not convinced that he’s found success just yet. And with the buzz of a lifetime still on its way, he’s looking to his peers for inspiration and opportunities to make the best pop music he can.
Belonging to both the Chicago and New York scenes, Knapsack spends a decent amount of time collaborating with varying artists, but the music makers in these scenes aren’t confined by their city’s limits—only their internet connections. Pre-pandemic, Knapsack spent time performing live in Chicago with hyperpop scene-maker Laura Les of 100 Gecs just prior to the release of their seminal album 1000 Gecs. Les is one of Knapsack’s idols who continues to support him and his peers during the pandemic with the rise of Club Quarantine’s Zoom dance parties. Knapsack attended one such party when Les, one of the event’s DJs, announced that she would be playing her Soundcloud likes as her set. Les’ likes were peppered with Knapsack’s contemporaries and even included a song by another one of his online side projects, sebastian6.
Knapsack’s online presence allows him to transcend geography with his collaborative efforts, and this is especially evident on his Soundcloud. Here, Knapsack has produced for and collaborated with artists outside of his immediate scenes, and he refers to a lot of these younger Soundcloud producers and performers as having a “unique aura.” While Knapsack feels like he is participating in this scene, he refers to his presence as “adjacent” to his younger contemporaries and does not fully believe that this scene is where he will find recognition.
“I’ve been thinking about scenes a lot lately, and you always stumble into them. You always stumble into whatever feels right and whatever you’re interested in,” Knapsack says. “To me, the Midwest has a really distinguishable sound, but if something interesting starts happening in New York in the next couple years, I hope I get to be a part of it.”
With a new project slated to be released by the end of the summer, Knapsack is looking to the future while meditating on nostalgia. His upcoming project is “nostalgic of a time not that long ago”, which really means it’s based on a romantic version of 2018 that he refuses to detail before the project drop. The buzz of a lifetime is coming, and Knapsack wants it to speak for itself. However, he agrees that, like all of his music, this project is a part of his coming of age story. Knapsack has been trying to figure out his “thing”: his sound, his artistic progression, and his role in pop music long before he started navigating the online world of bedroom producing. Now that he’s here, making appearances in virtual venues and creating music all from the comfortable confinement of his parents’ suburban home, he’s confident that once the lockdown is fully lifted, music is going to flourish at the end of it all.
“It’ll be great, especially if this energy is just bubbling up. There’s gonna be an explosion, like a Renaissance,” Knapsack says, smiling in his bedroom studio. “There’s endless potential when it’s all back on.”
Listen to Knapsack’s latest single “Twelve Degrees” below. Stay tuned for the buzz.