Influences, Bad Dates, Quarantining and Taco Bell – A One-on-One Conversation with Rising Hyperpop Superstar, That Kid

Stuck inside? Us too.

As a music site, the detriment being imposed on SCF by the COVID-19 fallout is the noticeable absence of music releases and visual promotion, namely interviews on YouTube channels, entertainment programming like morning/late-night television. And concerts.

Every single artist’s tour is on hold and all major music festivals between now and the end of summer are either being canceled or postponed. The world’s sole attention would be on Coachella right now; clamoring over James Charles’ latest embarrassing moment, who committed the biggest cultural appropriation with their outfit and obsessing over the best-dressed list. Oh, right, there’d be artists performing, too. Artists whose primary source of revenue has come from these live performances in the age of streaming. One such artist is Denver native That Kid, self-described as “America’s favorite twink” on his Twitter biography.

Known by those closest to him as Spencer, That Kid is a glitzy, unyielding, sexually liberated electropop superstar in the making, filling the gaping void in the music world with his debut mixtape Crush, available on Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes and Apple Music. His music journey started in 2018 when he released the frenetic, sugary electro glitch ode to late-00s phone sex “Dial Tone”, a collaborative effort alongside fellow bubblegum bass popstars Ayesha Erotica, who is now retired from music, and Slayyyter, whose career skyrocketed in 2019 and looks set to only grow bigger as she plans to release her sophomore mixtape later in 2020. In That Kid’s case, his mixtape has been out for two weeks already and the reviews have been raving thus far.

In light of Crush being released on March 31st, the final day of 2020’s first quarter, I ask him what his favorite music releases of the year have been. Ooh, 2020. Well, just as you called, in fact, I was listening to Charli XCX’s new song, forever, which just came out today. (Today being April 10th, the day the interview took place) There’s one from late 2019 which I loved; ecco2K’s album E is really good. Honestly, Drain Gang in general are just so ahead of the curve and they always have the freshest beats, so they’re mainly what I’ve listened to these days.

Spencer then goes on to explain that Drain Gang bears a sonic influence over the music he’s currently working on, particularly waxing lyrical over Yung Lean’s music. He explains to me how Lean’s heavy use of Autotune in his music inspired his own heavy Autotune use in his music. “I wanna be Yung Lean! I wanna have like, all these crazy beats and like, really experimental vocal production!”, I’m told prior to Spencer’s recount of a Yung Lean’s concert he attended, professing it to be one of the very best he’s witnessed, picking up a t-shirt along the way.

The parallels are evident in both Yung Lean and Spencer’s music; they work on low budgets, characterizing both of their discographies with over-processed vocals over hodgepodges of non-sequitur lyrics over highly stylized production. It’s harder than one may think to a) make something like that work and b) cultivate an audience for that music. Spencer’s mention of the shirt prompts me to bring attention to the shirt I’m wearing; I showed up to our interview in an official Britney Spears Oops!…I Did It Again Tour t-shirt which I’d received as a Christmas gift, the very shirt I also wore when attending a concert in Boston for the aforementioned Slayyyter last summer.

Spencer takes this opportunity to shed some more light on his friendship with the blonde bombshell. “I met her in a group chat right after she released BFF, I remember messaging her, like, right after BFF dropped and telling her ,”this is the most insane thing I’ve ever heard”, and from that point on, we made Dial Tone, then the year after that we made E-Boy. We basically bonded right from our first interaction, and it’s crazy to see how huge she is now.”

From that, we proceed to discuss the wider topic of the subgenre Spencer associates with, delving into its comparison to the fabled PC Music collective. “None of us are affiliated with PC Music. Their music is amazing, though; I love Hannah Diamond’s Reflections. Mostly, we’re just making our own music and seeing what happens.” One oft-used label to describe Spencer’s music is “hyperpop”. The term I use to describe it is “dial-up divas”, a term which brings a glint to Spencer’s eyes. The overlap between hyperpop and PC Music’s respective fans is certainly evident, though. I remark to Spencer how his Spotify page’s “Fans Also Like” section contains artists like Danny L Harle, GFOTY, and A.G. Cook, PC Music’s very own maestro. “In a way, I’m very grateful to be seen in that space since I’ve been fans of these artists for a very long time. Like, I remember listening to (Diamond’s) Pink and Blue when I was 14 and thinking, “nobody’s doing music like this.” It’s very sweet to be seen in the same light as them. I’d love to collaborate with any of them, since they’ve basically pioneered this sound, which was so ahead of the curve, and still is to this day, especially from artists like Namasenda and umru.”

14 is a special age for Spencer, it’s the age he decided to start making music, likely influenced by all the aforementioned artists. There’s proof to this supposition; Spencer informs me that he started stanning Liz Y2K when he was 15, which came “full circle” as a result of their Spells On U collab on Crush. Since he’s only 21 years old, it’s been a 7-year journey for Spencer, who’s already performed in a number of U.S. cities, yet as of this interview he remains situated in Denver for the time being. For obvious reasons, he’ll be remaining in Denver over the coming months, yet it wouldn’t be surprising to see him move to L.A. when he gets the chance. “I’ve mostly just been working from home, which I realize I’m privileged to be doing, since music is my career now, so I’m really thankful for that. Since I began isolating on March 14th, I’ve already made at least 6 songs. I also love to go out, like to party, so I’ve been going onto Club Quarantine on Zoom just to like, party and stuff so I don’t feel, you know, totally isolated”.

As a fellow member of the LGBTQ+ community, I can absolutely attest to that. Many nightclub-style rooms have been appearing all over Zoom, however, Club Quarantine definitely appears to be the most notable of all these rooms. It’s explained well in a video on VICE’s YouTube channel, the main premise being that people are joining mass video calls on Zoom to put together makeshift impromptu club parties in place of actually attending nightclubs and partying with friends. I highly recommend Club Quarantine to those whose access to LGBTQ+ spaces has been compromised due to the pandemic.

Famous guest DJs of Club Quarantine include Charli XCX, Pabllo Vittar, Allie X, and even Spencer himself, playing to musicians like Diamond, Dorian Electra, Chester Lockhart, and Alice Glass, one of Spencer’s favorite artists. “After my set, she DM’d me on Instagram and said “you had one of the best sets tonight!”, and to hear that from Alice Glass really made my day. I’ve loved all of these artists for such a long time so it’s really cute whenever I get a message from them telling me how much they love me.”

I’m told Spencer played some of his own songs from his mixtape: an unreleased remix of “Make Out Club”, and “Kiss Me Thru The Phone”. His reason for covering the Soulja Boy standard may surprise you. “Something about the melody to me is actually really sad; the melody on the original is so bright and poppy, but the lyrics behind it, the whole ‘I can’t see you right now’ theme’s very sad to me. I also have like, 8 songs about phones, so it makes sense to cover it.” Enlightened, I suggest Spencer covers “Telephone”, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé’s hit 2009 single. This completely flusters him. “Oh my God, I would be too scared! I’d be too scared to even touch it. It’s such pop perfection, I feel like, even if I tried… something would go wrong.”

Delving more into Crush, the mixtape totals 27 minutes as it consists of 9 songs, 3 of which are collaborative efforts. In addition to the aforementioned “Spells on U”, Spencer enlists the help of Ravenna Golden and Tama Gucci for “7 Minutes in Heaven” and “Captain”, respectively. The former, Spencer tells me, is his personal favorite song on Crush. One song which fans of Spencer’s were delighted to see on the tracklist was “Taco Bell”, a song which he’d teased on Twitter during several months prior. “I’m glad it’s out there now and the reception to it has been good thus far. Now I won’t have to worry about getting 50 messages saying WHERE’S TACO BELL?!?!. (laughs)

In an interview with PAPER magazine, Spencer has stated that the inspiration for “Taco Bell” arose from a date he went on at a location in his hometown. This prompted me to ask: what’s your idea of a dream date? “I’m not too picky, honestly. For me, as long as I’m with a nice guy and there’s good conversation then I’ll have a good time. The worst date I’ve been on, though, was with this one guy who just wanted to smoke weed in his car. Before, we went to go see a movie, and I told him that I don’t like movies, so I was just like, ‘this is not great’. I’m not picky with dates, generally; just don’t take me to the fucking movies. I’ll just be pissed the entire time.”

The following track on the mixtape personally had me giggling the entire time I heard it. “Kiss and Tell” is a campy song about a hookup rumor which spirals out of control. Surprisingly, that song wasn’t written from experience. “Kiss and Tell was just a silly idea I had. I basically wrote the song in 15 minutes, but it took me like, two days to get the verses exactly how I wanted. I decided for the bridge to have this paparazzi scene, so I got everyone to record that, but in the space after the first chorus, I was thinking about referencing Chad from Taco Bell being all like “now my reputation’s ruined”. So in that way, Kiss and Tell is sort of an unofficial sequel to Taco Bell.” As for the paparazzi-style bridge, a comparison I drew it to was the opening scene in Britney Spears’ “I Wanna Go” music video, in which both Spencer and Britney are asked a series of increasingly ridiculous questions in their respective works. “For Kiss and Tell specifically, I just wanted these really ridiculous questions. I was texting my friends, saying “can you just text me really weird stuff?” I think there needs to be humor, and I think Britney did that really well for I Wanna Go. I just find music a bit too serious at times, especially in pop music, so I just think there needs to be humor in there sometimes. Even the next track, Make Out Club, like when I wrote that with Guard I just blurted out “I’mma bite your dick!”, so I just like to have a lot of fun with my songs and make people go “Wait… what?”. I feel like those lines can add a little punch to it.” I’m told the song’s party mix contains even more ridiculous and vulgar lines; some of which are better off staying unreleased.

For as proud of Crush as Spencer and his fans are, there was, at one point, a very real possibility of the mixtape never materializing in the first place. “I was trying to make a project but then I sold the songs off to others. At that point, I was quite anti-project, in fact. Crush somehow happened without me realizing it, so at that point, I just decided to make it a project, put it out and a couple people would listen to it.”

It’s well more than a couple who have heard Crush. In fact, on Crush’s Spotify page, the songs’ cumulative streams have totaled well over 150,000 plays, and it has a 3.37/5 rating on rateyourmusic.com from 123 ratings. It’s even more popular on Twitter; Spencer has received heaps of praise from fans and musicians alike. “I’m getting way more followers, and every day someone will DM me or email me, it’s been absolutely crazy.” Those DMs haven’t just been to praise his music, either.

Prior to quarantine, Spencer had initially booked an opening slot for LIZ on April 5th in San Francisco. Inspired by this, I asked his top 3 artists for whom he’d perform as an opening act. ”Ooh, that’s a hard question. Obviously Slayyyter. Charli would be really cool, though. And… maybe Dorian? That’d be fun.” Intrigued, I followed this up by asking Spencer what he considered his top 5 songs from his discography thus far. “Oh my God, that’s really hard! (laughing) Okay, so, definitely not in order, my top 5 are Booty Call, Boyfriend, Blindfold, Take It Off, 7 Minutes in Heaven and I know you said 5 but I’m also gonna mention Spectacular.

At the end of our conversation, we delved into what plans Spencer had in mind for Crush promotion, such as a homemade DIY music video. “I have a song in mind, but we’ll see. I’m not very confident on camera, so I don’t know if I’d look good in a video. But I’m gonna try it, I’ll see what happens and hopefully, it’ll turn out really cute. I know some video editors, so I might record on my laptop and ask them to make me look cute.” While a video would certainly boost streams, it’s really the album sales that play a key role in defining an album’s success. Unfortunately for fans, physical copies won’t be manufactured. “It’s not the best for the environment, and it’s also kind of expensive, so I don’t really see myself doing that right now. Maybe in the future, I’ll consider CDs for a project, though.”

My final question to Spencer was an overview of his plans for the end of quarantine, musical or otherwise. “I’d like to do a small show, for sure. I was planning a music video for Crush, and maybe I’ll revisit it. Or maybe I’ll do it for one of my newer songs since I’m always thinking about my next single. Realistically, in my day-to-day life, I just want to see my friends and family, and like I wanna go out and party and just have a good time like that’s the main focus.”

Ain’t that the damn truth.

If you want to keep up with Spencer’s day-to-day life, be sure to follow him on Instagram and Twitter @itisthatkid.

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Charlie Regimbal

Studying sound engineering at Recording Arts Canada, while documenting some personal musical musings here on the side.

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