DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD on “Pop Alchemy”, Queerness, and his Self-Titled Debut Album.
Written by Joshua Beutum
In the video for the opening track of his self-titled album, Welsh musician DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD is being weird. He kneels beside a urinal sniffing from a very Hung Young Brit-looking sneaker, appears naked and rope-tied on a billiards table, and becomes something of an ashtray for a lover putting out a cigarette on his stomach. These scenes, coupled with an almost-too-tight T-shirt bearing the face of none other than Disney’s Mickey Mouse, set up a series of contrasts that run throughout the album.
At its core, DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD, his eponymous debut, thrives on these contradictions: it is both a gut-wrenching rumination on queer heartbreak and a very club-ready celebration of survival, hope, and self-acceptance.
Conceptualised as an experiment in “pop alchemy”, it is a breakup record bent on transforming the artist’s sorrow into bold, infectious melodies and dazzling soundscapes. From coping with trauma through casual sex in “CRY”, to sobbing on the dancefloor in “HEARTBREAK ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS”, and yearning after a would-be lover in “late night technicolour”, the musician is unflinchingly honest in his journey through love, sex, and destruction – all set to bouncy production from Charli XCX and Col3trane collaborators, Oscar Moos and Gethin Pearson. Across thirty minutes, DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD is a showcase of pop music at its best: it is a deliberate, intentional, and honest reflection on the state of queer love today.
After a private listening party in the backroom of The Carpet Shop in Peckham, I met with DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD by my Dalston apartment. This was particularly fortuitous, since it turned out much of the album was recorded in the building next door. Setting up beside a row of dumpsters, which we had decided worked well with the juxtapositions that arise throughout the record, we discussed collaboration, queerness, and what it means to crave both hedonism and a Disney-like vision of love.
The Cold Magazine (CM): What inspired the album?
DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD (DMTW): This crazy heartbreak. I was going off the rails. I started taking medication, which changed my brain. I was trying to capture what was going on, and rather than just being sad and writing sad songs, I tried to capture this push and pull – the situation was awful, but the medication was making me feel it in a completely different way. Then, I went to this Robyn concert, and I saw how she channelled her sorrow into something so life-giving and vivid and bold and unifying. I left that night at Alexandra Palace wanting to do that, to channel my pain into something brighter.
CM: That’s something you can feel quite strongly on the lead single, “HEARTBREAK ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS”. What’s behind the decision to create such a contrast between a bright and cheery production and often dark themes like breakups, trauma and depression?
DMTW: That’s just where I was at. It’s what I was going through, and the album was about finding a way to express that. I got into pop alchemy – which is what Robyn does. It’s about, how can I turn misery into something else? I wanted to talk about escapism and hedonism and hooking up, but make it sound like the opposite to how it felt. It became something thrilling, fun. So, that became the sound: heartbreak on antidepressants. That’s the genre of the album I wanted to make before I’d even written that song. When we started “Disney Love”, I was saying that I wanted to sound like heartbreak on antidepressants. It’s a breakup song, but can we make it fruity? How can we make it sound like petals in the air?
CM: Considering you’re talking about such intimate parts of your romantic life, why use a different name?
DMTW: The name felt funny and a bit provocative. It was a joke because I was feeling so bad, I was trying to find humour in the fact that I felt so weird. I also hoped it would give me some psychological distance, because I do find it quite excruciating to promote what I’ve made. I don’t know that it really did, to be honest, but that was my aim.
CM: How do you approach sharing your feelings with such a wide audience?
DMTW: Creating it feels completely natural. I’m trying to work through something in my actual life, so I’ve got to be as real and honest with myself as I can. Otherwise, what’s the point? Also, for the audience you’ve got to be as truthful as you can, so hopefully they can feel themselves and their humanity and ultimately feel less alone through the music. That’s the dream. What’s challenging for me is the promotion. It’s like saying, okay, everyone, read my diary. I’m not like that.
CM: Does that make DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD more of an album for you, or for an audience?
DMTW: I’m torn between the two, because I’m trying to heal and trying to make something I resonate with. But you don’t spend years tweaking, polishing, and changing all these things just for yourself. You get the thing for yourself when you’re at the piano writing the song and you’re getting that catharsis and you’re working it out, that’s the bit for you. But then creating this dynamic joy ride, that’s more for the audience. I hope this album really takes someone on a trip.
CM: The album spans across an arc from romantic rejection, to partying and sex as means of coping with trauma, to a final message of self-acceptance and a sense of hope. This is a journey that feels very queer. Was that intentional? Why do you think so many queer people resonate so strongly with your music?
DMTW: I’m just capturing my life. I’m inspired to make music from a particular corner of my world: a world of love and emotion and sensuality and sex. That’s just what I’m drawn to making music about. Plus, if it’s about me, it’s going to be queer. It’s going to be about men, because that’s what I’m doing. It’s just a natural thing.
I also think people can relate to the pressure of being under the tyranny of self-love and self-care and self-everything. There’s so much pressure to be happy and have lots of sex and be out, but when you’re in a rough spot, that stuff is so far away. Sometimes, we’re just exploding with emotion and spilling out all over the place and it’s messy. For so long, we’re made to feel weird about that, about not being okay. Eventually, there’s this long journey towards accepting that this is just the way it is, and this is who I am, and I’m only making it worse by trying to cut those parts off.
CM: In the album and accompanying visuals, there’s a fusion of innocence and romantic clichés with more transgressive elements – in the film for “DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD”, you’re basically a human ashtray, but you’re wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, Meanwhile, the track “Disney Love” reflects on a somewhat naïve vision of romance but to the backdrop of your breakup. Tell me a bit more about these juxtapositions.
DMTW: It all ties into that initial idea of heartbreak on antidepressants. I’m quite a soft, romantic person, but I was experiencing hard feelings and a lot of turbulence. I was trying to capture both extremes. The Disney shirt in “DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD” made sense because I’m so optimistic about love. Like, if two people are lucky enough to fall in love with each other, what could go wrong? But now it’s contrasted with the fact that I’m more aware of the opposite. There are so many things to go wrong. Life is so sublime and awful in that way. But it’s beautiful. That’s what I want to show. Part of me would love a romantic, soft relationship, but at the same time, I want to get railed in a toilet cubicle.
CM: From a pub in “DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD” to a rugby match in “WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT”, your music videos aim to introduce a sense of queer desire into straight spaces. What drives this?
DMTW: With “WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT”, I’m Welsh and I grew up in the culture of rugby. That was a world I never felt safe in. So, there’s some pleasure in going back and doing something really queer in those spaces. It’s also amazing how times have changed, because when I had the idea for the video, I found this queer rugby team – the Cardiff Lions – who train every week right by where I went to school. So that was my personal intention, but then connecting with this community of gay rugby players was incredible. They were so lovely, so warm, and so game for the video.
CM: Do you face any backlash for incorporating your queerness into these spaces?
DMTW: Sometimes. I did that cover of “Boys” by Charli XCX in a church, so I do get a lot of angry Christians. But it’s also kind of fun. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and I don’t want to be mean or anything, but when it’s stuff like that, I think it’s quite funny to lean into it. There’s something funny about singing “Boys” to a naked painting of Jesus.
CM: You collaborated with Oscar Moos and Gethin Pearson on the album. What was that process like?
DMTW: We were just making songs, and I began to see how they’d fit together in a bigger project. So suddenly, we decided we were making an album. It’s a very special relationship that you develop through collaborating. As an only child, I just love it. I love it when someone is completely focused on me and what I’m trying to make.
But there’s a lot of trial and error. There’s so much cutting away what’s not relevant and what’s not part of this story. And there’s so much time spent going down the wrong paths, doing a whole song and then thinking it would sound better a tone higher. I’ve got a very laborious way of working. I want to try everything and then decide.
CM: Favourite songs from the album?
DMTW: “HEARTBREAK ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS” because that’s the core of the album and it feels so strong and robust and bouncy and fruity, and it’s so the opposite to how I felt. I just love the opposition, I love the alchemy, I love the contrast. And then my second favourite, for different reasons is “CHANGE” – and “DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD” – because they really feel like me. I wanted to really put something of my essence into the album. I needed to make it smell of me. And when I hear “CHANGE” and when I hear “DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD”, they really feel like me.
CM: Finally, what do you hope listeners take from DONT MAKE THIS WEIRD?
DMTW: Oh my God. I hope it moves them in some way, somewhere.
