supermodel* (@supermodelsupermodel) is a singer and producer who used to live in England. He wears Adidas Superstars, refuses genre, and practices devotion to that city of angels we hear legends about. Released on the last red-hot night of July, his debut mixtape cupid! is a sunscape play on instinct, ‘87 MJ, bunnies, and missing your baby. The EP belongs to his indie label, you can do it too*, a community built up by LA legends such as Ashlan Grey (@ashlan) and Q Marsden (@qmarsden) and his mythological homie, Zak (@versacebobcat)
But the day we got to talking—the tail end of his tour—Frankie Beanie was stranded and solo in a foreign city, not even a soundboard to his name.
The Cold Magazine (CM): Wow, okay, you released your EP, came to Berlin, and lost all your luggage. Like, what’s happening?
Supermodel* (SM): I feel really good actually. There’s something freeing about showing up at a place and being like, shit, I don’t even have a toothbrush. Don’t really know anybody here. I didn’t realise how much I needed it; now I just feel like I’m a totally different person.
CM: That’s exciting, because a lot of your music has been faithful to the cities that influence you.
SM: Honestly, I just want to make music that feels free. You know what I mean?
CM: What did that look like when you made cupid!?
SM: Much like you, I went through a breakup. I was halfway through writing a project, then that happened, and it was gnarly.
I found that I was returning to the same couple albums when I was driving around, and none of them were sad. They were all sort of hopeful, but had this undertone of, oh, but, like, I’m sad? Like yeah, but also, I have a bunch of shit I have to get done today. That was really the feeling I was chasing with cupid!
In general, life is fucking hard. I feel like people want to feel good, you know?
CM: How did you find that balance?
SM: A lot of cupid! was me going back and listening to, like, Weezer and shit.
We had this studio in Burbank. It was this big warehouse. We put a basketball hoop in and we were just in there for a month straight. Like, everyday, twelve hours a day. It was an intense process, but reflective.
CM: Had you ever done something like that before when creating, completely immersed yourself in it?
SM: No, never. It was my first time where it felt like there was a community around it. In the studio, after a week or two, people just started pulling up to hang out. My homie Q ended up singing some backing vocals at the end of “cherry garcia.” And you know, other people started pulling up who didn’t contribute anything. They were just there. And so… it was cool.
CM: Tell me more about the cupid! community.
SM: Ashlan is an amazing photographer, he’s the best. But the reason that I love working with him so much is that we love a lot of the same things. And we also hate a lot of the same things. And we feel really passionately about both.
CM: What are some things you passionately love or passionately hate?
SM: Something I was listening to a lot when making cupid! was Voodoo by D’Angelo. I listened to it this morning.
CM: May he rest in peace.
SM: Other things, I mean, I love movies. In the “cherry garcia” video, the blue light at the end is a reference to Belly (1998). My favorite movie of all time—Ashlan always gives me shit for this—but it’s Mid90s (2018). It’s why I wanted to shoot all the EP videos on 16 millimeters.
And then, honestly, I love traveling. LA could be a really cynical place. And I think I could be a really cynical person. Traveling around and playing shows and meeting people in all these different places has given me a real sort of optimism for the world.
CM: What’s been an experience that’s cracked you open?
SM: Every single show we played, we were in some random fucking place. I mean, we were in Finland. We were in Poland. And every single show, there were kids that knew all the words to all the songs. After the set, I would jump down to the barricade and talk to everybody. It was never lost on me how wild it was. We don’t speak the same language, and you are connecting to the music I’m making in this bubble of my life in LA.
I feel like when you make things and it starts to move online, it’s hard to actually fathom what’s going on, because you see numbers, but it doesn’t feel like anything.
Oh, fuck all that. Like these are real people, you know what I mean? That are just living their life in Switzerland. And they fucking love my record. And then it’s like, okay, cool, what can I do for them? That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot.
CM: It’s tough now, with how everything is algorithmic. The whole point of creating is connecting.
SM: To go back to when you asked me to list things I hate, I think there is a real lack, currently, of artists in the world moving the way artists of the past used to. Which is with intention, and with something to say. There’s so much going on now where it’s just, oh, here’s a cool song. Oh, here’s, like, a vibe. And I think that’s really fucking lazy.
I’m a big Virgil Abloh fan. When he was designing his IKEA collection, the first thing he wrote down was “why do we need another chair?” His whole thought process was, well, what can I bring to this medium that is something different?
If I’m gonna stand up here and be like, look at me, I made a thing and you should care, to me, it better be that I’m actually trying to give something. Otherwise, why the fuck would you care?
I think it’s why I’m encouraged by things like Dijon becoming so big in the last year. But it’s unfortunate that now every white guy in Silver Lake is like “let’s play a show in our living room.”
CM: Tell me about you can do it too*.
SM: When BROCKHAMPTON first blew up, 10 years ago, I saw a video of them just on the street outside their house that was shot on a shitty shaky camera, and it had like 3 million views. It made 16 year old me feel like, oh shit, well, I could do that. I have the ability to make that.
Like, I’m from Virginia. And nobody I knew there was doing music for real. When I signed my first record deal at 19, I literally knew one guy who was a producer that had a lawyer, and he was also the only person in my life that had a lawyer… I had no connection to anything. And now I’m out here, fucking touring the world. I wake up most days and I’m like, what the fuck is going on? How did I do this?
My whole thing is, well, if I could do it, then yeah, you could fucking do it. Obviously I’m cool as shit, but other people could be cool, too.
CM: And in a way, it helps people feel free.
SM: At the end of the day, I’m just trying to be happy, you know what I mean? That, to me, is what makes me happy, giving other people that feeling that I’ve gotten from listening to music.
