“There’s a lot of pressure on musicians to always be making something new and to be super active. I’m not interested in that; that’s not how something good is made, that’s how something easy and disposable is made.”

TESS POLLOK: You’re a musician, specifically, you’re an indie pop musician with an experimental vibe. I like your fast and loose approach to the rules of music; Our Culture recently praised the “playful, off-kilter pop sounds” of your first album, Easy Bammer. But I wanted to talk about an interesting new project that you put out yesterday: Elegant Ensemble, an album of re-issues of songs from your previous album, French Bath. What inspired you to revisit that music and re-record those songs?

MAY RIO: [Laughs] It’s an unusual decision. Basically, I put out French Bath in June and I was really happy with it, but we played around with the concepts and band a lot during the live shows and that experimentation really inspired me to revisit the music. I love the album [French Bath], but I really want the music, the band, the album, and the shows to always be a living, moving, breathing thing. I want there to be different iterations of things and for things to evolve. What happened with the live shows is that for one of them–it was supposed to be a special occasion, a one-off thing–we assembled a different lineup, so instead of having guitar, synth, and drums, we had piano, cello, and sax. It just felt amazing. We were all really impressed with the new arrangements and how the songs came through them. They didn’t sound like watered down versions of the old songs, they had a natural life of their own. People praised the songwriting more, they said it felt like the lyrics shone through better, and it just felt too special to not capture that. So we went back to the studio and re-recorded the entire album with these new arrangements plus one new song. I think, with that, we were also pushing back against this idea of artistic finality–against the idea that there’s a definitive, finished version of something that deserves to exist. So, yeah, Elegant Ensemble isn’t what you would typically think of as a new album.

POLLOK: It’s unique. It reminds me of how annoyed I was when Ye kept changing the tracklist on Life of Pablo–do you remember that? He just kept tinkering with songs after they were released and I found it really disconcerting, as a listener. There were parts of it I liked that just completely disappeared.

RIO: Most of the time, people are attached to the first version of a song that they hear. There’s a Weezer song that’s like that for me. Weezer is also always tweaking their music after it comes out and there’s one where the end of the chorus is slightly different and it drives me crazy any time I hear it–hard agree that shit like that can be really annoying as a listener. What’s interesting to me about the concept of the re-release is the intention behind it and how it relates to the way people consume music. The streaming economy is rotting the industry from inside–people don’t value music anymore, everyone thinks music should be free, musicians are paid less than a cent per stream. I think musicians are paid around .003 of a cent per stream, which is ridiculous. There’s just so much access to music all the time that it’s easy not to appreciate it. That’s something I wonder about a lot: if and/or when artists finally get fed up with streaming culture, will they start releasing albums just for a month, instead of forever?

POLLOK: Streaming culture–you’re right that it’s not a sustainable economy. That bubble’s going to burst eventually and it’s interesting to think about what might come after.

RIO: If I were a bigger artist and had access to more resources, it’s something I’d want to play with more–manipulating how music is released and consumed–but I’m just not really in a position to do that right now. Another thing that feels really cool to me about the new album is that it defies industry standards and the pressure to just crank out as much as possible. I’m not throwing shade at anyone specific, but I do see a lot of songs being written and released just so that an artist can be, like, “Look, I’m consistently writing and releasing songs, I’m super active!” Sure, some people are just prolific and probably would have been prolific no matter what, but that’s not how it is, like, a majority of the time. That’s also not how something good is made, that’s how something easy and disposable is made. It’s like fast fashion.

POLLOK: Agree. I feel this way about writing, too, and being a freelance writer–there’s a lot of attention economy mind poisoning and pressure to stay relevant, but staying relevant isn’t the same as making quality work. Are there bands you see operating in a different way? Who inspires you with the way they make music right now?

RIO: I listen to a lot of different stuff, I’ve been listening to a lot of Uranium Club lately. They’re maybe the best punk band that exists right now. They’re not putting out albums every year, but when they do, they’re worth listening to. There’s been pressure put on me in my career as an artist to be, like, my own entire creative team and churn out TikToks and other shit like that–I like that Uranium Club doesn’t have any social media, to my knowledge, but their shows consistently sell out because people are just obsessed with their sound.

POLLOK: Who influences your sound the most?

RIO: I’ve been asked this question a lot and I still don’t have a good answer. When I’m writing, I’m not thinking about other artists. That’s kind of a cop out answer, but it’s true. I also go through phases of being very obsessed with different, specific albums or EPs. I listen to a lot of my friends’ music–I enjoy listening to their music, genuinely. I love ‘50s music, one-hit-wonders from that era. I went through a rock phase where I loved the Beatles, the Who, and Pixies. Selena has been one of my favorite artists since I was kid. I love Eminem. I don’t know. My influences are varied.

POLLOK: You mentioned that you listen to a lot of your friends’ music and genuinely enjoy it. Who are some of your biggest inspirations there?

RIO: One act I’m really excited about right now is fantasy of a broken heart, which is a new group formed by my friends Al and Bailey. When I first heard their new album, I don’t think I got it–it was too maximalist for me, at first. But the more I listen, the more I like it. It just gives so much with each listen. Shout out Blaketheman1000, one of my best friends, going to see him later today. Frost Children are doing really well right now and we’re all stoked on that for them. It’s funny, everything with them feels so natural and baked in that sometimes I have to remind myself how special all of this is–to see so much cool music being made and 90% of it is just my homies, you know? That’s just an incredibly special feeling.

POLLOK: How did you first get started making music?

RIO: Growing up, painting was completely my thing. But I have perfectionist tendencies that started to ruin my relationship to painting over time. I was pushing myself to the point where it wasn’t fun anymore. I used to be upset that I didn’t discover music earlier in life, but now I feel grateful because I know that the same perfectionism that murdered my love of painting would have done it to music, too. So it’s for the best that I came into it when I did. Basically, I was bored and on break at RISD so my friends and I went to a pawn shop in Providence and I got this Yamaha acoustic guitar. I couldn’t play or anything, but I just decided, okay, personal challenge: write a song. When I did it was only three chords–I could barely play a chord at the time–but it just felt so, so, so good. I knew immediately that it was different from painting for me. Whenever I would finish a painting, I would be, like, “God, I never want to look at this fucking thing again.” But bringing a song into the world felt so amazing, it actually gave me energy and made me feel motivated, so I knew I had to pursue that, whatever it looked like.

POLLOK: It works in your favor as an artist to have experiences across mediums. Bret Easton Ellis makes a lot of music, or he used to–I don’t know if that inspires you at all.

RIO: I’m literally reading a book of his right now, that’s so interesting. I was blown away by American Psycho when I first read it. Now I’m reading Less Than Zero and I almost can’t believe it’s the same guy. He makes music?

POLLOK: Not anymore, he pulled a reverse May Rio. He went to Bennington to study music and decided to pursue writing. I have a question about Elegant Ensemble, which doubles as a question about French Bath: what are the songs actually about for you?

RIO: Most of them draw directly from my own life, “Dollars”–that one is just all my real life. Others are situations or stories I invent that capture the essence of whatever I was thinking or feeling at the time. Sometimes I get tired of myself and of writing as myself, so I’ll decide to step into a different character. Actually, an example–I was hanging out with Blake [Blaketheman1000], and he suggested writing a song from the perspective of the bad guy, and that made me think about how much I love those classic country ballads where the protagonist is, like, so sad because his love has died–and by the third verse, you realize, oh, it’s because he killed her. I find that so entertaining, so I wrote from an evil perspective for one of the songs, and it was fun to be a complete bitch.

POLLOK: Cool. So one of the songs is evil but the rest are from your true and innocent soul.

RIO: I wouldn’t say that I’m innocent and good. I mean, I try. [Laughs] Don’t we all?

May Rio is an indie pop musician based in New York City. Her new album, Elegant Ensemble, was released yesterday and is available now on Bandcamp.

Tess Pollok is a writer and the editor-in-chief of Animal Blood.