Meeting with d4vd: “I try to make my music as visual as possible.”

The interview takes place near d4vd’s dressing room in the artists' village, before his performance on the festival stage. Rather chill, d4vd calmly answers questions before agreeing to a quick photo session around the artists' area. He talks about his passion for the video game Fortnite, the success of his music through social media and his inspirations for creating striking visual stories.

You're going to be on stage tonight, how do you feel? Are you excited about performing at a festival?

I am very excited to perform. It’s my first time performing at anything festival related in Paris. So, being at my first French festival, I know it’s going to be insane.

You're just 18 years old, you've been making music for not that long but all your music is a hit, such as “Here With Me” and "You and I". How do you experience this success?

It’s very interesting. “You and I” experienced success through Fortnite and Call of Duty video game compilations on Twitter and Youtube. It was on the top 50 Indie on SoundCloud for a little bit before it blew up on TikTok. And then “Here With Me” blew up on TikTok after “Romantic Homicide” got a little bit of traction. It was cool because it was like a two-part story with “Here With Me” being the love song and then “Romantic Homicide” being the heartbreak song. So I think people gravitated to this song after hearing “Romantic Homicide", which kind of had a domino effect on my success.

You started making music to edits on Fortnite, you're still close to the community around this video game. What does this video game mean to you?

It means the world, especially me being home schooled for five years and being able to find like-minded individuals on the video game. My mom would always say: “don't talk to strangers on that game”, but you can't play the game without communicating with others. Not having as many friends in real life allowed me to find people that were like-minded online even if they lived in a different state. It was super helpful for me to experience a social sense of community outside of going to school.

‍

“I try to make my music as visual as possible. When you hear it, you kind of craft the music video yourself.”

‍

Your music video "Romantic Homicide" is inspired by anime and film noir. Can you tell me more about the creative process behind the music video?

Before “Romantic Homicide” was released, I had no plans to make any music videos at all, especially not with myself being the main character in it. But when this song took off, I was like: “okay, it needs a visual to accompany it”. I try to make my music as visual as possible. When you hear it, you kind of craft the music video yourself. I wanted a clear motive on what the song meant to me, so I wanted the moment to be right and I wanted the inspirations for the music video to be right too. So I started off with the IT4MI character with the blindfold and blood representing love being blind. It was inspired by Tokyo Ghoul, which is an anime in Japan, and film noir. “Romantic Homicide” symbolizes not mourning the loss of whoever you did lose, so it was important for me to kind of kick off my visual journey with a cinematic piece, a movie almost, and not just a regular lip syncing music video… and it came out really good !

What are your inspirations for your music?  Whether it's movies or video games, where do you find inspiration for your art?

It's really everything. I find inspiration everywhere, it could be anytime, anywhere. I make all my music on my phone, so it's super easy to just record wherever I'm at. Most of it comes from inspiration from movies and TV, especially in 2022 when I was just getting into it. I haven't really lived a lot of life yet being only 18-years-old and homeschooled, so being able to read books and learn about other people's perspectives on life was super helpful to open my eyes to what other people thought about the world.

‍

“You can never try to predict what's going to happen in anything.”

‍

Do you manage to plan your career in the future with many projects and objectives in mind? Or is it more day to day?

It's really day to day. I mean, I try to plan as far ahead as I can, but I never plan years. You can never try to predict what's going to happen in anything. I thought I was going to be a professional Fortnite player at one point, so I just let things happen.

What's the best advice you've ever received?

Not to overthink things. I think it's called the butterfly effect: how decisions you make can affect so many different things. I had made “Romantic Homicide” and I sat on the song for a week without releasing it. I hated the song so much, I didn't feel like posting it, but I had no other songs to post, so I had to and that was a song that took off. If I didn't drop that song, I would never be at We Love Green in Paris right now.

Which artist are you looking forward to seeing perform at the festival?

I guess seeing Yves Tumor is going to be the moment. I've been hearing about him and his music, and I think seeing him live for the first time is going to be insane.