Interview with Morian Thomas for COMFORT MAGAZINE #2.
MT:
Thanks for taking some time out to sit with us. Normally I'm just organizing these things, but I felt it was important for me to be in on the conversation today, given our relationship.
If my memory serves me right– we met around 2017?
CC:
Yeah. I even feel like I met you because we always joked about me, you, and Keith[Charles] being family. But I think I met you not with Keith at all, but at a Stonie Blue DJ set with Yeek.
MT:
So how long were you in New York at that point?
CC:
I moved to New York in 2015, so only like two years. I moved to New York from Miami. I wasn't born in Miami, but that's where I was raised my whole life since I was three. [I] Moved over from the US Virgin Islands. That's where I was born. That's where both my parents were born.
MT:
Which one of the islands?
CC:
St. Croix! Spelled like LA Croix.
MT:
Okaaay! Wait, so did we talk about this? I had a stint in elementary where I lived in St Croix for a bit.
CC:
Oh, For Real? That's so fire. I was born in Christiansted and was just there last month. It's refreshing to be on an island as a black man with dreadlocks.
MT:
Yo facts, [laughs] full formation achieved.
CC:
It was very welcoming. No one's looking at you with those eyes, like when you're out and about as a black man in America and people look at you. It's not a hateful look; it's just a bit too curious, almost like, who are you, where are you from, or why are you here? You know? But definitely, being at home on an island, I did not feel that at all. I felt among my people.
MT:
I know that feeling. So that leads to the next question, where do you consider home?
CC:
That's a great question, a funny one too. After going back, I realized that even though I was born there and I've always said that's my home, it's not St. Croix. I would definitely say home is Miami. Landing back in Miami, going out that week with my friends, and being re-dipped in that Latin culture has always been my whole life. That's what I was raised on. My parents grew up speaking Spanish with Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. So I think that's why Miami was a natural place for them to migrate to. But to answer your question, my home is in Miami for sure.
MT:
True. I just peeped that you started a hot sauce company called Hxmegrxwn, and you partnered with your dad on that. How did that collaboration come about?
CC:
You know, that's a long time coming collaboration between my dad and me, like seven years. It started right out of college; I had gone to design school for a bit. When I returned home to Miami, I was just applying all the recently learned concepts. One day, my dad saw me making all these handmade graphics that I would put on shirts and give to friends. He was like, "wow, dat's a home grown ting." I'd be in the corner of our backyard, experimenting with shirts and running in and out of the house trying new shit. One thing led to the next, and I drew up the logo in 2012. Back then, replacing O'S with Xs were massive; 10 deep used to do it, blvck scvle used to flip the A into a V, and even ASAP mob had played with their letters. That whole era was about creating your own language.
MT:
Kaws was heavy on Tumblr at the time. Original fake.
CC:
Yeah, exactly! The X was big. Fast forward two years down the line the brand was very localized. Many people in Miami still know me as the guy that did/does HXMEGRXWN. It was a clothing brand initially, but at the same time, I was using it as an outlet for freelance video and graphic work. And with that came opportunities to leave Miami, so I put the brand to rest. My dad, an island man, loves making his own hot sauce. I remember it being in the fridge when I was younger and us using it at the dinner table. My dad showed love through acts of service and gifts, So when I moved to New York, he would pack up the hot sauce for me whenever I came to visit. I left behind all these stickers from the brand in my parents' house, and he would just slap a sticker on whatever recycled bottle he had and give it to me. That was his way of packaging/branding it. Then he started giving it to friends and family. The sticker was on all these different bottles, and I was laughing at the idea of it all. One time he gave it to me in a voss bottle, like the huge glass voss bottle and it had the sticker on it. I just thought he was crazy for that. Why don't you let me do the packaging, like for real, for real. It's funny that you prefaced this question with a question about what is home to me because I feel like this brand is my roots to Miami. It being called homegrown is a testament to me being Miami bred through and through.
MT:
I also think the cool part of that story is that your dad was a part of it from day one, and you guys just made it a little bit more official now, but him coming in, naming it at that point, to it being a thing. Very cool.
CC:
Yeah. I definitely see it as a family business. I know I'll share this exact moment I'm having with my dad with my son or daughter one day. So this is the family business; what's your take on it?
MT:
Facts. Yeah. Legacy is definitely an interesting subject. You start pivoting into that frame of thought instead of, I'm just making shit, you know? But yeah man, that's sick. Another thing we bonded over was our love for snubnose frankenstein.
CC:
Snubnose Frankenstein. Yeah.[laughs]
MT:
Rappin Ass Nigga was early days. Like that shit influenced me. And I remembered us making that connection. You also talked about getting the opportunity to go to New York. Can you share what that was?
CC:
Yeah. After this call, I'm going to put on Rappin ass Nigga. That album really changed my whole perspective on the internet. Dude, that cover art!? So good. The opportunity to move to New York came with my good friend, Julian Consuegra; he's the founder of Stray Rats, a brand from Miami. He was a mentor to me. We met around 2014 in Miami when he was relocating to New York. He had invited me to come kick it with him for a week out there after he had moved. I hadn't really been since I was a kid. So when I went to New York as a 20 year old functioning adult, I was blown away. I was in disbelief that this place existed. It was like a playground for adults.
I then met J.R. through Julian. J.R. runs a production company called Atlas Opera and is one of the partners at Stray Rats. They both showed me that I could move to New York and make money as a designer.
Another factor was Kumasi, who ran The Good Company in LES, one of the first stores I walked into when I visited back in 2014. I'd only seen the store online like on Tumblr and shit. He was also one of the first people to welcome me with open arms. New York is dope, but at the same time it feels like no one gives a fuck about you [laughs]. After that trip to visit Julian, I kept going back and eventually made the move. When I did, I got hooked up by my friend Mellany Sanchez with this in-house graphic design job at Kith which was my first salary job. The job offer kind of blew my parents away. When I finished school I was just working at a skate shop. It felt like my parents were always asking me what the reason for even going to school was? So getting that job really made it click for them.
MT:
I mean, that's crazy as hell. Cause that's kind of the moment where your parents give you that nod where they're like, "oh, this is actually a real thing."
CC:
Yeah, exactly.
MT:
So then were you freelance up until the job at Kith?
CC:
Yeah. I was just freelancing while working random jobs. I used to work at Banana Republic and then this skate shop. I had a hard time keeping jobs because I would always quit within the first weeks because it would be so wack. It felt like I was wasting my time. I kept the skate shop job the longest because I was into skating. It's what I grew up on.
MT:
Right? Yeah. It's kind of a common lineage I find. Skaters just knew the dopest shit.
CC:
Yeah. They go hand in hand for sure. Skate culture is punk and punk is everything that's anti-society or establishment. I feel that art, fashion and culture straddle the line of upsetting the status quo but appeasing it at the same time. So all things "punk" affect the next wave of what's about to be cool.
MT:
True… it's an interesting thing to navigate. How do we approach these things with capitalism rearing its head around every corner? As we grow into our careers, brands are throwing money at us, which we need to survive, to be a part of the culture. It can sometimes go against what we believe in, and all these brands just want to bank on the lifestyle.
CC:
I don't know. It's hard to maneuver it, especially now that I'm older. For so long, I had been trying to uphold this concept that "punk" can't exist within mainstream society at the same time. So I found myself always trying to gatekeep what's cool to me, thinking certain brands are wack and thinking only specific ones are authentic. But with the internet and access to knowledge and culture, it's unparalleled. There's no way around it. Now we're at this converging point where things like streetwear, high fashion, skate, commodity, everything is defined by this one fucking algorithm. Nowadays everything can go together. Doesn't matter how you do it. That's why skateboarding is in the Olympics now, or a brand like Supreme, being based around streetwear, skate culture, and art, was bought out by LVMH and is now worth millions of dollars, dictating future fashion trends. I don't even know if that's cool, but It's exciting. I think all we can do for now is enjoy the bubble before it bursts, and then there's a whole new wave of something else.
MT:
Right, so it's just us reaping the benefits for those unpaid days?
CC:
Take advantage of it right now. If anything, that's the most punk shit. Everything's in style now. Everything's just cool now. Fuck it, let me make some money off of that. A friend and I were joking about this last week. We were trying to uphold these unspoken rules of "cool" culture for so long, saying, "Oh, that brand's wack for taking a million dollars from PacSun," and I'd be selling out if I did the same. Now we're thinking from the opposite end, like Nah, fuck that[laughs], that's a new form of protest. It's punk to take a million dollars from PacSun and use those resources elsewhere. (This is not financial advice)
MT:
Yeah. I'm familiar with the finesse man. That being a thing in Atlanta where you got people that were super talented with no real resources or outlets so a lot of the time we just got by finessing. I had homies that blew up off of a one-shot music video. That's cause niggas didn't know how to edit. You know what I'm saying?
CC:
When I think of the word finesse, I actually think of Atlanta. I think that's where I learned it from my Atlanta homies.
MT:
Scooter! You worked with Marc Jacobs recently. How was that, and how did that come about?
CC:
It came about through a really good friend of mine, Ava. She's the creative director at Heaven by Marc Jacobs.
MT:
Yeah.
CC:
Going back to what we were just talking about. Marc Jacobs had a street-wearish (now defunct) line. But, you know, Marc Jacobs, he comes from that downtown scene.
MT:
Yeah. Don't play with that boy! He was a party animal.
CC:
Don't play with that boy! Exactly. Ava hit me up at the beginning of 2019 before the pandemic. I met her through stray rats. She created the Rat Girl dolls. At the time, there was no name (I think the working name at the time was "Registered" or something like that) Anyways, she asked me to send over some graphics. So I sent her like five graphics. They were all very different. One was grungy and punk, one was clean, and one was colorful. At the time I had been getting back into illustration and my own style. Drawing was more art to me rather than design. I was drawing the word 'Marc Jacob' in my style & thought, "this looks cool, but it needs a graphic that matches that aesthetic. Let me look in my sketchbook," which was filled with all this art I had been making.
I took the head of a guy I drew and put Marc Jacobs under it. I thought they might not like it so I found something else, this drawing of a flower. I'd tuck it on the side and give them the option to use that instead. Ava responded and said, "Hey, we want this graphic. Let's work with that if you could just replace the guy's face with the flower instead." I thought, cool, fuck it. Shortly after, the pandemic happened but they started sharing with me samples they were getting. It was some really cool shit. I liked how they re-imagined my graphic. They were playing with the colorways and application on garments. They would send me pictures, "Do you think this is cool?" I liked it and would say let's go with that. It was a really cool experience at the moment because I wasn't thinking anything of it. The brand wasn't even Heaven yet.
MT:
Were these samples you got to keep?
CC:
No. I would go to the Marc Jacobs office in Soho and look at them. I wish! The brand finally launched in October mid-pandemic and it went crazy. A whole new wave of kids, fed. I was lucky to have my graphics on everything from sweatshirts to rugs, hats and a hoodie. It was also all shot by Shoichi Aoki, the original photographer of one of my favorite magazines, FRUiTS. Plus, I have been going to Japan a lot over the past few years. It felt like a little full circle moment. Zendaya was wearing my shit. It was wild. I have an aunt with a background in fashion. She makes dresses and can tailor just about anything, We hadn't spoken in a while and she even hit me up saying, "Marc Jacobs, that's huge congrats!" So many people were hitting me up. It was weird. I didn't think anything of it, but Marc Jacobs is a household name, don't play with that boy. It was cool. It's definitely opened up a lot of doors for me.
MT:
Damn, that's sick. You were saying your sketchbook is kind of what inspired the final graphic and deviating from the computer to your sketchbook. This reminded me of when I saw your post where you did some sketches for Frank Ocean's stage design. How did that come about?
CC:
I love how you connected those two moments. I think the stage drawings were the catalyst for me getting back into drawing, this story actually venn-diagrams another story. That’s really crazy.
MT:
Go ahead. Let us have it.
CC:
At the time I was working at this ad agency. We were doing stuff for big brands like Adidas and ZICO coconut water, stupid ad shit. But it was paying the bills as a designer.
At a China Chalet party, Kumasi introduced me to this tall guy. We really hit it off because we both had gone to school for animation. We talked for a while about animation and design. After about an hour, he reaches into his pocket and gives me this Supreme business card. He tells me they're looking for designers over there, so if I ever wanna apply to hit him up. I felt like I was holding my Grail.
When I first moved to New York, being a young designer in streetwear, working at Supreme was my Magnum Opus. I thought if I got there, then I'd made it. In fact, that's really the main reason why a lot of my early works, and even my works today, have the color red– it's sort of my mantra slash manifestation. I told myself if I used red every time I designed, used a red pen whenever I would write, and wore red every day, I would attract that moment. It was kind of this silly unwritten magic book that was a product of this kid mentality that I sometimes have, like if you really wished hard enough, it could happen, you know?
MT:
Bro. But it's like that sense of illusion is what manifests everything. I read when I was younger that "it takes a fool to make it." It's a crazy way to look at things, but if you stayed realistic all the time, you would be in a really sad place.
CC:
Yeah. For sure. You gotta fake it until you make it or smile through the hardship. You know? That childlike mentality is super powerful. When a five-year-old comes up to you and says "I'm gonna be a doctor." They mean that shit because they are blessed with naivety. Deep down that kind of belief creates that doubtless drive… I'm going to be a doctor.
MT:
Yeah. Like, buy that kid a stethoscope, like right now.
CC:
Yeah. Life is hard, but if you can keep that silliness or that foolishness of a child, you're unbreakable.
The Supreme job went through. I sent a few designs as an interview process. They were sending me my salary. I thought, damn, I made it; I came to New York for this reason.
At the time I was still freelancing a lot, which gave me so much room to travel. I had been to Japan hella times. I was planning to start a studio there and move. I was going to Korea, I was going to London, things that I'd only dreamt of. I told Supreme, "hey, I wanna keep this momentum that I have of me bouncing around everywhere." They straight up said no, that's not gonna work. I'd only have X amount of days for holiday. It was really hard to make a choice. I was hitting everyone up for advice. Supreme was offering me the most money I'd probably seen up to that point but for some reason I didn't want that anymore. In the end I had to tell them I couldn't do it. They were super understanding about it all.
The next morning I got hit up by a friend to work on that Frank project.
I got a ride to the Brooklyn Navy yard where they were working.
I had brought my sketchbook with me since I was told the project was all drawing based. When I got there my friend (Julian) immediately took me to meet Frank.
I was ecstatic and told him how much I loved his work. He replied something along the lines of hell yeah, well, we need a lot of drawings. I hope you came to draw.
There was a huge wooden stage that they had assembled inside of this airplane hanger and three people were sitting on the stage next to a huge pile of markers and crayons.
I walked over and introduced myself. One of those people were Joe (Vegyn) who was drawing momentarily. He was actually one of Frank's producers. He worked on 'Nights'. He was one of the first people to talk to me. We all just started drawing and talking and before I knew it the day had flown by. I looked up and it was midnight and everyone was wrapping up.
It sounds so mundane and easy. Just draw on 50 pieces of large wood. But yo, after like four drawings, you don't know what to draw anymore. You had to really go inside your brain and pull shit out for 12 hours on end. I remember I would go home every night so drained, completely empty. I didn't have words. I would dream in drawings and then come back the next day ready.
It was a really dope experience. I got to know Frank and everyone well by the end of that week. He was practicing with his band in the same space down the hall. I heard all my favorite Frank songs live, and then when Frank and the band would take a break they would come and sit there and draw with us. Sometimes he (Frank) wouldn't say anything. I'm sure he was doing the same thing, pulling so much of himself. So there was an exchange of a lot of energy happening, we were drawing, we were singing, we were making music. Art requires a different fuel. It's a different currency. It's emotional. But that's why it's good.
MT:
That's it really, I think motivation is our fuel, but motivation is so fleeting, you know what I'm saying? So you can run on E very easily.
CC:
I was tapping into feelings that I probably hadn't felt in a while just to be inspired.
Fast forward to Frank coming to New York for Panorama Festival, the stage was set up and It was the first time I got to see it fully assembled. That was another moment that changed a lot of shit for me. That was probably one of the catalysts that took me to the Marc Jacobs thing.
MT:
Was it? Yeah.
CC:
Definitely, after that, I started drawing way more because that job forced me to empty my brain of so much. Maybe blockage is a good word to use. Just shit that was in the way. But I started drawing in that specific style. It's funny because that style was developed because I was trying not to use my brain.
MT:
Yeah.
CC:
If you're using your left brain, you're logically thinking. If you're using your right brain, you're creatively thinking. When you're using the right side of your body, specifically your right hand, you're using that logic on the left side. I started drawing with my left hand at that "drawing camp" for the stage drawings. All so I wouldn't think. All the drawings had a really shaky and childlike look to them. A few people have told me my stuff reminds them of Coco Capitan or Mermaid Hair. These are other artists that kind of have that scribbly handwriting aesthetic. Tom Sachs does it too. I don't know how they all achieve it, but the way I achieve mine is by just using my left hand.
MT:
That is so sick!
CC:
It kind of turns off the thinking part of my brain and just lets me vomit out whatever the fuck is happening in there. It's cool.
MT:
Man. That's like a super sick story and a lot of it is things that I've personally felt before. One of the really cool things you just said was that Frank project was basically like a drawing camp.
CC:
Yeah. It was a drawing camp. I got a lot of shots off. Shit that shouldn't have ever seen the light of day. I just got to let it all out.
MT:
Right. So it's like a form of therapy.
CC:
Yeah. It was therapy bro. I think that's why I felt so drained every day. And that's probably why the last day I felt like I shared too much. I felt too vulnerable. Like I can't give any more of myself to this, I'm on the verge of emotions I can't explain.
MT:
How is it balancing your personal work and your client's work? Like the Frank project, it seems like a lot of your personal crosses over into your client's work.
CC:
Yeah. A lot of it was personal stuff. Plus we were listening to fucking Frank ocean [laughs]. Like that's the most.
MT:
Heartfelt nigga on the planet.
CC:
The most, exactly. I was drawing pieces that were inspired by past relationships, trauma and even just things that I don't want people to know about.
MT:
Valid. So how is it balancing personal and client work now?
CC:
Um, it's good. I would say I'm blessed to be at a point where I can wake up most days and do what I want [creatively] for the most part. Whether it's making something for myself today, or actually, I only got like four more weeks left to send in this final for this project. I'll choose to do that thing today. I think it will always be a balancing act. Sometimes the personal stuff will outweigh the other, and I'll be behind on jobs or sometimes it'll swing the other way.
MT:
Right.
CC:
One day I'd love to be a studio artist full-time and only make personal art, but that stuff has to be stirred up by the discomfort of life. I think that discomfort for me right now is like, alright, I gotta pay bills or I gotta be on top of this expense, so I need to take this job. So they both need each other.
MT:
Right. That's candid. I heard this saying "…the age that you're discovered or find suCC:ess at is the age that you are for the rest of your life."
CC:
Whoa! That's actually really crazy to think about, especially working in music and knowing music artists. It makes sense. You were discovered when you were like 19... That's why you're like that. Yeah. And it's like this nigga got his shit together when he was 30, so okay. That's why you're a little bit more composed in ways.
MT:
But then you also kind of have a certain disdain for certain people who spent the majority of their lives trying to get on cuz it's like people who were doing this shit as art and at some point got discovered doing what they were doing. And then there were people who were trying to make it to a certain height. And some of those people, when they achieve it at that later age, it comes across as contrived sometimes. Do you know what I mean?
CC:
Yeah. Yeah. It took them too long to get their flowers so they couldn't enjoy them.
MT:
You feel me? It's like this certain disdain like man, "these young niggas don't even know how to hustle."
CC:
Yeah. I feel that. I was feeling bitter as fuck my last years in New York.
MT:
And what would you say that stemmed from.
CC:
I know now that it stemmed from me not doing my own shit. I was working with all these really dope brands, it was always me next to the brand and it was never like that's him [me]. I think my pride got in the way of that. I have to fight my pride so much being a Leo. I think that's one of the many reasons why I moved. I thought I needed to go to LA and just start new. I thought I was too affiliated with this brand, or this person, or this group of friends that I felt a little boxed in, but I later realized I had boxed myself in. And of course, I made that box. So I decided to move myself and my box to LA to dismantle it.
MT:
You know what, that ability to pivot is what got you a lot of those achievements. Like that decision you had to make after Supreme created a shift. Like damn, this was my main goal, but now there's a new goal at hand, you know what I mean?
I saw a tweet cuz you know, Twitter's golden, and they were saying. "If a plan fails, switch the plan, but never switch the goal," And so at that point, you had to switch up the plan.
CC:
Yeah. That's all it was. I like that. Like, don't switch the goal. Just switch the plan.
MT:
Right?
CC:
I have a homie that makes music. Do you know Paris, Texas?
MT:
Oh yeah. The homies. Well, I know one of them. Yeah.
CC:
I'm good friends with Wale and he always tells me, "life is an experiment." And I never really got it. But one time he went deeper into the analogy. He was like, I'm just in here, in the lab, mixing potions and whatever comes out of it– that's the experiment. I dont think Wale takes himself too seriously and he sees life as a game. I love that. If it's not hitting for you right now, just experiment and try something. Switch it up.
MT:
What would you say inspired your style more than anything. What made you want to get into animation and design?
CC:
Yeah. There are so many things. I always wanted to animate deep down. Whenever I go back to Miami and I'm in my childhood room, I'll look at all my old VHS box sets. I have a shit load of Looney Tunes tapes. I feel like my parents probably just found all of them at Costco and brought them home for me.
I would watch all those on repeat when I was like six or seven. I can still feel the way the room felt. I'd put a pop tart in the toaster and I would sit and watch all these animated shows. But I wasn't laughing so much at the dialogue. Because I was a kid, I didn't really know what they were saying. I was really looking at the animations of how Wylie Coyote would fall off a cliff, but his whole body would fall and his head would still be there floating for a bit before falling.
That shit was blowing my mind because that's not how real life works. I hope I can see it for myself one day, like Space Jam [laughs]. I watched that so much.
MT:
Rinsed it!
CC:
I think I really got into animation because I had a deep love for video games, like deep, deep love.
It may not look that way now, but I was a nerd growing up (still am). Luckily I liked a lot of stuff. I was able to find common ground with everyone in school. I was never the castaway kind of nerd, but the nerd that just knew everybody and it seemed everyone fucked with me, but no one really knew too much about me except for like three close friends.
I used to draw on people's uniform shirts since we all had to wear uniforms.
One day I came to school, I had drawn this huge fish on my shirt, it had these scales on it. I don't know why.
If everyone was doing this, well then I wanted to do that. If everyone was being told to do it this way, I would do it the other way. I would always change something up about it. I would draw on my friends' uniforms, and other kids would ask me to draw on their shit. Girls would ask me to draw like a cute butterfly and then next I know some kids are like, can you draw this specific Pokemon? I went with it.
MT:
That's the equivalent of when I first, as a Caribbean kid, saw Will Smith turn his blazer inside out on Fresh Prince. And I come from uniforms as well. So I'm watching this dude just flip his uniform on his head and I was like, oh that's hard. Like I'm going that way.
CC:
It's the whole idea of the punk mentality, if we're all being told to be this way, I'm gonna do it at least one degree the other way, just to say that I didn't do it the way that everyone was being told to do it. You know.
MT:
Facts. Along with design you've now added music to your repertoire. I knew you were doing some branding stuff with Yeek. Then I saw you were touring in the band as well. Like, oh shit, this fool makes music too. And then you released your own record just recently. How long were you making music?
CC:
I grew up loving music, and I have island parents. They listen to music so loud you can't hear them talk. I sang in the children's choir in church when I was younger. That didn't last long. I thought it was so wack, but My mom would tell me that I was so good. But no, that was me being a Lil punk again.
MT:
Right.
CC:
I wanted to start my own band. In middle school I actually took band all three years and really got into playing the trumpet. I played everything trying to figure out what I wanted, but once I found the trumpet, I played for three years. I was in a concert band and really loved music. Then I went to high school and didn't touch music again for like two years. I learned guitar in my junior year of high school in an elective class. My best friend in high school and I would play video games together on the computer all day, then one day, he downloaded Fruity Loops. Today we call it FL studio.
This was like 2007. And he showed me how to make beats. Myspace was around at the time and we started making music together. I used to love Justice and Sebastian, all the Ed Banger dudes from France. It's funny when I look back at that because that part of me feels so long gone, but it shows up when I go to make music now.
The skill that hung around the most was guitar. It's just a very personal instrument. I would be playing guitar hero so much and would want to learn the songs for real. I already had that agility from playing the game. Then I would just transfer it to the guitar. That's how I saw Fruity Loops and all the DAWs. I just saw them as a video game.
MT:
I think more than anything, that kind of teaches you a certain focus. Now it's transferring to your actual life skills, things that feed you. It's crazy cuz the focus you get from video games is different.
CC:
I know it's crazy. I would be sitting there for hours.
MT:
Like your mom telling you “I called you like 10 times.”
CC:
I did not hear you, Mom. I was in the metaverse before the metaverse.
The Yeek stuff came about, just like doing anything creatively, naturally. He started to play with a band and had a bass player already. The bass player was his own artist, and he eventually left, leading up to Yeek having a show in New York. It was just divine timing. I was living in New York at the time, so when YEEK asked, it made sense. I knew how to play guitar and knew the songs already so I just had to figure out the baselines and come to the show. I said fuck it. I went on Craigslist, bought the cheapest bass guitar I could find, took it home and just started learning all the songs that we were gonna play.
Seeing Yeek do his thing and the other artists I was already helping, I always wanted to do my own thing regardless of the medium. So when it came to music, I knew I had to do what I do for these guys for myself.
I need to make cover art. I need to make a tracklist. I need to make it available for purchase. I gotta share it on social media, all these things. I was like do I put it on Spotify? Do I make it available on streaming? Do I want people to know what my music sounds like? Being a designer, so much of designing product is preparing for when the customer actually gets said product. Holding it, having it. That's what designers design for, that experience. So I didn't want to make music that would be easily aCC:essible online. That'll kill the design part of it. Chris dropped something? They'd probably open up the song, listen to it, and think, "that was cool," then close it and never open it up again. But me making it a physical record, that kind of changed the path to experiencing it.
How much of a fan of Chris are you that you wanted to buy it? Are you even into records? It made it so niche.
MT:
Right.
CC:
But at the same time, I didn't realize I had such a niche following that it sold out so fast, so I restocked it. I hit up my vinyl guy and told him I needed to make 50 more. People wanted it and it sold out so fast again. Alright, I'll put up a little bit more. And I hit my vinyl guy again. I actually need like a hundred. And then that sold out[laughs]. It was just cool to share that part of myself. It still feels very unshared cause only a select few have heard it or own the vinyl.
MT:
Right.
CC:
I got the rest of my life to put the music out.
MT:
Nah, that's cool, man. Like, so between all the mediums you dabble in, which one do you prioritize now?
CC:
At the moment I'm trying to prioritize the personal art stuff. I'm fixing up for an art show I want to do eventually. I was planning for the end of this year, but we'll see. But that and music, I'm trying to figure out a world where they can all be together. I think trying to make sense of it only confuses me more. I think the more I make, the more it makes sense.
As you can tell, I'm still figuring out what it means to be able to do all this stuff. It's a blessing, and I'm really thankful that COMFORT Mag is interested in hearing about it or Marc Jacobs wants to collab. I'm just a kid from St. Croix.
If I can just stay that kid that used to eat pop tarts and watch Bugs Bunny. Whatever makes that kid happy. If I can do that, it's all that matters.
MT:
That's valid. I feel like that's an excellent stopping point; I mean, as soon as you said, the more I make, the more it makes sense. That was amazing punctuation.
CC:
Thank you for listening and giving me the space to share this stuff. And thanks for sharing it with your audience.
“Comfort Magazine #2, Interview with Morian Thomas” - 2022 (Link)