ME: You’ve been releasing music on Spotify since 2021 - when did you start to make music and realise you wanted to release it?
HIDINGTHEHURT: I’ve been affiliated with music since I can remember. I used to play the trumpet and piano at school until I was about 11 and then I moved on to the guitar. Been playing ever since. I decided to make music in 2019 however and spent a year basically teaching myself the basics of mixing n mastering and how to make my voice sound good on a computer before releasing that first single in 2021. I always tell people I’m not good at music I’m just good with a computer haha
M: Would you say the pandemic in 2020 helped or hindered you?
H: The pandemic definitely helped me to focus on music and experiment with sounds. I think I was lucky enough to be in a time in my life where there was an abdication of responsibility in terms of work and stuff. I had just finished school when the pandemic hit and so I had all this time before university to do something. I thought why not teach myself this skill and utilise it.
M: What are your goals for your music in 2023
H: In 2023 I want to release my first proper album alongside another EP. I only put out about 7 songs this year including my first project and I felt it wasn’t good quantity. Funnily Enough about 30 mins before this interview I just saw my Debut EP got featured as one of the best in 2022 in MixMag so that has made my goals even more resolute in my mind for 2023. I want to make my two projects and tour for them, I think it’s obtainable.
M: You’ve recently started to have covers that are really abstract and artistic. Where did the idea for these covers for ur songs come from?
H: The idea for these covers originally came from my first considerations of what I wanted my EP to represent. I had always utilised photos I had taken for my covers such as trees and tram stops in Nottingham to give some individuality to my craft however to me my EP represented the working of my mind which at the time was a directionless mess. I thought why not try and get this represented in art and I guess it has kind of stuck with the subsequent singles too !
M: Do you make the covers yourself?
H: In terms of the covers for the EP and the singles after they were done by my good friend Cris over in America. We met on a groupchat in 2020 and I kinda got introduced to his friends and so forth, most of them live in Florida so it’s crazy to have that connection being so far way, I got love for all of them always. I hit up Cris on insta in March or so and just asked him to help design me a cover since I had seen his art and loved it. It’s so Basquiat - esque which I love and I knew the minute I saw his style I wanted him to do the cover. I love art but I understand my limits and being talented in that way is something I know I can’t do haha
M: How would you sum up your music in five or less words for someone who has never listened to your music before?
H: Genre-less, therapeutic, individual and forward thinking sum it up the best I can.
M: You have almost 16k monthly listeners. Did you ever think you’d reach those numbers?
H: 6k is a crazy amount of people, it’s so important to remember no matter the number the impact is always there. I think it’s just a number on a screen sometimes but I have to remind myself that it’s 16,000 living members of society and that’s crazy. I’m so thankful. It used to be 30k or so when Spotify was available in Russia and I know that for a lot of artists that cut off affected them too. Regardless I’m so thankful of all the people who listen and all the people who I’ve managed to help with the music.
M: What does teaching those numbers mean to you? How does it feel?
H: Reaching that feat and the numbers in terms of streams mean a lot to me but they’re not the be all and end all. Like I said before it’s easy to get wrapped up in the numbers and I don’t think it’s important at all, I’ve seen so many amazing artists on a lot less than me. The most Important thing to me through music is connecting with the people who listen and playing shows to them. That’s when it all feels worth it and real.
M: Where did your name hidingthehurt come from?
H: It came from a sort of paradoxical way that I lived. It’s the same reason why I have the logo as my profile picture and why I have it tattooed on me. The music was a way to let the reality of my mind out against a world which I felt suppressed it and encouraged young men to shy away from it. I remember getting my song played on a Hivemind stream and one of the guys saying ‘Hes certainly not hiding the hurt is he’ and that was the moment that it clicked to me that people understood it. It’s meant to be a paradox, my name suggests I’m okay but when you listen to the music it becomes apparent that I’m not, or more specifically I wasn’t. I’m actually very happy now, life is very good. Thankful for that.
M: I like to end on a fun one - if you had to change your stage name what would you change it to?
H: I’ve thought about that a lot actually, sometimes I think about it because I feel the direction my music is going in isn’t how I envisioned it to go when I started it, my songs I think are becoming less and less depressing and so it seems unfit to have that name. I will
keep it of course because I see it as part of my identity however if I had to change it I would probably make it OG or something, my initials. There’s already a very established artist called Ollie so I wouldn’t get away with that. I’m quite happy not to change it though as long as I make music !
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