ME: To start, I think most people would like to know where the name comes from!
VANCOUVER SLEEP CLINIC: I chose that name because I think it captured the mood of the dreamy feel of my music. I picked Vancouver because I love that city and the vibe of it. I also wanted it to be easy to google.
M: You have such a specific aesthetic which kind of matches the music you make; what would you say inspires it?
VSC: I've always been a nerd about the outdoors, playing cricket. For me, only really recently I started using social media frequently, so I think the rare posts I do put up are generally just a friends caught a picture of me in my natural habitat. I don't really have a planned aesthetic or try too hard. I think things are starting to shift a little bit, with things like TikTok videos of people in their bedrooms and looping. The whole photoshoot thing is kind of getting lost and you can make cool stuff for no money now.
M: Do you make any of your cover work?
VSC: The more I've gone on with my career the less I've really tried with cover art. when I was on a major label things were so regimented and expensive, but now most of my covers are phone photos or travel photos. It's more now a mood for me, I'll take photos of the place I'm writing in to really capture that time of my life.
M: You released an album this year; what was the fan/follower response to it like?
VSC: People seemed to be really into it. The thing is with the album is it was more of an audacious step for me, a quarantine album, where I was trying more abstract ideas. If you're trying to push your own limits, people will have a response to it, but you always have people that will want you to remake your big song, like Yellow with Coldplay. Even if what you try flops, it doesn't matter. I was really happy with the response, I think they really connected with it and some of it has been on TV which was really cool. It's been fun, but keen to get onto the next thing.
M: You recently released an ambient cover of As It Was by Harry Styles, what made you choose that song?
VSC: My game plan going into it was to release do as many small ones on instagram as possible, I never planned to finish any of the ones I did. With that one, people kept asking for a full version and it was getting kind of annoying so we turned around a full version to shut people up, haha. It's a banger anyway.
M: You have over 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify. When you started to make music, did you think you'd ever reach those numbers?
VSC: Back then, I would've been happy with a thousand views, and it's all about perspective, there's no way I expected it. But now it's like I want ten million, and it's never enough. I look back at when I was sixteen performing for seven people and one of them was my dad. It's awesome, and I feel very lucky.
M: On your Spotify you have music released from as early as 2013. How would you say your music has changed from the to now?
VSC: It's been a bit of a whirlwind. When you start that young, you just have so much growing to do. We see it in child celebrities, them going through their growth period. I think it's cool, like documenting parts of my life and I can hear when I listen back like where I was at that time in my life. It's kind of beautiful that that will be there until I die.
M: What would be your message is to people who wanna put their music out in the world and don't know how to or have the confidence to?
VSC: I think the first thing is that although I'm not a massive fan of social media, if there is any beauty in it, it elevates the pressure from creating because no one actually cares. You can't lose, which is really encouraging. If something doesn't go to plan, just go back to the drawing board. You can just try things, and if it doesn't work, try again. Kid Cudi is one of my favourite artists but he released one of my least favourite albums. No one cared though, we still love Cudi.
M: Finally, who would you say you've been listening to the most this year that has inspired you?
VSC: Weirdly, PortisHead. I miss a few albums from my upbringing so I was like getting into some classics. I've listened to their album Dummy, I've listened to that probably thirty of forty times this year, it's weird, music is so timeless like that. It's like watching an old classic film, it's the same thing.
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