Serving up major Luca Guadagnino muse vibes, Kid Hastings aka Jake McEvoy, the budding indie pop prince took his jazz roots and infused it with a major dose of synthy gestures. Following his debut EP Golden, Kid Hastings offers up an impressive vision for pop which captures the stylings of dreamy bed sounds, with a sophisticated flair for jazz greats Thelonius Monk and Wes Montgomery, albeit for the Tik Tok era. Below he tell us just how much the dance fervor of the social media app he and his creative collaborator Ava Doorley took upon themselves to produce “Call Me Up.”
Like most people, I haven’t really been able to shake the feeling that I’ve been trapped these last few months. In my art I’ve been wanting to do something to create a world where It would be appropriate and even necessary to express myself in an entirely different medium in addition to music – increasingly that medium has been movement and dance. In the “Call Me Up” video, ava and I wanted to create two entirely different characters that are both borne from parts of my identity and personality but are completely at odds with one another. The way these characters interacted with the world was mainly through their bodies ; through dancing, seduction, intimidation and even violence we wanted to tell a story of personal turmoil. It was a a challenge but ultimately euphoric to step into these characters that represent different parts of myself and tell their stories through movement.
In addition to this video, I’ve found such a great outlet in Tik Tok to explore dance, skits and other characters – sometimes they’re to complement my music but most of the time its just for fun. It’s been yet another world where I get to express myself through any medium I could think of. Self care wise, I think expanding my artistic outlets has been really good because it never allows me to feel stagnant in just one.
Regarding self care in general, I’ve been picking up new hobbies every few months or so and getting 100% into them until I can’t stand them anymore – right now its chess, a few months ago it was reading old sci fi books, and I have no idea what it’ll be next – but I’m excited to find it.”
