“This is going to be so fucking cringe, but I genuinely would like to win a Grammy” Photo: glaive
Ash Gutierrez calls me from Los Angeles — “unfortunately,” he adds. A year ago, he would’ve preferred to be anywhere but his family’s home in North Carolina. But L.A. can be “draining,” he says, especially after spending his days in music-industry meetings. Now, he can’t wait to get back to where he grew up tomorrow. “I like North Carolina more, which is really stupid considering how much I used to … There’s even songs from like, last year, about how I just hated North Carolina,” he says. “I don’t like the people in my hometown at all, but I love the weather and how it looks, and I love my parents.”
At 18, Gutierrez is extremely perceptive of how he’s transformed over the last few years. (“You met me when I was fucking weird,” he tells me, about the profile I wrote of him in 2021.) When he began releasing music as glaive at 15, he was quickly heralded as a leading force in hyperpop, a movement of homespun electronic pop propelled by youthful energy. Now, his debut album, i care so much that i dont care at all, lands closer to mainstream pop and rock — ’90s and ’00s emo heard through a much more contemporary ear. It’s also less angry than his past EPs, which Gutierrez credits to finally focusing on his social life. “A lot of people have told me you change quite a lot being a teenager — which sounds super fucking meta, ’cause I’m like, fucking 18,” he says. “Probably by the time I make the next album, my thought process will be completely fucking different!” Gutierrez comes back to the ways he might change multiple times during our conversation. But the only thing that worries him is staying true in his music. “I think that as long as I’m being honest in the songs at the time, that’s what matters,” he says.
It’s been three years since you started putting out music. Now you’re finally doing a full-length project. What was that like to wrap your head around?
So the album is 13 songs, but I probably made like 80 songs for it. Before I started working on that, I had not made 80 songs, like, in my life. In the beginning, I thought the songs were really cool, but listening back they kind of sucked, so the majority that ended up on the album were recorded in the last week. [Laughs]. Making so many songs, I ran out of stuff to talk about, so I had to get a little less talking about stuff that was happening around me. A lot of the songs now are very introspective. They’re very much self-criticisms, whereas a lot of my earlier songs were more criticisms of relationships that I had with people. I can criticize myself forever. I don’t have to talk to anybody to do that.
For a while, people were thinking of you as more of a singles artist, and I feel like that also went hand in hand with you being lumped in with hyperpop. This album feels like a very decisive move away from that.
I’ve heard the term a lot in the last week, just ’cause of meetings and stuff, like “a big sonic departure.” And I get it. We went from loud like electronic production to loud band-esque production, like guitars and drums and shit. Nobody will ever believe me when I say this — and I completely understand that and it’s completely fine — but to me it is the same idea. It’s energetic and there’s vocal layers; it does hit the same points. When I was making electronic music, that was not a conscious decision. I was just like, This is the only way I know how to make music and that is how I’m going to do it. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to make stuff with people that can actually play the guitar really well and can actually play the drums, I can do that. This is just the music that I’m making. And then the next fucking thing, the music will probably be fucking — it’ll be different! I don’t really think about it that deep.
But do you go into projects with influences in mind at all?
I don’t think I was like, We should go into this bitch trying to make other songs, but I do think that subconsciously, or maybe even consciously, what I’m listening to at the time does very much dictate that. When I started making music, I was listening to a lot of, honestly, 100 gecs, loud fucking electronic music, so it makes a lot of sense that when I tried to make music it became loud and electronic. And then when I started recording this album, I had just found out about Brand New and fucking Modern Baseball and like all these [laughs] like emo, for lack of a better term, bands. Obviously it’s not an emo-ass album, but it’s more that than it is loud electronic music, so. This is probably my biggest thing: I don’t come into it with an idea of what’s going to happen. Which is why it took so long. I feel like I just didn’t know.
Did the early songs sound very different, then?
They were like, worse. [Laughs.] It’s kind of hard to explain it. You’ve heard the album, so just imagine those songs, but written like old glaive songs. It sounded like somebody wrote an AI glaive song, and then put it over fucking Midwest emo-core. It just wasn’t that good. But I think trying out anything new, there’s a little bit of a learning curve. I didn’t know how my voice sounded good over guitars. A few of the songs are in 6/8, which is some musical-ass nerd shit, like a different tempo. Everything’s just a little bit different. There’s a lot more technicality to it. And I didn’t want every song to be a fucking guitar song that has loud-ass drums. Like, trying to find places to make sad, slow songs, ’cause I be sad sometimes. Probably the only thing where I made a conscious decision was like, I just don’t want this album to be fucking boring. There’s so many artists that put out albums that have great songs, but the album is boring. Obviously I’m biased but I think this album is good — I think every song is good.
Do you remember what the first song that made the final track list was?
It’s the first song, “oh are you bipolar one or two?,” which is a really fucking depressing song. Yeah, sonically, it’s not the same as any of the others. It wasn’t the genesis of all the other songs, but it was definitely the earliest, and I think it appears in the writing because it is by far the most pessimistic song. I would’ve recorded that stuff when I had just turned 17. The later songs, like “all i do is try my best” and the interlude, which is just called the name of the album, are a lot more, maybe hopeful? Not hopeful, hopeful’s kind of cringe and weird, but like, optimistic. They were recorded when I had just turned 18. So the year gap created a bit of a different outlook on life.
And did that feel true to you outside of making music?
Yeah, dude. I’ve made a conscious effort within the last year to try to be social and try to make friends. This is how I’ve explained it to myself, almost like I developed the front-man-musician part of my brain before I developed the social part, ’cause I didn’t go to high school, really. I went for like the first half of freshman year and then I stopped going in person. So like, my manager’s 32, I can talk to him, it’s completely fine. But talking to people that are my own age, even like 20, I was taken aback by it. So I made a very conscious effort in the last year, while I was making the album, to try to be social and try to meet people, and I think because of that I stopped being so fucking, I don’t know … If you’re hanging out with people enough, there’s a lot less time to sit there and be like, Holy fuck, life is awful, I’m gonna fucking kill myself in North Carolina. [Laughs.] As I talk to people about my album, like if any kid that reads this is just not going outside and not talking to anybody, and you’re fucking really depressed — big goal, go talk to somebody, ’cause that shit low-key might change your life.
How are you thinking now about going back out on this new tour, then?
I’m really excited, because now that I have — this is gonna sound super cringe, but I have friends and stuff, so it definitely feels a little different. When you have no fucking friends, and you’re fucking rotting away in North Carolina, you’re like, “Let’s fucking go, dude! Let’s leave this town!” Now I’m still hyped to go and do it, and I’m more excited because, oh my God, I spent so much time thinking about the stage design for this show. It definitely does feel a bit weird now that I have people in real life, but they’re still gonna be there.
You said it’s not a happy album by any means, but it’s also not overly dismal. The last song seems to end on an uncertain note. Where do you want this album to land for people after they hear all the ups and downs?
I made it while I was like, living, [laughs] for lack of a better term, and it’s just my experience. I was just making songs about how I felt. The last song on the album, “2005 barbie doll,” I don’t really feel that way anymore. The last few days that I had to — the label was like, “We need the album to be submitted tomorrow; you need to fucking make sure this is all good.” I was like, I feel like I should change the lyrics to that song, because I don’t agree with it. But every time I tried to change it, it didn’t feel as honest. ’Cause I don’t feel the way I felt in that song now, but when I was making that song, I felt that way 100 percent.
After this, what are your next goals?
Before I made music, I had no goals, almost. I just wanted to walk through life with no passion. Music breathed life into me a bit, so I want to take it as far as it will go, because even now, I feel so fucking much better than I used to. This is going to be so fucking cringe, but I genuinely would like to win a Grammy. Like, I want to make something that people respect to a point where they think that it is worthy of accolades. And I don’t give a fuck if it doesn’t happen. I want to do stuff that can affect people in real life. Like, I wanna do music that if some kid is maybe real shy and real quiet, and they hear it, it makes them feel a tiny bit better. If it does anything for you, then that’s the real goal. And I think the best way to get to the most people is to try and take it as far as possible. And this is very cocky, but I think that I can do that.
Like I said, it’s all very fucking up and down — like, sometimes I’m like, “I’m gonna quit music and go to college!” [Laughs.] But as of right now I’m like, I just wanna take it as far as it’ll go.
I feel like it’s better to strive than to just be like, I could never do that. You won’t know.
If your only goal is like, I want a song that goes platinum, you get there, and it’s like, Oh fuck, well I did it, and now what? Whereas if you have a goal that’s unachievable, you can just do it fucking forever. And that’s what I wanna do. [Laughs.] My actual goal would be to do music forever, which is unachievable, because everything has to end. I either like quit music or I fucking die, there’s an end to it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
