Q&A: Reg Mason’s New Single “STÉ” is a Heartfelt Track About an Ultimatum
HAVING TO CHOOSE BETWEEN TWO THINGS YOU LOVE — can be a difficult position to be in. Especially when an ultimatum is coming from someone close to you. As overwhelming as that can be, at the end of the day, choosing your happiness — regardless of your choice — is important. “STÉ” is Reg Mason’s track that explores this very scenario. After being given the “music or me” ultimatum, Mason created a more tender and soft track to express that approaching anxiety as he asks himself, “Am I willing to sacrifice my artist dream for a lover who doesn’t support my vision?” Not being confined to a specific genre, “STÉ” is a track filled with “glitchy, 8-bitty elements, making listeners feel as if they are at an arcade in the middle of a guitar center,” followed by a visual lyric video directed by Chris Andrade.
A 23-year-old rapper, producer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist from Union, New Jersey, Mason comes from a background of both the hardcore punk scene and alternative hip-hop. He is “unafraid to challenge listeners with a sound uniquely his own.” After following through with his most recent single, “Checkerboard,” Mason is sure to be an artist to keep your eye on.
Read more below to meet Mason and learn more about his new single, “STÉ.”
LUNA: Hey, Reg! Thanks for joining us! How are you?
MASON: I’m doing alright! Last week was a bit of a doozy and stuff, but every single time I'm getting ready to release music … something … always happens, but I'm just ready to get the music out to the people.
LUNA: Oh man, I’m happy you’re doing better now. I also feel like it’s been a crazy week. You’re a newer artist to me so can you share what your sound is and who you are as an artist?
MASON: Hi, my name is Reg Mason. I'm a 23-year-old rapper, producer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist from Union, New Jersey. I come from a background of all kinds of music, from hardcore punk to alternative hip-hop and electronic music. As far as the hip-hop front, I was inspired very early on by underground New York artists that made their way from the early 2000s to the early 2010s. People like EL-P to Rat King, which was a huge influence for me…Injury Reserve, they're from Arizona. Anything that was experimental and left-of-center or hip-hop, those were the records that I was ingesting as a young kid and young teenager. So anything that I saw that was going on in the current space and then said, “Alright, let's try and be two or three notches ahead of that.”
LUNA: That’s so awesome! I was a punk and emo kid in my middle school and high school days, so we have common ground!
MASON: That's my shiznit (laughs). Before this interview, there were mad records that I had to run through, but since every punk song is, like, 90 seconds, it was really easy to listen to.
LUNA: Tell us about your newest single “STÉ.” What was the creative process behind it?
MASON: So this new song … is produced by a friend of mine, who goes by the Nothing_Neue. He's from the Brooklyn beat scene. And basically, around two years ago — probably around this time [of the year] my older brother, Lazarus, and I who also produced my most recent single “Checkerboard” and JTT who sang the hook for this all went over to Nothing_Neue crib, and we hung out. We just started jamming out and began making a bunch of random beats. Then he left us with a pack, sent that one over, and then JTT sang the hook for it. It was then sent to me, and I just sat on it for 18 months straight and didn’t do anything with it.
I was caught up making a lot of other records with other bands and other projects that I was a part of. Then probably around last fall, I want to say around Sept. 2022, I came back around to the record because I was going through some external stuff. I was thinking about my direction as an artist and really thinking about where my life was going to be heading within the next incoming months. So I just started thinking about the sort of relationship that I was in where I knew I was going to be approached with an ultimatum about “music or me.” So that’s where the whole idea behind “STÉ.”
LUNA: How did it feel to be approached with the ultimatum?
MASON: It felt stupid, to be honest (laughs). I feel like in any relationship, regardless if it's a romantic, parental, or platonic relationship, you should want the person you care about to be their best selves. And I felt like I was surrounded by a few people who would say that they would want it [for me] but in reality they wanted something the total opposite of that.
LUNA: I see what you mean. It totally sucks when some of the people who surround you don’t fully support you 100%. Who would you say has inspired you as a musician?
MASON: A handful of artists from across the fold (laughs). I’d probably say, El-P Danny Brown. Jack White is a huge influence on me. I've always loved how eccentric he was, but he was always so unapologetically weird, which I guess I could agree with (laughs). He wasn’t everybody's cup of tea, but it's just the fact that he's very fearless. I feel like you can attribute that factor to a lot of artists across the past 20–40 years. Andre 3000 is another huge artist who was known for being unique and being Black. He was always changing what that looks like in the fold, as well.
LUNA: Nice! Thanks for sharing. What was it like working with Chris Andrade for your lyric video?
MASON: Chris is a very awesome and brilliant collaborator. Whatever it is that you have in your head, he's really great at translating that in a way that is still authentic to what it is that you've had in mind. This process was a bit difficult because, truth be told, I've never made records like this before. So I spent a long time learning what the visual language was going to be for a song like this because, as I said before, it's easy for me to kind of make bombastic, balls-to-the-wall aggressive records. But this song is a bit more tender, so it was great having Chris back me on that front. I just told him what I had in mind. I was watching a lot of Wes Anderson films, and he was able to accommodate me with that and we were able to get it done.
LUNA: That’s so awesome! I’ve seen some of Chris’ work from a previous NJ artist I’ve chatted with in the past, and his work is dope! What brings you joy?
MASON: What I was doing this morning, just listening to records uninterrupted. Still to this day, I love making music a lot, but I feel like I wouldn't get the fire in me to create something if I didn't start off enjoying music first. Just consuming it and just engaging in it. I feel like it’s important to enjoy this medium of art as a fan first, you know? There are a lot of artists that make way more music than they listen to, and then they start to feel a bit hollow inside and shit isn't as fun anymore. But I like to think of music as exposure therapy, in a way, where it's like, the more that you open yourself up to, the more that you'll subconsciously take stuff in. It'll make what you're making that much more interesting.
LUNA: I totally agree with you. It just opened up new avenues you’d never think you’d enjoy. Next thing you know, you get inspired by that to create something outside your comfort zone. Any plans for 2023?
MASON: Hopefully we get some damn shows (laughs). That'd be awesome. We got a couple brewing up for the summer. There's a good amount of stuff going on — we're gearing up for a record to come out fairly soon. Hopefully [we’ll] get some merch and vinyl going. I also have a side project called Good Teal, and it's a hardcore band. I play bass and do vocals for it. And we're planning on also putting out some material over the course of the next few months or so, and hopefully, we'll get some shows going from there.
But yeah, I mean, this is what I love to do. Just put out music, play it, and then distribute something that I can leave to the supporters and something that will outlive me.
LUNA: That’s awesome! Making a legacy right there. Okay last question, for fun: If you can go see any punk artist live (dead or alive), who would it be and why?
MASON: (Laughs) It has to be just one or can I make my own lineup?
LUNA: (Laughs) I’ll be nice today and let you pick your top three.
MASON: There's this band called Drain from California, and they're a hardcore band. They got kind of like a beachy vibe. And they also have elements of classic thrash metal in there as well. I would love to see them. There's this other hardcore band from Australia named Speed and they're just a bunch of jacked Asian dudes, and they are just so much fun. The lead singer in particular, he's a damn nutcase (laughs). He'll do spin-kicks in the air. And he makes this certain face where it looks almost like a triangle face with his tongue out and he just looks evil (laughs). But in a good way. They don’t take themselves too seriously and it’s very entertaining from what I've seen, but I really want to see them live. And lastly, I’d love to go see Trapped Under Ice. They’re a band from Baltimore and they are a legendary hardcore band. They’re a shit ton of fun.
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