There seems to be no in-between for your music — people either love it or hate it. How do you deal with this criticism?

The more comfortable you get in yourself, the more your true light shines through. Once you stop taking in outside influences and trying to please other people, that's when you can really start going crazy with your craft. People need to listen to their inner voice, because it can't be wrong if it’s true to you. I’m equally happy if someone loves or hates my music, because it's basically the same feeling. At least that means it does something.

What’s your reaction to Drain Gang and Sad Boys having a small yet noticeable alt-right fan base?

It makes me real sad, but also it’s out of my control. Politics is so boring — it’s just a distraction from our true purpose in life. It has a lot to do with these white boys that relate to me, because they’re sad and lonely and girls don’t like them so they fuck with my music. They make themselves victims. That’s what [the] alt-right is anyways: you feel like someone has done you wrong. I hope they find out and see that it’s fucked up.

Depression and anxiety are motifs within your lyrics. Do you ever struggle with your mental health?

No — I mean, I never had a diagnosis or problems like that. I’ve just been down bad. You know how it gets. Music was a really good way for me to vent, and it just sounded hard to talk about that shit. But now, I feel a little more responsible, because there’s a lot of young people listening to my music, and I don’t want to make it sound cool to be depressed or to dwell on these feelings. I also love life and think it’s beautiful to be here. I put the worst things that were in my mind into my music, but I know now that I don’t have to do that. I’m trying to change my approach a little bit, [to] being true to yourself. That’s what got me to where I am today — to where I can do what I love and I don’t have to work a job. I want to be more positive.

But I don’t want to take anything away from [those songs] either. You listen to sad music to get out those feelings, and a lot of people can use it to get the sadness out, but you mustn’t stay in the sadness and get even sadder. You should put your sadness out onto the song. Sing it out with me, and you feel better.

Drugs come up a lot within your lyrics too. Do you experiment with them?

I have used drugs, but that’s also something I’m trying to get away from. It was easy for me to slip into talking about drugs because it sounds aesthetically cool. But I definitely exaggerate shit too. I don’t wanna talk about pills and drugs in my songs, because I know I have really young fans. Drugs can be good, but most of the time it’s bad. I’m trying to move on from that — I’m trying to be on my healthy shit.

Icedancer is more positive than a lot of your discography.

Icedancer was over a summer and a winter where I was starting to be more positive. I was recording a lot of songs in between albums with whitearmor. Ripsquad was sending me a lot of beats, and it became a tape. I was like, Yeah, this is cool. It’s not my best work, but I’ll put it out just as a surprise. Now it’s my most streamed mixtape, it beat Red Light in a couple months with a double amount of streams.

How do you view the evolution of your music from Gluee to Icedancer?

I always like the new music we’re making the most. It’s always the songs I just made last week that I’m like, Yeah, that’s my favorite song. I really like Eversince, I still play those songs live. It’s a classic if I can say so myself [Laughs]. There’s also a lot of music that I wish I didn’t put out that I find not great, but it’s out and I can’t really worry about what I did a few years ago. You just have to live in the moment, you can’t overthink it. I’m just trying to put out as much as possible and keep it going.

A lot of your fans refer to your lyrics as poetry.

Everything is poetry — music in general, pictures. But lately I’ve been trying to say less in my songs. Sometimes I think I said too much, and it’s deeper if you can say less, because you really say more. When you’ve said too much, you’re getting away from the point. When you can express a feeling in the least amount of words, that’s what I want to be able to do with the lyrics.

I’ve noticed that change in your lyrics, especially on Red Light.

When I was making Eversince, I was always thinking lyrics in my head and writing them down. Lately I’ve been going off top, bar for bar, just punching in and going in the studio, listening to the beat and writing something right there. It’s automatic. I’m better at English now, too, so I’ve got more words in my vocabulary.

I can’t imagine how hard it would be to sing in your second language.

When we started, I was like, No one’s going to want to listen to my broken English. But people fuck with it, and now I got better. I lived in London for two years and [English] sounds more natural for me. My first project, there’s some shit I can’t listen to anymore because it sounds so broken [Laughs]. When you’re speaking a different language — or when I started, anyways — [it felt] like it wasn’t really me but a character. It made it easier for me to talk about shit and separate [it] from my own insecurities. English definitely helped me take that step into being an artist and being a public person.

Is Bladee different from Ben?

Of course, at some level, but it’s also me. Have you ever seen Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure? Bladee is like my Stand. It’s my soul, how I want the world to be — an extreme version of myself. Bladee definitely is me, but not on this plane. It’s me on a higher dimension. But it’s still me in some way, you know? I created Bladee first as a character, and then I grew into it and found how to be the truest version of myself.

