Q&A: A-Wall Talks New Album ‘Autopilot,’ Musical Inspirations & Finding His Sound

Q&AMusic

Oct 14

☆ BY KATE CHASE ☆

CLAD IN A HEAD OF BRIGHT BLUE HAIR AND A SIGNATURE ASTRONAUT HELMET — A-Wall is making cosmic sound waves. The Texas-based artist made his debut in the bedroom pop scene with viral song “Loverboy,” which gained massive popularity as a sound on TikTok. The track quickly accumulated millions of streams and put the young artist on the map, earning him a spot as an opener for boy pablo and a set at SXSW.

However, he’s now ready to begin taking risks and expanding his sound. His newest single, “Touchdown,” is a slight departure from the bouncy indie-pop vibes of “Loverboy” and pays homage to the vibrant EDM scene in his hometown of El Paso. A-Wall’s airy, woozy beats artfully juxtapose the darker lyricism hinting at mental health struggles and feeling lost in a constantly spinning world.

His new album, Autopilot, out Oct. 14, follows this theme of navigating the world as a young adult and artist and wrestling with self-doubt and imposter syndrome.

Read below to hear about A-Wall’s journey in the music industry, growing up in the El Paso music scene, and finding his sound.

LUNA: Can you talk a little bit about your process and inspiration for your new song, “Touchdown”?

A-WALL: For “Touchdown,” I guess a lot of my inspiration came from my admiration for dance music. I got my start wanting to be a DJ at first because I was really into EDM music. And I still am — I still go to all the biggest festivals and stuff. I love dance music, I love dancing in general. And I think with “Touchdown” and with the album that I have coming out now, I wanted to incorporate at least a couple songs that I can dance to. So that's kind of what my thought process was while making it. I also like Mac Miller's style of rapping over house beats, and Anderson .Paak and Kaytranada were big inspirations for that song, and they were huge inspirations for me going into this album as well.

LUNA: Can you tell me a little bit about your musical background and how you got into the industry?

A-WALL: Yeah, so I touched on it a little bit but I started by wanting to be a DJ back in middle school. My aunts took me to my first festival and I just saw all the lights and the people in the crowd and the one person on stage just like controlling the whole thing. I just fell in love with the energy of that, that aspect of performing, you know, when you're just there in front of everybody. And so later I moved [from El Paso], where it was really big, that whole EDM scene. I moved to the Dallas area and everybody that I was going to school with was like, "Why are you listening to techno music?" So I was just asking my friends what I should listen to, and a lot of the first inspirations that I got were hip-hop, like Kid Cudi, Tyler, Kanye, Mac Miller, and that's kind of where I think my biggest inspirations in my current sound have stemmed from.

[In] my senior year, I finally tried to make a mixtape, and that's what ended up being that first project that I dropped, called Verano. And then I was like, “I’m done with music, it's time to focus on college or whatever,” even though I had no idea what I wanted to do yet. But Spotify had playlisted me on their Fresh Finds playlist, and then people started reaching out to me across the country telling me, “I really like your stuff, or, “I related to it,” or, “It helped me.” That was kind of crazy. I was in school but at the same time I was doing music on the side and working killer hours at fast food restaurants. And eventually the music just kept getting better and better for me and it took over, and now I’m a full-time artist.

LUNA: How would you describe your sound? Do you feel like you fit into a particular genre?

A-WALL: That's a hard question. I feel like in the past I've been categorized in the indie pop or alternative indie categories. With this new project, I kind of wanted to try new things because I didn't want to be put in a box. But, I mean, it still sounds like me. There's like a specific tone I use when I record myself, like the layering process I use, but I just didn't want to be stuck in a genre. I wanted to just make what I feel and make what I like to hear too.

LUNA: “Loverboy” was the track that really kind of launched you — what was that experience like, especially because it went viral over TikTok?

A-WALL: That was an insane time. Because it was still COVID and I was working on finishing this album that I was about to drop. This album is a little bit of a departure from that bedroom pop type of sound. “Loverboy” was made in 2019, and I've had a lot of development in my sound since then. But I'm super grateful for it. I got to tour with boy pablo, and that's insane to me because I looked up to him as a huge inspiration for a very long time. But yeah, imagine you just wake up for a good three months, just being bombarded with notifications. And it's like, “Did you see Sylvester Stallone is using your sound on TikTok… Did you notice that Taylor Swift used it the other day?” I'm like, “What the hell is going on?” I don't think I ever thought that would be a part of my journey at all. I thought I had a long time before any of that stuff would come around in my career. So to be thrown or launched into that type of light was a lot to take in. But like I said, I'm super grateful for it. It helped me get so many crazy opportunities. Like I said, I toured with boy pablo, played SXSW. I'm just excited for what other opportunities may come from that.

LUNA: Do you have a favorite moment in your career so far that felt defining, where you knew you’d finally made it?

A-WALL: I still feel like I haven't made it yet. But I think that's just because when the sound was [popular], it wasn't attached to my face or anything for a while. But that first show with boy pablo when I joined his tour was in McAllen, Texas. And it was the first show I did in a while because of COVID. I remember walking out on stage and it was a crowd that filled the room of this really pretty decent-sized venue. And I was just shook. I was like, holy cow. I played the whole set, and I'm pretty sure a lot of them didn't really know who I was. And then I was like, “All right, thank you, everybody, I just got one more question for y'all.” And then I played the sound that was on TikTok. And then [they all went crazy].

LUNA: You also just dropped the music video for “Touchdown” and I heard that you helped direct it. What was your inspiration for that, and what was that process like?

A-WALL: I had this idea for [the video] because the song is a dance track, but it also has a darker theme lyrically. In it, I'm sort of expressing my hesitations and fears of becoming an artist full time and failing, just like these thoughts that I think a lot of artists deal with. I remember coming up with the idea that we should do it in this club setting. So, the album is called Autopilot, and what it's about is that period of time where it wasn't clear that I could become an artist. I was juggling school, life, work and partying, and I was just not in the best place mentally. I think I wanted to show how my life was on autopilot with this music video. I wanted to show like, oh, he’s partying but he's not really there, like kind of just disassociating. In the video and a lot of the promo you see me with this helmet, and that's sort of the metaphor for it all. The helmet is the shield that I'm putting on, like everything's okay. Or like, I'm not really feeling anything. It's like life has been moving so fast that I needed this helmet. But also, the helmet hides my emotion, hides my face, hides my true thoughts.

LUNA: You also have a tour coming up in October. How are you feeling about that?

A-WALL: I'm so excited, it's been a very long time. I've done shows but I haven't done a show where I'm the host or the main event. I did a couple of festivals with a bunch of artists on the lineups and stuff, but I haven't done an A-Wall show in forever. So I'm super excited for the stuff we have planned. I just can't wait to show people how I really intend for the music to look and sound on a stage. That's another thing I'm really inspired by from artists like Tyler, is when he goes on stage you're … put into his world for an hour.

LUNA: Do you have any long-term goals for your career?

A-WALL: Yeah, I mean, when I like mentally made the decision [to be] an artist, I decided I'm gonna go all out, I'm gonna go at it — I want my name to hold up for years and years. I look at Tyler [the Creator] and I'm like, damn, that's an artist who did everything right. If you look at his whole career, he's not going anywhere, he's gonna be here for a while. And for the stuff I want to do… I mean, I want to have my own festival one day for the city of Dallas. I think that'd be so cool. I just want to be in a place where I can help like all my creative friends that I really fuck with heavy, to be able to lift up everybody around me. That's kind of what my motivations are in this.

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