Q&A: Yung Bae Hones In On His New Sound with Upcoming Music
IT TAKES JUST A FEW NOTES TO HAVE A GOOD TIME WHEN YOU’RE LISTENING TO YUNG BAE. Bringing a fresh flow to Future Funk, the producer creates a soundscape that has something for everyone. Tapping into everything from Japanese City Pop samples to chillwave, Yung Bae is no stranger to experimenting with his sound to give his listeners something unexpected, yet something that always hits just right. He’s your soon-to-be favorite producer who has tracks with a diverse range of artists including Channel Tres, AWOLNATION, Pink Sweat$, Wiz Khalifa, MAX, bbno$ and more.
Since his first release “Sometime” back in 2016, Yung Bae has kept up a solid pace while always reinventing his sound in the best way. 2019’s “Bad Boy” found itself going viral on Tik Tok the past year, allowing even more fans to hop on the Yung Bae train. The now LA-based Portland native has a new track, “Straight Up Relaxin” coming up with Cosmo’s Midnight and HONNE, and has been hard at work wrapping up his upcoming album.
Shifting away from samples and taking a more open approach to collaborations, his new music reflects his ever-changing tastes and interests, with creating outright fun music always at the core. Best described as “Motown meets cocaine disco”, Yung Bae feels like he’s truly honed in on his sound with his new project.
Eager to get back to performing, Yung Bae has had the opportunity to hit a few festivals including Outside Lands in San Francisco and is currently on a sold-out North American headline tour. We had a chance to catch up with Yung Bae before his set a Outside Lands to talk about the return of live shows, new music and more.
LUNA: First things first, we’re at Outside Lands! Concerts are back. What did you miss most about festivals and lifestyle?
YUNG BAE: Seeing everybody I know has been awesome. It was so weird for a year. I was doing in-person sessions during lockdown but it was just so seldom. I kind of missed the touring circuit before where I saw my buddies every week, and we didn’t have to go out of our way to meet each other and hang out. Plus, it's just nice to have something to do - anything! So I'm happy now, and crowds are wild right now.
LUNA: Since this is your first time at Outside Lands what are your initial thoughts?
YUNG BAE: I had no clue how much stuff is in this park. Last time I was out here I did a boat show with Goldroom and we were on the boat going around on the water. It was really fun, but I’ve never been around here really. This morning when I was walking around I was like Holy shit. This park is huge, almost like Central Park.”
LUNA: You’ve got a new project coming out, so how would you compare this upcoming music to what is already out and what we're familiar with?
YUNG BAE: I have almost completely cut out sampling in most of the new stuff I'm dropping. I just kind of took the concept and realized I can write all this stuff easily. So now my new thing is I take everything and write it out in Ableton and then send it to different musicians I work with….It's been fun and it's kind of a cool process. It's one of those things where I’ve realized I can do the extra step.
LUNA: What inspired the shift away from sampling and the Japanese City Pop sound?
YUNG BAE: It’s something I always wanted to try. Japanese City Pop is such a cool genre because disco was late to Japan, and then they perfected disco essentially. But it's so hard now because there are only so many samples as the scene pretty much only existed for a small period. That's the tough part. So I kind of moved on to a very 60s sound right now. 60s blended with late night disco.
LUNA: Are there any common themes or soundscapes going on? You mentioned 60s?
YUNG BAE: Yes, very 60s. A lot of 60s instruments, like a lot of melotrons. Everything we did on this record we replayed it personally, so everything is real final. I feel like I’ve honed in on my sound. This one is kind of like Motown meets cocaine disco. I wish I had a PG version, but that's the easiest explanation.
LUNA: Moving forward, are there any kind of other sonic elements that you haven't yet explored that you love to kind of go more into?
YUNG BAE: Yeah. That was my aim with the album, too. I started working with features this year, which normally, I hate working with others. Normally, I just want to sit on the couch with my cat. So it's been fun, I just did one with AWOLNATION. There’s a bunch of people that I used to listen to in high school and now we're in the studio together which is crazy.
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