Interview – IG Short


Hi IG Short and welcome to College Radio Charts! Thank you for spending some time with us today. How has your 2025 been so far?
It’s good. My resolution was to cook more. It’s amazing how bad restaurants have become.
 
The new album, T1000 feels like such a raw and experimental dive into the self. What inspired you to create this album, and how does it reflect where you are personally and musically right now?
I was originally going to put out an entirely different project. Just experimenting, I heard my sound starting to evolve quickly, so within like a month I had six or seven of the songs for the album. Ultimately, I thought the message of this project was better and more authentic to where I’m at right now.
 
I have to ask, is the title ‘T1000’ a nod to the shapeshifting cyborg from Terminator 2?
It is and isn’t. I was thinking Schwarzenegger, but it came down to the image of this relentless killer being compared to bottomless heartbreak. It’s why the title track or album doesn’t reference the movie.  
 
Self-producing an LP is no small feat. What were the biggest challenges or breakthroughs you encountered while bringing ‘T1000’ to life?
 The way music is distributed nowadays really disadvantages unsigned and ‘undiscovered’ talent. I’ve had my lyrics bitten by big names in the industry. I’ve also seen producers try to copy the sound. It all comes down to how the music is released. We think of sites like Bandcamp and Soundcloud as friendly, but they are repositories of information about where the culture is going. That information is obviously being bought and sold. I think as an artist, you have to develop your strengths and remain vigilant about what’s going on in the world. It took thirteen years to make this project, even though it came together in a couple months. You have to being willing to bear the losses.
 
Your initial promotions for the album—leaving demo cassettes around NYC—were super guerilla-style and unconventional. How did that concept come about, and what kind of reactions did you get?
I knew I wanted a physical release. Vinyl is expensive and fragile, and CDs don’t really have any inborn mystique. The other thing was I didn’t want people immediately digitizing the music for their friends, frankly. Visiting NY for the first time kind of presented this perfect opportunity to do something quirky that I thought might actually get noticed. The trip to New York is an interview in itself, but what I can say about the reaction is the groundskeeper of the Microsoft store in Manhattan seemed to recognize me as I passed by to see if my tape held up.
 
Tracks like ‘Double-Cup’ and ‘T1000’ seem to weave together vastly different moods. How do you approach the sequencing of songs to tell a story?
They don’t feel that way to me while I’m making the songs. It’s all intuitive other than the thing I’m trying to get at.
 
How did you get your start? Did you come from a musical family?
My family is known for having zero ability to sing, me included. Anyway, my mom started taking me to piano lessons when I was seven or eight and would sit through every lesson. That was probably more important to where I’m at now than anything. Other than that, I started out by making t-shirts for people, including local recording artists.
 
What are some of your earliest musical memories growing up?
Hating my parents’ musical taste is pretty ingrained, but we used to listen to Three Dog Night’s anthology on drives to Florida. My first CD was Americana by Offspring. I remember being in Amsterdam as a kid and seeing Robbie Williams tear his flesh off before The Real Slim Shady played on MTV. Learning music, I remember my piano teacher trying to distract me during lessons so I’d learn how to keep playing.
 
Your sound feels like a collage of genres—sometimes glitchy, sometimes hypnotic, but always uniquely you. Who or what has been influencing your sonic evolution, both when you were first starting out and now more recently?
My love of Hip-hop is pretty prosaic, looking back, but it’s the attitude and lyricism that keeps me faithful to the movement. My interests aren’t really limited to a genre or band. I love discovering new things right now, especially things I’ve heard but may have missed. Piano-wise, I think a lot about how unsexy it is to look at sometimes. I’m trying to figure out how to make a live show work with that in mind.
 
You’ve embraced digital platforms like NFTs and Sound.xyz to release your music. What excites you about the intersection of music and Web3, and how do you see it shaping the industry?
 Spatial computing is still fuzzy to me, but I like the idea of someone being able to purchase a song and then ethically use it for their own creation. I just had this image of someone playing a video game to come across a sanctuary for someone’s art collection.
 
Your track ‘financebrols.’ has an intriguing title and feels like a special track on the album. Is it a critique, an ode, or something else entirely?
It sounds like a fly on the wall to me.

Listening to ‘RUOK,’ there’s this vulnerable undercurrent beneath the production. What’s the story behind that track?
That’s the oldest track on the album. I was dealing with a very common occurrence these days, which is people pretending to be dumb. At the time, I felt surveilled and gaslit by the people closest to me, and the song is an attempt to unpack that.
 
A lot of your tracks feel cinematic, almost like soundtracks to fragmented memories. Do you imagine visuals when creating music, and if so, what would a ‘T1000’ film look like?
Since I write screenplays, too, you’d think so, but no. I don’t visualize songs until after they’re done, but something’s in the works.
 
Growing up in Gwinnett, Georgia, and now operating out of NYC, how do those two worlds collide in your music?
Gwinnett is allergic to bold design. It made me made being in NY for the first time. Hopefully that changes, though.
 
You attended a music conference in Williamsburg right before the release of ‘T1000.’ What did you take away from that experience, and how did it influence your next moves?
Industry people are freaking out right now, as they should. It’s a great time to be a creator, though. Really, I’m trying to break ground on performing live without it just being me talking over a backtrack.  
 
The LP format is making a resurgence, and ‘T1000’ feels like a deliberate embrace of that. What’s next for you—another LP, a new direction, or something totally unexpected?
I’m working on a few different projects. Whatever happens next will probably be unexpected to even me.
 
If someone stumbles upon ‘T1000’ years from now, what’s the one thing you hope they take away from it?
It’s not all about money, drugs, and sex. 

Thank you so much for sitting down with us! Where can people go to find out more about you and your music?
SC : lilultraviolence
Twitter : @igshort
Twitter (label) : @NOEQTY
TT: @NOEQTY


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