Baird is creating an eclectic world of “cult rock”

Baird appears in our Winter 2023 Issue with cover stars Green Day, 070 Shake, Militarie Gun, and Arlo Parks. Head to the AP Shop to grab a copy. 

The jazzy instrumentalism of Baird’s songs remind me of the morning surf. The smooth crashing and churning of waves — chaotic and serene. The intrepid birthright of each swell to make its way to shore, and the fierce democracy that grants the same privilege to each surge, passing through each other with turbulence. 

Read more: The metamorphic bass playing of Anna Butterss

Like the tumult of the ocean, Baltimore-bred, LA-based Baird layers his tracks in sounds pulled in from his surrounding world. The 27-year-old, fluent in a variety of instruments and facile in song composition, pieces together electronic and acoustic tracks like scrapbooking. Each layer is glued in, ripped up, and glued back down until the composition is complete. The final product is indistinguishable from the practiced harmony of a five-piece band. But the only jam session recorded is the one translated from Baird’s head, where he has imagined each instrument’s part and its place within the whole.

Still in the wake of his latest project, BIRDSONGS, Vol. 3, the BROCKHAMPTON collaborator is taking no time before diving deep into his next endeavors. From multiple forthcoming albums with his brother Goldwash, together making up the duo the South Hill Experiment, to his solo single “Angel Hair,” Baird has never been so generative.

I feel like for a lot of us, the music that we blasted in rebellion in our bedrooms during our teenage years often shapes the music taste of our adult lives. How has your taste evolved or stayed the same from your adolescent years?

I have an older brother, and so he was playing CDs and stuff off YouTube. I hated it the first four times I heard [an] album, and then by the end, I was like, “Oh, this is actually amazing.” Now, we have such a crazy selection of music, and we don’t necessarily give things that chance. I think it’s good to play things over again and find the things about it that you love. We have a really high expectation for an initial draw. With a lot of music, you can’t really understand it outside of a social context. You can listen to an album in your headphones, but until it’s playing loud at a party and people are dancing, you don’t really understand what the music is.

How did you get into making music? 

I grew up taking piano lessons and classical guitar. When I was in my early teenage years, I started making my own music. I got really into making beats in the early boom of the SoundCloud era on some free software. At some point, I realized I have this prior skill set of music education, so I combined this cool thing that felt countercultural with this institutional [skill set].

What were the music scenes like at your high school and then Brown University?

I always end up shit-talking [Brown University]. But my high school music scene was low-key more inspiring. We went to this artsy fartsy high school in Baltimore County. There’s a lore of Baltimore and its alternative musicians. Animal Collective went to our high school. Yeasayer went to our high school. The Baltimore scene was [happening] before I was a functioning human. Dan Deacon, Beach House, Future Islands. So there was this inspiration well that we could all draw on. There were tons of shows happening in my high school where we would play. The music didn’t always necessarily sound good. It was just the idea that music was something that anybody could do. It didn’t have to be perfect. It just became normal to get onstage and play.

So at this point, you were already playing a number of instruments?

Yeah, I’m a hobbyist in a lot of things. I dabble. It’s really a strength and a weakness. [Growing up], I’d been playing piano for a while, but my brother had been playing piano for longer. So I think in my adolescent brain, I was like, “I need my own lane.” My dad played guitar. So I started picking up his guitar. I had a rudimentary drum set. I started to pick up drums and jam with my brother. I don’t know if I’m qualified in any of them.

When I saw your live set, I was shocked to learn that you wrote all the instrumental parts in the band. What does the writing process look like? Are you basically jamming with yourself?

It’s definitely jamming with yourself. I will say the live versions are different from the recordings. So in the recordings, I’m layering up the tracks myself. In the live version, the bassist who plays with me, Tim McNalley, is doing things that I didn’t write. He’s elaborating on it. On the records, I generally play 90% of the instruments. In the live version, I have this super talented group that I play with, and I’ll bring them the recording and say, “OK, what do we think? Should we double the chorus? Should we have a bass and drum breakdown at one point? What if we try switching instruments?” 

You moved to Mexico City after college, and there’s definitely a Latin-infused sound in some of your songs. How did living in Mexico City influence your music?

Mexico City was an endless adventure. I technically graduated there. I studied ethnomusicology for a semester there and then stayed living there because it was super fun. There are certain songs on BIRDSONGS, Vol. 2 that I wrote in Mexico City. So the song called “Lo Que Tuvimos” has the influence of Bolero. There are these three-part harmonies and double stop, triple stop interesting requinto parts, which is a higher [pitched] guitar basically that influenced me, but mostly, it was the adventure of living there. 

You’ve done a bunch of notable collaborations — Kevin Abstract, BROCKHAMPTON, and Arlo Parks. Can you describe one in particular that was meaningful to you? 

I co-produced “SIERRA NIGHTS” by Kevin Abstract. As soon as we had finished the BROCKHAMPTON album, we had so much buzz and excitement. We made the ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE album and felt like there was more inspiration left over. So we got together at my studio for the first time with my brother and just made it super fast on the fly. I was making the beats, [and my brother] Gabe was playing the synth part as [Kevin Abstract] was writing the rap. All in real time.

We just kept recording and ended up with this long jam that eventually became the song. We would literally leave it running, record the drums with the rest of the beat playing out of the speakers. I mean, we just didn’t stop. It was continuous. That’s the ideal way to work. It doesn’t always work out, and sometimes it gets messy. But that song was really fun to make.

So tell me about the South Hill Experiment. What is it like working with your brother?

I guess we’ve always worked together, but we didn’t live in the same place for a while. So he would work on his solo project, and I would work on mine. When we were getting to the seventh inning stretch of the process, we would send it to the other person and give feedback. When I moved to LA from Mexico City, Gabe and I lived together. Gabe was working on his album Arson Dreams. We would jam for the sake of getting warmed up or cooling down and relieving the stress of the day. The more we did that, the more we realized that the things we were coming up with were worth putting out.

We made the first album, MOONSHOTS, super quickly. We’d been jamming for over a year and had all these Voice Memos and rough starts. We blocked off eight days to finish the album. The goal is just to make sure the project is fun and energizing. And not perfectionist but more instinctual.

How does your single “Angel Hair” fit into the rest of your music catalog?

“Angel Hair” came from literally eating pasta. It was the fastest song I ever wrote. For me, it’s usually a process of several weeks. So I write a verse I like, and then I write one that I hate. Then I write a chorus, but it’s not that good, so I rewrite the chorus. I kind of collage it together. This is the first time where the whole song was just presented in one sitting. I’m really proud of the song. It’s more of a clear, understandable story than a lot of the other stuff that I’ve put out. It fits more into the world of songwriter stuff that I’ve been listening to recently. 

Do you have a style or genre that you identify with most? Or that you call yourself even?

I’ve been playing with this idea of “cult rock.” I feel like being an artist is 50% making music, 50% running a media company, and 50% starting a cult. It’s 150%, but that’s what it is.

What’s next for Baird?

I’m working on some solo music, producing for a bunch of my friends, and then putting out more South Hill music. So there’s no shortage. And then I always carve out a little time to write something for myself.