On Music…
Last Friday, I finally released my remembering Lil Peep essay on Hellboy, which hit DSPs on its fourth anniversary. I adored working for a month straight on the piece, but because of the confines of the publishing world, I couldn’t include every single quote. That said, I felt it was imperative to share with you some pared down highlights from my chat with Lil Peep’s mother, Liza, which spanned two hours. That conversation, heavily edited to not clog your inbox, follows below.
Lil Peep’s Hellboy really cemented Gus’ sound and his creativity. Do you feel like this fifth mixtape was a breakthrough moment?
It was a breakthrough in terms of people finding out about him. He found something: More confidence in guitar, samples… He discovered and went with that, especially the Charlie Shuffler tracks [“gucci mane,” “red drop shawty”]. There’s just a lot of guitar. In a funny way, it more rock, which is a weird thing to say. It was another—I’m not gonna say phase. I picture Gus’ music—even though he was so young when he died—as a folding accordion. There’s this panel, and that panel, and another panel. So, Lil Peep; Part One and Live Forever, those are the same panel. Then, crybaby and California Girls, those are their own panel. Then there’s Hellboy, which is a whole new [thing]. It’s a breakthrough into a new type of music, but then he did a breakthrough into another type of music.
Better or found himself more? He finds his own style more after Live Forever. crybaby starts to be that, and then [Hellboy] is more of his voice. A lot of his music reflects his feelings. [Hellboy] were his feelings right then. These tracks were all made between July 31 and September 19. That was an extremely intense time.
I think he was also—I know—he was lonely and homesick. The way he handled a lot of that, Lederrick was telling me, he just got it out in a song. There’s a line, “I can’t cry, but I’m a crybaby.” Then there’s “Nobody wants to talk to me, but everyone wants to walk with me.” He was very overwhelmed by everything. He was telling me that, texting me and on the phone with me. It was a lot of wonderful collaboration, but it was also a lot of…
For so many people, Hellboy is the Lil Peep project. Why do you think that is?
The beats are amazing! “move on, be strong,” that’s heavy metal, wow! There’s that quality. Then, also, he’s screaming. Everything else, the earlier work, it’s kind of more dream-like and softer. That moved. This is how he’s expressing himself [now]. In these, he doesn’t care anymore about… At first, he was recording things… The very first stuff he did in Pasadena in 2014. He was still 17. Even earlier than that, he did it here, at home, in New York, with his friends. That was some funny stuff. When he came home in 2015, he’s really making stuff and working on Lil Peep; Part One, he’s doing that at night. He was shy! Then, over time, he started to become less shy as he got more positive feedback after “star shopping.”
A couple of people were talking about Gus making “OMFG” and other tracks at the loft, where there were people there. It was kind of like an atelier, like an artist’s loft, with this wonderful creative vibe. When he first was moving in, he was so excited about it. There were a lot of other times where it was party, party, party, party, and there were a lot of random people there and he did not like that. His room was a corner of this large space, so he just sat down and just started singing and screaming in the middle of the room. It was Horse Head who was saying, Gus just took to doing it right when everybody was around. “I gotta do this, so I’m just gonna do this right here.”
He’s 19, and when you’re 19, that’s an extremely intense part of your life. People have strong feelings—they’re very passionate. When you’re upset, you go all-in. I think he was expressing it. This calm guy, every now and then, from bottling, he’d just let it out. I think he was letting a lot out [on Hellboy]. People his age, his cohorts, they had a lot to let out, too.
“red drop shawty,” that makes me, every time I listen to it, cry. It just makes me cry. It’s really sad, and I think Gus was… That’s when he was [saying], “I don’t care, and this is what it is, I’m feeling really shitty. Who gives a shit?” I find myself feeling horrible, too. I have texts from him during that time: “I don’t care! I quit! This is just a big popularity contest. I can’t stand this.”
Hellboy, perhaps more than any other Lil Peep project, gave listeners the sense they weren’t alone. Was that Gus’ magic?
In a way, for [Gus], he knew he needed somebody around to be calm and tell him it’s gonna be okay. I think he knew what he would have liked in those [difficult] moments, so he was able to do that for his friends, and that’s one reason why people were drawn to him. Not having anything to do with the music. Plus! He was fun, and funny. Very iconoclastic, I guess you could say. He was one of the rebels who made it okay being a rebel. You can go your own way and do your own thing.