Yoshi Flower
photos + interview by Alex Lyon
Elsewhere | Brooklyn, NY | February 9th, 2019
We sat down with Yoshi Flower before his headlining show in Brooklyn apart of his American Raver Tour. Check out the interview below, and give a listen to Yoshi's new single "Dirty Water" now!
HP: How’s your first headlining tour going so far?
YF: It’s going good. It’s going good, I mean look at the boys just working, it’s great. I just sit here and play music, it’s great.
HP: I saw you open for Elohim last year - do you want to talk a little bit about that tour and how you’ve transitioned into headlining?
YF: We're like best friends. She has been kind of a mentor of sorts. Showing me that if you just keep making things you love then you can keep making it for longer. She took me on tour and she planned to take me before I had any music out so I was pretty apprehensive but at the same time there was no pressure, so it was really special cause it was still like, a really emerging time of her career so everyone who came was like everyone who was supposed to be there - if you knew, you knew type thing. The transition I guess, now I don’t have her to tell me when to go to bed and wake up and I really relied on her crew a lot so now I have my own boys. That’s really the only difference I suppose.
HP: So you’re known for exploring different genres of music in your own records, how have you managed to find your sound that’s authentic to you as well as the music you were raised on?
YF: I manage to do it by just not thinking about it at all, and just making things really fast. Anything I really put too much thought into, I think it becomes less authentic because the things that stick are the things that I’ve just been thinking about every waking hour, and in my subconscious when I sleep so when I sit down to create whatever happens is what’s just spilling out. Since I’m keeping it like that, I mean, it makes it so the things that are inspiring me are just tying themselves together in my stomach into a knot and I just puke it out and that’s it. There’s no real rigid intention at all, I’m kind of just creating without motive or without any sort of self seeking motive. It’s really just exhaling, I’d say.
HP: What are you listening to right now?
YF: I’m listening to Arashi Blue, Material Girl, KennyHoopla, Crooks. I’m listening to Bakar. I’m listening to Pink Floyd. I’m listening to Dave Bixby, I just found him he’s pretty sweet. I thought [his music] was from 1960 but it was from, like, 2009. I’m listening to everything that I can remember after I hear it. If I remember it I’m like “oh, that was sweet or that was so insanely bad that I have to listen again.” That’s really it.
HP: Nice! Gonna get a little existential here-
YF: Sure
HP: What’s your biggest goal?
YF: Wow. My biggest goal is to be thought of as somebody who makes the people around them feel safer or feel like they can feel their own things. And I just wanna work on being the most honest vessel and the best person that I can be really. I’m just focusing on working on things I can control like, how much time I put into my music practice or my spiritual practice or being there for the people that are there for me. I think if I just work on that stuff then I can potentially be remembered for somebody who you could rely on I guess. It’s just where I come from it’s just, it’s not really about leaving some sort of crazy legacy, it’s really just being an honest vessel. That’s really it.
HP: What can you fans expect from you within the next year?
YF: Within the next year… festivals, a haircut, an album, a mixtape, clothes. I’m gonna start being myself more on social media, for whatever it’s worth. Just because I’m afraid to like, be extra. I don’t like being extra but I think in the next year I’ll be extra.
HP: Yeah why not, what do you have to lose ya know?
YF: Not really much, mostly just the boys in this room and then you, now, are in the mix. But I don’t know. That’s really it.