Canadian musician EKKSTACY talks slow and quietly, like he’s just swallowed a couple of downers. It’s kinda hard to catch his attention but if I’m being honest – sitting across from him in a narrow backroom in Melbourne’s Howler – it is hard to focus. There’s a continuous pattering of drums and guitar from downstairs, and crew members repeatedly walk into the room looking for a Tylenol or answers to questions. It’s chaotic, loud, EKKSTACY’s answers are short – basically it’s anything but perfect.

But maybe that’s just a symptom of interviewing someone in the throes of the “rockstar” lifestyle? Maybe…

After all, he did turn up half an hour late, there’s an open bottle of Bombay sitting on the table next to us (which we have a shot out of at the end), and he wears his sunglasses for most of our conversation. What else can you expect from a 21-year-old traveling the world, playing music and fucking around in cities like they’re a personal playground?

Despite that, on the surface, he seems like a happy-go-lucky type of guy with insouciant candor, which isn’t what you’d expect from a musician that has an Anarchist symbol tattooed on his cheek, ‘misery’ tattooed on his forehead and songs that talk about wanting to die.

Historically, he’s been compared to bands known for making the same type of gloomy soundtracks – Current Joys, The Smiths and The Drums. His influences also span people like Elliot Smith and Bon Iver. From experience, it’s music for people who want to feel sad, but in feeling sad feel connected and overall, feel happy in being miserable.

The first song that EKKSTACY made like this hit the jackpot in 2020. “i walk this earth all by myself” was a song that echoed the lo-fi indie sounds of the 2010’s and had lyrics like, “I’m doing drugs but they don’t help, My voice is nothing when I’m screaming out for help”. Before that, he was releasing sad songs on Soundcloud. And before that, he was a teenager that teetered on the edge of isolation and depression.

One fork-in-the-road story – that is often repeated in interviews – is where he took a drug that induced a temporary psychosis, and he attempted to end his life. That moment made him turn to music for catharsis.

His first album NEGATIVE, released in 2021, captured that darkness. On it he mostly sang of love. In fact, it seemed to be all about love.

“I feel like a lot of your music is about love,” I say, “Why is that?”

“Because I don’t have it,” is his reply.

“You don’t have it?”

“I don’t have it from anyone, I don’t receive it. I don’t have it the way I want it.”

It’s an unsparing disposition for someone so young, yet it carries over onto his second album, 2022’s misery. With song titles like ‘i wish i was dead’ and ‘i want to die in your arms’ and ‘i want to hide my face’, the album’s contents seem just as bleak, yet EKKSTACY doesn’t think so.

“misery sounded happy to me,” he says, “It’s not that sad…I don’t think [my music] is sad anymore. I wish it still was. It doesn’t sound sad to me.”

But he’s right. There is a duality to his music if you look for it. While on the surface it might come across as fodder for the depressed and disparaged, his songs can often leave you feeling hopeful or somehow bridged to others. In fact, his latest collaboration with American rapper Trippie Redd, ‘problems’, could even be described as funny.

In their music video, a slow zoom out from EKKSTACY’s face as he sits in a luxury car and sings “problems/ always causing problems/ You don’t know what I’ve done/ There isn’t much to say”, reveals a a red-haired woman in a thong as she twerks. In comparison to the lyrics, it’s an interesting juxtaposition. I laughed out loud when I first saw it.

I ask him if it means that even when you’re surrounded by hot girls twerking, and luxury things, or have achieved the success that brings those things, you can still have problems.

“I don’t even know if we thought that deep into it,” he smiles , “I mean, you’re right on that concept but we were just fucking around.”

As for how much he enjoyed collaborating with Trippie Redd, he doesn’t seem so sure. Obviously, he was happy with connecting but when the conversation comes to collaboration in general, and having little to no collaborations on his albums, he says, “It’s just kind of a hassle.”

“I don’t like having people’s names on my shit.” The exception to that rule, however, is herhexx.

“I saw you comment ‘penis’ on his Instagram post,” I say.

“Sick,” he laughs, “I mean, I grew up with him. We went to high school together.”

The rest of our conversation is a quick back-and-forth about his burner account on instagram where he goes on “crazy rants”, (“Like Azaelia Banks?” I ask. “Who’s that?” he replies), shaving his dreads and dying his hair so that he didn’t “just look like every other black guy”, and how he played soccer since he was about 4 years old (and doesn’t think North America is very good at it). Oh, and also, his favourite place to play is Germany.

Throughout that time he seems mostly interested in locating a TV so he can play his Xbox (fair). Even the most successful stars need some me-time before a show.

I ask him one last question, “What’s the most important thing for audiences to get out of your music?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think about these things,” he says, “I make music for my pleasure. I don’t have anyone else in mind.”

Follow Ekkstacy here for more and stream the new double-single ‘shutting me out’ / ‘goo lagoon’ now.