Chase Hudson Interview

Chase Hudson and I are comparing screen times on our phones. Not exactly something to be proud of, although the TikTok sensation and musician is on this occasion, as he realises he doesn’t actually have the tracker activated on his phone. Attempting to assuage my own digital guilt, up against a man so proficient in the language of social media, had failed this time. It’s 12 PM in LA, and Hudson, otherwise known by his musical moniker HUDDY, is sipping from a pumpkin caramel latte. “Dude, every fucking fall I get so hyped for the pumpkin,” he laughs. A large-scale figurine of a dragon peers behind him, as I question its existence, to which Hudson acknowledges, overly nonchalant. He’s robed in a black hoodie, with black nail varnish and matching black tresses scraped back that he ruffles his hand through from time to time. He is relaxed, even though the odds seemed so against us to connect via video call. WiFi failures, inaccessible Zoom links, and the usual paraphernalia.

But at last, we’re pseudo-face-to-face and Hudson is surprisingly bright-eyed, having had a few months to recover from a hectic first stint at tour life with Oliver Tree on his Cowboy Tears: One Last Ride tour, spanning San Diego to Santa Cruz. Back home in the chaotic fluster of LA, he now prepares to release his next musical offering. And while it’s daunting that Hudson’s birth year is 2002, he is by no means to be underestimated.

For its relatively short lifespan thus far, there’s a lot that’s been said and remains to be said about TikTok. Cast the societal cynicism aside when it comes to the app's leading giants, and you’ll find that Hudson has, rather sharply, cultivated a platform of 32.2 million followers, in order to make his entrance into the music industry. There’s something Brechtian about his approach, choosing to pursue a digital method and harnessing a fan base before opening his mouth to sing. The intention? Breaking the fourth wall between himself and his followers, so that when they listen to his music, they feel more connected to him and believe his truth. 

At the time of our conversation, Hudson is on the brink of making his debut festival performance. He is fuelled with adrenaline and the eagerness to perform to larger crowds, and with that, new faces. Life is chaotic, but of the good kind – despite the beeping smoke alarm in the background throughout, yelling out for its battery to be changed – Hudson is embracing every step. Making the move to the sprawling Southern Californian city (he is from Stockton city in California’s Central Valley), Hudson set out to do one thing, and one thing only: to harness a community of like-minded souls, in an often lonely world.

SCARLETT BAKER: You had your first-ever tour experience this year. How did it go?

CHASE HUDSON: It was pretty incredible. For a first tour experience, it felt very well received by the people that were at the shows, even by the people who didn’t know who I was. Being able to share a bit of myself with new audiences is a great experience, and hopefully a nice surprise for them.

SB: Was there anything that surprised you about life on tour?

CH: How dehydrated you get! I didn’t expect it because I drink a lot of water. [He sips from a coffee cup].

SB: How does it feel when you go on stage? 

CH: It’s instant tunnel vision because every part of your body goes into a different place. Like, you’d never work out this hard, or jump this much.

SB: Is it like an out-of-body experience?

CH: Absolutely. It's the most out-of-the-body I've ever felt, I would say. And it's like, the fact that it’s so reoccurring when you’re doing lots of shows is crazy.

SB: And you’re about to make your first-ever festival debut. How does that feel?

CH: I’m pretty excited for that sh–

SB: You can say ‘that shit.’

CH: [Laughs] I’m so excited for that shit!

SB: Do you have any rituals before going out on stage?

CH: My bandmates and I will have a team huddle and we’ll talk shit to each other and get each other riled up and have a send-off.

SB: What does a ‘send-off’ entail?

CH: It’s about getting the nerves out of your body. So we’ll say things like ‘I bet you’re gonna fall off stage’ or something. 

SB: Speaking of being riled up, I’ve had your new single in my head for days. It’s on an endless loop, I swear.

CH: [Laughs] The turnaround of that track was crazy, too. I feel like I’ve been able to do some healing through it and give myself the closure I wasn’t able to have before. I feel like this last year has been such a great time for me to work with my thoughts. I've just been able to write more music this year and live in my headspace, which is something that I have been able to have too much in LA. I feel like there's always such a constant cycle of things going on. The parties are fun and everything but I decided to take a step back and focus on why we came to LA and think about what I want to accomplish in the next three to five years. 

SB: I’m glad you brought it out, but I really could’ve done with it two years ago!

CH: Well now it’s there in the universe forever for anybody that feels like they need to be heard and have a sense of hope.

SB: Should we be calling you the US pop-punk version of Adele then?

CH: [Laughs] I wouldn’t say that! But I love to hear it. I love her music.

SB: Grappling with the darker thoughts in your music, how do you confront them and start putting pen to paper?

CH: I think everything starts with my journaling process. For me, I’m able to talk to my therapist about my problems and to do that, I journal my thoughts which I then bring to my studio sessions. You have to be able to confront your feelings, otherwise, they linger in the background of you. I wanted to start writing about my present-day life, as that’s something I didn’t do in my last album.

SB: How did you celebrate the release of the single?

CH: I did actually throw a party and we hired some acrobats and fire-breathers and almost turned the backyard into a mini carnival. 

SB: That seems in line with the music video and setting yourself on fire.

CH: I could really feel the fuck out of it. I brought on Mooch who directed the video and he translated all of my ideas into life. He came over to my house and we started making calls on the spot about doing a medieval-style video. We found a castle that day. Like where the fuck do you find a castle in LA? He introduced me to a friend too and I called him and was like ‘hey, do you potentially have a bird?’ and the next minute, we’ve got an owl in the video.

SB: Pretty standard. You mentioned earlier your intentions with your first album, how do you feel looking back on it and how it shaped up?

CH: I feel like I did a pretty good job. I don’t know if I got everything that I wanted to say out there but we made a story based on the seven relationships in my life. I've been an emotional kid since I was very young, so I took everything, every relationship to heart. It felt like I was building up a story that I knew the ending to and I wanted to sort of portray that in an album form. 

SB: Can you recall what ignited this passion to join the music industry?

CH: When I was around 12 or 13, my sister was really into boy bands like One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer.

SB: Are you a low-key Directioner?

CH: No, I’m highkey. But my sister helped me build this understanding of fandoms and how much love they pour into the people that they support and that opened my eyes because I’d never thought of it from a fan’s perspective before. It showed me how people get into music and I thought ‘wow, that would be so cool if I was making music one day.’ Later on in life, I started pursuing social media because I wanted to build a life for myself. But I knew that on social media, you had to have something big to be known. I wanted to build myself up and bring myself into the music space. 

SB: So did you see something like TikTok as a way to break it into the industry?

CH: Exactly. I see the way that artists are now and they're so much more personable, you're able to feel what they're going through a lot more because people are a lot more real. I love how social media and the music world have sort of collided. I did also have a huge passion for music growing up though, developing my tastes and going to concerts by myself. I think it’s hard for people to understand sometimes, by transitioning from social media to music. It’s as though a musician is suddenly switching to an entirely different genre. 

SB: For all of its benefits, being so candid on social media brings with it a lot of backlash. How do you take that in your stride?

CH: I feel like, after a certain point, you just become numb to anything that happens on 

social media. It's kind of like getting slapped in the face. if you get slapped In the face 100 times, I'm sure the 100th one won't feel as bad as the first 30. I guess I've grown in my own immunity.

SB: Are there any songs that you love that you wish you’d written?

CH: Wow, that's a good question. “Fly Away” by Lenny Kravitz. Or “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac. 

SB: Any words of wisdom for anyone going through a heartbreak right now other than to listen to your single?

CH: If I were to tell them that it’s all going to be OK, that might not be the truth. But it takes time. It takes time to own your feelings and comprehend them rather than ignoring them. You have to face them for a little while. But once you're able to figure them out and overcome them, you'll be able to end up on top of that hill. But you have to always take your feelings very seriously. If it's something that hurts you for a long time, my suggestion would be to write about it a lot. I would say there's a light at the end of the tunnel, that it's not dark forever. And that being alone is sometimes better as you take on life on your terms. 

SB: Thank you, Chase. 

CH: Oh, and one last thing about my next music drop. If you thought the last one was big, this one’s going to be even bigger.