Chicago artist, XNDR, Talks Starting Over and Entering a New Era with Single “Rush”

By: Jada Milazzo

January 12, 2024

J: So it’s great to have you chat with UNLABELED, do you want to give a little background and introduction as to who you are and the music you make? 

XNDR: Yes!! So, my name is XNDR, and I am a pop/R&B recording artist. I’ve been a recording artist for as long as I can remember; I grew up singing in church and I did a lot of musical theater growing up. Then I got into songwriting around 6 years old; I did a lot of talent competitions and I had my parents just pushing me and being my number one supporters, which was really awesome. That kind of segwayed into getting into vocal engineering and music production. I just loved anything that had to do with music; I had my idols, I was obsessed with touring and just everything in that nature. As I got older it just became more real. I put out my first single called “Energy” when I was 15 years old. I was a freshman in highschool and I just released it on Soundcloud. I had Garageband and my iPod at the time, and I was playing around with loops and it was just me messing with my iPod and this like $50 studio program that my parents had bought me that year for Christmas on like a PC, and I didn’t know what I was doing but I just made a song and put it out and was super proud of it. That got me going into this realm of “Oh this is what I really wanna do and I have full control over making it happen and no one else is going to do it for me”. So, at that time (again I was really into touring and into branding) I went by Ethan Xander, and that was just the beginning of putting myself out there and building a fanbase, and at that time it was really just my friends and my family. I had done some collaborations with friends in my neighborhood. I had put out a couple EPs, and they’re not up or out anywhere, and more recently as of last year Hailey and I started working together. She came onto my team as management, and we just did an entire rebrand. So, I go by the name XNDR now, and the reason for that is to have a name that stands out and it pleasing to my eye. But, to fast forward to where we are now, I’m more solidified in my sound and the music I’ve been making in the past three years. I stopped putting music out really consistently back in 2021, and I was just putting my time into solidifying the sound that I wanted to make and the message that I wanted to put in my music; so that when people listen to my music they know that it's me. That’s a really long but condensed version of my background. 

J: So you’re doing a lot of experimenting and recentering on your branding and who you are as an artist, which is really awesome to hear about and awesome to see someone taking the time to understand who they are and how to make music that reflects that. I listened to the stuff you have up on Soundcloud and I love it! It’s very dancey. 

XNDR: Thank you so much!! More recently, I was writing and recording and I just decided to put that out on Soundcloud, it’s a song called “High”. I’ve just really been experimenting because I am an R&B/pop artist but I’ve been going into this dance/house realm too. 

J: Do you do all the production yourself? 

XNDR: Growing up that’s how I started but now I’ve transitioned into a singer/songwriter role with some vocal engineering. The mixes that people hear on the records are all done by me, production most of the time was not me. The reason I went that route was because I chose to center my focus on the singer/songwriter part and I feel that’s really a piece of who I am as an artist. Some artists are really into production, but for me songwriting and making sure the vocals are stacked in a certain way and going into the mixing booth and getting all of that figured out it is really in my lane. 

J: In talking about this new era of XNDR, what do you want to reflect in this new era with the new single “Rush” coming out and new music on the way? What is your main goal that you want to convey to listeners? XNDR: So, where Hailey and I have been at is creating this character that I think you’ll see in the PR photos, but creating a pop star essentially. Those were the idols I had, I loved Ariana Grande and Beyonce, I just loved pop music. I think I’m centering myself in that now. I want people to have fun listening to my music. The single coming out now is more of a slow jam, and this is the last of my slow-jam music that I’m putting out as a single. Growing up, it was really easy to make music like that because I really connected with music that was mid-tempo and slow because it was more heartfelt. It was difficult for me to make an upbeat pop song. But what we’ve been creating more recently, it really not making music that is a direct reflection of everything I’m going through, but more so exaggerating things and making a fantasy. At the time of writing “Rush”, which is coming out this month, which was back in summer of 2021 so I’ve been sitting on it for a long time and it’s been recorded and done for a while. The producer I worked with was generous and I’m so grateful for him because he really understood my vision. But I’ve been sitting on it for so long because for me I wanted to solidify my sound and see if I could truly connect with it. I had put out a single under Ethan Xander called “Waiting” back in 2021 as well, and at that time I had an EP in mind of where music was heading for me and I ended up scratching that project because I didn’t connect to it and with what was going on in my life. So, I took the next couple of years to really hone in on what is this and day-in and day-out I was really just figuring that out. With “Rush” I think it’s an ode to who I was as an artist and who I’m becoming. You’ll hear it in the music, but also see it in the visuals of cover art and the different variations of that, the promo posters, the photoshoots that we’ve done, and just all of that! 

J: So, it’s really a transitional piece of reflecting on your past work and also entering this new era of XNDR and new music. It’s great to be able to reflect on the past to learn and see what you came from to what you're going to be producing now. I think it’s something a lot of artists struggle with, is figuring out who they are and how their background and influences and artists they enjoy and look up to, impact who they’re becoming as their own artist. It’s great to see that you are on the right path of figuring out who you are as this pop star, with idols like Beyonce and Arian Grande, because its great to enjoy the grandeur of it all, and understand that “this is where I need to be!”

XNDR: I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about this but… this is the lead single off of an EP we are putting out this summer, and it’s titled Metamorphosis. I mentioned earlier that there was a project I had in the works a few years back, that I scrapped. There are pieces of that project that are in this project, and I think that that is something that just happens over time when you’re working on something for so long. It was like I had 10 songs just ready to go, but then life happened and I didn’t feel like it was the right time for it. There are pieces from that that are in this project and Metamorphosis as the title is very important because I talk about my evolution and it goes back to me just being a human being and thinking without me as Ethan, XNDR is just kind of nothing. My heart and soul, as an individual outside of my music and what I go through, my experiences and relationships and just life in general plays a part into this. So, “Rush” is a part of this Metamorphosis, it talks about the duality of love and lust by tapping into this 90s R&B loverboy sound. 

J: I listened to “Rush” as well, and it’s so good and very different from the stuff you have on Soundcloud but I really enjoy the soft romantic feeling of it. Do you want to talk about what inspired you to write like that? 

XNDR: At the time, I was very inspired by 90s R&B, and had a lot of that type of music in my rotation. A lot fo Usher, old Beyonce, SWV and Destiny’s Child; but also a lot of newer R&B… I love Bryson Tiller, Frank Ocean, Miguel, Summer Walker… these artists that are really prominent in the R&B scene. It was taking inspiration because that was on my palette but it was also, from a writing standpoint, it was a reflection of these romantic experiences that I was having at the time. I was 18 at the time and I’m 20 now, so it’s only a couple years ago, but so much can happen in that period of time, especially when it comes to my experience and outlook on relationships and how to handle them. The way I would have handled it two years ago is so different than how I would handle it now. So when it came down to writing it, it wasn’t a challenge, it came to me naturally, but I knew that at some point, before I even knew who XNDR was, I knew that I wanted to make a record that was a showcase for me. I’m an indie artist, so I’m not signed, I completely fund my projects and I have to work incredibly hard because it can be really costly, but what I want to do is create this atmosphere and world for the pop star figure. There are elements of me that are in it, but going back to this star showcasing moment, I feel like I heard it in the intro with the piano. I’ve played it for some people and they’re like “this is 90’s love making music”. I’m not the best of the best, and I have so much more that I want to do and so many places I want to be, but I do feel like I always strive to put out music that sets me aside to what my peers are making. Also, as an indie artist the quality is very important to me, so if it sounds a little off I ask for more. So with the producer on “Rush”, his name is Jeff He, and we actually met back in highschool. I reached out to him and told him what I was working on, and he sent me over a couple things he was working on and I fell in love with that track and felt that it resembled this romantic vibe that I wanted to set. It was really great with the 90s R&B/loverboy thing that I wanted to showcase. There’s an electric guitar solo that’s in the song, and when we first started cutting the song it was not in it. One day I was listening back to it and was also listening to this song by Beyonce called “Speechless” from around 2003, and it has this very beautiful guitar intro; so I texted him and was like “Hey, I don’t want you to recreate this but is there anyway to incorporate something like this..” and he said no problem and the next day I got the track back and we put that guitar in and it was like BOOM, that’s what completed the song. It was like magic to me. I performed it once as an unreleased, and it was so amazing because how I was able to connect the audience with that song is why it’s the lead single from this project. 

J: I wish I heard it performed live because I can imagine how heartwarming it is to connect with the crowd and have the crowd connect with you through this one song that everyone can relate to. Especially, as you were talking about being an indie artist, it’s even more important to have that connection with your fans and supporters because that’s how you’re going to grow. Everyone wants to find an artist that they feel personally connected to and can relate to. I’m so happy for you, and that you’re figuring out who you are and putting out music that feels soulful to you and I’m excited to hear the EP. Is there anything else you want to tell the people about what to expect with this new single and in the upcoming months? 

XNDR: I think this is just the beginning of something really really great. I hope the people enjoy my music because it’s been a journey and I feel like this journey of this Metamorphosis run, has been something I’ve been thinking about and working on for the past few years and now I’m ready to put it out. Whether it has one listener or a thousand listeners, it’s one of those things that for me, I’ve held onto it for so long that I’ve enjoyed it and now it’s for other people to enjoy. It’s going to be a fun ride…with everything we have in store from the music video in development to new music that sounds very different, I hope the people can enjoy it and connect with me even more. It’s going to be really really fun. 

Presave RUSH at the link below!

https://xndr.lnk.to/RUSH

Credits:

Management: Hailey Works

Photography / Editing: Daniel Delgado

Graphic Design: Carlos Sanchez

Lashes: Jazlin Diaz

Styled by: Neida Aguilar & Kendyl Delyse

Assisted by: Victoria Grace