RHETT RHAPSODY

Interview by Steven Logan | Photos by Shea Petersen

After spending five years refining his signature blend of lyrical wordplay, nightlife-inspired themes and high-concept aesthetics, Northwest Indiana’s bizarro-pop prince Rhett Rhapsody released his debut album Stooge.

Tell me about the name “Rhett Rhapsody”. Where did that come from?
It came to me during a psychedelic experience I had when I was 20 or 21. I liked the alliteration of it, and I also liked the name Rhett. And I think I had recently watched the movie Teen Witch, in which there’s a rapper character named Rhett.

So it kind of just came together for me. “Rhett” plus “Bohemian Rhapsody”. RR, RH RH, and it just kind of stuck.

Do you remember the first time you wanted to be a pop star?
I don’t remember the exact moment, but I always knew I wanted to be famous, or popular, since I was a little kid.

When did you decide you were gonna channel that into music? Did the idea of wanting to be known come first?
Probably the attention and limelight came first, then I chose a medium in which to do that. But I’ve always loved music, it’s my favorite thing.

What were your musical influences when you first started the Rhett project?
Probably Lady Gaga, Azealia Banks…and Morrissey, I was really into Morrissey at the time. So a lot of my rap-heavy stuff is influenced by Azealia, and my deeper, singing numbers are more The Smiths-coded. And then, I don’t know, I try to sing like Frank Sinatra sometimes.

Jack Stauber's Micropop is also huge influence for me, to this day. It’s very kooky, kooky-pop.

And then the Lady Gaga influence is obviously the spectacle, the theatricality.
Yeah, and the drama, the pop-star essence of it.

So what was going on in your life when you first started releasing music?
Partying, I would say. I’m very inspired by the Chicago nightlife. I was just getting into going out to the Boystown bars for the first time, since I was in my early twenties. I only started releasing music in 2020, so that music was coming out just as people were kind of missing the clubs.

I did notice a lot of your early releases were focused on the club. How does clubbing inspire you, and how does that transfer to recorded music?
I’m just very infatuated with the adventure, and the new horizons that it opens up. There’s always someone new to talk to, crazy new experiences that come out of the blue. Just the feeling of magic on the dance floor when the beat hits the right way, and the music bringing people together. There’s something spellbinding about it.

How many specific Boystown clubs do you think you’ve mentioned in lyrics?
Charlie’s, and technically Hydrate, in sort of a play on words, I say “Let’s migrate to my place to hydrate”…sort of a double entendre.

Your lyrics have always had a lot of wordplay, double entendre, tongue twisters…what inspired that stylistic choice?
I think that’s my favorite type of poetry, playing games with words and double entendres, idioms…I just like the way a sentence, in the way that you frame it, can mean two or three or four different things. I think there’s something kind of mystical in a way, it’s like spell-casting, when you give things more than one meaning and there’s something to unpack or rewind.

Do you have a favorite lyric you’ve ever written?
I like in “Mal de Ojo” - and it’s kind of dark - but when I say “Laughing at my jokes/Say you’re dead/I’m a necrophiliac”.

In “Mal de Ojo” - and it ties in to earlier when you mentioned the magic of the dance floor - there’s a witchy element in some of your music. Where does that come from?
I’ve always been witchy and I wanted to include that in my persona. I believe in the occult and stuff like that, but I try to include it in a way that’s fun, and not to gothy. And I do believe there’s a mystical side to nightlife. It’s dark and mysterious by nature.

And especially with “Mal de Ojo”, I kind of tried to tie in the way we perceive the people we see on the street, or in passing at the club over and over again, for those of us that go out a lot. There’s some strange characters, especially in the city, and a lot of their presences can be kind of ominous. So I wanted to make that kind of a fantasy and adventure, and really kind of mythicize the club.

So it’s 2020, you’re just putting music out, you’re putting yourself out there as Rhett Rhapsody. How are you developing your style between that time and the Stooge era?
I was really just trying to define my sound, which jumps all over the place, but that is my thing, the chaos is kind of my thing. I’m trying to be taken more seriously, which is kind of ironic because I’m making goofier music, but i want to find this balance between being a silly gooner clown, and being a serious driven artist and actually being heard.

So I’ve just been trying to refine that brand. I need to start working on stage direction and choreo. I’ve been working on electro dance again right now, which is a dance form I haven’t done in years. So I want to do more theatrics and movement and I have a vision for my next saga of albums…like, my next three I would say. So I have the vision. It’s just getting it out into the real world, which is the challenge of creating, but it’s my favorite part.

What’s electro dance?
It’s kind of Tectonik movement, very jerky, and pivoting off elbows and wrists, behind the head…it focuses on throwing the motion in a rigid direction, and then bouncing back from that. It’s very drastic and bombastic.

You had a couple of EPs you put out before the album - do you have a favorite?
SexxxDrugzMagick - which is technically a maxi-single, which I hate - but probably that one, because it kind of explores that club mysticism i talked about. It creates that fantasy world. A lot of people like “2 Hi”, the middle song, which tells the story of this girl that’s just going balls to the wall.

I also like Mid Summer. “Scrape the Bone” is, I think, one of my best songs, but it wasn’t well received. And then Slime N’ Spandex is pretty out there, one of my most controversial works.

On Wikipedia under your “Controversy” section, it shows the Slime N’ Spandex EP.
Exactly.

So then we get to the Stooge era, your debut album. When did you start planning that concept?
About a year went into it. I came up with the title first, then the concept, then the tracklist. So I actually knew the titles before the songs even came to me really. It was like “How can I write a song about this?”

So when did you land on the “stooge” character, that circus clown aesthetic?
It was like February 2024. I kind of landed on the word “stooge” and thought it sounded cool. Then I was like “How can I make this about me?”

And I’m a yearner, I’m a crusher, I’ve always made an ass of myself in the name of lust for someone who doesn’t want me. And I kind of wanted to incorporate the humiliating feeling of that felt palpable, and something that people could relate to. And then obviously I had to make it clown-themed, circusy motif, so I just kept going with that.

Why did it have to be clown-themed? Where did that come from?
It just represents the fool, the spirit of the fool. Whether it be in the tarot sense, or being made a fool of and looking stupid waiting for someone to text you back. Then it became a fool for entertainment, which is kind of the stooge by definition.

And then I’m like “What sphere do all these things exist in?” It’s the carnival, the circus. I like all my albums to have a setting - the circus, the countryside, the city, the club. It’s very cinematic - I wanted it to be this storyline about this clown coming of age from start to finish.

And was there ever a time when you were throwing around other concepts for the debut? Unless you don’t want to share them if they’re still coming…
Yeah…the next one I’m working on was gonna be the first one. And then Stooge kind of jumped in the way.

On a lot of the songs, but especially the lead single “Stooge”, there is this elastic cartoony production that matches the aesthetics and themes of the album. How did you work with your producers to develop that sound?
I knew I wanted to sample “Entry of the Gladiators” because that’s kind of what plays in my head when I look stupid for somebody. I wanted to have the textures of being a clown, and what that would sound like - balloons squeaking and spandex stretching. I kind of pictured old-timey cartoons throughout working on Stooge.

The intro song “Up N’ Coming” has that balloony synth too.
I wanted that one to feel like a roller coaster, with the ups and downs. I told my producer Tobre that I wanted it to build excitement as the opener.

So since you sort of planned out the tracks ahead of time for the album, which ones surprised you the most while making them? Did any turn out differently than you thought?
It was probably “Banana Peel”. I came up with that title because it sounded very cartoony and yellow, but I ended up making it about a serious experience I had instead. It’s about a dark night of the soul, and it wasn’t supposed to go from something so kooky to something so dark. I like when a song is super fun and silly, but lyrically kind of sinister and like, not funny at all. But then I try to lighten it up by adding puns and references.

You don’t have to go into detail if you don’t want, but does turning something like that into a fun, silly song help process whatever happened?
Definitely yeah, and I’ve been told it’s helped other people after I explain it to them.

“My Song” is this epic party anthem that you’ve said you wanted to feel like a long night out - tell me about making that song.
So that was probably the only one I wrote before the Stooge concept. I wrote the chorus in 2018, based on the first few nights I went out to the Boystown clubs. It ended up being inspired by Boots too, it’s where I drew the influences for the choruses and the “talking your ear off” part at the end. I didn’t decide to call it “My Song” until I was making Stooge. I liked the joke of it being “my song” I made, but also the feeling of when your favorite song comes on at the club, it’s like “This is my song!”

Was this a spiritual sequel to “Squirrel In the Rave”?
It’s in the same universe. It’s the same producer, Nova Blu produced both of them. They both have that kooky bounce to them.

Quick detour to talk about “Squirrel in the Rave” - are you the squirrel in the story, is it someone else - who’s the squirrel in that story?
Even for me, it’s up for interpretation. The meaning kind of changes. It literally is the story of a squirrel in a rave and the chaos that would cause. Literally a squirrel, but it could also be metaphorically a girl who is tweaking, just out of place and looking crazy and all the stuff people would say about her and how she’s causing a scene.

That’s why I’m like “She’s just trying her best/Don’t treat her like a pest”.

Back to Stooge. Let’s talk about the song that maybe should not be named as to not infringe on Marvel, Disney, or Sony Pictures’ intellectual property. Were you nervous to put that out?
Yeah, and I still am. I spelled it a little bit differently, so…

And were you nervous to put it out for lyrical content reasons?
Absolutely. I was gonna save that for my last album, actually.

Last ever?
Yes. Because it is a pretty crazy confession to make on the track, but I decided to put it on the first one because it’s just that out there, like “Is this guy really talking about gooning in a [REDACTED]?” I wanted that shock factor, a little bit. And there are more layers to that song that make it…problematic, for lack of a better term. The sonic influence for example. Some people might say it sounds too similar to a existing song. (laughs) There was an influence there.

Now that you’ve put that out though, nothing can hurt you.
Yeah, I sometimes forget it’s even out there. I was nervous though.

It’s not your first time singing about kink or sexuality. How do you feel getting into those topics in your music?
It took a lot of practice. Slime N’ Spandex was my first foray into that. But I saw how it was received, and most people don’t really make a big deal of it. More people compliment it than say they have a problem, but maybe they’re just keeping it to themselves if they have any issues. It’s easier to say something nice than mean.

I’ve gotten more comfortable with it, especially as I’ve gotten more involved in the kink scene, I go to conventions and stuff, so that has inspired me to be more outspoken about it, to make music for people who are underrepresented for that kind of thing.

I feel like it’s time to start making more kinky music. Not enough people are doing it.

Does it affect how people interact with you or message you or anything?
I’ve had people assume I’m more into something than I am because of it, or it’s all they want to talk about. Because that is a lot of kinky people, they want somebody to talk to about their fetish. And I just have to be like “I don’t have time for this, sorry, I’m glad you liked the song though!”

Is “Roo Mate from Down Under” a true story?
Yes, but the roommate wasn’t Australian, he was from Peru. I just made the play on words from “roo-mate” like kangaroo, and Australians say mate, but it’s about a shitty roommate I had in Bloomington when I went to IU.

Is “Push Out” a true story?
I say it in the song! “The following takes place in the state of Michigan, it’s a true story”. It’s about a threesome at Campit.

Anything else you want to share about the Stooge era?
It’s not over! I’m transitioning from yellow to gold right now. It’s in the third act.

Zooming back out - how do you plan the visual element of the Rhett Rhapsody world, whether it’s the album artwork, videos or social media?
I have this association with colors and emotions, so I wanted Stooge to be yellow for happiness, and then I might do red for anger in the future, for example. I wanted Stooge to be strong solid color backgrounds and pops of color.

For my Instagram, I kind of created it as a dark cinematic universe as a companion for the music. It’s always night, I like the direct flash, and I like to act out metaphors. I’m obsessed with literalizing idioms and acting out sayings and phrasings, so I’m always trying to do that and stick to a color palette and bring a world to life in twenty slides or less.

Before Stooge, you played with some other characters - the Jersey shore bro, the horror thing with Mid Summer, the furry cowboy thing - do you see yourself revisiting any of that or is it a one and done?
I like to leave those characters in the past to tell their own story. I want to do something new for each album. Those were all from the singles era, which I think is largely over. For Soundcloud deepcut EPs, maybe there’s room to play with them again, but I want to be rigid with how I construct my albums.

Do you want to share anything about what’s coming next, whether in the Stooge era or beyond?
Well, I really want to do a tour for Stooge, first of all. And when that’s done, I’m gonna move on to my next era, which is gonna be more rock focused. Rock n roll, Americana…Stooge was the story of this up and coming clown, and the next one is gonna be about a man on the road. And that’s all I can say about that.