Tom Krell, under the moniker, How To Dress Well, seems to be a pretty misunderstood guy. While his songs are intimate and soulful confections of melodically driven soundscapes, he’s either been mistaken to be a miserable dude or another R&B producer. While he does have shades of glossy urban pop, reminiscent to TLC or Janet Jackson, his music is holistically different from R&B as he adds nearly indecipherable vocals, metallic synths, and experimental nuances into the mix.
Luckily, QRO Magazine was able to have a talk with Krell about his latest record Total Loss and his influences. See what he has to say about being loopholed into R&B and his future record:
QRO: I find it interesting that you drew much inspiration off of Janet Jackson’s, The Velvet Rope. While making that record, she dealt with a lot of grief, like you were with Total Loss.
Tom Krell: Yeah, absolutely. Both records are about charting the different stations of grief and all the different moments of that emotional kind of territory. Not only that, but sonically it just has many different and eclectic sounds that I really strived for in Total Loss.
QRO: Do you ever consider Total Loss to be more of your debut record than Love Remains? Your newest record sounds more cathartic.
TK: Yeah absolutely. To me Total Loss was more cathartic because it’s more public to where others can see my emotions on that album. ‘Catharsis’ came from ancient Greek tragedy in Aristotle’s plays. It was about the public experience of seeing the character’s pain and loss and it was through that in which made catharsis possible. Love Remains was really trapped up in myself and it really didn’t leave a lot of room for catharsis. But in Total Loss, it was definitely more cathartic. I mean, I think the way in which I’ve done my work as an artist with Love Remains to Total Loss; I don’t think anyone could have known that Total Loss was the record I was going to put out. And I think the next record that I’m working on right now should be surprising for people. I just want to make every record kind of like a debut and a birth of a certain creative impulse. I think the next record that I’m working on right now should be surprising for people. I just want to make every record kind of like a debut and a birth of a certain creative impulse.
QRO: That’s interesting considering I feel like most bands nowadays eventually become a cover band of themselves.
TK: Yeah, it’s really frustrating when you see your favorite bands repeat their own sounds in multiple albums. I don’t want to get in the cycle of constantly releasing records that all sound exactly the same.
QRO: You recently tweeted a video of Britney Spear’s “Everytime”, saying that your new record will sound like that. Are you trying to say it will even be more lyrically and melodically driven than Total Loss?
TK: Parts of it will be. But some parts are really leaning towards instrumental pieces that are really about tracing the sound. On the road, and because of one of my band mates, I’ve found myself listening to a lot of ambient music. I haven’t really listened to too much ambient music since Love Remains. So somehow, in this record, I’m being redirected back to a sonic approach. Love Remains was more of a sonic record while Total Loss was more melodically and lyrically driven. Things are going to be sonically interesting in my next record, but it will also be a synthesis of what I’ve been trying to build towards.
Also I just really love the arrangements on “Everytime”. The mix of the strings and her voice sounds amazing. To me, it’s a real touchstone and beacon to what I aim for in my next record.
QRO: When I first heard “Everytime”, her voice and the song itself seemed very genuine compared to her other music.
TK: Exactly, it’s really real and genuine. And it’s funny because I didn’t hear that song in seven years since I tweeted it. On my next record, it’s as if I want to be directly talking to you. It’s a very similar affect that I hope to employ.
QRO: It’s weird because I feel that many artists also do the opposite and use music as a façade to hide their emotions as well.
TK: Yeah, I mean it’s really hard. I feel like I’ve been anal about that, but I understand it can be really daunting and exhausting to be open and vulnerable through your art and music. But it’s also that openness that I would ultimately like to achieve as a person and artist. Sometimes that can take a lifetime of practice to achieve but it doesn’t come easily or suddenly.
QRO: You have often been loopholed into the genre of R&B, which is weird because I didn’t really hear much R&B in your record except maybe in the song “Running Back.”
TK: I feel the same way. Because on one hand, I have a certain flamboyance in the way I sing and my melodic structures can be a bit soulful but as much I love or hate Frank Ocean or The Weeknd – I just make such a different sound and if you put my records with their records side by side, they are just not in the same ballpark. My music is weirder and not just with the R&B label. Even when I did Love Remains, I’ve been doing that music for a while now and I’ll continue to do it after the trends die. On my next record, it’s as if I want to be directly talking to you.
QRO: How do you feel about unintentionally reviving that interest in R&B though? I’ve seen people tweet something similar to, “I love R&B now because of How To Dress Well.”
TK: I’m cool with that. I think it’s better than me contributing to something else like rock or something. I’ve talked with my friends about that, and I kind of hate rock ‘n’ roll music. The image of this dude with an old band t-shirt, rolling out of a van to play their garage rock really does nothing to me. If you’re going to be playing the guitar, you should be thinking more about theory than kinks. So I don’t really mind.
QRO: I’m not trying to say that you’re a sad guy all the time, but on Twitter you seem very happy and positive as opposed to your music. Do you ever feel Twitter poses as a façade to artists?
TK: No, not really. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the playwright Artaud and his play, “Theatre of Cruelty”. But in it he said something that was very interesting to me; “No one ever painted, sculpted, drew, wrote, sang, danced – no one did any of this except to literally get out of hell.” And I’m a very happy and loud person but I’ve never moved to make a song out of a pleasant feeling. I make music because of unpleasant feelings like grief. These feelings are too complex, or too ambiguous, or too intense for me to process through speech so I do it through music. I create a space in my heart for my song and in that space I’m able to negotiate these affects.
QRO: Many people say you didn’t have as much anonymity with Total Loss as you did with Love Remains. Do you ever miss that anonymity aspect?
TK: Not really. Anonymity was a part of my life at that time and now it’s not a part of my life with Total Loss, and I love it. If I really missed anonymity, I could just go release a record on Soundcloud under another name. It’s not as if I’m extremely famous to where I can’t have anonymity anymore.
QRO: That makes sense. You were talking about how you loved that Total Loss was more of a public and debut record.
TK: Yeah, I learned so much about myself while making that album. All the stuff I’m telling you now is all the stuff I learned while making that record.
