You probably heard of Ocean Pleasant as founder of REAL Magazine – a youth culture site for social activism, sustainability and anything else in between. She was also one who made it to Forbes’ 30 under 30 list few years ago. What about Ocean Pleasant the musician?
A person of many talents, she is premiering her brand new song “up ’til six” with us today. The track sees Ocean collaborate with up and coming producer knight, and together they talked to TDL about what went on behind the scenes of creating this electronic yet ambient tune that we will be adding to all of our playlists for the summer and beyond!
How did the song and collaboration come together?
Knight: Ocean and I were chatting in line waiting for a show when we got to the topic of writing and production. Mid-conversation I realized that we’d known each other for about 6 months and talked shop all the time, but some reason the idea of collaborating had never occurred. I brought it up and we were both just like, “Oh…yeah that makes sense; let’s do that.” Later that night, I started messing around with production and came up with the instrumental, sent it to Ocean the following day, and here we are.
Ocean: The inspiration behind the lyrics came from a personal experience of getting close to someone and then finding out that they didn’t want to explore that connection, and would rather stay friends. Fleeting romance is very thematic for summer, so this felt like the right time to tell that story while experimenting with a new sound.
Was the significant change of sound the goal here or did it sort of come naturally?
Ocean: It was both! I think the goal was to find an interesting middle-ground of both our styles and that process felt very natural and easy. Knight’s own work is more production-focused, while I am more lyrically-focused. We kind of just blended those together.
Have you got a go-to method in the song writing and music-making process?
Knight: Someone once told me that inspiration is a muse, and she just uses you as a vessel for creativity. That really clicked with me. I never feel typical inspiration like looking at a beautiful painting or sunset and going, “Oh! I’m inspired! Time to make a song!” It’s all just instinctual messing around until something happens, my conscious mind wakes back up and I made a song somewhere along the way.
Ocean: I agree. The real art is transmutation of ideas. How clearly you’re able to articulate and deliver ideas that choose you, in a sense. It ties into my theory that the easier a song is to write, the better it will be. When I come up with a new melody or hook, I’ll record it once for safekeeping but then I won’t practice it again for 24 hours. If it’s stuck in my head the next day, then I know it’s something I want to expand upon.
Where do you get the inspiration from to create?
Ocean: My writing style is intensely personal, to the point where I sometimes I worry I expose too much of myself. But I think that fear is good, it’s healthy. If you filter your own experiences too much, it’s no longer relatable.
Ocean, being well-known for your tech and social activism roles, do you consider music more of a creative escapism? How do you balance all this?
Ocean: For a long time, I treated music like a hobby, and that felt like personal betrayal. Music is just as much a part of me as any of my other endeavors, and this year has been a really big turning point in my ability to showcase that. I think this goes for anyone who has multiple interests spanning different industries; prioritization can be hard, and it’s easy to side-line things that are inherently creative. I fell into that trap for a while, and I’m still figuring out the balancing game. But I’m finally making time for everything I care about, and I think that’s a good place to start.
Check out the premiere of “up ’til six” below:
