Exclusive Interview: Speelburg On Silver Medal Slump And Filmmaking

It’s time for you to get to know Speelburg! In the latest of THP’s exclusive interviews, we chat with Speelburg, fresh off the release of his sophomore album, Silver Medal Slump. Speelburg is a multi-disciplinary artist who can do it all – make witty “weird pop,” direct music videos for your faves, and give you great movie recommendations. We simply have to stan!

His latest project, Silver Medal Slump, is the second album under the name Speelburg. Each song was slowly-but-surely released over the course of a year, and the album’s arc unpacks the nature of second place. Centering your ‘dreaded second album’ around the idea of second place is so witty, and that’s just Speelburg all over, TBH.

We were so excited to talk with Speelburg about Silver Medal Slump, his namesake, and so much more, in this exclusive interview. So we won’t keep you waiting any longer!

Speelburg x THP Exclusive Interview

Congratulations on Silver Medal Slump! You released the songs over a long period of time, but how does it feel to have the whole body of work out there in the world now? What’s the response been like?
Thanks! Yeah, the response has been great! It’s so nice to have the whole thing out there living in the world as a 10 song, 32 min unit. People have been super nice about it — I guess it would be pretty weird if they went out of their way to DM me and dunk on it, but luckily that hasn’t happened yet. Like, yeah, the whole thing came out over the course of a year, because honestly, that felt like the best way to do it for this record. The first one took a lot longer to complete and get out there so I really wanted to try the complete opposite of that. Take 10 songs, and as each one is finished, try and get it out there as quick as possible. You still have an eye on the eventual goal of the album as a whole, but it makes you write and commit a lot quicker.

You released music videos for so many of the tracks, and we love how they represent different facets
of both the album and of you. What made you decide to go with this Silver Medal theme?
Well, I like having an overall theme and aesthetic for the an album, even if it only ever makes sense to me. At some point while I was writing this album I started really getting into the idea of runners up, second place winners, sequels etc… and like, looking at a lot of sophomoric efforts and what it meant to put out a second album. In a lot of ways it’s a second album about making a second album, not necessarily in some huge Charlie Kauffman way. But not not either.

And how did you decide the order that you released the tracks? Was it as-and-when each song was
ready to be heard?
Yes and no. At first, I had a few finished songs and was like, “Well, if I start releasing the first single now, I’ll have to commit to releasing the whole album by this date.” So you look at the few finished songs and choose the first single, then you release the next one and you’re kind of doing it in a way that makes sense to you, and then you look at the list of 7 or 8 nearly finished songs and go “alright now I got a good view of what I need to get done.” As stressful as it was in the end, the process was a whole lot funner than sitting on a finished record for a year or more.

Your debut album, Porsche, came out in 2020. Did you feel any pressure to live up to the
expectations that were set following the success of it? Though we’ll admit there’s a certain irony to
this question given the concept of Silver Medal Slump!
Well sure. Yeah, like you point out, there’s definitely some pressure but to be honest, there was a lot less on this one, mainly because I kept telling myself the debut needs to be out by this time, under these perfect conditions, and it needs to say this about me and blah blah blah. This is not to say this one has no intention, it totally knows what it’s trying to say. it’s just, it felt like when I finally had the first one out, I had suddenly paved an endless runway for myself. “I’ve done the first album, now I can just keep making more and none of them ever have to be the debut Speelburg album.” Does that make sense?

Totally! You freed yourself by getting that first one out.
Exactly! It was probably mostly self-imposed pressure, and this is not to say each new album isn’t going to come with it’s own set of rules and anxieties, but it feels like having your first one out, people can really join along the way as you evolve and grow as a writer and producer.

You’ve referred to your work as “weird pop” before. How would you define that?
I think it’s just a way to tell people I make pop that isn’t the first thing they think of when someone says pop. I think they think of something like Dua Lipa. But like, I’m going to the same well as them so there’s not that much distinction. Everyone’s doing everything these days and releasing it all as singles. Making singles is fun. You really get to experiment with all kinds of genres. At the end of the day, if it has your voice, or even just your name, people are down to listen.

It’s been said that you have a Wes Anderson-esque sense of humor in your music, which we totally
agree with. So we have to ask: what’s your favorite Wes Anderson film?
Oh that’s nice! Thanks. He’s rad. The thing I really like about directing that’s similar to music is that you’re constantly learning new things. You start a thing and then slowly it becomes another career and along the way you try and copy some shots, you try and come up with your own. Same with music genres. You hear a thing you love and you want to figure out how it’s made and how to make your own version of it. It’s really hard to pick a favorite, but I will say the one I really love that doesn’t seem to get as much love is The Darjeeling Limited. I’ve seen it dozens of times, and it’s just one of those movies that came along at a perfect time. Something about brothers fighting and talking over each other, the amazing Indian setting and a killer soundtrack. I just love it so much.

And dare we ask what your favorite Spielberg film is?!
Catch Me If You Can. No, wait. Hook. I’m gonna say Hook. Just because, if you watch the featurette behind the scenes video, it really shows you everything that went into making the world seem so real. Hook rules.

You clearly have so much passion and talent in film-making, with your work for The National amongst others. How does your work in this space impact your music and vice versa?
At this point I’d say they’re pretty knotted together. For my own personal work anyway, you can’t really have
one without the other. I think about a lot of these songs visually, so video and music pretty much go hand in hand. But I really dig the commercial work. Anytime you get stuck on a song, you just say yes to a directing job and it just puts that track on ice for a couple weeks. You come back to music in such an excited way, and can figure out pretty quickly how to fix it. And people like The National and John Legend and their teams have been such great collaborators. You get a surprising amount of creative freedom which means you can experiment on such a larger scale. And again, you take a lot of those lessons in collaboration, speed and execution back to the music side. Like, I got to work on this video for the National that mixed video and animation and the turnaround was pretty quick, but the whole thing was so fun and I’ve ended up using a few of those tricks on other visual stuff for Speelburg, so it all kind of feeds into each other.

Are there any particular music artists out there that you’d love to direct in the future?
Oh man, so so many. I’d really love to do some videos for Girl Ultra. She’s so so cool. I think I could do some pretty great stuff for Remi Wolf and Beck too…You know I’d really like to try to do more with choreography too. I directed this small video and ended up just shouting out dance moves behind the camera to these twoactors, and they were great, and the whole thing just came together, but I’m by no means a choreographer. I would just love to work with someone great who knows what they’re doing and take care of the rest. Then beyond that anyone from like Toro Y Moi, LCD, Phoenix, Tame Impala to like, The Weeknd and Ariana Grande would be such a dream. Really want to do as much of that stuff as I can over the next year while I finish up the next record so who knows!

We love that you split your time between LA and London (two of our fave cities), too! How do each of
these places inspire you? Does the energy they have impact you in different ways?
Oh totally! There’s some cool stuff coming out of the UK, and honestly feels completely different from what comes out of LA, and bringing weirder, more interesting references to your writing, especially in collaborations, is always better. The UK is always thriving when it comes to electronic music, and it’s developed a really great art rock scene in recent years with labels like Speedy Wunderground being a great way in for new acts. LA’s got the sun and it’s got the money and the studios but it’s also got some great gnarliness to it and that divide makes for great and interesting art. There’s also a really great community there, other transplants, like-minded musicians, a whole great scene that’s constantly evolving. I love them both. I’m happy in whatever place keeps me hearing new and interesting music and meeting new and interesting people.

We’re still basking in Silver Medal Slump, but we have to ask: What’s up next for you?
Well, we’ll see if it can be done, but right now I’m starting to see the next record start coming to life. It might not have all the squishy organs yet, but the shell is forming. As for the commercial work, that’s a little harder to talk about before it’s all signed off, but I really feel like I’m only getting better with each project, and pretty stoked to share all of it. And beyond that, I’m super excited to get back on the road and tour the album. We’ll be doing some dates at the end of the summer and into the fall and I can’t wait to see what works! Records and commercial work aside, playing live is my favorite thing. I feel like I spoke a lot in this interview. Hopefully, it’s not too boring. I tried really hard to get really good at making this album as concise as it could. I’m not sure I can say the same about this interview.

Definitely not too much! Thanks so much to Speelburg for chatting with us for this interview!

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