Published in Ritsuko 1 (COMING SOON)
Mario Cuomo, the lead singer of The Orwells and now accomplished solo artist, chats with Ryan Simón about the making of his latest single (the very catchy “Leftovers”), poorly printed T-shirts, working with Matchbox Twenty’s Kyle Cook, the downfall of Pitchfork, the rise of Big Justice and A.J., refusing fan service, escaping the “scene,” and rebuilding yourself as a solo artist.
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Ryan Simón: I love the NRA dad in your “Leftovers” music video. Just getting riled up by Timcast News on his phone, pulling guns out at the family dinner. It’s so funny.
Mario Cuomo: It was funny because, you know, when I was pitching the overall idea for that, I wanted to have a little bit of each social, political side of what each family member might bring to the table at like a holiday with some tension, during like an election season or something like that. I saw the NRA hat at this thrift. I hit Jay up and he was like, “Grab it.” The original idea for the daughter character was more like an OnlyFans type girl that the dad didn’t approve of, but when we were looking for an actress, we were thinking, Okay, are we looking for an actor or do we need a girl who that’s her expertise? We ended up going a different route. [Laughs.]
RS: That’s Jay Curtis Miller, right, who directed the video?
MC: Yeah. We’ve been trying to do a video together for a long time. He had a great video idea for my last album, but we just couldn’t make it happen with travel and everything at that time. It was just happenstance that my buddy moved to Nashville. He had been producing some of my stuff, and I was like, “You know, I know a director in Nashville that might be able to do a video for this song,” but then I was like, Ah, I’m getting ahead of myself. Like the song wasn’t really there yet. I just had a rough demo, but I thought, Fuck it. I really felt like rolling the dice, so I took some fucking money and I went to Nashville like, Alright, I have three days. We’ll have this song done, and hopefully a video by the time I turn around and come back. And, yeah, I did a Halloween road trip, set sail like 3 or 4 p.m. on Halloween. I stopped in Indiana to pick up my cousin, who shot some B roll and shit. We just had a blast. But it was just 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for three days in a row, either recording in the studio or doing the video. Video was shot from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. one day, on Sunday. So, we were going fucking full time.
RS: What was the genesis of that song? This all came together pre-election then?
MC: Mm-hm. It really wasn’t so much a Thanksgiving political song or anything like that. Like the song just came together after a goofy line I had when I was looking at a lot of old food in the fridge.
RS: [Laughs] Leftovers.
MC: Literally. Just staring at them like, God dammit… I started walking around the crib, humming the melody, and all of a sudden on the way to work (I was working at this restaurant, probably the worst job I’ve ever had), I made a voice memo while I was on the highway. I wasn’t really thinking a lot of it. This was three or four months ago — like a lot of people don’t really think about the life of a song up through the point where you finally have like a .wav file and a music video you’re proud of. I probably sang that voice memo three and a half, four months ago, and that was just, you know, a hook. Because then you have to see if you can come up with a solid verse to match that. I needed some help, so I took it over to my buddy’s house, and I was like, “I have this verse and this chorus. Can we fuck with this?” Listening back to it, it had everything that I needed, but I really just wanted to tighten it up production-wise to the point that it’s just as good possible. So that’s when I had to call my friend and send him a demo in Nashville, and he’s like, “You gotta make the trip, if you wanna do this.” I was like, Okay, I’m gonna go back to Chicago, spend a little time there, catch up with my family, and then hit the road. I don’t know. I just had a demo that I thought deserved it. Once or twice a year, you have that This One Deserves It. We were coming up on the end of the year, I didn’t have a music video yet I was proud of for 2024, so I thought it was time to roll the dice a little bit and just do something.
RS: That’s funny with the NRA hat. I got this one I’m wearing right now that looks like a veteran hat or something for six bucks at Tractor Supply. It says “Proud to Be an American” with this bald eagle insignia, and it gets a lot of reactions. Makes everyone both uneasy and excited at the same time.
MC: I’ve been getting excited about the MAHA hats — Make America Healthy Again. The Kennedy hats. I’ve been seeing them at the mall, and I’m like, “Hell yeah.” Makes me want to pick up an apple and take a bite.
RS: I love those T-shirt kiosks at the mall run by Arabic dudes, where the designs are all like gangster 2pac Bugs Bunny anime. They have those shirts now of Trump at the White House with the caption “Daddy’s Home.”
MC: Yeah, and it’ll be like shirts with the most poorly printed Goku and Kobe Bryant. Just the worst fucking thing ever.
RS: [Laughs] They’re so bad. I always think about getting one whenever I see them.
MC: Oh dude yeah, if it’s the right one. I’m really confused how like even if you go to Spencer’s, they have these poorly printed unauthorized T-shirts, where you’re like, “This all can’t be licensed.” The Hot Topic ones seem licensed, but then you go somewhere else and it’s like they’re just waiting for the lawsuits before they burn the pile.
RS: I’m kind of doing that with “Ritsuko,” this mag’s name. I mean, it’s just a Japanese girl name, but the character Ritsuko of Neon Genesis is the specific inspiration. I’d love to incorporate her into the branding in that mall kiosk way, but I also don’t want to have to worry about all the legal shit.
MC: Have you ever checked out the Hook-Ups skateboard line?
RS: Nuh uh.
MC: There’s this dude Jeremy Klein, he has this company called Hook-Ups and they base all their shit on anime. They’re coming up on 30 years of business. He’s done like Akira drops and all that, and I’m like there’s no way he’s cutting deals with all these people. I think he only got sued by Nintendo once.
RS: [Laughs] Oh dude, I’m looking at Hook-Ups right now. Wow, yeah. Giant anime titties.
MC: They’re all amazing. He was a pro-skater with Birdhouse, so Tony Hawk and this other dude helped him launch Hook-Ups back in the day and he’s been going strong ever since. He does everything himself — the screening to the shipments. Like if you’re a skateshop in California, he brings them in a box and he doesn’t give anybody a deal. Notoriously, if you want to sell his skateboards, you have to mark them up like 80 to 100 dollars because he will not fucking budge.
RS: I saw you got Kyle Cook, the Matchbox Twenty guitarist, on your song “Leftovers.” How’d that come about?
MC: Yeah, so I kind of went into it blind because my friend that co-produced the track, he was like, “My buddy Kyle will play guitar on it.” I was like, “Okay,” and then he told me he’s in fucking Matchbox. I didn’t really know much about Matchbox Twenty. They were just heavily on the radio in my mom’s car when I was a kid, you know? That’s all I knew about them. Right off the bat, he was a really fucking cool dude. We were in his space, and, man… he just couldn’t have been cooler. He’s very talented. He has a beautiful studio and a surplus of gear. He had amazing ideas, structurally — ideas I didn’t think about. When you’re working with somebody that has that much experience and songs under his belt, you just trust him. He can explain to you his reasoning so quickly and precisely that you’re just like, Okay, that’s a no-brainer. As far as structure and production went, he was just a fucking whiz. And he couldn’t have been a nicer guy — like me and my cousin were just strangers rolling up to his studio for a couple days, and he treated us so nice. So helpful, the opposite of like bigshotting us. And he had like gold, platinum records all over his fucking walls and I’m singing into a fucking mic that’s worth 20 of my car [laughs], you know? I was just happy to be there and meet this guy that turned out to be so down to earth and helpful to the track. He ended up making it just way better. I’m going to work on demos for a few months, but, honestly, after the experience I had there, I’d like to do the same thing. The same road trip, except I stay for longer and do more songs.
RS: It sounds really good. It sounds like a rock song beamed from the Matchbox days. Initially, because it is a rock song, it kind of felt like a return to form for you back to your Orwells music, but it’s catchy like your Mario Cuomo solo stuff. I was listening to your Tales From The Mall episode earlier today where you mentioned how you’re essentially commissioning musicians on-the-fly to put together your music now, versus playing in a band with the same people for over a decade. What’s that been like?
MC: It’s funny because it’s like… well, it’s not like there are less stakes involved, but having that degree of separation where you don’t feel like you’re dissing a family member if you want to do something differently.
RS: It’s less personal.
MC: Yeah, and I don’t know if I’m just at the age where that feels more comfortable, but like I’m meeting with three dudes I’ve never played music with tomorrow morning at this rehearsal space, and we’re just going to see how things go. Maybe they’ll become my West Coast band when I want to do shows out here, but I’m just so much more interested in that, where I can just pay them per show, they’re happy to do it, we’re all having a good time, but at the same time they all have their other bands too. So, if they need to go focus on that, it’s a shake of the hand and I can find someone else. It’s no trouble for anybody really.
RS: You’re not locked into any long-term contracts or anything.
MC: Yeah, and I’ve just had those male relationships that, you know… just go on for a while. It’s nice to be able to pop in and pop out, especially if I want to break up my time between locations. Like right now, I just had more show offers in Southern California, so to build up a whole band of musicians from somewhere else wouldn’t make that much sense.
RS: How does that work in terms of putting together a full album? Like working with an assortment of people for these demos and singles — for example, with “Leftovers,” are you looking to work that into an album or anything like that?
MC: I can probably have that be a single on a really solid EP right now, demo-wise. But maybe it ends up being one of two to three singles on a full album. It just depends on how many demos I have going back to the studio, you know? If I have five songs I’m really confident in, like the best EP I’ve put out in a while, that’s a fucking win. If I have eight to twelve songs I’m super happy with, I’ll shoot for the album. That’s also just time and money: How much do you want to risk? How much do you want to put into this? Really, it’s just gambling. It’s just fun.
RS: That frees you up to do other shit too. Like your podcast Pizza Time with Dakota that I went on. Looks like you’ve been doing some film too.
MC: Yeah, all sorts of shit. Trying to learn how to do things behind the camera has been really fun and daunting. I have all this footage that I have to edit still for this short film we started in Chicago that I’ve been putting off because editing is way less fun. Mostly just running around with a camera like an idiot. I’ve also been working with this indie label that’s launching January 1st. Helping them get stuff ready for their artists has also taken up a bit of time, but it’s also helping me pay for all the music stuff I want to do for myself.
RS: Did your Orwells fans get pissy when you went solo and started experimenting more with your sound?
MC: For a while, yeah. If I wanted to do something with like drum machines or synthesizers — that sound, you know — I’d get a lot of comments that were like, “Stick to guitars bro.”
RS: [Laughs]
MC: Somebody commented the same thing on my shit for a long time, where it’s like, “Miss the riffs. Miss the riffs.” I was getting that comment on every post.
RS: That’s so funny.
MC: Even though I appreciate anybody who’s down with anything I’m making, whether it’s full band stuff or whatever, you still have to keep the tunnel vision as far as letting anybody influence what you’re making.
RS: Yeah, otherwise they think they own you, because they kind of do, and that’s when they get even more annoying and critical of every little Goddamn thing you do.
MC: The last thing I ever want to do is fan service. There are just too many examples of people sticking to one thing, while on their hands and knees for a fanbase that can just destroy you. Even the musicians who figure out a way to do fan service that pays the bills, that totally fucks over the opportunity to bring in new fans. Even Kiss took off the makeup at one point.
RS: There’s a great convo with Billy Corgan on Adam Lehrer’s podcast [System of Systems] where he mentioned how in the 2000s — or whatever, whenever he diverted a bit from the Smashing Pumpkins shoegaze sound, because, you know, he was getting older and not young mister grunge anymore — he mentioned how he started getting hate mail and death threats from his fans for attempting something different. I think about that all the time.
MC: It also sucks that they can’t really put themselves in your shoes, as far as like, Listen, if I’m not making a living off a certain project, then I’m probably going to do whatever I want. It’s like if that isn’t paying the bills and this isn’t paying the bills, I’m going to do the one that’s more fun.
RS: Especially now that no one is making money off music.
MC: Exactly. So, it’s like whichever one is more fun and more comfortable and more exciting, I’m not going to not do that.
RS: It’s been funny listening back through all your Orwells music, especially back to Disgraceland with the GTA V song [“Who Needs You”] that just brings me back to, what, 2013? 2014? Whenever that game came out. That seems like a fucking different planet now, where like Pitchfork mattered. Where the Pitchfork album review still influenced public opinion on music.
MC: Yeah, and you can see now who owns that. Like it’s the same fucking company that owns Vanity Fair and all those fashion magazines. It’s become just another arm of fashion, basically. It’s not so much anymore like, Oh, if this website talks about you, you’re set for the year. Hell no. Even this year, they still tried to hold onto a little bit of niche hipster flavor by naming some album “number one” that no one’s heard of. Like Rolling Stone and every other publication gave like the same album the “album of the year,” but Pitchfork had to be different just to pretend like, We’re not all owned by the same company. We’re still going to do things a little differently here. It’s like, No, you’re fucking not.
RS: Yeah, their credibility has completely tanked. No one cares about the album review anymore. Spotify Wrapped is basically the new “Album of the Year.” That’s what people care about now.
MC: Yeah, I guess so.
RS: The review section is kind of an outdated magazine convention. Even in like Vice, they had their music and I think movie reviews — just general media review stuff — but I’ve been debating on how seriously I want to go about all that with this magazine. Because the review, the rating scale, all that, it really doesn’t matter anymore.
MC: Vice took stabs too, with their “worst album of the month,” or something like that.
RS: [Laughs] Yeah, that sounds right. They were a bit ahead of their time in how satirical a lot of their reviews were, like reviewing random shit in their tidbits section where they’d write blurbs on like a Bubbles Powerpuff Girls toy and weird, obscure packets of cheap ramen. Basically, like early Amazon reviews in print form.
MC: It’s funny because now people are making their whole Instagram dedicated to reviewing stuff like that. Like people eating the new Carl’s Jr. meal in their car. [Laughs] Like that’s half the internet now.
RS: Helping people make informed decisions at Carl’s Jr.
MC: I have that thought a lot about putting out a new music video or a song teaser, where you think you’re competing for people’s attention with all the other music out there, and it’s like, No, you’re not. You’re competing with the Costco family. That’s the reality of your hard work: it’s you against Big Justice and A.J. Don’t worry about Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. It’s the people chewing on chocolate chip cookies who are taking up all the screentime. I mean, it’s whatever. That’s all out of our fucking control.
RS: That’s so true. [Laughs] The Costco family. That’s good energy to draw from, those guys. You just gotta bring the Boom to your art now, I guess.
MC: Totally. You see that Pitchfork gave the Costco guy’s song like 0.3 or something? Realistically, I’ve played the Costco family’s theme song in my car way more than whatever fucking bullshit Pitchfork is trying to tell me is the “Dawn of New Hip-Hop.” I think the Costco family is a much more earnest road to take than whatever they’re trying to sell me.
RS: That kind of relates to what you were saying on Tales From The Mall about getting into pop music, which is still, you know, aggressively commercial and forced down our throats, but the niche hipster Pitchfork stance has been to act like you’re above all of that. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t listening to like Sabrina Carpenter all the time.
MC: And not even just current pop music. In the last month, I’ve probably listened to “Careless Whisper” like 50 times.
RS: Well, Matchbox Twenty too. I never owned their CDs back in the day, but they’ve been on my Spotify “On Repeat” thing lately.
MC: Yeah, it just bangs. I would rather spend my time trying to learn from the Bohemian Rhapsody’s of like human existence right now — like if I can tune out the Ice Spices and keep that out of my fucking ears and only hit myself with the greats of the greats, then whatever that’s going to influence me to make is going to be better. Just getting inspired from the Wham! documentary is having a better impact on me, on what I want to make, what I think is… not necessarily a hit but something I can be proud of. Like big choruses, that’s exciting to me right now. That’s what I want to make. I’m sure down the road, I’ll want to dive into some acoustic Elliott Smith type shit, but not right now. I’ve read interviews with Rivers Cuomo on his obsession with poppy sounds, poppy choruses, and I can see now how addictive that feeling is of, you know, getting one — like getting a chorus like that. It’s definitely some chase-the-dragon type shit, for sure.
RS: Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
MC: It can totally bite you in the ass too because you can still have a catchy ass chorus that everyone thinks is whack. That’s another battle where you have to figure out if what’s catchy is still overall good and sounds cool. You can make your “Jiggle Jiggle” song that everyone knows, but that’s not going to change any minds at the end of the day.
RS: It’s like “Babyshark.” My kid’s two now, and for the first two years, I’ve been able to avoid all that stuff because she was cool with, you know, whatever TV show or music videos I put on for her, which was all the stuff I like.
MC: That’s sweet.
RS: But now that she’s two, she has preferences and a lot of it is all that singalong kid shit. [Laughs] Which, like you’re saying, gets stuck in my head all day, even though it’s just awful.
MC: Yeah, it’s just insanely catchy.
RS: It’s the inverse of a really catchy loop that feels good to listen to over and over. Some of your solo stuff feels that way, like your song “Manic Romantic” where you sing the same line over and over on the chorus. And even the verse has like a repetitive cadence. That’s a really easy song to listen to all day.
MC: Yeah yeah, it’s a loop, but that’s definitely one where I was like, This sounds a little Justin Bieber-y. Definitely one where fans from the past would be like, What the fuck is this candy ass fucking shit.
RS: [Laughs] It is a Justin Bieber hit. It’s really good.
MC: I was living in my grandma’s basement, and I just felt like making this pussy love song that sounds more like a Bieber song than anything else I’ve done. I was just vibing and having a lot of fun with it. I don’t want to filter my own creations too much. Or at all really. Truly, at all. I never want to do that. But there’s always going to be that pushback a little bit, like, WeLl, WhAt ThE fUcK iS tHiS? But, also, there’s people I ride with that I’m not necessarily 100% into. Tyler The Creator is a good example. I still ride for that dude just because of how much I connected to his music in the past, and I have no problem with him experimenting — like now he’s pitching up his voice and he has this zoomer audience that’ll go to war for him. It’s amazing to witness, but am I bumping his last few albums that much? No. But I don’t not want him to succeed just because it’s not my cup of tea anymore. The only thing that scares me with zoomer viral music culture is not knowing who really makes it. Like at all. Everybody knows a song like, “Oh yeah, that’s from TikTok,” but you can’t really support the artist because you actually don’t know who the fuck made it.
RS: Definitely. TikTok viral music is a sort of hotdog slop of soundbites that are variously chopped-up and sped-up and slowed-down by the app’s users. Like some anonymous user morphs a clip from a song and that specific soundbite happens to go viral and gets played a billion times.
MC: And you don’t even know if you like the real version. The artist could visit your town and you’ll never know because you don’t know who the actual artist is. Charli’s Brat remix was a smart move because at least she’s still in control of the alternate version of something that’s her own, you know? There’s still cool things you can do with that sort of remixing, but at the end of the day, it’s still totally out of your hands once you release it. But that’s what you sign up for when you decide to put things out into the world now. You can’t really be like, “Oh mY, wHaT hAvE tHeY dOnE tO mY bAbY?” It’s like, No, you fucking release it and move on. Which is what you should do, which takes balls, which is why some people are still afraid, sitting there with their hard drives of songs. It’s like, Not everyone’s going to like your stuff and some people are gonna fuck with it. Tough shit. That’s just how it is. Somebody will tell you you’re making your music wrong, and you just have to be like, “Suck a dick,” and keep walking. [Laughs] As fast as you can. That’s just part of it. It’s fine.
RS: How much does the live setting, like having a live audience, figure into your music-making?
MC: Zero.
RS: Zero?
MC: Zero. I swear to God. If I like it, if whatever I create makes me happy that day, zero part of me thinks about figuring out how to do it live. Because it’s just not the time yet. If something pops off, like, say, (knock on fucking wood) a song pops off and I’m able to book a whole tour and do well in major cities and blah blah blah, then it’s time to figure it out. That’s when you figure out how to play your songs live, which songs you even should play live, if you should have a keyboard for this or that — whatever. Otherwise, if there’s not an audience lined up outside the door right now, don’t worry about them until they show up. You know? For now, just make something that you’re proud of, that you’re going to think is cool and that people might enjoy. It’s selfish time. That’s the creative process. You can figure out the rest later.
RS: “Leftovers” would be sick live. It’s one of the first rock songs I’ve heard in awhile where I thought, I’d love to hear this live. I suppose as a solo artist now too you’re more like a novelist, where you create your work alone for people to consume alone through their headphones or whatever. It’s like artists beaming their work to each other’s bedrooms now.
MC: That’s true. You do finish some recordings and think, Ah, this would go over well live. “Leftovers” is a song that’s comprised of bass, guitar, and drums, so you can’t perform it without all that. So, that’s something I’d have to eventually figure out, if I do want to perform it.
RS: You moved to L.A. recently, right? Has being in L.A. affected your, uh… what do you want to call it… your music sensibility?
MC: No, not really. When I was 20 I thought I needed to move into the city and do all this city shit, which really ended up just being going to every bar in my neighborhood going fucking crazy.
RS: Oh yeah, that’s all it is, is going to the bars.
MC: I pretty much went crazy from like 20 to 25, and then ended up not partying ever again. 25 to 30 has been a completely different life for me. When people talk about being part of a “scene,” a lot of that is good music and having a good time, but also a lot of it is drinking together and fucking each other. Everyone’s just fingerbangin’, everyone’s drinking vodka.
RS: That’s Missoula, except without much of a real scene. There’s a quote-unquote “art community” here, but it’s pretty awful, with exception to a very few individual artists who I like. Otherwise, yeah, it’s all just fingerbangin’ and vodka and a lot of creepy, annoying activist “art.”
MC: Even the most recent thing I did where I drove to Nashville, I didn’t really know anybody there. I knew like three people, and I got way more done in one weekend, in a city where I don’t know anyone, than I would in L.A. or Chicago. I don’t know, something about being on a mission, going somewhere to do something, you’ll get as much as you can done. But whenever I hear people talking about their scene, wherever they are, part of me wants to be like, “You mean the people who will become jealous of you and try to burn your fucking house down?”
RS: Oh yeah, it’s Hotel California. You’re never allowed to really leave.
MC: Yeah, they’re not all your best friends. Even right now, you might have a good relationship with somebody who’s just waiting to light the match that’ll set you on fire. It sucks because I see people excited about these things, like, Oh, the scene is going so good! But then someone will torch that person just because they think it’ll make them look a good person for like one second. For one tweet, one Instagram post. I just want to tell the younger people who are in it right now that (and I don’t want to be such a buzzkill, but) like 75% of the people you know will stick a knife in your back if they think it’ll make them look like a nicer person for one hour.
RS: That is the big lesson of your young 20s.
MC: Yeah, you’re surrounded by these people.
RS: Well, it’s intoxicating feeling like the main character from like 21 through 25. During your young 20s, you are what’s happening at the bars. After that, if you’re still lingering around the bars, you’re just seeing your same old high school buds hanging around, never advancing, and just getting more and more bloated.
MC: Oh yeah.
RS: I used to think that you had to start locally and spread out from there, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. Especially after covid, when everyone went online. This magazine is based on connections I made online. It’s similar to what you’re saying about working collaboratively with commissioned artists versus long-term in a band.
MC: Part of me thinks it’s better that we don’t have to be too close to other people to do things, you know?
RS: I think you’re right about the drinking thing, too. The times I’ve met up with local people to work something out, we end up just getting really drunk and nothing gets done.
MC: [Laughs] “We gotta do something, man. Let’s do it tomorrow morning.”
RS: Exactly.
MC: You’re like, “Okay, I’ll be at your house at eight in the morning. I swear to God.” You’re better off shooting the shit over messages and just working it out from there.
RS: Speaking of “tomorrow,” what are your plans for the future? What’s your Project 2025?
MC: Hopefully, the most solid EP or the most solid album I’ve ever made. That’s definitely the goal. I don’t even know if I’ll count this video as part of it, but if this song ends up being part of that body of work, it’ll probably be one of the standard one or two really solid videos per year. I’d say any year you can put out 10 to 12 songs and one to two very good videos is a very solid year. Going solo, it’s such a rebuilding process. It’s just like those great NFL, NBA teams, you know?
RS: Sure, sure.
MC: I think 2024 was what you call a rebuild year, so 2025 I’ll get out there and just light it up wherever.
