Toro y Moi is the one-man-band work of Chaz Bundick, a 23-year-old from the unlikely rock'n'roll outpost of Columbia, South Carolina. Bundick makes wonky, washed-out electronic music that draws influence from everything from Daft Punk to Panda Bear, with layers of cut-up beats and keyboards topped in Bundick's high-pitched singing. His debut album, Causers of This was released on Carpark Records in February 2010, and delivered Bundick from his Southern hometown to the world-at-large.

Interview: 16 December 2009

When did you start making any kind of music?
"My first teenage rockband was when I was 13, and later the same year I started recording my own stuff alone in my room, too; solo, Toro y Moi stuff. Whenever it came to Toro y Moi, it was always just me, the sum of my ideas. I’ve also been playing, for years, in a band called The Heist and the Accomplice. We still play shows whenever I’m home. I’m hoping that with the successes of Toro y Moi, I can bring along my other projects.”

How much has what you’re doing solo changed since you were 13?
“It’s definitely changed a lot. When I first started I was using drum-machines, and I would build these very straight-ahead songs first, then add lyrics second. It was the only way I could do it. Now, with the introduction of computers, it's much more freeform: I can make a track, do the lyrics, and then completely change the music underneath, chop it up and restructure it. It’s more spontaneous, fun, crazy and weird.”

Was Causers Like This years in the making, then?
“No, it was about a year in the making.

I only started recording late in 2008, and only just finished it in about October 2009. For the longest time, I’d never released an album, ever, so I wanted to record it as one thing, with a certain theme going on, with a lot of the vocals recorded in the same session, just so there’s the same kind of warmth to the voice. If anything on the album was sort of sticking out, I’d go back and re-record it all in the same session, to make it sort of ‘bond’ better as an album.”

And having the songs bleed from one to the next was a part of making the album feel like a whole?
“Definitely. Working out which songs I wanted to cross-fade from, how I would make them go from one to another, that was fun. With this second album that’s coming out [on Carpark in 2010], it’s definitely more traditional-style songwriting, but I’m taking tips and drawing references from what I did on [Causers of This], and using that as a template to create the second album. Because I’m releasing these two albums side-by-side in the same year, I want to maintain a theme between the two.”

Was releasing two records some sort of Use Your Illusion-esque concept? Or is it more coincidental?
“It was just this vague idea I had, but then [Carpark] were really, really into it. I didn’t really think much of it: like, I just had all these songs written in different styles. I didn't know it was a very bold move. Now, I’m finding it a real challenge.”

What, specifically, is challenging?
“I’ve never worked for anyone else before, I’ve only ever just done it for myself whenever I wanted. So, after I finished [Causers of This], I was like ‘whsheewsh, that was a lot of work!’ And then I realised: ‘oh, wait, now I have to do a whole other album.’ [laughs] I already promised everybody I was going to do that! In the past, I’d often make two ‘albums’ at once: just throwing the more folk, guitar-based stuff on one, the more electronic stuff on the other. Like, get 10 or 11 songs of each and call them albums. Now, after looking back at Causers of This, I realise that is what I want an album to be: not just a collection of songs, but something more. So, the challenge is trying to make everything like that.”

Do you think releasing a ‘more folk’ album will confuse people?
“I have a good feeling it might turn people off.”

You're not worried about spoiling the good ride you're on?
“It's great everyone seems to like this record, but I don’t want that to [influence] my process. I have this theory that artists end up digressing in their songwriting because they get comfortable and self-conscious. The good stuff is the difficult stuff, the truthful stuff. Once people start getting what they want in their career, that’s when they start putting out things that just aren’t sincere, are just for the paycheck. If I ever get to a status where I’m contractually required to put out an album, I’m going to go out and get a day-job just to stress myself out on purpose, just so my songs can get a bit better. I feel like if things get too good, I’m going to have to put myself through a little hell, because that’s what got me here. My secret emotions about girls and lives and family, those truthful songs have got me this far. They’re the reliable sources of inspiration.”

Your songs are the product of hellish times?
“Yeah. Nothing that terrible has ever happened, but I like that tradition of poppy music with depressing subject-matter.”

So Toro y Moi is just you, unguarded?
“It’s all 100% embarrassingly accurate. I namedrop all my friends, my ex-girlfriend, all these facts about them. It’s awkward whenever I’m home playing a show, because everyone in the audience knows who they’re about. It’s like I’m talking about them behind their backs right in front of their face.”

Have you had bad reactions?
“Yeah, um, a lot of times I don’t really tell people what I’m thinking or how I’m feeling until I put it in a song, and that’s how they find out about it. There’s this one song, it’s going to be on the second album, where my mom was asking me if I’m going to stay in Columbia, and I say something like all my friends have moved away from here. So, there’s been countless times where someone’s heard it and said: ‘Wait, I still live here in Columbia. I thought we were friends?’”

Have you always written songs like this?
“No. It’s a new process. On the second album, I’m almost freestyling, not writing anything down. So, the lyrics just flew out of my head, and there they were. I think I just got lazy. There’s nothing worse than having to sit down and come up with lyrics, and try desperately to be poetic. I just don’t like that. So a lot of stuff that comes up now is just completely unscripted and uncensored.”