sueco it was fun while it lasted

Sueco is beginning a new chapter with 'It Was Fun While It Lasted'—interview

Sueco has released his debut album, It Was Fun While It Lasted. The new album dropped alongside a video for “Drunk Dial.”

Ahead of the release, Alternative Press connected with Sueco. In our conversation, he explored the themes, the inspiration and the musical vision that shaped the new project. It Was Fun While It Lasted captures moments of extreme darkness, pain and addiction and suffering. But it also narrates a journey, difficult and ongoing, toward a new phase of life rooted in the desire to progress.

In our Q&A, Sueco captured the broader significance of his music, which goes beyond mere musicianship. Sueco sees the project, and his overall career, as helping people — an extension of the way he has used music to help himself through hard times. Acknowledging the significance of his current moment, Sueco tells us, “i’m just stoked to be here in real life. it’s not just numbers on a screen anymore.”

Read more: Oliver Tree on pouring “all the sadness” of his soul into ‘Cowboy Tears’

Appearing on the cover of Alternative Press’ October 2021 issue (#399), Sueco laid the groundwork for this new vision.

“​​When I was younger, there’s a lot of fucked-up shit going on,” Sueco told us. “One of the ways that I was able to deal with everything, besides creating music, was obviously listening to it and finding solace in it. When I say I want to help people, I want to help people through this, through music, the way that I felt like I was helped… Everything I’m going to be dropping, everything that I’m doing moving forward, that’s what it’s designed to do.”

Read our Q&A with Sueco, and check out “Drunk Dial” and It Was Fun While It Lasted below.

Can you tell us about the album as a whole? What were your goals for the project?

honestly, i just wanted to make something that is representative of everything i’ve ever been and all sounds i’ve ever been influenced by, not just snapshots or glimpses but of everything all at once. growing up in LA, i was listening to everything from kendrick and YG to ADTR and Emmure, and then recently it’s been more blown-out synth-driven stuff. honestly, my listening is all over the place, and i just wanted to combine everything into one sound.

The title, and the album closer, are It Was Fun While It Lasted. What does that idea mean to you?

so lyrically, the whole album is pretty much about the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next. for me, for the last few years, ever since [i first] blew up has been this cycle of toxic relationships, drama with old friends, drinking way more than i should have and getting lost in the LA scene. it came to a culmination summer last year (2021) when i went sober. since then it’s just been piecing my life together, ending one era of my life and beginning the next. it was fun while it lasted is just acknowledging that, and looking back at all these memories, even if they’re dark, and just accepting them and then moving on. that’s pretty much what the album is about.

The record tackles a lot of difficult themes. It starts off pretty heavy right from the start, with “Today” and “Paralyzed.” Can you speak about some of the topics you explore and why you chose to?

“today” is actually the song i wrote the night before i went sober. it was a culmination of all these intense negative energies in my life. i was so incredibly lost and unsure of everything, and i was getting blacked out every day. my mom passed away when i was 15, and the song is about me meeting her again, meaning me dying. at that point, i knew that the lifestyle i was living was going to be the end of me. it was suicide in a sense because i knew it, but i didn’t care; i did it anyway. all those emotions just came to a head at that one moment in time when i wrote and recorded that song.

“paralyzed” is similar. it was about this girl i was dating at the time. i was dealing with the dual toxicity of both her and obviously the alcohol. i knew that everything was killing me, but i loved it. i kept on going. it’s funny how humans are like that. it always seems the things we enjoy the most are the worst for us.

You’ve said the record follows a kind of dark-to-light progression. I can really hear it across the album. What made you want to create that type of narrative with the project?

well, in my opinion, you can follow the path of life to death, or death to life. and i like the more optimistic approach, that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. also, it kind of mirrors my journey the past few years of the descent into madness and the slow climb back into reality.

Can you tell us about working on the album? What was the writing and recording process like?

i wrote the demos for all these songs for the past year or so, kind of just making songs wherever and with whomever, just stacking them up. all of the good songs that got written that we all liked i would go and fully produce everything and really turn ’em into a record with Colin Brittain and Dwilly, the two executive producers on the album. it’s a cool process because there are all these different sounds that get introduced from working on all these different demos with different people but then everything gets put through the same lens at the end when me colin and Dwilly go and mike dean everything. i think that’s one of the things that gives this record the sound it has.

Musically, one of the things I notice is the wide range of instruments and the wide range of vibes that you create. It ranges in genre and mood as well — darker, more electronic-driven or acoustic, piano and the like. Was creating that range a goal for you, or did it happen more organically?

kind of both, to be honest. like i said, my influences are all over the place, so it just feels natural to jump around. i consider myself a producer and i want the music to say just as much as the words themselves. that’s actually one of the reasons that kanye is one of my all-time favorite artists. i think he has mastered that perfectly.

You’ve also released a video for “Drunk Dial.” Can you tell us about that track and the video for it?

so “drunk dial” is about just that, being fucked up and calling your ex, even though you know it probably is a bad idea. seems to be a reoccurring thing throughout my life and my lyrics, doing things you know are bad ideas but you do ’em anyways.

the video, we just wanted to keep it super simple to contrast the massiveness of the track. i think it pairs pretty nicely, to be honest.

You’re touring with Oliver Tree. Can you talk about what that experience has been like?

this is my first tour ever, so it’s insane to be out on the road and really meeting and seeing all the people that are supporting me. what’s meant a lot is there have been several people who have told me how my music has literally saved their lives, how they were about to end it, and somehow through my music and words they were able to find the strength to move on. it’s beautiful, really. that’s why i wanted to pursue music in the first place is to help people.

i’m just stoked to be here in real life. it’s not just numbers on a screen anymore.

and oliver tree’s a character, for sure. we both know who the real headliner is on this tour 😉