Delta 1406
DP: With all that said about candy bar music, isn’t it difficult to expect anything different from a 20 year old college student who’s getting into music and at the same time figuring out who they really are? Something like “Drug Dealer Girl” and “Smoke and Drive” you might look back at and think you’re not proud of it, not that I’m insinuating you are, but that’s what a lot of us related to in our early 20s.
Mike Posner: I’m pretty proud of most of the music I’ve released. There are a few clunkers I’ve put out but for the most part, I think the writing is good. When we reference the past in general, we can’t talk about it as if it’s somehow separate from the present. Past and present are interwoven. In other words, what I did makes me who I am now. So I should be proud of the past. As a musician, I feel I’m better now, but that’s how I should always feel. I’m practicing, I’m writing, I’m singing and I’m improving at all of those things simply because I’ve done them more now than I had then.
DP: One song that stuck out to me on your debut album was “Delta 1406” where you say “They believe every word I say and it seems so jaded, every place I go, it feels so jaded. There’s people all around but I’m all alone”…it sounds like you were feeling like you were looking in the wrong direction and realizing you were writing candy bar music while you were writing your own debut album.
Mike Posner: I disagree. I’m very proud of that song and of that album as a whole. I was more disillusioned with the fact that money and fame were not filling up the holes in my existence as I thought they would.
Many people called me a “sellout” when I released that album. For anyone who’s made art and had that comment directed towards them, they know how much that hurts. In reality, I was growing, I was making the music I wanted to make at the time and people wanted me to make music that sounded the same as my mixtapes. It was the opposite of “selling out.” It was being true to myself, at the expense of losing fans.
I’m sure the same will happen after I release this album. Some people will call me a genius. Some people will call me a sell-out. It’s my job to not give a fuck. The end of my debut album consisted of three really emotive songs; “Delta 1406,” “Save Your Goodbye,” and “Falling.” I never really played them at shows but I continually get letters thanking me for those three songs. It seems they have resonated with people in a much different way than the surface resonance of a radio hit. People tell me that those songs have helped through depression and changed their minds about suicide. It’s hard to believe the letters sometimes. Those three have been just as rewarding to me as my hits.
