Blu DeTiger might be a new name, but her artistry isn’t green. The indie-pop singer played bass in Fletcher’s and Caroline Polachek’s bands. She’s since gone solo, and her new songs “Blutooth” and “enough 4 u” with Chromeo are proving funk is back in a big way.

Elite Daily: What was it like to transition from being onstage as a bass player to the front of the stage?

Blu DeTiger: Playing bass and singing is really underrated. It's, like, very difficult. Super underrated how hard it is. [laughs] So I like to let people know. I had to kind of relearn all of my music so that I can play and sing it at the same time. That was a transition.

ED: Yeah, because you probably had a rhythm.

BD: I'm kind of happy I had the pandemic as well to take that time. I would just sit and practice my songs really slowly, singing and playing at the same time so that I, like, got it under my belt.

ED: You and Este Haim are both bass players and vocalists.

BD: I literally just met her the other day. Obviously, I'm like a big fan of hers, and she told me on the phone that she was a fan of mine, which is so awesome because I didn't know that. I was like, oh my God, you know me? It was really cool. I was talking to her about it. I was, like, isn't playing bass and singing so hard? We can relate on a lot of stuff, which was really cool to talk to her about, and she's just awesome.

ED: What can fans expect this year?

BD: A lot more songs [are] coming out this year. Doing all these festivals this summer, which is awesome. [Hangout] is the first one out of all of them. This went really well.

Beabadoobee is about to be everywhere. The alt-rocker is dropping her sophomore album Beatopia on July 15, opening for Halsey’s Love and Power tour, and enjoying the release of her fuzzy track, “Lovesong.”

Elite Daily: Beatopia comes out in July. How are you feeling about this record?

Beabadoobee: With Fake It Flowers, my last album, every song was almost part of the same genre [and] same vibe. As much as I don't regret it at all, as a musician, like all musicians, I have my opinions about the record and what could I have done better. What I find with this record is that I can never really get bored of Beatopia, because every song is completely different [from the] other. I didn't want to stick to any sort of rule or genre. I just wanted to make anything I wanted to make.

ED: What is your intention for Beatopia?

B: It's very much for myself, this time. It's me trying to accept a lot of things in my life that I've tried dismissing and tried forgetting. [It's] almost sort of like therapy for my brain.

ED: What are those things you tried dismissing?

B: “See You Soon,” for example, was about me understanding that being by myself didn't necessarily mean I was isolating myself. It was something necessary that I needed to experience so I could learn to love, like, my own company.

ED: What about “Talk”?

B: “Talk” is so much more chill and funner than "See You Soon." I feel like it's this fun side of making mistakes. Look, I'm really young, and I'm gonna make mistakes, but I learned from them. It's like, f*ck it, whatever. Like, I'm gonna do stupid sh*t on Tuesday night and have fun doing it.

ED: Do you still do stupid sh*t on a Tuesday night?

B: [laughs] I love Tuesdays. It's, like, not too chaotic. Just the right amount of chaos when you go out.

Breland is changing country music and receiving major support along the way. Last year, he featured on Dierks Bentley’s song, “Beers on Me,” alongside Hardy. His debut album Cross Country will be released later this year, and he’s currently on tour.

Elite Daily: Do you have a date for your debut album, Cross Country?

Breland: We don't have a firm date, but definitely towards the end of the summer.

ED: How are you feeling about it?

B: I feel great, man. You only get to put out your debut album once, so we've kind of held off until we felt like every song slaps. I'm a writer first, before anything else [and] before I was ever putting music out. So I have a lot of music, and trying to find the ones that we all love the same is kind of a process. But I feel really good about where we're at with it and closing it out with the songs that we [have].

ED: How’d you come up with the title, Cross Country?

B: Initially, it was just a term because everyone's always asking me what genre [of] music I make. It's kind of a cross between country and everything else: R&B, hip-hop, pop, gospel, funk, and rock. I wanted to make an album that was reflective of all those different intersections, and I think each song on that album represents that. So it's just kind of a hypothesis, really, of this is what country music can sound like.

ED: How big, for you, is the horizon?

B: I want to go however far I'm meant to. I don't want to go any further than that.

Last year, Sloan Struble, the Austin-based synth-pop singer known as Dayglow, dropped his sophomore album Harmony House and got married. Now, he’s spending 2022 touring while working on new music to be released later this year.

Elite Daily: Why stay in Austin, Texas?

Dayglow: I make and record all my own music. So there's kind of a beautiful thing where all my friends really aren't musicians. It's kind of nice not being around the industry, because I don't have the pressure of a group-minded idea of what the next step for the music industry is, you know? I think it allows me to just make whatever I want to make and have fun doing it.

ED: You got married and released an album last year. How’d you balance both?

D: With having [my wife] Reagan, it's been an awesome thing in my life, I think, because so much of being an artist [is] a lot of your interactions are conditional. Where just having Reagan around, she's just truly my friend, and she loves that I'm doing all this. She's so proud of what I love to do and she's all in, but that's not why she loves me, you know?

ED: I read that your stage name, Dayglow, was originally going to be a band name?

D: My friends, thankfully, are my band, but I just teach them the parts exactly when playing live and stuff. So I love band-type music, but I want to be the creative driving force behind it. And I just like the idea of it being a name because it just feels communal, like a fan can be a part of it.

ED: Who influenced your new music?

D: In a weird way, [it’s] Paul Simon influenced, like Paul Simon meets LCD Soundsystem. It’s hard to explain, but it's like the synth-wave, new-wave kind of deal.

Joy Oladokun is a singer-songwriter like you’ve never heard — and she explains why below. The music video for her comforting single “Purple Haze” is out now, and she’s working on a new album expected to be released next year. Catch her on tour with Maren Morris and My Morning Jacket this summer.

Elite Daily: The music video for “Purple Haze” dropped this week. How are you feeling about its release?

Joy Oladokun: I wrote “Purple Haze” after some wildfires in LA, and I was like really just actually contemplating the end of the planet. But I wanted to make [the] video something, I don't know, like thought-provoking, fun, and funny. It is sort of me thinking about the end of the world, but it's also me hopping on top of cars and smoking a blunt with [an animation of] Jimi Hendrix.

ED: Is advocating for your happiness an important theme? It seems like it might be.

JO: Not just making music, but listening to music, has always been a tool for me to sort of reinvigorate hope within myself. Defending my happiness is sort of what, for me, making music is all about.

ED: Will your recent singles be on the album?

JO: Yes. I take a lot of inspiration from hip-hop. I'm not maybe the conventional singer-songwriter/Americana artist where you release an album and then you disappear for a few years. I kind of just like things to come out as they inspire me.

ED: In your recent Instagram Story featuring Drake’s photo with Haim, you said that this is what your music sounds like. What’d you mean by that?

JO: My bassist has been describing it as “singer-songwriter but not that type of singer-songwriter.” Less “girl in a cafe with an acoustic guitar” and more “girl with money to buy synths plays around and tells stories about her life.” That's the vibe.

Surf Mesa rode the wave of a TikTok hit in 2020 with the low-fi song, “ily (i love you baby),” featuring Emilee. He most recently collab’d with Nitti Gritti on the irresistible song “Marching Band.” Now, Surf Mesa is sitting on a few new tracks and finding his voice as a live DJ.

Elite Daily: You’ve been touring pretty heavily this year.

Surf Mesa: It’s been fun, man. I’m really getting into the groove of it, and I didn’t really expect that of me. My worst fear of the whole image of being a DJ/musician was really hitting the road.

ED: Why’s that?

SM: The last thing I picked up was DJing, so I didn’t really think of the live performance side of it until the “ily” song blew up. That’s when I really had to figure out fast what that live presence is going to look like. It’s been a learning curve. I’m grateful that it’s now my favorite thing.

ED: Are you working on an album?

SM: I’m working on a conglomerate of songs. [laughs]

ED: Do you feel that you’ve been able to move beyond “ily”?

SM: It’s helped me understand what I want to do and where I want to go with this sound and this whole Surf Mesa project. That leads me to now and its emphasis on these songs that I have to release. It keeps those sonics of “ily,” and it keeps this new wave energy that I’ve been inspired by.

ED: Is there anyone's career you’d love to find your version of?

SM: There are such notable DJs that have really paved their way through the dance music [scene] and really made a statement when it dives into the pop stuff. They have those Top 40 pop hits from a dance background. Calvin Harris, for example. He’s obviously a huge inspiration.

ED: What are you manifesting?

SM: I’m manifesting working with Empire of the Sun, The Killers, so many people. Petit Biscuit. There’s a whole list of them. I’m going to achieve these goals, and it’s going to happen. [laughs]