Photo: Florent Déchard for Rolling Stone
Silk Sonic makes lively music meant to bring people together.
In acover story interview withRolling Stone, the duo — comprising Bruno Mars, 35, and Anderson .Paak, 35 — shares their creative process behind their first albumAn Evening with Silk Sonicand why their music takes a lighter note and steers away from heavier subjects.
“A good song can bring people together — you don’t have to actually sing the words ‘Everybody come together.’ Sometimes the hard thing is to actually do it. You don’t have to say, ‘Everybody raise your hands’ — sometimes you just hit the right chord and it happens,” Mars told the magazine. “So that was our mindset with the whole album.”
“If it makes us feel good, and resonates with us, that’s gonna be infectious and make other people feel good — and that’s our jobs as entertainers,” he added.
Florent Déchard for Rolling Stone
Both artists have undergone tragedy in their personal lives, suffering from homelessness at several points and losing their parents at a young age, influencing why they make music that’s upbeat. (.Paak’s father died in prison after assaulting his mother, while Mars' mother died in 2013 before he could see her.)
“We both make feel-good music and I think it’s because we’ve been through pain and tragedy,” .Paak said.
Mars then told a story saying he had song with a “heavier” subject before they decided to completely scrap it from the record.
During the interview, the duo revealed how they first started making music together while .Paak opened for Mars at his24K Magictour stops in Europe. Then, at the start of the year, Mars revisited the demos they recorded… and what became of them was Silk Sonic.
“It hit the right chord, so I called Andy and said, ‘Come to the studio’ — he said, ‘I’m drunk!'” Mars remembered.
“It was my birthday!” .Paak added. “But I’m there.”
“He shows up, and he was on fire!” Mars continued, saying there was a “competitive spirit and camaraderie.” “We start writing a song, right here, just going back and forth… where he’d drop a bomb, and I’d say, ‘Oh s—, I gotta step it up!'”
Then, the pandemic became the ideal time for the two to continue collaborating.
“It was tragic for so many people, but Bruno would have probably been on the road, me too — but we had to be here,” .Paak said.
Silk Sonic’s albumAn Evening with Silk Sonicwill be released in January.
source: people.com
