Get ready for the feel good, care free vibes of Tae & The Wave’s latest single release, 2002.

In this interivew spotlight, I chat with Tae about the release, challenges, technology and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.) 

I’m originally from Columbus, Ohio but I currently live in Los Angeles. I make “roll your windows down and cruise on a summer’s day” music. I’m sure that means something different to a lot of people, but to me it’s a cool groove, a tasty guitar or synth riff, topped off with a melody or lyric you can singalong to.

What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going? 

I come from a very musical family so it’s been a huge part of my life from the beginning. I’d say I’m motivated by the shared experience of music, it’s power to spread love and understanding throughout the world. Every moment we experience in life has a song that can go along with it, elevating that experience to a higher sense of being and understanding. If I can write or sing something that allows people to feel that connection, I’ve done my job in this life.  

How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific? 

“2002” is very special and unique from the others in that it is the first groove I wrote when I started the Tae & the Wave project. I loved the overall aesthetic of this song so much that I continued to revisit it for over a year, trying out different melodies and lyrics in attempts to complete the puzzle. It took me a while to crack the code but I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out and I’m all the more proud of this song because of the amount of time I put into it. 

Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)? 

I’ve always been an acoustic instrument guy at heart, guitar and piano. That’s where most of my songs start. But we’ve become so use to hearing perfection in music nowadays with autotune, quantization and midi everything. I’m not necessarily against all that, but it definitely puts this pressure to create music that is digitally enhanced to perfection, rather than the old days where the slightest performance error of pitchy vocal was kind of a welcomed thing to add a bit of character and humanity to a record. If you did that now I’m afraid people would just think it sounded amateur or unpolished. 

What was the last song you listened to? 

According to Spotify, the last song I listened to was “Fool of Myself” by The Band CAMINO off of a playlist my sister made. 

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s? 

I have a nice record player setup in my room and I get the most enjoyment listening to Vinyl. But I’m sure like most people, I get the most mileage out of mp3s due to their accessible and mobile nature.

How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why? 

I prefer Spotify because it’s the first service that I started using when streaming got legit. I’ve built up a huge library of albums and playlists over the years and don’t see an advantage in switching services at this point. However, I do love the convenience of telling Siri to play a specific song on my iPhone, but that feature only works with an Apple Music subscription. 

Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music? 

The best place to connect with me would be instagram. That’s where I post the most about my daily life and get to interact with friends and fans on a personal level. My music is discoverable on all of the major streaming platforms i.e. Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Soundcloud, etc. 

Anything else before we sign off? 

Yeah let’s talk about dancing for a second. I think music and dancing are the most perfect marriage in the whole world. It’s such a remarkable human expression and it can be so uplifting and freeing. I think we all love to dance deep down, it’s part of our nature. But a lot of people get really self-conscious and just choose not to do it. I don’t know what’s holding us back, but I think the world would be a much happier place if people danced more. That’s all.