When I first came out as gay in college, I crushed hard on a cute hipster boy named Abel. We spent hours whispering to each other in the back of our classes together, talking about anime and books and politics and religion, debating his Christianity and my Agnosticism. He'd smile at my jokes and when I could make him laugh, it'd inappropriately echo loudly around the room. But mostly we'd bond over our love of powerful women in music. He introduced me to artists like Purity Ring and Wet and eventually, a new girl on the scene named BANKS.
We crowded around his laptop and I took the right earbud while he took the left. "I hang on everything that you say," BANKS crooned in the opening lyrics of "This Is What It Feels Like." "You know I can see all the things that imply you secretly are in love."
I took it as a sign that he was into me because when you're gay and desperate and a cute boy with a smile too big for his face shares earbuds with you, you see everything through rose-colored glasses and, to quote Bojack Horseman, all those red flags just look like flags.
When Abel got a girlfriend, the song took on a new life. I remember I was in my room, staring up at the ceiling from my bed and listening to her first album Goddess, when the next line of "This Is What It Feels Like" really sunk in. "And finally when I let myself fall hard for you I/See you trying to pretend like I'm making it up/This is what it feels like." As a gay black man, someone who so rarely feels seen in media or music, hearing BANKS croon exactly what I was struggling with—and so beautifully—felt cathartic. I never got to date Abel, or even tell him how I felt, but he gave me BANKS.
Abel and I's friendship drifted, as so many gay boys with unrequited crushes on straight boys eventually do, but my connection with the moody yet empowering ballads of BANKS persisted over the years. The brooding pop/R&B singer debuted her third studio album last week and with its release, I got to speak with one of my favorite artists, tell her the story of Abel ("That's so wonderful that my music touched you," she said), and ask all the questions I've been dying to ask over the years.
After her first two albums and successful headlining tours, BANKS took a bit of a break from the music industry to recalibrate. Now she's back with what critics are calling her strongest album yet.
PRIDE: You've talked about taking a break from the music industry and needing time to focus on yourself. Why did you take the break and what did you find?
BANKS: I was just really, really burnt out. I think mentally and physically, I just really wasn't feeling good and I knew that I haven't ever really taken time to digest how much my life had changed and how much my career kinda took off. I think it all caught up with me and I just kind of crashed so I wanted to give myself time to just feel better.
Sometimes you need a time out to recognize what you need or what you like to do or what you want, and I think that giving myself that time allowed me to do that. I was in a very grounded place so making the album, I had a very clear album of what I wanted and what I wanted to say. When you're so tired and drained and anxious, it's hard when you're making art, it's hard to even be grounded enough to make a decision on what you want to say or what you need to say. Giving myself that time was really important.
What did you need to say?
Whatever is on the album is what I needed to say. Being a human, you go through things and different stages and I think I was just confronting certain things. In order to work through all those mental scripts, you have to dig deep to change them.
How has your style changed over your three albums and what inspired those changes? I read one of your poems where you talked about your older, wiser self sitting with you now and your younger self? Is that the 'III' referenced?
My music is always a direct reflection of where I'm at when I make it. I think that I was just in a different place. I wrote Goddess when I was 23 or 24 or something like that, and I'm now at a different place than I was six or seven years ago. I think I'm less guarded now. I feel more at peace with myself and because of that, I feel a bit softer and I feel less guarded. Because of that, songs like "Sawzall" and "Made of Water" and even "Alaska," there's like a sassiness and a softness. Not to "Alaska," but the other ones I've named, and "What About Love"...
It's nice to able to allow myself to be there and I think before, I felt really guarded. Not just like with the public, but just with myself. I think I didn't accept myself as much. All of my music is always true, the truest part of who I am. If I go in and listen to the Goddess album, I know exactly what I was going through and exactly what I was feeling and the same thing for The Altar. For this one, I just feel a bit wiser.
Picking up on what you said about softness and sassiness, why do you think you have such a massive following of gay and queer people?
I just think of people as people and I think I write about really human things. I'm very vulnerable in all my music. The human experience can be hard for everyone and...I'm not sure. I just think of humans as humans and people as people so I don't really have an answer. Maybe that's a bad answer?
No, I know what you mean. You write from a vulnerable place and you make it feel empowering. And a big theme throughout your music is unrequited love. You're talking through your problems and we're right there with you.
I want everybody to feel powerful and I want everybody to feel accepted. No matter if you're gay, straight, man, woman, whatever, everybody has felt bullied, everybody has felt excluded, everybody has felt like an outsider at some point. I know I have. I definitely feel like I incorporate that into my music because I feel like that sometimes. I don't know, maybe that's part of it. Who knows?
That's definitely part of it. I read somewhere that you think of music as meditation, which is funny because many of your songs start with a chant-like melody. Almost feels like your leading us in prayer.
When I make music, it's the only time my mind actually shuts off and I don't think. But at the same time, I use words in my songs that I would never even use when I'm speaking. It's almost like my vocabulary is grander when I write music. Sometimes I'll use a word in a song and I'll be like, 'Is that what that means even?' And I look it up and it's exactly how I used it in the song. It's weird, it's almost like my creative mind, the IQ is higher. I don't know, it's like I have two brains.
But when I'm making music, there's a lot of chants. I start my songs with melodies. It's like the most common thing. I definitely struggle with anxiety and depression and all that stuff and when I make music, it's like immediate pride—which is ironic because you write for PRIDE. I feel proud. I feel good and proud of myself that I can even do that. It fulfills me in that way where I feel so lucky I can even do it. And I feel powerful. It relaxes me. It makes me feel like I have something special and I can make something special and it gives me a purpose. Those songs that start from melodies, those chants are when I'm really getting into that mode, when I need to start writing and I first sit at my piano and that first melody comes, it's this really relaxing...It's kinda like when you get into a jacuzzi and you're in a really relaxed state. It's kind of what it feels a little bit.
And when I first started writing music, I play piano and I don't play other instruments so when I was writing music before I'd gotten into a studio, I could hear this synth line and this drumline and I want the guitar to sound like this, so I had the jankiest way of recording. I would write music on piano, then hum the melody, then I would record myself on a video on this old shit computer and then I would use a tape recorder to play it back at the same time as I was doing a guitar line then all of a sudden I was producing my own music through this really janky technology. I used my voice as the instruments because I didn't play anything else. It's kind of also why I have so many chants in my songs because I got so used to just having my voice be the instrument.
I know your favorite song on the album changes, but what's your favorite one right now?
Right now? I'm pulling up my album so I can see...I think right now in this exact moment I would say "Sawzall." I feel tired right now because I've been rehearsing nonstop this week and my voice is tired and the beginning of it sounds like it would be so nice to hear. [sings melody] It kind of reminds me of The Little Rascals for some reason. It's sweet, it's a really sweet melody.
Are you one of those people that listens to sad music to feel better? I know I am, and I'll go listen to "Alibi" or "Change" to really expel those emotions.
That's so awesome to hear, that makes me happy that you listen to me to feel better. I don't know, I think it depends. Sometimes.
What do I do when I'm sad? I just get so depressed. [laughs] I make music when I'm depressed. That's what I do when I'm sad. Sometimes when I'm sad I don't want to hear something that will remind me of it because I like to avoid those emotions, but that's why I make music because it's not very healthy to do that. Just like barf them out of me when it needs to.
You love cartoons! What are your favorites?
It depends again what mood I'm in. There's a lot of anime, like Japanese cartoons that are like super adult content but in cartoon form. Those are cool for some moments, but then also I like Adventure Time when you're just tired and want to just watch something funny and cute. What else? There's so many cartoons in the world. I like all Pixar movies. Does that count as a cartoon now since they're so lifelike?
Nowadays, with The Lion King, they definitely are. Have you-
I haven't seen The Lion King but someone said it was so real it was almost awkward. It was like an actual lion. But yeah, then I'm really into Hey Arnold! and stuff like that, and I still sometimes like watching that type of stuff.
BANKS' third studio album III is out everywhere now. Listen below!
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Photos courtesy of UMG/Steph Wilson.
