At most labels, artist run in different circles. At most labels, the artists rarely if ever tour, collaborate, or even meet.

Strange Music isn’t most labels.

Here, it’s a family affair where the snake and bat artist share, tour buses, studios, and most importantly a passion for creating.

Case in point JL and ¡MAYDAY!.

JL resides in Kansas City and ¡MAYDAY! in Miami, yet, in just over a year since JL’s signing, they have already created three songs together, (not including Dominion and what’s to come on Strange Reign).

Their most recent collaboration comes on ¡MAYDAY!’s Search Party, with “Have Someone,” but as we learned from JL, it’s actually the first product of the budding creative relationship.

In your (relatively) short time at Strange, you’ve already worked extensively with ¡MAYDAY!, was that a goal of yours from the get go?

I’ve always wanted to work with them. I hit ’em up and was talking about working on my album, and they brought up the idea to come down there so we could just create together.

When was that?

It was August, right when I started working on my album. I went down to Miami. Actually “Have Someone” was like one of the first songs we ever did together.  It was exactly the vibe I wanted when I went to Miami. That uptempo, feel good, make you wanna dance type music.

First one made last one released, that’s crazy. 

It was originally gonna be on my album but it didn’t really fit for me but it was perfect for Search Party.

Really? How did that one develop like that? What went into it?

For that one, I had the concept, I laid down the first verse, and I actually originally thought Kaliko would do the hook, but we worked on it together and they came up with the hook I’m hella glad we ended up doing it all together. It came out so fresh.

With “Have Someone” and “Done To Me,” your collaborations seem to have a relationship themed, is that conscious or coincidental?

It was a conscious choice. We didn’t really have a relationship before I came to Miami, so we spent a lot of time getting know each other. I was just out of an old relationship so we ended up talking about that, and how that ended and what I was going through.

 

Whats the biggest lesson you learned, what have they brought out of you?

I love they way they work and write. They really gave me a strong outside view of myself and my music. After I had that experience with them I started to write whole lot more stuff like that. They are great guys and I love working with them, hopefully we do a lot more songs together.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO SEARCH PARTY ON SPOTIFY!