{"id":4065,"date":"2025-07-29T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/eyedress-takes-his-bedroom-pop-into-the-studio\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T13:00:00","slug":"eyedress-takes-his-bedroom-pop-into-the-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/eyedress-takes-his-bedroom-pop-into-the-studio\/","title":{"rendered":"Eyedress Takes His Bedroom Pop into the Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/Eyedress-Press-Shot-credit-Razy-Faouri.jpg\" width=\"1290\" height=\"855\" alt=\"Eyedress. (Credit: Razy Faouri)\"><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen, like, Drew Barrymore and Paris Hilton post my shit on TikTok,\u201d says Idris Vicu\u00f1a, better known as Eyedress, over the phone from North Hollywood while he\u2019s enjoying lunch at a Mexican seafood restaurant in North Hollywood.\u00a0 \u201cI try to just stay humble, I try not to gas myself up with that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/john-oswald-turns-the-grateful-deads-dark-star-into-a-black-hole\/\">John Oswald Turns the Grateful Dead\u2019s \u2018Dark Star\u2019 into a Black Hole<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/ben-nichols-leans-into-poetry-and-his-arkansas-past-on-new-solo-record\/\">Ben Nichols Leans Into Poetry and His Arkansas Past On New Solo Record<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/talking-heads-reissue-campaign-offers-more-versions-of-more-songs-about-buildings-and-food\/\">Talking Heads Reissue Campaign Offers More Versions of \u2018More Songs About Buildings and Food\u2019<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Vicu\u00f1a has been releasing lackadaisical psychedelic pop and garage rock with occasional detours into underground hip-hop since 2013, on independent labels like Lex Records and XL Recordings. After the quirky homemade music he made with a laptop and FL Studio started going viral, Vicu\u00f1a found himself with a gold album and three platinum singles, and signed to RCA Records in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>The seventh Eyedress album <em>Stoner<\/em> was released in April, the same day he made his second appearance at Coachella. The album doesn\u2019t sound like a departure from his lo-fi early work, and still has a hazy ambiance and a playful genre-blending aesthetic. But it was Vicu\u00f1a\u2019s first time working on an album for more than a year in professional studios with industry producers including Malay (Frank Ocean, Lorde) and Zach Fogarty (A$AP Rocky, Foushee). \u201cWe just started using more expensive stuff, but essentially the spirit\u2019s still the same,\u201d Eyedress says. \u201cIt just felt like we were jamming, really. I would just view them as a collaborator, like I\u2019ll play guitar, you play bass, or the drums. That\u2019s how I view everyone I work with, I\u2019m just like hey, we\u2019re in this together, y\u2019know?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1809\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/Eyedress-Press-Shot-3-credit-Razy-Faouri.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-469425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/Eyedress-Press-Shot-3-credit-Razy-Faouri.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/Eyedress-Press-Shot-3-credit-Razy-Faouri-340x513.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/Eyedress-Press-Shot-3-credit-Razy-Faouri-768x1158.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/Eyedress-Press-Shot-3-credit-Razy-Faouri-1019x1536.jpg 1019w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/Eyedress-Press-Shot-3-credit-Razy-Faouri-498x751.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">(Credit: Razy Faouri)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Vicu\u00f1a, 35, was born in Manila and has lived most of his life in either the Philippines or California, and currently resides in the San Fernando Valley with his wife and their young son. After playing bass in a punk band as a teenager, Vicu\u00f1a mostly figured out things for himself as a DIY solo artist, and embraced his entrance into the major label world as a learning opportunity. \u201cWhat we went through is like an education for me. Getting me to work with these amazing producers, these guys have like Grammys and shit. So for me, I\u2019m like a student,\u201d he says with the same serene, unhurried cadence that he often sings in. \u201cI never went to college or anything, so I felt like I got to go to a good school for a sec.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of Vicu\u00f1a\u2019s celebrity fans is filmmaker Harmony Korine (<em>Spring Breakers<\/em>,<em> Gummo<\/em>), who\u2019s become a good friend, and even co-wrote and appeared on three songs on <em>Stoner<\/em>, including the frenzied and heavily distorted one-minute track \u201cDragon Meat.\u201d \u201cHe was like, \u2018You and your family should come stay with us in our house in Miami.\u2019 So one day we just flew out there and hung out for like a week and did really wholesome stuff, have our kids hang out, nothing crazy,\u201d Vicu\u00f1a recalls. \u201cHe\u2019s pretty lit, too. We went to one of his film premieres one time in a strip club, he\u2019s not like a goodie goodie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Stoner<\/em> has a few other big names, but most of the collaborations on the album came about organically rather than from RCA pairing Vicu\u00f1a up with stars. \u201cThe Harmony stuff, they didn\u2019t set that up, and I worked with the Marias and Mac DeMarco, that wasn\u2019t anything through RCA, these people are just my friends,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"5phiRBQT1wY\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Vicu\u00f1a has also gotten to know one of the most successful Filipino-American musicians of all time, Chad Hugo of N.E.R.D. and the Neptunes, who appeared on both <em>Stoner<\/em> and 2022\u2019s <em>Full Time Lover<\/em>. They first had dinner together early in Vicu\u00f1a\u2019s career, but wouldn\u2019t start collaborating on music until much later. \u201cI was 22, I feel like he was not impressed, funnily enough,\u201d Vicu\u00f1a says with a chuckle. \u201cAnd then 10 years later, he like hits me up, and he\u2019s like, \u2018Hey man, my son\u2019s a big fan of your music.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Stoner <\/em>standout \u201cThe Big City\u201d came together over a few months after Vicu\u00f1a and Hugo\u2019s initial Silver Lake studio session to make the backing track, which became another learning experience. \u201cI remember I sent him a whole other song to that instrumental, and he was like, \u2018I don\u2019t think this is the one.\u2019 And I had a little ego conflict, I was like \u2018Am I right or is he right?\u2019\u201d Given that Hugo\u2019s ear has helped guide countless stars like Snoop Dogg and Justin Timberlake to enormous hit singles, Vicu\u00f1a decided to take his criticism seriously, scrapping the AutoTune-heavy vocal he\u2019d originally recorded and writing something more in line with his early work. \u201cI tried to take myself out of it, and I was like, \u2018Maybe he\u2019s right, and I gotta respect that he knows more than me.\u2019 And he was right, he was definitely right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even as Vicu\u00f1a\u2019s budgets and ambitions grow, however, he knows not to overthink his creative process. The fast, dark 2019 post-punk track \u201cJealous,\u201d turned out to be his biggest hit, and was certified triple platinum last year. \u201cWhen I made \u2018Jealous,\u2019 I feel like I was going through hell. That was a shitty time for me, it was the doldrums. It\u2019s hard to exist sometimes,\u201d he remembers. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy how that one connected, especially, like, young kids were playing it. I was like, \u2018You guys feel this way? I did not feel that way when I was young.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The unpredictability of Vicu\u00f1a\u2019s commercial success has, fortunately, granted him a unique sort of freedom to keep experimenting and letting listeners tell him what resonates. \u201cI\u2019m just super grateful, y\u2019know? A lot of good things have come my way because of the music, so I\u2019ve just been trying to stay out of the way and keep making good music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen, like, Drew Barrymore and Paris Hilton post my shit on TikTok,\u201d says Idris Vicu\u00f1a, better known as Eyedress, over the phone from North Hollywood while he\u2019s enjoying lunch&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2988,31,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eyedress","category-features","category-pushly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}