Congratulations on an amazing, amazing performance.
Michelle Joy: Thank you.
With your music reaching a global audience… how does that impact your creative process? Is that something that you bear in mind, like with every every new piece of art that you create?
Michelle: That’s a good question. I think everything that we create, we’re… now that we know it has such a reach, we just feel even more encouraged to create something from this very genuine place of music that we like to listen to.
Because now we know that people all over the world also like to listen to what we like to listen to and create. So yeah, I don’t know… I think we’re just always making music that we want to hear.
You’ve been doing this for almost a decade now; does that feel insane when you think about that?
Ryan: We haven’t been doing the live aspect for a decade…
Paul Clapham: Live’s kind of still new to us…
Michelle: at this level.
So when you look back on Up All Night and where you started. Do you ever think “Oh my god that was so cringey, the stuff that we were making then!” Or do you actually…
Ryan: No I love it. I actually love our old stuff.
Michelle: Yeah, I listened to a bunch of our older music in the car the other day because I hadn’t heard it in a while. Because I’m always trying to listen to, like, new music and stuff. But I was like, “I have a long drive”.
And I went through a whole bunch of our songs, our older songs, and I was really impressed. I was like, “I like these songs!”
Ryan: We’ve always been really picky with the stuff that we release. We have probably close to 100 songs we never released…
Michelle: For every songs that’s out, there’s a whole bunch that we were like…
Ryan: like just a little demo… And it didn’t work out or just or maybe sometimes the whole song was just like, it’s not really working, you know?
Michelle: Unless it feels right.
Is there like a criteria when you listen to a song where you’re like, “this is the song!” Do you have certain things that you want to tick off artistically, or is it very much more [down to] a vibe?
Paul: Yeah, it is for me.
Ryan: Yeah, for me I think so as well. It’s a vibe. Does it make you feel something and does it have a hook? Yeah. Does it have an earworm in it? Because if I’m not, you know… there’s a lot of new music that’s really, really poppy and great, but if it doesn’t make me feel anything, I’m really not going to go back and listen to it too often. So I kind of want to be attached to that feeling.
Do you have a favourite artist right now? What are you vibing with?
Ryan: I still I still listen to stuff I used to listen to as a kid. So nothing too new. I do love the new Billie Eilish record.
Michelle: I would say I’m listening to the “Birds of a Feather” song [by] Billie Eilish, every day, lately [laughs].
Paul: I’m with Ryan, the new Billie Eilish is really good. So we can all agree on that.
Ryan: I love this Australian group called Dope Lemon.
With the record that you’ve just put out now, which is a beautiful record, what was your creative process to manifest it? Do you start with the concept first or do you just see how it builds? What’s that process like for you?
Michelle: Yeah, I feel like that one just kind of naturally came together. That album was written after Fever Dream, which was mostly written during the pandemic where we spent a lot of time at home.
And Heartbeat Highway was written while we were on the road, touring heavily, for the first time, like heavily touring. That reflects in a lot of the songs, I think, and the energy of the album.
So yeah, everything just feels natural and not like forced or too contrived because I feel like when you try to do that, you kind of shoot yourself in the foot, you know, putting too many expectations and constraints on something. So we kind of just let what’s supposed to happen happen with our music.
We’ve always done that.
How different or how much harder is it creating an album whilst you’re touring: basically whilst you’re busy with something else?
Ryan: It’s difficult. I mean, it’s not like, “oh my God, we’re never gonna do this”, but it’s, it’s different.
Like, when bands I think write their first album. You know… they’ve been working on those songs maybe like their whole life. They have these riffs and ideas that they’ve been compiling for years and years and years and they’re able to execute that.
Then as the band matures a little bit, you know… you have deadlines that you have to meet and expectations. So it’s challenging, but I don’t think we’d ever put out anything that we didn’t have our heart and soul into.
Part of what’s wonderful about watching you on stage is also the style that all three of you bring. For each of you: what are your style inspirations? How do you come about your outfits?
Michelle: I think we just like to, you know, make people feel that they’re…
Ryan: at a show?
Michelle: At a show! Yeah. I feel like our music is really, like, glossy and shiny, so kind of try… how do I say it?
Ryan: Emphasize on that.
Michelle: Right. Emphasize on that with how we look on stage too.
Ryan: We took a tour of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and I think that was an eye opener, because you get to see a lot of older artists and how much work that they put into not just the music, but the look, the wardrobe, the vibe and…
Paul: Earth, Wind & Fire…
Michelle: Earth, Wind & Fire put in so much work to their looks.
Paul: … the amount of work ZZ Top did on their stage and their look was so amazing.
Michelle: Prince’s glove was there…
Ryan: A lot of the old school Motown stuff was there, all that stuff. And it meant something to us because we were like, “oh, this is kind of the page we’re on.” Instead of like rolling out of bed in like a black t-shirt. And there’s nothing wrong with that, [but] –
Ryan: It’s not our vibe.
Michelle: Yeah, it’s fine, but yeah, we want to…
Paul: We want to push more.
Michelle: There’s something I feel like a little bit more magical about, you know, really thinking…
Paul: Which is cool because we’ve been seeing a lot of our fans dress up as well, which we love. They’ll come in sequins and glitter and…
Michelle: …they’ll have [their] CANNONS clothes on!
CANNONS’s World Tour starts next week and tickets and more details can be found at cannonstheband.com They can be found on Instagram here and all major streaming platforms.
This interview has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.
This is part of our Beyond The Diaspora coverage.