Crossing Over

Even if its power has dimmed, considerably, in the internet age, there's still something about appearing on television. It's still a makin' it moment, being a part the mass cultural forum that dwarfs the internet's endless succession of micro-communities. You know it's a big deal when someone like Chazwick Bundick, the 27-year-old who's already the veteran of several hype cycles as Toro y Moi, says it is, and admits to nerves about making his maiden televisual performance.

“We're on our way to Los Angeles. We're driving to go play on Jimmy Kimmel [Live],” says Bundick, on the road somewhere in California. “It's my first time on TV. I don't know how I'll feel yet. We're gonna watch it, get all our parents to watch it. It's a big deal.”

A big deal and, he says, a weird deal. “But it's always been weird, ever since bands started appearing on television. Because anyone who sees it is not really there when you're playing.”

That weirdness, of course, is limited not just to the performing of songs (this time, Say That) in television studios. But, in the phone-wielding audience era, to pretty much every gig ever. “It's weird to you, as a band, to think that there's someone video-ing every show you ever play, that it's all being recorded. I'm not into it, personally. If that's what people want to do to remember our concerts, that's OK, I guess. But I don't do it myself. I never did that. I don't like to watch concerts through my phone, you know. Obviously there's different types of people out there, but it just seems so unnecessary. And, as a performer, you're worried that people holding up their phones are the people who aren't going to get really into the show, that are not just going to be there in that moment with you.”

Since turning out his first two albums – 2010's Causers Of This and 2011's Underneath The Pine – in the space of 12 months, Toro Y Moi has slowly grown from overblogged buzz band, rising out of the summer of chillwave to become a staple of outdoor festivals. Bundick's music hasn't changed stylistically, but there's been a notable shift: where the first two records were, in their hip hop-ish edits, slippery synths and confessional lyrics, obviously bedroom-produced works, 2013's Anything In Return is a brighter, poppier, funkier, more live-sounding LP. It's the sound of an artist embracing a wider audience.

“What every band wants, the dream that you have, is of a well catered audience that understands your music from all the angles it's being conceived from. But that's never going to happen. There's always going to be someone who heard about you because you've got one catchy song, or someone who's just heard that one trippy song, that one psychedelic song, and they may not like everything in your set. But part of liking your audience is accepting that, as you go further, it isn't going to be as niche anymore.”

Appearing on television has Bundick considering where he'll fit into the broader world of pop music. Part of the goal of making a more pop-leaning record was as a pseudo-audition for producing for rap and R&B artists; Bundick, having collaborated with Tyler, The Creator, seeing a crossover world in reach. But he sees his mild, polite persona as better suited to behind the scenes production than his own pop-stardom. “Some people like those big pop characters, like 'Oh, that artist, they're really sexy' or 'He's a bad boy' or whatever cartoon persona is being played out through whatever commercial media vehicle they're a part of. [But] the only way I can be comfortable on stage is just to be myself... I'm not interested in being internet-famous. And I don't want to be a public figure. Some people want that, they want to be famous, and they really embrace that famous person lifestyle right from the start. It sounds bad to say I treat music like a day job, but I really do. I like being able to have times when I'm not at work, when I'm not being Toro Y Moi, rather than doing it 24/7.”

At the moment, Bundick is, however, not being Toro Y Moi, musically. Instead, he's making an album under his dancefloor moniker Les Sins. Initially wondering if he should hold some Toro songs for his side-project – like Harm In Change, Say That or How's It Wrong, all of which ended up on Anything In Return – he wiped the slate clean, and began making an album of songs “that are just really happy”.

“You have to always be positive,” Bundick suggests of Les Sins. “You're not trying to create a mood in which listeners can speculate; it's very cut-and-dried. The point is to get people to dance, to enjoy the moment.”