The mileshigh Interview
A few years ago, I started an underground collective called DEADLOCK RIOT which was featured in Pigeons & Planes, and is home to myself, Brevin Kim, Coop, Kingfrom98, MOSA, and a few other immensely talented artists. I discovered mileshigh through a record that featured Brevin Kim and upon first listen I was instantly captivated by his artistic direction and was eager to see what else he was sonically capable of. I recruited him into the collective and have seen immense growth from him as an artist. If you’re a fan of ethereal and experimental music, you’ll love the world that he has created. Today, I finally got a chance to ask Miles some questions about his career, his vision, and his future.
Who is mileshigh? Talk about your upbringing and where you're from.
I'm 23 & living in the same city I grew up in. I'd love to be in LA or a bigger city like that but I think there's a bit more work to be done until I can make that happen. I'm from from a small city most people don't know about called Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. There isn't a huge scene out here for music or visual art – but there is a strong sense of community between all the artists out here who are doing their own thing. I'm grateful to live here for that aspect. Life as a kid didn't involve too much music for me, I spent most of my time obsessed with wrestling. I watched Monday night Raw and Friday night SmackDown every week with my dad and spent most of my other time biking with friends, making up matches and stories with my figures and wrestling with my friend when adults weren't around. My dream as a kid was to be a wrestler just like John Cena or Rey Mysterio until i really started to connect with music. My parents never really exposed me to good music or artists – they never really had a connection to it, or to anything creative really. My relationship with music started when was In grade 7 I think – I remember I bought an iPod off some kid with my milk money and my friend who lived next door put a bunch of hiphop records on it for me. It was 2011 so there was a lot Lil Wayne, Drake, Wiz khalifa, Mac Miller, Nicki Minaj & Kanye. My roots for hiphop started there mainly and I played those songs constantly. As for visual art, I've been painting and drawing since I was very young.
How did you get your start in music?
There was a few people in the city I knew who were dropping music on Soundcloud around 2015 so I started rapping to hiphop instrumentals and dropping them while I was in school. I wanted to be part of that scene and did it just to be cool honestly. The music I was making was pretty bad and everyone at school made fun of me for it. I'm grateful people were honest about it, tho the cruelness behind there honesty kind of hurt. I stopped dropping for a while and shifted my focus to making music that had meaning behind it– I dropped a song on my Soundcloud called 'Blank Page' in lateer that year in 2015 & that was my first single as mileshigh.
What inspires you artistically and musically? Talk a little about the art pieces you create and the process behind them!
Inspiration for my art pieces and music always come at different times. When I'm not inspired enough in my music I do more paintings which is a healthy break for me because I don't particularly like taking them. I find a lot of my music inspiration comes from listening to new & old music, watching artists interviews, going to vintage record stores, frequent walks alone, going to local shows and being around other artists. For my visual art, I take a lot of inspiration from what I see in my surroundings – at least as of late. shapes and colors from buildings and alleyways usually make there way into my paintings. Watching films and listening to music always fuels my inspiration while I'm working on a piece, i never plan what I'm going to paint – my ideas are all pretty much in the moment. Sometimes I'll have a sketch I made when I'm out somewhere or a photo of a building but no concepts or meanings to start with. I used to make them quickly over a day or two but now I just take my time with them when I don't know what to add, I would like to take more time with my music like I do with my paintings but I'm not comfortable doing that yet.
After following you for a few years now, I've always admired your ability to create a really cohesive and true-to-self aesthetic. What drives and curates this? I saw a great deal of thought go into BILLY'S PROLOGUE as well. Could you touch on that?
Being myself through my art is important to me but i think is just comes naturally because representing myself as something I'm not doesn't feel right. Sometimes I find it difficult to be authentic tho when I have to plan out releases so far in advance. I feel a lot of things and i go through and range of different emotions frequently so its hard to represent those current feelings and situations in things I've been working on for a while, but I've realized putting the time in and having patience with my work pays off more so then releasing something out of emotional impulse. With my August 20th single 'Billy Elliot' I experimented with that dilemma and did both. At the time, I felt like I wasn't doing enough to build up the release of billy elliot, so I decided I was gonna drop a self directed music video every Wednesday until release week. I went out and filmed these videos almost everyday between working full-time, recording and mixing the new songs and editing the footage for the following weeks release. I naturally built up anticipation for the single as I released these 'prologue' songs, evolved the character I was embodying, established a new aesthetic and most importantly to me it it helped get out current emotions I was going through at the time.
If you could have one super power, what would it be?
I think being invisible would be dope, I've always been kind of mischievous kid & I think If I could get a way with some things that wouldn't harm anybody of course life would be a little more fun. Also if I didnt wanna be seen out in public, being invisible would definitely be good for my social anxiety.
'MADONNA' seems like your first venture into a heavy rap avenue. What sparked this recent project.
I think it may come as a surprise to many who are following me but 'MADONNA' isn't actually my first venture into heavy rap music – in late 2015 or 2016 when I was in high school I met a producer who went by the name theworstkindofperson and befriended him over our shared interest in making music. He was big into underground hiphop/cloud rap and introduced me to a lot of legendary artists like Bones, $uicideboys, Fiftygrand, night Lovell, Dylan Brady ect. His production was heavily influenced by a lot of those underground artists as well as Lex lugar and drill hiphop. I was very inspired to make something within that sound so we ended up making like 2 hard hitting mixtapes over the course of a few months that were all produced by him and featured vocals from both of us. It was fun making that shit and I learned a lot about music making and being consistent early on. We haven't made music like that together since then besides a few features here and there. February 2021 he sent me a beat for 'MADONNA' and I really fucked with it. The first demo I actually sang on the beat and he was like nah you gotta hit this harder – so I re recorded and it we both knew it was something special onced I rapped on it. 10 versionsater I'm happy with how it turned out, and it feels good to finally have something new out produced by a friend I started out with.
Top 5 favorite artists or bands of all time, dead or alive: Go!
I hate this question because it's always changing based on who I'm currently or consistently inspired by, but top five rn
David Bowie
Kanye
Phoebe Bridgers
Yung Lean
Bob Dylan
What are some of your favorite foods?
Man I love breakfast food more then anything. Tofu scramble with hash browns & peanut butter toast are my go to. I enjoy cooking when I get the time to but usually breakfast is the only thing I can make time for. I really like soup too.
My next question is a theme for all artists - What is your biggest strength? Growth involves action; What’s something you need to work on to reach the next level?
my biggest strength is my drive – i go to great lengths to create things that expresses the emotions I'm trying to get out and I believe it takes determination and good work ethic to be consistent in doing so. Patience is something I'm working on becoming better at but its very difficult for me because I always tell my myself I'm not doing enough even when i am, and if I'm not doing enough I tell myself I'm not an artist, which isn't true. Patience and Acceptance as an artist is something I'm actively working on – but that takes time.
What's next for mileshigh? Can we expect new singles or visuals? Anything else you want to let your supporters know?
I'm not sure what's next but there's an album coming and i've been working really hard on it since early 2021. I was hoping I would be done it by now but I'm taking my time with it honestly – the visuals for the project are just as important as the music and they have to make sense to me, I have many different sounds and characters so right now I'm trying to blend it all into one cohesive thing. Besides that I'll be dropping some Vinyl's sometime soon for Billy's Prologue which Includes a few bonus tracks on the B side including 'Billy Elliot' and another single off my album titled 'Still That Kid' featuring Alex Bent + the emptiness. See u soon