Q: What was the inspiration behind “Finally Breathe”?
ANYTROOPS: For like the style and vibe to the song I was mostly inspired by a few emotional future bass tracks from around like 2017, such as “Scared To Be Lonely” and “In The Name Of Love” by Martin Garrix, which is why the song shares a few similar elements to it. Another big part of the inspiration for the original melody was the song “Ghosts” by Sophie Cates, which was also one of my favorite songs during that time.
Q: What was your favorite part in making “Finally Breathe”?
ANYTROOPS: My favorite part in the process was definitely the final mixing session. I flew out to LA over my winter break to try to find a good studio and engineer to finish the song at. I happened to meet Jemin (“Weouthere”), who was an amazing engineer who just made the entire song come together. I also just got the opportunity to meet a lot of cool people there who gave me great feedback on the song and my music in general.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your roles in making the song come to life?
ANYTROOPS: I spent a lot of time looking at how to improve my sound design and random things like “how to make the chords sound more full at the drop”. That along with the amazing vocals from Hano, would be what I think made the song really come to life.
Q: Was there a pivotal point in your life where you were like “yeah, I’m gonna do this”?
ANYTROOPS: Originally I made the first instrumental version of “Finally Breathe” towards the end of summer last year, but put it away to work on other projects. But one day, I think I was just overthinking about something dumb I did to someone, and wanted to just make a song to take my mind off it. I remember looking at my extremely unorganized project file folder and randomly coming by it again. And after quickly listening to it again I decided there that I would use it for my next release.
Q: What are your top three road tripping songs?
ANYTROOPS: Right now probably “Trust” by Brent Faiyaz, “Lowkey” by Niki, and “Into It” by Chase Atlantic. But I feel like this list could be completely different in just like a week because of how my music taste is.
Q: What’s next for you?
ANYTROOPS: I have a few new projects which I hopefully plan to release within the next few months, one actually with an artist I thought I’d never be able to work with. Other than that, I guess nothing much other than hoping that some random famous tiktoker uses my song and blows it up.
Interviewed by Dana L. Sullivan
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