Interview: Patrick O'neill

I had the amazing opportunity to talk to Patrick O'neill, member of Dialtone and upcoming artist in the scene, and it was one of the most fun conversations I think I've had. We talked about music aspirations and roots, as well as future plans. Enjoy! (Start interview) Finch: Alright! If you had to pick, who/what sparked your interest in music?

Patrick: That’s pretty hard to answer because I've been writing music for a really long time, probably like 10 years. This is a bit funny, the first musician that really made me want to do it was Pat Benatar- and I was like 6 or 7, so cut me some slack. I legitimately started when I started to listen to My Chemical Romance or blink-182.

Finch: Ooh, nice. I love My Chem. So it's been 10 years? How old where you when you started really making music?

Patrick: I was 13 when I started writing. Then I got Ableton Lite when I was 15, I used that for 2 years until I got the full version of Ableton when I was 17, and it really just snowballed from there. I was spending 6 hours a day making music after school. I got very obsessed with it very quickly, but it was not good. All of it was very bad.

Finch: It's hard to imagine you've made genuinely bad music. But what would you say your favorite song you've made is?

Patrick: I'd say it’s either "Candle" or something that hasn’t been released yet. Out of the released stuff it’s "Candle", but I've been making a lot of other stuff that’s on the same tier of quality as that or even better.

Finch: I agree, "Candle" is one of my favorites- speaking of it, what headspace were you in for the production of "Candle", and how does that differ from your music now?

Patrick: I wrote and made that entire song on Christmas. I don’t know why I wrote such a depressing song on Christmas- that’s just kind of what came out of me. Usually that’s how all my music is, whenever I write something sad, I’m not currently feeling emotionally bad, that’s just kind of how they come out. As for the second part of that question, I am kind of using that type of energy and outlook on music going forward, like my new stuff uses that same kind of ideology, you could say. I just wanted to lean more into weird distorted music.

Finch: Another song you made, "Grace" was with 4cf. How was it working with them?

Patrick: I met 4cf in the ericdoa discord server before anyone knew about either of us in any capacity. He was slightly more popular than me at the time but wasn’t really a part of the scene. We were both just sending stuff into the work-in-progress channel, and he was like “you should send me guitars” and I was like “okay” so I started writing guitars. That turned into a beat, and he was fine with hopping on it with me. I still have a couple things that I'm working with him on, but he is a busy man.

Finch: Are there any other musicians, in or out of the scene that you've really wanted to work with for a while?

Patrick: I wanna work with Vaeo. I wanna work with 4cf more and anem0s, as well as 47negus and KBL, those are my friends and I really like working with them. I really like making music by myself though. I’m predominantly a solo artist and I want to keep it that way. If we’re talking slightly less-attainable artists, I wanna work with Jedwill someday and I definitely want to work with underscores in the future. Oh one last one, Musa.

Finch: That's a nice roster. I look forward to hearing some of those. Is there any specific direction you see yourself taking with your music in the future?

Patrick: I just want to keep making unique stuff. That’s my whole goal, I guess. I just don’t want to stagnate.

Finch: That makes sense. Your sound is very unique and developed. What kind of sound/message are you trying to convey to your audience?

Patrick: I am trying to utilize nostalgia a bit while still doing something new. I want it to be unexpected. I want all of my music to have parts of it that are surprises. I guess one of my goals is to induce nostalgia without nostalgia-baiting.

Finch: I think you do that pretty well. What do you think is your most important trait as a musician?

Patrick: Probably my lack of care for whether it sounds good or not in the first place. I make a lot of music that gets tossed out and I have a lot of fun making it, so it doesn’t really matter. The short answer is my willingness to make trash.

Finch: I like that, "the willingness to make trash". You spoke of making "Candle" on Christmas.. What is the strangest way you've gotten inspiration for a song? Patrick: There’s this noise musician, 光の緒, and one day I heard one of their pieces and it just inspired the hell out of me. That's probably the weirdest it gets.

Finch: I'll check their stuff out. All these questions have been super music oriented- what is your life like outside of music? Patrick: I like playing video games a lot, otherwise I like skateboarding and mountain biking. That’s about it, I like going outside a lot of the time.

Finch: That's really nice. I feel like everyone in the hyperpop community needs to touch a bit more grass. Last question: What do you think your biggest accomplishment is musically? Patrick: Probably getting to the point where people ask me for interviews. Having a song hit 1k on SoundCloud and my album doing 2k first day blew my mind. I'd say my progression overall in the past year has been such a huge accomplishment for me.

Finch: You definitely do have a lot to be proud of with your recent accomplishments. Well! Thank you so much for sitting down with me! Patrick: You're welcome! Thank you for asking to do this.

(End interview)

Patrick was one of the nicest people I've gotten to meet in the hyperpop scene, which is really saying something! All the people in this scene are so amazing to talk to, and I hope to meet more of the amazing people who make music. Anyways, be sure to run up all of Patrick's music on whatever streaming service you prefer- his name's Patrick O'neill.