Interview Blu DeTiger: All About That Bass

Having cut her teeth as the alt-pop A-list’s favourite bassist-for-hire, Blu DeTiger is stepping into her main character era with debut album ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’.

Words: Lisa Wright
Photos: Emma Swann
25th March 2024

Blu DeTiger has a piece of CBGBs’ wall tucked away in her house. A stolen relic of the iconic New York punk venue, the now-26 year old took it when she was playing a show there, aged 9, possessed with a sense of business savvy not usually found in the average pre-teen. “I knew it was gonna shut down, so I thought I’d sell it on eBay later…” she recalls with a chuckle.

Plans for that particular sale clearly got scrapped along the way once it became evident that those wildly early shows - played as part of the School of Rock program - were only the beginning of her musical bucket list. But the thought process nonetheless feels indicative of a wider personality trait; since she was in single digits, Blu has been looking forward and dreaming big.

Until recently, it’s as the pop elite’s go-to session bass player that Blu’s been best known. You might have seen her backing Bleachers on their Saturday Night Live performance, or plucking the strings behind Olivia Rodrigo on her ‘SOUR’ documentary. She’s become the young, cool, accessible cheerleader for the instrument, happy to put tutorials online and answer questions in the hope of providing the relatable female figure that she lacked herself. “Like, I don’t know if I would have messaged [ex-Pixies and Breeder bassist] Kim Deal…” she notes of her attempts to remove the cooler-than-thou artist-fan boundaries. “Having an instrument when you’re really young and having a passion is just the best way to grow up, so if I can help that in any way that’d be sick.”

But, as this month’s debut album ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’ attests, the musician’s ambitions have never settled on being a background character. “I rode the bass wave but I always knew I wanted to be an artist and put out my own music,” she nods. “I’ve played for other people, but it’s such a different feeling having people be there for you. It’s like a whole different era of my life, like post-glow up where now I’m the artist and this is happening and this is the album.”

Blu DeTiger talks debut album 'All I Ever Want Is Everything' and playing bass for Olivia Rodrigo

“I love being bratty and sassy, and making music that makes you feel like a badass.”

The album finds Blu confidently striding into the spotlight, lassoing her musical past - the club-adjacent beats of ‘Cut Me Down’ that nod to her stint as an underage club DJ; the chanty backing vocals of Olivia-esque highlight ‘Dangerous Game’ - into a wide-spanning whole. A true musician, her touch is all over the project right through to the production, but now she’s also just as comfortable being the front-and-centre star (today’s look is a vintage leather catsuit) as she is the self-confessed “nerd” in the studio.

“I like main character music. I like walking down the street and feeling empowered and confident. I love being bratty and sassy, and making music that makes you feel like a badass,” she grins. “There’s a line in ‘Expensive Money’ where I mention I’m in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 and I love that it’s in audio forever. I did that track with Chappell Roan and the day we wrote it I’d just been told I’d made the list. I was telling her I’d told my ex-boyfriend and he didn’t give a fuck, and I was so MAD that this guy I was dating didn’t tell me it was cool so I thought, ‘Fuck it. Put it in the track and it’ll be there forever’.”

A coming-of-age record that tackles the head-fuck time since a series of pandemic TikTok videos thrust her into the public eye, ‘All I Ever Want…’ takes a different approach to most similarly-themed releases, largely prioritising the excitement that comes from a world of opportunity opening up in front of you. “It’s totally not the existential growing up [type of record], which is what I wanted,” she says. “A big part for me was the freedom aspect of learning that you can do what you want; realising that there’s so many ups and downs in life, but learning from the downs. Part of growing up for me is just learning how to have fun.”

“Part of growing up for me is just learning how to have fun.”

There are still moments of vulnerability, but they’re dealt with in a knowing way, such the wavy bass-led ‘Sad Girl Machine’, which embraces life’s wobbles with “Lana playing on the stereo”. “If you’re feeling really shitty, that’s cool because now you know how to sit in that and learn from that. If you’re feeling amazing, that’s awesome too,” she says. “It’s about the range of everything and being your own best friend through it all; the record’s about all of it.”

Yet while the full range of human emotion and experience is up for grabs on the singer’s debut, perhaps the biggest lesson we can take from Blu DeTiger is the confidence that she emanates from knowing her craft and putting in the hours. Having waited to step forward until she “really had something to say”, ‘All I Ever Want…’ is the next move in an already-impressive line of them that started in childhood and never looked back.

“It’s been a long journey but it was necessary. And I got better as a songwriter and as a producer; I just got way better,” she says. “I wanna be huge but I’m not gonna make Ariana Grande music, I’m just gonna make what I want to listen to. I wanna bring the pop fans to my stuff and bring them in - not cater the music to what’s popular, but cater what’s popular to what I’m doing. Bring the people into my side, because I’m gonna make what I wanna make.”

Slap Your Bass, Say Yeah!

Blu on why rock’s most mocked technique should be given a reappraisal.

“Oh my god, online, the amount of Seinfeld comments I get is crazy but I’m trying to make slap bass cool! I just think the bass as an instrument is so sick, and my whole MO is trying to showcase what it can do and bring it to the forefront - especially being a frontperson who plays when there’s not many in the pop space. I’m trying to create the thing that the bass can be a lead instrument, and slap bass brings a lot of the lead elements to it; it pops through and it’s a bit more difficult to play. It’s known but it gets a bad rep, so I’m trying to show people what it actually is and that it sounds cool in certain contexts.”

‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’ is out 29th March via Capitol.

Tags: Blu DeTiger, From The Magazine, Features, Interviews