Back in November, it was the haircut that rocked a certain cohort of young moderns’ world. An aesthetic shock to the alt-rock/hyper pop/emo punk system, as the long locks of 2020’s pop sensation glaive—the most recognizable head of floppy hair in culture this side of Timmy Chalamet, was suddenly shorn, with a buzz cut. The moptop first made famous on the cover of the gangly young star’s debut EP, 2020’s Cypress Grove, was no more.

Theories abounded—was it a deep fake? Military school? Or, more likely, he landed a part in a movie? Maybe it was those skinhead types he hung out with in Tbilisi, Georgia last year, where he shot three music videos—they were the inspo? Turns out it was nothing so dramatic. Taking a razor to the signature curls that had accompanied a three-year string of irresistible, charmingly caffeinated hits was a spontaneous move that came while the erstwhile hyper pop maestro was holed up with three collaborators in remote Hope, Alaska, in between tours, creating a bit of a mad one, an extraordinary seven-track EP released on Friday, and a worthy follow-up to the last summer’s first album, i care so much that i don’t care at all.

Radical as the new look may have been, the hair wasn’t the most significant evolution for glaive [capital letters are for suckers] last year. The restless pop prince from Hendersonville, North Carolina (population 15K) born Ash Gutierrez—at the top of any list of young artists born out of the crushing isolation of the COVID quarantine of 2020—had spent several years amassing an obsessive fan base by making music that was, to be sure, lyrically often fraught, pissed off or frustrated, and musically a rush: glaive’s unmistakable fractured, emotive voice wilding and yelping over relentlessly driving tracks, an electric, caffeinated blast. But after three EP’s and standalone bangers, for his first full-length album, last summer’s i care so much that i don’t care at all, the glitch gave way to something more akin to Midwest emo: melodic, acoustic guitar, more inward-looking. It was brutally honest, about the toughest stuff—allusions to past suicidal thoughts (“Thank God I didn’t do it,” he sings on the title track) friends on fentanyl, missing his prom, and old relationships coming apart. His talent for soft-loud dynamics and explosive choruses was evident as ever, but married to a remarkable new lyrical vulnerability it marked next-level songwriting from Gutierrez. The album was accompanied by glaive’s biggest tour to date, including a packed, manic Webster Hall show I attended last August. (A room of 1500 singing along to the anthemic hook of “the car,” “Now we’re fucking in his car, are you ever gonna call him back?” is not to be missed.) Eight months later, a bit of a mad one, is, if less grim, packed with more reflection and angst, but rendered even more poetically.

The three singles released in January and February, before the EP’s release each offer more insight into glaive’s relationships with others and the wider world. “huh” is a lowkey declaration of extreme devotion, while “i don’t care anymore,” as its title suggests is a blunt kiss-off to an ex. The moving “even when the sun is dead” muses again on Gutierrez’ own mortality, while closer “phobie d’impulsion,” is a jangly fess-up to fears and social anxiety with a tuneful chorus to make early Conor Oberst proud. On the EP’s darkest track, “living proof that it hurts,” glaive evokes “meth in Copenhagen,” a “shotgun in my mouth” and proclaims, “it gets worse as you get older,” as what begins with gentle acoustics gives way to a noisy and chaotic finish.

If all that sounds dark, you should know that Ash Gutierrez, who turned 19 in January, decidedly isn’t. At least, not on stage, not when he’s live on IG, not in past interviews, and not in the wide-ranging conversation we had over Zoom, only two days before the EP’s release – despite lingering throat pain from a recent tonsillectomy. We talked about musical honesty, small-town boredom, Ash’s love of fashion, horses, and Russia (really), the new meaning of “glaive,” and of course—that haircut. His dad Mark even sat in for a minute! If glaive is in fact “a bit of a mad one”, it’s in the best of ways.

VMAN: Ash, first, congratulations on these phenomenal four years, and this excellent new EP. When did you have time to do it? I saw you on a tour that lasted into the fall, and then you were in Europe in November.

g: Yeah, so I think we made it in between—I did a fuck ton of shows last year—but we made the EP between that tour and Europe. So we were there in November, and then later that month in Europe. All of the songs but one were made in this place called Hope, Alaska. We recorded in like, ten days, I think? And so it was made in a pretty short amount of time, other than that one song, “i don’t really feel it anymore.”

VMAN: So the obvious question is, why Alaska?

g: So we have this friend named Ralph Castelli, his real name is Cole, and he’s from Alaska. I met him in L.A., and we made a few songs on my album, and I was like, “We’re trying to make an EP.” And I hate making music in L.A., and I don’t like making music in a place where I’ve already made music, like I don’t like making music here in North Carolina anymore. I kind of like a new experience? So at the time we were like, “Fuck it, let’s go to Alaska. So me, John (Cunningham), Jeff (Hazin), Ralph, we all go to Alaska. And I’ve never been to a place that’s that cold, so I didn’t pack correctly, I was fucking freezing, I got strep throat, I got fucking so sick. It was awful, but when I look back on it, it’s one of my favorite times of my entire life.

VMAN: None of these were older songs, they were all written just for this EP?
g: No they definitely had not been made. This is the fastest my music has ever come

out. Like I said I made it in November, and now it’s coming out. It was supposed to come out on January 1. That was the goal, but it’s coming out now. But I think this is my best music. I think it’s better than the album? I mean, no disrespect to myself. But sometimes I made one, sometimes I made two songs in a day. And it was good! Yeah. Writing music kind of sucks for me cause if nobody—I have to fucking feel all the words, and if you’ve heard it, some of the songs on it are kind of depressing? As one does.

VMAN: Last year you went to Tbilisi, Georgia, and shot three videos there, you did an album cover in Latvia. So you’ve traveled a lot of places that not a lot of people go. Two questions: do you like going to more out-of-the-way places, and when you’ve traveled so much in these past few years and when you come back to Hendersonville, is it relaxing, is it nice to be home? Or do you feel even more like, [glaive’s 2021 hit] “Fuck This Town?”

g: [laugh] I’ll start with the Hendersonville part. Hendersonville, I like it, I don’t love it, but I like it for different reasons. I used to hate it, I thought it was so bad. I used to blame all my problems on the fact that I lived in Hendersonville, North Carolina. And then I realized I have these problems everywhere I go? So I was like, “Okay, this place is not that bad.” But it’s fucking so boring. I’m here right now, and I just got a tonsillectomy, and it sucks. Sucks ass. Literally so bad that I’ve lost 14 pounds, the whole thing. I’ve done jack shit for like the last two weeks. But to be fair—a great city. Don’t get it twisted, I love it here. I was with my friend at lunch today and we were like, “I want to build a castle.” I asked my business manager how much it costs to build a castle. And he was like, “You guys don’t have enough money to do that.” And I was like, “Alright, that makes sense.” So like, the goal is to get enough money to build a castle in North Carolina.

VMAN: Wow!

g: To answer the first question, I think Georgia is my favorite place I’ve ever been in my life. Latvia was kind of depressing? But in a beautiful way. I’m never going alone! I go with people, so you get to have fun, and it’s so great. I would go back right now! Also, I’m trying to get a visa to go to Russia.

VMAN: Huh. You think maybe Russia at this moment in time is not necessarily the best place…

g: Yeah people aren’t big fans.

VMAN: I can’t imagine why.

g: Yeah they’re fucking warmongering, I get it…

VMAN: Yeah, and massively homophobic, while we’re at it…

g: Yeah, and racist! Trust me, I get it, there’s a lot of shit going on. I’m not going there for that culture—maybe some of the culture. But anyway, beautiful architecture, vastly different than any place I’ve ever been. But not as far removed from Western civilization as Asia is? It’s a little less of a culture shock, I don’t know. I’ve always found it fucking fascinating. I get it, my manager was like, you got interested in Russia and Eastern Europe at like the worst time! Also, I speak Russian, kind of. [He demonstrates some phrases in Русский.]

VMAN: Dude, I have to ask you about the haircut that rocked the world.

g: [laughs]

VMAN: I’m not kidding Ash. Surely you had to know—I mean, if I had to think in all of culture, pop culture, who getting a haircut would be the biggest news, I think, number one, Timothée Chalamet and second, you.

g: Haha, definitely not!

VMAN: C’mon, the hair was a pretty defining…

g: Well yeah, it was definitely a big part of my schtick.

VMAN: So was that the idea? To fuck with the schtick?

g: Uh, yeah, I just—we did it in Alaska! During the time we were there like somebody shaved my head. There’s video of it. And we did it, and I was like, “Fuck it,” I thought, “if I don’t do this now I am probably gonna have long hair for the rest of my life?” And I was getting scared that I was gonna have the same hair and it was gonna get boring. And so I shaved it really short! Like now it’s grown out some it looks okay, but at the time it looked pretty bad.

VMAN: No but really I thought people, you know fans will say all kinds of things, and I saw someone say, “Oh he got a part in a movie, he’s gonna be in a war movie…”

g: [laughs] Yeah people were saying it looked like I got drafted!

VMAN: So next month, March, marks about exactly four year since you started posting music?

g: I was thinking about that! I was like “Damn…” like some of my first songs on SoundCloud are from like March of 2020. Ohhhh dude [shakes his head at the thought of them]… “life is pain” is the first one I put on Spotify, which was like around April? Around that time. But it’s all like—I don’t really want to think about it. Four years is fucking crazy.

VMAN: So, does it feel like it’s flown by?

g: It feels crazy. I mean when I first started I was like this little kid. The whole thing was like, ‘This little kid is fucking making music.’ And now I’m kind of at a normal age, I just turned 19, so it feels weird, but at the same time when I get to 20, next year? I’ll have been making music for half a decade! Which blows my mind, to me that’s fucking absurd.

VMAN: Well on the EP, on the track “even when the sun is dead” which is such a beautiful song, but speaking of time, there is a line on it, “it really gets to me some nights that i have it all except for time.” So—do you feel like you are living on borrowed time?

g: Yeah I saw somebody in the comments say like, “Yeah, this guy definitely has a lot of fucking time!”

VMAN: Yeah exactly. Again, you just turned 19!

g: And in some parts of my life I do have a lot of time, but I made this right when I got off tour. And I was dating this girl, and it was this whole shebang, and the thing was we just didn’t have enough time because I was on tour so much. And I was like, “I don’t have enough time.” But as of right now? 2024, tonsilitis, not doing shit? That lyric is not true. I have so much time! [laughs] Like I’ve got more time than every person in this town, like I don’t got shit to do! But at the time, yeah, I meant with that lyric that I just had a lot going on.

VMAN: Last year i care so much represented a new level of openness from you. I don’t need to tell you that some people wondered if the album was too grim because you were so open, whether with “oh, are you bipolar one or two”[which imagined the words in a suicide note] or the title track, or “pardee urgent care.” I admire so much your generation’s willingness to talk about this stuff—a defining quality of the so-called SoundCloud Rap era was frankness about anxiety, depression, or drugs. But I know you are also aware of how like anything else in music, the industry can commodify mental health and make it feel…

g: Feel fake.

VMAN: Yeah or just exploited. I don’t know—it’s a big question. Do you know what I mean?

g: It’s hard to know how it’s going to be perceived. The only thing that I can do as a musician is to just be fucking honest. If you’re upset about something that literally is the most stupid thing ever, you have to be honest about that. I think the thing that turns people off from like, fake-depressed musicians is when people are upset in a silly way, or in a way that doesn’t sound true. If somebody listens to my songs and says, “He’s just complaining,” I’m like, “That’s true.” I’m kind of just complaining.

VMAN: Well in early songs where you were just kind of raging, flailing about pissed off about this or that, “i wanna bang my head against the wall” or “fuck this town” but last year’s album was more vulnerable, no? I don’t know if you like that word, vulnerable but I felt like it was, and I feel like the EP continues in that vein.

g: I would say that “oh are you bipolar one or two?” is my most like depressing song? And then the song on this EP called “living proof that it hurts” is really my most personal song. They’re both pretty depressing, but this is genuinely what happened. When I first started making music, I had a lot of things I wanted to write about, outwardly. For like I was upset about being from a small fucking town in the middle of nowhere, I was upset about losing my friends during Covid, and just becoming a musician, I was upset about a lot of things that weren’t to do with me? It was more outwardly angry and frustrated. That’s why I wrote songs like “pissed” [2020] or “fuck this town” [2021] or “cloak n dagger” [2021]. It was anger at people, not really at yourself. But then after a while, life got a lot better, because of music, and I was going on tour, and doing all this shit that I really wanted to do. And I still felt the same way—not so much anger, cause I wasn’t really angry anymore, I was just depressed, or sad. It was like I was just kind of going through life, I suppose? And I wanted to make music, but I couldn’t make the same kind of music, because I wasn’t feeling the same way! So it kind of turned back on me. And I used to want to kind of fuck up my life and have bad shit happen to me, so I could write a song about it? But then I—once I realized that if you just make music about how you feel, you can make music forever. I could talk about how I feel till the day I die. Like I could make a song right now. I don’t have to have something bad happen to write a song. Which is kind of beautiful, but also kind of a silly realization. So that’s kind of what the album and now this EP are.

VMAN: You talk a lot about your mom, and when the album dropped, and I heard some of the darkest stuff I wondered what your parents would make of it. Are you…

g: You want to ask her? I mean I could tell you what I think she thinks but she’s downstairs, you can ask her?

VMAN: Well, I…
[He gets up, leaves the room, comes back with his dad.]

g: Actually here’s my dad, you can ask him. [To dad: “You gotta sit down, put the headphones on”] This is Mark!

VMAN: Hey Mark, I’m John!

MARK GUTIERREZ: Hi John, nice talking to you!

VMAN: Same! Well, Ash dragged you in because I was just asking about when the album came out, some of the really dark, pretty grim stuff on it, and on the new EP too, whether his parents weren’t concerned for him, and he said it would be better for me to ask you.

MG: Oh okay. Well no, actually, yeah we would have been really worried, cause there’s quite a few things he’s saying on there. But when he first started making music, he explained, he said, “A lot of this stuff, once I get it out, it makes me feel better, so then it’s not in me. So it’s better for me to say it.” And these songs came out, and then finally when he put out an album and we were like, “yeah”…but then you’re like, “No, but he’s getting it out, he’s clearing it out of his mind, and if he feels better about it once he talks about it.” But obviously, you know, he’s still our child and we worry about everything anyway. But yeah, not that much. I think if he had just sprung that on us without having done other songs, we’d have been really worried. But because he’s kind of told us “This is my process, this is how I do it,” it doesn’t as much.

[Ash starts to usher his dad out] I guess I gotta go now!

VMAN: So, back to the EP “living proof that it hurts” is obviously the darkest point. There’s a shotgun in your mouth that shoots you in the foot, you say, “It gets worse as you get older” and then “My family think I’m pushing through it but I’m not” and then the line that really breaks my heart, “I’m just not man enough to do it.” Bro, I hope…I don’t want to ask you to over-explain every lyric, but that’s all pretty…

g: No, I mean. Bruh. To be fucking frank, I was just like—I don’t really know how to put this into words. But last year I was just really going through it. Especially just with a lot of touring, and other things going on in life, and I do think as you get a little bit older everything gets a little more serious, I suppose. I don’t think things get better necessarily, and I don’t think they get worse, I think you just get more of an understanding of what’s going on. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve understood like on tour that it’s an emotional experience because you’re talking about songs, and it’s a strange experience because you’re in front of this many fucking people and people are excited, and you think, “What the fuck is actually going on?” and it took a little bit for me to like to contextualize that, in life? And to be like, “Okay, I’m still just a normal person. I’m just going through a lot of shit that’s not normal?” But yeah, last year was definitely the hardest year of my life. Like, I tweeted this, but I think I experienced every emotion last year. It was also probably one of the best years of my life! Maybe the best, but it was the worst as well.

VMAN: So, there are some more relationship-oriented tracks too, “huh” and “i don’t really feel it anymore,” which are like, opposite ends of the love spectrum?

g: Yeah. So “huh” was made during this relationship that I was in, and then “i don’t really feel it anymore” was made after. For context. Same relationship.
We dated for like half a year. So I made that, and then after we had broken up, “i don’t really feel it anymore” was like about that. I mean both of them are kind of me being over-dramatic about a relationship, to be honest? “huh” is more like lovey-dovey. And then “i don’t really feel it anymore” is very, kind of rude, if you look at the lyrics.

VMAN: It’s also funny!

g: Yeah I say, “There’s things in life that I gotta do, I feel like a girl a bit when I come home in these Prada shoes.”

VMAN: So you are more into fashion now than you were before, right?

g: Yeah, well when I was first getting started I was wearing like the worst shit you’ve ever seen in your life! [laughs] But yeah, I have these like Prada like, ballet shoes? And they’re hella feminine, so I feel like a girl sometimes when I put em on!

VMAN: Do you get sent a lot of free stuff now?

g: Yeah I’ve noticed that the more successful you get, the more free stuff you get? It’s kind of counterintuitive. But I’m not complaining! I’ve gotten some cool stuff.

VMAN: So any glaive fan who’s worth a damn knows that the name came from the game Dark Souls III [glaive: a blade-type weapon]—however, we learn in the “sun is dead” video, in the pounding drop at the finish, that in fact glaive now actually stands for “Good Lord Always Invoke Virtuous Energy”!

g: Yes, sir!

VMAN: Where and how did that interpretation come about?

g: So, my friend Tommy and I started making acronyms for shit, and then we started coming up with acronyms for glaive. And then it was like, “Good Lord Always Invoke Virtuous Energy?” And then I was making the video—and I edited all these videos that came out recently, that’s why they kind of suck [they don’t suck] but also it’s kind of cool. So I was like, ideas around the drop, what do I do? So I just did that? And somebody tweeted, they were like, “That’s not what that shit stands for!” And it’s not. Like, when I made the name glaive, that’s not what it stood for, but that’s what it stands for now.

VMAN: “Virtuous” is the key word there, a word that means different things to different people. What is it to you? Some people—more conservative people—might say virtuous means that you are pure and don’t engage in certain things and live a certain way.

g: Yeah it’s definitely not that for me! [laughs] To me it just means to be good, lovely, good energy.

VMAN: Treat people well?

g: Yeah, to treat people well, and just to bring blessings. To bring blessings into one’s life.

VMAN: What’s up with the horses? There’s a horse painting on the EP cover, and this double horse silhouette is featured in the videos.

g: Well, it’s—I come from a polo family if you know what that is.

VMAN: Of course. Sport of kings, right?

g: Yes, sir! [laughs] But my family definitely wasn’t making no king-like money off of it, but it was working. So we did that and so obviously I was around horses a lot when I was younger. And the thing is just from a crest that I saw, where I just drew the horses off this crest, I thought, “This really sick, let’s do that.” And then the cover art was by this lady named Julia, I think she’s Swedish? I saw it on Instagram, and I thought, “This is the coolest painting ever.” But she was literally so cool. Her Instagram is like Julia De Ruvo it’s so sick. And she was like, “I love you, I think you’re the best!” And I just love horses, I’ve been around them since I was a kid.

VMAN: You also say in the graphic on the “sun is dead” video, “Thank God for everything” and I think that’s another thing is a sense of gratitude that comes through on this EP.

g: Yeah it’s definitely, like when I made it, pretty much when I made it until now, things have been pretty good. Like definitely better than the majority of last year. And I was just very happy about that. I mean, some shit has happened that sucked. As it does, in life. But I don’t know, when you feel like you’re doing well, with all the songs coming out I feel like they’re really sick, and everybody thinks they’re sick, or in my mind. And it’s like, you’ve got to thank somebody!

VMAN: So for this year, what’s the plan, is there gonna be another record later in the year, is there just touring…?

g: I want to make more music again before I go on tour. If I go on tour. I don’t know, we’ll see.

VMAN: You’re not going out for that sweet festival money this summer?

g: I don’t care about money! [laughs] I know that sounds really fucking bougie, but it doesn’t really matter to me.

VMAN: Well someone’s gotta pay for those Prada shoes.

g: I know, I be paying for em bruh! I don’t know, it’s a whole thing. Well cause, I don’t know how well I can sing, still? Like I said I am very nervous about this whole surgery. I thought it might be over? So I didn’t plan anything. I wanted to tour but I kind of wanted to see how I sounded first. Cause like, right now, I can’t sing! So once I am through the surgery and fine, I am gonna try to record music and go on tour, but we’ll see.

‘a bit of a mad one’ is out now, with a standalone single, ‘tijuana freestyle,’ coming soon.