TOMMY BRAVOS

Interview by Steven Logan | Photos by Shea Petersen

Tommy Bravos has been making evocative dream pop for years, starting in college and continuing on in his life in Chicago. After the end of a relationship and the close of one musical era, he turned to new themes of transformation and rebirth for his new EP, Everything is Growing, Am I.

What was influencing you sonically when you were starting to think about this new project?
I had just released “The Hunt”, which was very power-pop, but I had started listening to a little bit more world music, which began with Motomami by Rosalia, but also a Greek artist named Marina Sati who combines a lot of choral folk with - I don't want to call it trap music - but just a little bit more beat focused music. And through discovering her, I started getting more into traditional Greek music.

My pappou gave me all of his old vinyls of folk and urban Greek music from the ‘20s through the ‘50s, and I knew that I had this desire to get closer to the Greek diaspora. My album Adonis was very myth-focused, but I wouldn't say any of the music on it resembles traditional Greek music in any way.

Was that your first time getting into that era of Greek music and those specific Greek genres?
Yeah. I feel like the way my family assimilated - because my dad is off the boat, but my mom's family has been here for two generations before me - I feel like I kind of missed out on the Greek-American experience of being super connected to the pop music that was coming out overseas while living here. I kind of felt like I had a little bit of homework to do, to just go back and listen to a lot of the big names…you know, who's who? Where's the future of music in Greece going and how do I connect to that as a Greek-American over here?

I knew I wanted that to influence a future project without it being like “Oh, he's trying to be a Greek-American pop star now.” I knew that having that Greek influence was going to be a part of the new project, but I didn't want it to be too ham-fisted.

There are a lot of subtle references - in “Me Ti Gi”, there's a traditional lyre that we used as the string instrument instead of a guitar. In “Until Death”, it's got that sort of like island feel - in Greek we call it a nisiotika, it's a song from an island - with an acoustic guitar and that simple, steady beat underneath it.

What was actually the most fun thing that we did was sample Orthodox nuns on “Worship Something Simple” - a breakbeat song, and I sing this very operatic line that has the song title in it, and it just like kind of explodes into this sampling of Orthodox nuns singing a melody that we played on the MIDI controller.

I found this video on YouTube that was just a bunch of Orthodox nuns singing liturgical music in Russian, Greek, and I think Bulgarian. I tried to hunt them down to see if it was okay to use, but I think since we sampled them and it wasn't a direct use of the audio, we're in the clear. If you're reading to this, my sins will be forgiven when I die.

If you're reading to this, consider that credit offered for the use. And you went to Greece in the middle of making this project, what stage were you in when you went?
Actually, I had gotten what turned out to be mostly the final masters while we were overseas.

So you were just more of celebrating then.
So the whole record was made with support from Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Thank you DCASE for the support. After it was clear that an EP had formed and was the end goal, I sought external funding because I felt really empowered. I don't know what it was, I don't know if it was the fact that I had a very clear vision before going into the studio.

I do feel like my first album especially was just like a collection of songs that were written in school., and this new project was the first time I ever really had a strong vision in mind early. So I was like, you know what, I'm gonna write a grant. I'm a Greek-American from Chicago, and I'm making something that I think is truly unique. Go big or go home.

And the trip to Greece ended up being a celebration of not only the EP itself, but the week before we left, I found out I got the grant. And it was actually really cool to listen to final mixes while on a boat on the Aegean Sea going to the island my mom's family came from. It definitely felt like a homecoming in a way, if that makes sense.

Totally. You know, I had been wondering if that trip had inspired anything I was listening to, but it was all done before.
And going forward you'll hear even more of that influence. I haven't like, actually worked on anything, I just know the ideas that are sketched in my head.

I know I want to lean into more of a gritty, sexy pop feel with like mixed language and phrasing that are easy for a non-native speaker to hear and sing along with. Like in “Me Ti Gi”, that title phrase is the only Greek in the whole song, and it means “With the Earth”, but it's such an earworm that you can sing along if you don't speak Greek.

I definitely noticed that sonically this project feels not necessarily more lush, but more layered with the clubbier elements and all the vocalizations you’re doing - how did that specific sound come together?
I have a choral background, but I also have to shout out my sibling Al, because they really just pushed me with how we tracked Adonis - using the voice as more of a texture instead of just singing the lead and some harmonies. I really wanted to put my choral training to work and do even more this time. So I think that's where we got a lot of moments, like the sampling of the nuns blending with me singing with my trained opera voice, something I haven't really done in pop music before. We wanted to be a little bit more ambitious with vocal textures and putting all these different areas of interest and training that I have into a cohesive new world.

Seeing as the project is about transformation and change, what else do you think is different about your creative process and what is the through line from what you’ve done before?
I think one thing that's definitely different is that lyrically I'm now in this place of confidence.

So much of Adonis and even Different Kind of Night have this - I don't want to call it weakness, because I don't want to disrespect an older version of myself - but this place of smallness, almost? There was so much hope and longing, and I think I did a lot of veiling those feelings through metaphors to try to sound pretty or poetic. And in writing this project, I wanted to not do that, and just try to say it like it is. So there's a lot of bluntness, you know, lyrics like “I'm chasing this pleasure until nothing is left.” Am I gonna do this until I die? I'm saying it like it is instead of using metaphors to talk about emotions.

And when it comes to vocal delivery, I think I'm playing a lot more with character and bringing more energy into the studio, instead of just live performance. And I think that is something that came out of post-lockdown, being back on stage an bringing the energy to every show. I asked myself “What's stopping me from doing this when I'm in the studio instead of trying to be a perfectionist?” Why am I holding myself back and not tapping into that in the studio? Like, let me bring this live energy that I have on stage that people react really positively to.

Because you started more in a live performance background - when you were younger, when you started making music, was it mostly live performances?
Oh yeah, my first time performing was definitely theatrical. The earliest I can remember outside of a variety show would be in The Music Man as one of the kids in the band. There will always be an element of theater, and Sondheim is a huge composition beacon for me.

So when did it jump from theater to a definitive pop project, this Tommy Bravos project?
Okay, so I have an embarrassing beginning - it was born out of jealousy. There was someone I repeatedly lost bigger roles or solos to. We were at a rehearsal, and he was playing piano and showing off to girls and they were giving him attention because it was like, “Oh my god, he wrote a song.” I was like, well if he can do that, I can do that too.

And at first I was really just writing music for fun, and a friend of mine was writing lyrics. We would make fake musicals together, fake songs that never really meant anything - you know, they weren't personal. That definitely changed when my parents’ divorce got a little bit messy, when they firmly split up and a lot of stuff changed, my living situation was rocky, and it just felt like music was the right thing to put my feelings into. And then at the time it was more difficult to come out, and coming out and going to college put me into this whole new world. Writing music allowed me to write about feelings that I didn’t really know how to explain.

That’s where it started, and it took some time to get to a pop project instead of just being expression for me. I think now I’m very intentional, you know, unless something really feels right, I probably won’t put it into my work. I think if I wrote about every little thought or emotion I have, what I create would look very different.

So are you separating yourself from a musical character? Do you do any of that, or think about that?
I have. And it worked for a little bit, but I think what I want to do now is embody my ideals with the music instead of making it a character. I think a lot about my philosophy on life and how I think things would be if everyone thought about our connection to nature the same way.

I don't want it to be a political statement. It's not like, “I'm a climate musician.” But I do want it to be a form of advocacy, in a way. How can I talk about mental health and emotional safety and our connection to this planet in a way that is easily digestible? I think what’s become really clear for me is that pop music is really easy to get people to listen to. And not in a manipulative way, it's just fun to listen to something catchy with a fun chorus or a cool beat. So I've been really wanting to just put more messages in this music. So I think that's where more of the ideology comes in.

You said you’re not a climate musician, but how did those themes get folded into the project? Because we talked about it starting as more of a personal metamorphosis, and the title of the project Everything Is Growing Am I - so when did that all get tied in?
The title actually came to me when I realized I had a project forming, and I think that moment is actually when I realized that I could turn my personal experiences into something even bigger. I realized there was this theme of “Oh, I'm changing and the world's been changing around me.”

The quote my dad reads on “Like No Other” came through listening to more Greek music and thinking of other ways I could feature my heritage, and I had never dove into ancient Greek philosophy. I was sifting through various excerpts and quotes, and the one that resonated the most with me was that “No person steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and they are not the same person.” You know, the only thing permanent is change.

And that quote also influenced how the EP began to take shape. If people thousands of years ago were recognizing that we are changing with nature, how can I make this EP almost a modern retelling of that philosophical idea? And how can I apply it to what humans are feeling now? We're a very emotionally driven species.

I think coming out of lockdown, and the world is getting hotter every year and no one really seems to want to do anything about it. There's no way things are going to get better unless we recognize that we have to say goodbye to this old version of our society and become new versions of ourselves. And that doesn't mean we have to scratch everything, we are capable of honoring our past selves while becoming something new. And it's not going to happen overnight. It's going to happen as this earth continues to spin, which will still continue after we all die.

There's a lyric, “The earth is dying/I'm crying, are you feeling something too?” in Me Ti Gi. I think even though that's definitely the poppiest song, in a way it also has the whole EP's meaning in the chorus which is “I am you with the earth.” Like, we are the Earth. If we're not connected to this planet there's no existence for us in the long term.

How did you want to visually distinguish this project from what you've done in the past? How did you want to present it to the world?
The biggest thing was that I felt no longer so connected to this fantasy world. I remember watching the music video for “King” by Florence and the Machine. She's dressed as a witch with her coven, and the only real “fantasy” thing that happens is that she floats. It was really tasteful that she was able to allude to this more mystical existence without a ton of special effects, and working with a smaller budget. For myself, I kept thinking honestly, working with no budget, if we're gonna be real.

And I had made that safety pin headpiece for my Adonis visuals, so I knew I could make it work. I had seen this meme on Twitter of a pair of Tabi boots covered in bark…

Wow, I can’t believe we haven’t talked about the boots yet!
We have to talk about the boots.

So I saw these boots and I couldn't find, you know, a rip-off version and it just occurred to me, “Well girl, you just made that safety pin headpiece, so what is stopping you from making this look yourself?” I wanted to be very ethical about it. So even before I was in the studio, I was out collecting bark every time I was on a walk along the lakefront . Very much a forager this era.

And I had just had this vision of me wearing them with my Fustanella, this traditional Greek skirt that I wore for pictures during the Adonis era. Then there was also the outfit that JForPay made for me for “The Hunt” cover art and music video, all these different pieces, all these remnants. Remnants of the past. And I felt like that was very in line with like the energy of this album, and I really wanted this shoot to embody that.

And what else do you see as your dream scenario as an artist, as a living artist, working artist?
I think I would just like to reach more people. I don't know if that means touring, if that means having a bigger audience. I feel like the landscape of everything is drastically changing right now, and it's so hard to make a living in music, so I don't know if I'll ever get there. But I'm not doing this to make a living, because making it is me living.

I also just want to kind of say goodbye to a certain level of rigidity or holding myself back. I think there have been so many moments where I didn't know what I wanted things to look like, so I just didn't do anything. I really want to just go for it. I think I've just really been leaning into actually doing instead of overthinking.

And I say that, while in my head I'm screaming at myself like “Girl, you are still overthinking!” But I don't think that'll ever totally go away. I think that's the itchiness that makes my creative spirit never satisfied. And I think that's the hallmark of any artist is like, how can I be better than what I did before?