Introducing The Rising Pop-Punk Star… LILHUDDY

If you’re looking for an emerging pop-punk artist that’s setting the music world on fire, then LILHUDDY is for you. Hailing from Northern California, LILHUDDY (aka Chase Hudson) began his music journey at an early age. Despite being increibly shy as a kid, the rising star devoloped a passion for music, while also honing his vocal craft with his talented family. LILHUDDY also consumed a swath of artists from an array of genres, ranging from Michael Jackson, blink-182, My Chemical Romance, All American Rejects, Pierce The Veil, One Direction, Bruno Mars and the legendary Black Sabbath.

While expanding his music palate, the emerging artist found his way to the popular social media app, TikTok. With over 1.5 billion likes, 1,000 videos and a dedicated fanbase, LILHUDDY became a one of the app’s most popular users in 2020. But even with his growing profile in the influencer realm, the 18-year-old singer, was drawn back to his first love – music.

Wasting no time in 2020, the emerging star booked a coveted spot in the MGK musical film experience, Downfalls High and signed to Geffen Records. It wasn’t until earlier this year that he released his debut single ’21st Century Vampire’ to critical acclaim. Now with four releases under his belt, including his new track ‘America’s Sweetheart’, LILHUDDY is continuing to show the music world who he really is without the filter. We were able to chat with him about everything from his new single, his pop-punk sound, his upcoming releases and more. Read the full interview below

Heya LILHUDDY! Thanks for sitting down with us. 

Thank you for having me, I’m glad to be here today!

How have you’ve been over this past year? Have you been handling the pandemic okay? We’re only a vaccine shot away till the world gets back to semi-normal right? 

I’ve been handling it to the best of my ability, it was certainly a bit of an adaptation. But I navigated my way through it, bought myself a load of arcade machines, and now I’m not bored anymore!

Let’s dive into the nitty-gritty! Do you remember the moment you realized you wanted to pursue music? 

I think it was the first time I ever got on stage and performed. When we were doing a meet-and-greet tour a few years back and I was meeting fans for the first time and travelling for the first time, I fell in love with all of it and I never wanted to do anything else since. I’ve always loved music foremost and it fell nicely into my world as a performer. 

Growing up in a musical family, what key lessons did your parents and sister teach you when it comes to your own craft and future as an artist? 

I’ve always had a more vulnerable, soft side to me. I’ve always been artsy and had just more feelings than the average person. I grew up with two sisters and a lovely, sweet mom and so I kind of took a lot of their sweeter traits with me. It was always about not being afraid to show that side and about being open and vulnerable in the things you create. Making music allows me to do this.  

Aside from your family, were there any artists that you looked towards for inspiration or teachings? 

Greenday, Blink-182, My Chemical Romance, Queen, and loads more. But there’s a bunch of artists right now that I’ve been having an ear to; I’ve been listening in to a lot of Tame Impala, some of the new Justin Bieber. Those two for sure right now. I listen to all kinds of stuff and am still discovering!

We have to talk about your sound. First of all, it exudes so much energy, it’s absolutely fantastic. How would you personally describe the inner workings of your sound? 

Energy and emotion. When you kind of combine the two things you mean what you say so much more. It’s kind of a sound of passion. I have so much passion towards the feelings I feel and the things that I say, and so when I am able to scream them and let everyone know what’s up, that’s amazing. I’m not ever going to underestimate someone when it comes to something like pouring their heart out. 

‘The Eulogy Of You And Me’ is such a fantastic single! Can take us through the making of the single? We hear that Travis Barker helped produce it? 

Yes! Back when we first wrote the song, Travis hadn’t worked with us at all before. We wrote the song in the studio in about a day, and when we came up with the hook – “This is the eulogy of you and me” – we knew right away that that was probably the smartest hook you could ever come up with. We were like “wow, that line deserves to be sang a thousand times”, and so it is throughout the song! There’s something special about it and that was so exciting to us; coming up with a phrase like that. It was the beginning of our early writing stages so that kind of gave us like an angle or perspective on the rest of the music that I’ve been making. “I want it to have a reference like how ‘Eulogy’ does”. That was the level that I wanted to measure everything up against. It just felt so right, and then when Travis hopped on the drums, it felt so natural and glowing. Everything about it sounded huge. That song will always be so important to me. 

We have got to talk about the visual for the record. What was the creative process for the video? Did you always have this story in mind? 

‘Eulogy’ was the song that kind of shaped it all for me. It was the first emotional song I’d written about all of the relationships I’ve been through in my life and so I thought “why don’t I just create a whole story around the rise and fall of the relationships I’ve gone through throughout my time”. I started mapping it out like “what kind of emotion do I want to portray in this song that I haven’t portrayed yet?”, “what’s going to separate this song from any other song on the album?”, “what different kind of sounds do I want to go for each song so that they’re different”. It was all a bit of a process but I’ve had the story-telling aspect since I wrote ‘Eulogy’. Its’ video just gives you hand-in-hand exactly what’s going on in this relationship. It shows in the beginning of the video us basically breaking up, it shows me seeing her again when we’re having our wedding-funeral, it shows us falling apart and dropping from the sky to basically the pits of hell. I die and she lives; that was the separation of us and now we’re never going to see each other again. So the video played an important part of the story, and I definitely think people are going to understand ‘Eulogy’ more when I give them all parts of the story. 

You’ve just released your third single ‘America’s Sweetheart’. How does this song differ from your previous two releases? 

It’s very slow. It’s very straight to the point, it’s honest and it’s the classic thing of feeling the ins and outs of a hard relationship, but also feeling alone through it. And that’s an emotion I didn’t tap into when I wrote any of my other songs, that’s why this one’s so personable for me. 

Will we be getting an accompanying video for ‘American Sweetheart’?

YES! It’s out now! The music video is important in showing the emotion that I went through and how much of a fever-dream that it felt like in the way that I portray her in-front of me, behind me, then dancing. We’re in love and she’s everywhere in my head basically. But it shows how even though she was beside me, I felt alone. 

With both singles making the rounds, what can fans look forward to in the coming months from LILHUDDY? Will we be getting an EP or album?

A lot of exciting things! There’s an album out in the summer which I’m hugely excited about, a lot more exciting music. I had to give people a sad song that could make them feel connected to me before I gave them any song afterwards. I wanted to give them something to relate to before we hit the mosh pit and go crazy! 

Check out LILIHUDDY’s brand new music video for his latest single ‘America’s Sweetheart’ below.