Since March 2020, Bandcamp has declared the first Friday of each month Bandcamp Friday, allowing 100% of all sales that day to go directly to the artists. Today, we spotlight one of Austin’s most exciting and glamorous upcoming acts Caleb De Casper. Born and bred in the foothills of North Carolina, De Casper moved to Austin after a brief stint in New York, becoming a fast favorite in this city’s underground scene. Every performance is its own unique work of art, blending cabaret, horror glam, and rock into shows that are never the same twice.
A classically trained pianist, De Casper has spent quarantine pivoting from the ivory keys to the synth keys. The upcoming debut LP Femme Boy embraces more of an electronic sound while still bleeding of trademark De Casper energy. The album’s lead single “Too Many Boys” is one that would be at home at any dance club– danceable and tantalizing with a familiar yearn for long-term intimacy plagued by passing moments of passion.
The video is due out in the next week or so, but we’ve got a teaser for you below along with the song! You can purchase the song, merch, and the whole Caleb De Casper discography here. Here’s what Caleb had to say about “Too Many Boys” and Femme Boy (and check out the Studio 1A Session from 2019 here):
‘Too Many Boys’ is part of my debut LP Femme Boy (album release date TBD) that I wrote immediately after leaving my first meeting with an AR rep who told me I was too queer to have a successful career in music. It is about having to navigate different personalities inside yourself, and all the drugs, heartache, and lovers I have encountered as a queer, gay man in order to find who I am and what makes me happy. Being the first single from the album, it is a cool, nostalgic, synth-pop anthem with a driving beat that you will want to sing along to.
Caleb De Casper in Studio 1A, 2019
“I wanted to write an album that was completely authentic to my human experience and do the exact opposite of what this man (and others in the industry) tried to discourage me from doing. Music is liquid, ethereal empathy and can be injected to share perspective. At the same time, I wanted to finally write an album that I needed at certain points in my life in order to feel accepted, normal, human, and loved. I will not hide pronouns or details of my relationships and complex, intimate feelings in order to fit the comfortable, majority narrative and sell my music.
Several collaborations with other artists in my community are on the album, including Sabrina Ellis, Vestite, and P1nkstar and Y2K. This is a new sound for me to communicate as an artist–the most authentic to the sounds in my head. It’s fun, campy, danceable, electronic, energetic dance-pop with a message of connection and self-empowerment throughout. The beats drive and the hooks catch and my producer Joe Stacey was able to help me create a modern, yet nostalgic sound, in which we pulled from music movements throughout pop that were ‘too gay’ when they first hit the culture but were commodified and appropriated for the mainstream. It is my greatest wish to contribute music to society that other people connect with somewhere inside themselves–but if you just wanna dance, this album was made for you too.”
Director: Rosalind Hussel
Styling and Make-up: Keith Womack
Art Direction: Randy Culp
Producer: Joe Stacey
Fashion: Seks Fifth Avenue, WOMACK, and Lockwood 51
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