Hello Ant! How are you?
Hi! Doing swell how bout you?
-Ok so first things first- how would you describe your sound in three words only?
Hm…quirky, vibey (for lack of a better word) and free
-Your track ‘Yellow Hearts’ (which we freggin love!!) was a huge smash, tell us a bit about the creation process?
Thanks so much omg 🙂 I was just going for something quirky and minimalistic. I laid down the xylophone sound and the drums first. I wanted a sort of 8-bit meets Rugrats type sound. I also had the ‘she put my name with yellow hearts’ line in my head so I had a pretty strong foundation. Usually when I’m creating music I work on multiple songs at a time, but once I started this one, I just didn’t really wanna work on anything else because I thought it was so interesting.
-The track is now certified gold in the U.S., with over 400 million streams, and landed a position on the Billboard Hot 100- how does that feel?
It feels so surreal because I’ve already reached the goals I planned to reach before I turn 30, so now I have to make a whole new set of goals. I couldn’t be more proud of myself.
-What 5 tracks would we expect to see most rotated on your Spotify playlist?
Diddy Bop by Noname
Self Control by Frank Ocean
BLACKJACK by Aminé
Dang by Mac Miller (feat. Anderson .Paak)
The A Team by Ed Sheeran (because my car always starts playing music in alphabetical order but it’s also just a pretty good song)
-The a new single called “I Had A Love Song” featuring critically acclaimed, Nigerian R&B duo and sisters, VanJess is out now- how did this collaboration happen?
So ‘I Had A Love Song’ was actually started about 3 years ago. It’s an old cut from one of my SoundCloud projects back in 2018, called ‘bettertrash’. The guys from the label were really big fans of it, and I thought that it might be a cool idea to revamp it because I was interested in what my audience would think of the concept. One of the ideas I had was putting a feature on it, so my A&R’s looked around and once VanJess was introduced to it, I was told that they were interested. I was excited about this because I was already familiar with them and their style is so unique. They sent over a demo soon after, and their verses and vocals blew me away. It just had me convinced that they were the perfect fit.
– Who else would you still love to work with?
I’d love to work with a variety of different people ranging from John Legend to Justin Bieber to Dominic Fike. I’d also like to work with people like Frank Ocean and witness how his mind works.
-Tell us about your BUBBLE EP?
BUBBLE is essentially a collection of songs that I’ve written from my perspective growing up as a really reserved, anxious outsider. Being the way that I am, I feel like I interpret and react to things very differently–things such as being in the spotlight, getting rejected by a girl, or just trying to have a normal conversation with people. I’ve always felt so limited growing up, and it felt like being trapped inside a bubble; having what you can achieve right in front of you, but having that soft boundary around you. You can technically break it with ease but it’s more difficult than it seems.
A few easy ones now:
*If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
I’ve just always wanted to fly
*Three must have items you want on a deserted island?
1. Unlimited items
2. Gotcha
3. Lol
*Megan The Stallion or Cardi B?
Meg!
*If you could donate a million dollars, who/what organization would it be and why?
It’s hard to say because there are so many causes I’d love to donate a million dollars to. I don’t think I could pick just one!
*Tell us something no one else knows about you?
I’m allergic to peanuts 🙁
*What’s next for Ant Saunders and where can we find you online?
I’ve got songs ready to come out very soon and also another EP! And once concerts start back up again you’ll see me on stage!
Tell us about your new single “Effortless”
I actually wrote Effortless after my girlfriend first moved in to college. I wanted to write it to let her know that I’m not gonna let the distance discourage me and get in the way of our relationship. That’s the power of love! I also co-wrote it with Scott Harris which was such a crazy experience because he was really the first professional songwriter that I’ve ever worked with and he’s such a high-profile writer who works a lot with Shawn Mendes. We vibed together pretty well and he definitely helped me stay on track with what I was writing.
