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One positive effect of COVID-19's societal push toward staying at home is that, for many, it's opened up large chunks of time for reading deep-dives like this new one centered on the Weeknd.
Speaking with Jem Aswad for Variety across two pieces published on Wednesday, the After Hours artist got decidedly reflective on recently turning 30 years old and how mining his past for creative energy is helping him realize who he wants to become. Abel also recalled a sweet birthday commemoration he got from fellow Canadian pop culture mainstay Jim Carrey, with whom he's recently become close, as well as let fans in on the inspiration specifics behind select tracks on his new album.
The full piece, boasting photography by Pari Dukovic, is definitely worth your time. Below, enjoy a breakdown of highlights from the interview, which thankfully also touches on Abel's social distancing coping methods.
He pushed back on his label and managers wanting to delay album release
Longtime Weeknd managers Wassim "Sal" Slaiby and Amir "Cash" Esmailian, as well as top execs at Republic Records, are said to have "considered the possibility" of delaying the After Hours release. Presumably, this was due to the industry's semi-pausing due to COVID-19. Abel, however, wasn't having any of that and instead "cut that discussion off" immediately.
"Fans had been waiting for the album, and I felt like I had to deliver it," he said. "The commercial success is a blessing, especially because the odds were against me: [Music] streaming is down 10 percent, stores are closed, people can't go to concerts, but I didn't care. I knew how important it was to my fans."
Fellow Canadian Icon Jim Carrey helped him ring in his 30th birthday
Per Abel, Carrey's 1990s classic The Mask was actually the first movie he ever saw in a theater as a kid. Thanks to a timely text in 2019, the two—who are both fans of each other's respective craft—had a proper introduction. Abel eventually texted Carrey his Los Angeles address, which just so happened to be close enough that he and Carrey could wave at each other from their balconies via telescope.
"And when I told him about my mom taking me to see The Mask, he knew the theater!" he said. "Anyway, on my birthday, he called and told me to look out my window, and on his balcony he had these giant red balloons, and he picked me up and we went to breakfast. It was surreal. Jim Carrey was my first inspiration to be any kind of performer, and I went to breakfast with him on my first day of being 30."
"Faith" is about the "darkest time" in his life
"So, this is about the darkest time of my entire life, around 2013, 2014," Abel explained, pointing to the earlier years of his rise to prominence. "I was getting really, really tossed up and going through a lot of personal stuff. I got arrested in Vegas [for punching a police officer; he later pleaded no contest]. It was a real rock-star era, which I’m not really proud of."
The sirens at the end of the track, he added, are meant to signal that you're hearing this iteration of himself "in the back of the cop car" at that exact moment. The song itself actually marks a narrative he's wanted to explore for a long time, though it didn't feel exactly right to do so until the After Hours era.
"I wanted to be that guy again—the 'Heartless' guy who hates God and is losing his fucking religion and hating what he looks like in the mirror so he keeps getting high," he said. "That's who this song is."
He was flattered but "angry" when he first heard Usher's "Climax"
It is, of course, quite hard to overstate the sonic impact Abel's distinctive blend of songwriting prowess has had on music at large. And at one point, even Abel himself was a little turned off by the obviousness of that influence, though he's since learned to take it all as the biggest of compliments.
"House of Balloons literally changed the sound of pop music before my eyes," he explained to Variety. "I heard 'Climax,' that [2012] Usher song, and was like, 'Holy fuck, that's a Weeknd song.' It was very flattering, and I knew I was doing something right, but I also got angry. But the older I got, I realized it's a good thing."
"Blinding Lights" holds a special importance for the 'After Hours' era
For "Blinding Lights," which features input by Oscar Holter and Max Martin, Abel was not only able to work quickly ("I went into a room for 20 minutes and wrote the entire song"), but he was also able to tap into something that would come to define this new chapter. It also boosted his creative confidence and his boldness in challenging fans.
"When I made this song I was nervous because I felt like I went overboard with the ambition—I'm ambitious, but I thought maybe this is too much," he said. "It wasn't until 'Blinding Lights' [became one of his biggest hits] that I knew, a) I could finish this album and b) I could put this song on it."
67 versions of "The Hills" exist
Asked about his writing process, particularly regarding his typical speed, Abel pointed out that such a thing varies from song to song and project to project. While explaining this, Abel asked interviewer Jem Aswad if he wanted to hear an example of "how insane" he is in terms of writing, an encouraged inquiry that ultimately revealed the litany of iterations of his previous hit "The Hills."
"There are 67 versions of 'The Hills,' arguably one of my biggest songs—sixty-seven!" he said. "I premiered [a demo] at a South by Southwest [party in 2015] as part of the rollout of Beauty Behind the Madness. I played it over the speakers, I was like 'Let's play it, just for fun, to get fans excited.' That version was called ‘Mood Music’— [longtime friend and creative director] Lamar [Taylor] recorded it on his phone, it was a snippet, just half the song. It was posted on Soundcloud and it got the most views SoundCloud had ever seen or something—a shitty phone recording. So then the whole world has that version—but the version I'm still working on in the studio doesn't sound like that version, even though it's the same song."
Ultimately, recreating elements from the SoundCloud upload (i.e. audience noise) proved difficult.
Having children is on the agenda
While reflecting on what inspired "Faith," Abel addressed the importance of facing one's demons, then noted that he's embarking on a new chapter both creatively and personally.
"By the end of this album, you realize, 'I'm not that person,'" he said. "I was, but I'm growing and wiser, and I'm gonna have children someday, and I'm going to tell them they don't have to be that person." Getting into his 30s, he added, has often been described to him by others as one's "best years" because you're getting a chance to become the person "you're supposed to be."
He considers himself an "80s connoisseur," which influenced the new album
Asked about the overt nods to the decade on After Hours, Abel touted himself as an expert in the field, then shouted out Roxy Music ("'More Than This' is a banger, dude!") and the Pretenders.
"I was finding that alt-rock synthwave character, all these weird ideas, me being goofy and not knowing if people were gonna like it," he said. Of course, the people like it very much.
The album's titled 'After Hours' for reasons more literal than might be assumed
During the track-by-track portion of the Variety megafeature, Abel broke down how he landed on After Hours as the title for his latest piece of pondering-boosted art. The main reason, he said, is that these songs all encompass "emotions and thoughts and feelings" that he would have late at night.
"It's like these are my thoughts from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.," he said. "'After Hours' the song is absolutely my thoughts at 4 a.m., alone, after everything is done."
He would often get in trouble for singing in school
Looking back on his pre-Weeknd years as a Mask-inspired film enthusiast, Abel noted how it was those around him who helped him realize he was actually a singer. By Abel's assessment, he didn't know he "had a gift" musically, though he was already singing even then.
"I was actually getting in trouble because I would sing in class—my poor mother, it became a real problem," he said. "I was really shy so I wasn't really singing to my friends or girls, but when I was maybe 13, somebody said, 'You actually have a pretty nice voice.'"
Longtime friend and creative director, La Mar Taylor, shared a different memory of these years. According to him, Abel was actually "charismatic" at a young age and gave exactly zero fucks about how other people saw him.