Written by Claire Killian
Photos by Joshua Wang
Mayce Tomlin is a Junior at Columbia College, and will be performing as the featured student artist at Bacchanal 2023. You can find him on instagram at @maycetomlin and on streaming platforms under the name Mayce Tomlin.
Starting at the very beginning, can you tell me a bit about how you got into music? Did you come from a musical household?
I don't consider myself to come from a musical household. I'm the only one really, but my mom is also a fashion designer. I'm not the only artist, but I'm the only musician. Nobody else in my family can play instruments, but my parents were always big supporters of me getting involved in different things. So, from a young age, they put me in different things. I started off with drums probably at nine or ten, and that was my first exposure to making music. I'm just one of those people that tries things. I picked up drums, I liked it, I can play a little bit of piano because we have one in my house, and I have a little bit of self-taught guitar. Then it kind of transitioned into producing, making beats, and then eventually ended up in rapping.
How old were you when you started to produce?
I started making beats, just messing around with it, probably in seventh or eighth grade. Then I started taking it seriously as a freshman in high school - where I would put in real hours.
Who were your musical influences, the artists who inspired you to start?
It's hard to pinpoint, there are so many. It's funny though because, in terms of producing, I'm not sure that I have anyone I can point to, but from a rap perspective, there’s definitely a couple albums where I was like, ‘these are the albums that made me want to rap.’ The Sun's Tirade by Rashad, Chance of Rapper’s Coloring Book was another one, Logic’s Incredible True Story. A lot of albums that came out around my freshman year of high school. Yeah. Those albums made me think, ‘hmm, I could probably do this.’
Did making music change the way that you listen to music?
That didn't start to happen until more recently. I don't know why it happened, but I'm at a point now where I find it - unless it's something that I'm really into - I find it hard to just turn on the radio and enjoy it, you know what I mean? I start analyzing it. I don't know when that started happening, but it's a more recent thing. People try to send me music and put me on new stuff and I'm just like, ‘ah, I could have made this.’ You know what I mean? I will say it, it's harder to enjoy music just for what it is - but that's also because I'm competitive.
Who are you listening to right now? Who are some of the people who are on your playlist, who you think should be on other people's radars?
Lots of EST Gee lately. SoFaygo a little bit. I'm kind of all over the place. Don't clown me - Lizzy McAlpine. That album has me in a choke hold right now.
When you’re on stage and you're performing, at Battle of the Bands or elsewhere, what's going through your mind? Where’s your head at when you’re onstage?
When you're on stage, sometimes it's like you’re not at all, because there's a bunch of people watching, but you feel oddly alone. You see people, and you see their faces, but they don't really register as real people. I was talking to one of my friends and she was like, did you see me? I was in the front row!’ And I had to be like, ‘I did not see one time.’ I saw the video playback though, and she was smack in the front row right, in the middle. I must have looked at her multiple times, but you kind of just black out and go into a mode, it's like autopilot. I would say too, in terms of what I feel at this age, I don't really get nervous either. I'm also just not a nervous person either. For football games and stuff, I don't feel that way before games. Then when I get on stage, it's more of just trying to be myself. It’s fun. I'm much calmer in my day to day, which was funny, reading. people's interpretations of my performance from Battle of the Bands. It was like [a campus publication] implied I incited a riot. I was sent that article by a friend, where they implied that I told people to smoke weed and trample people. I was like, ‘whoa, whoa, first of all, nobody said anything about weed.’ I had to get it changed too, because they put that in the same paragraph as the part with all my teammates there. Had my teammates not been involved, I would have just left it because all press is good press, but now it’s a group issue. I had to get it taken down for the team.
You are a full-time Columbia student, you are on the football team, and you are also managing this whole music career, how do you avoid burnout?
I don't really plan that far in advance. People always assume that I have a schedule. Lately I've just been doing things as they come. I have a calendar now, though, which is a new 2023 thing for me. It's usually just a list of things in my mind that need to get done, and I prioritize it based on what’s due and when. I think other than that, I kind of just get lucky, there's really no rhyme or reason to it, which is hilarious. People always assume that my work is really complex, and I'm scheduling and all that, but it’s much less structured.
Are your teammates a big part of your community? Are they a major support system for you?
Well, it's funny because when I talk about it I call them my teammates, but I think we're just friends first. We spend a lot of time together, even outside of football, they would've been at Battle of the Bands anyway just because they're my best friends. In terms of being a support network, they're definitely very supportive. They play my music in the locker room sometimes, and they’ll make jokes and quote my lyrics back to me, and I'll be like, ‘is that me?’ It's fun, I definitely do appreciate it.
After you won Battle of the Bands, what was going through your head? Were you on top of the world? Was it an amazing feeling, or did it just feel like it's not real?
This is gonna sound cocky, but like it didn't feel any different because I just assumed that I was going to win. I went into it knowing I was going to win. So, when I won, it was more so a confirmation of what I already knew. I would say that I felt the best the day before and the day of, then like the next couple of days I just felt a bit like, ‘all right, onto Bacchanal.’
When people listen to your music, is there any particular experience you want them to have? Any particular way you want them to feel?
Generally, I want to leave that up to them. I make music that I'm feeling, and if it resonates, it resonates. Today's music industry space can feel like it’s just about making songs specifically to make songs as a business, as opposed to as an art. I could churn out Top 100 billboard hits all day, but it's like, is that inspired? Is it fun? No. I just make whatever I make, with my music at least - producing is a different ballpark. In my own music though, I just make what I want to make and it'll find its audience, whoever needs to hear it, or wants to hear it, will - and if you don't like it, you're not invited.
How is production different? where does it deviate?
It's different because you're more a work-for-hire. There are places where you can put your own influence into it, and you're like, ‘all right, this feels like me,’ but at the end of the day, I'm not gonna give a beat I would make for myself to Future, because we are very different artists. There's a bit more of a compromise in terms of what you want people to get out of what I make. I would say, when I'm making my own music, I don't go in with a goal, but when I'm producing, especially nowadays because I'm producing for other people more, I will go in with more of a goal. I would say it's a little bit different. It's more structured.
Since winning Battle of the Bands, how have you been preparing for Bacchanal?
Mostly just messing with the set list. I try not to overthink. People are always like, ‘are you rehearsing?’ And I'm like, ‘yeah, a little bit,’ but I also want it to feel natural when I get up there. I don't want to get up there with everything rehearsed, because then it just feels like you're playing a role. So, I've just been kind of messing around with my set list, tweaking some of the little mixes and stuff, because I have different mixes for when I perform, I’ll lower the main vocals, because I want people to hear me rap, instead of just playing the song. It's like just doing little clean-up jobs.
Do you have your outfit picked out?
Loosely, loosely. My brother has a brand called Uptown (@uptownpgh on instagram) and he just released these varsity letterman jackets, and they're really cool. I probably would've worn one anyway, but he told me - he sent it to me - and he was like, ‘you have to wear this on stage.’ He's a year older than me. He plays football at Boston College.
What kind of energy are you looking to bring to the Bacchanal lineup? What do you want to contribute?
Energy. Just energy. It's been a running joke of mine for the past three weeks that I was like, ‘stage dive, stage dive, stage dive, stage dive.’ I'm not going to do it. I'm trying to talk myself into it, but I'm not going to do it because it's concrete underneath. I can't afford that right now. I just want people to have fun. Yeah. I hate concerts where everyone's standing around. I want it to feel like you're a part of it.
Over the last couple of years there have been like a ton of different versions of Bacchanals, and this is the first time that it’s coming back to campus in a while. Do you have any of your own personal favorite Bacchanal memories?
Well, last year was my first one, because the year before that was Covid. Last year was cool. It was a good time. I think it's the people that make it so fun, even if there was no structure to it, like if Columbia just gave us the day off and there wasn’t a concert, it would still be as fun without the music, without all scheduled events. I think my favorite part of it was seeing all my friends. I bounced around from friend-group to friend-group all day. That was cool.
Last question: is there anything that I haven't asked you, or that hasn't come up, that you wanted to mention?
Well, that is a great thing to plug, but yesterday I dropped an album. It’s called Who Else But Us. I'm gonna be performing a couple songs from that at Bacchanal. Then just a bunch of other little things. I'm making moves right now. I can't talk about it too much, but I have some very exciting things planned.