Photograph by Graham Gardner
Lazerbeak
When the Minneapolis hip-hop collective Doomtree started to break out nationally after the 2011 release of its No Kings album, producer and manager Aaron Mader (known professionally as Lazerbeak) knew he should be happy. After all, the group had finally achieved its goal of grabbing attention outside of Minnesota and toured the globe. But Mader also started to feel overwhelmed. Then, his wife became pregnant. He was on the road trying to earn as much as he could, “freaking out about this new person I have to take care of financially.” Two days after coming home from Doomtree’s European tour, his first child was born prematurely.
In becoming a father, Mader couldn’t tour like he used to, and he had to find ways to make money in the music industry through other means. He started to take on more responsibilities, taking over roles as record label CEO, booking agent, and manager for Doomtree and artists like Poliça and Sophia Eris. His family also grew with unexpected twins, giving him three kids under the age of 2 to care for. After taking nearly the full responsibility of running the day-to-day logistics of Doomtree and all its members, the collective then decided to close out its massively popular blowout series with an ambitious festival, the Doomtree Zoo, in 2015.
“I was probably averaging like three hours of sleep a night with the kids. I was also going down this really crazy rabbit hole of stress and anxiety at work, trying to do a bunch of things I had never had experience with before,” Mader says, referring to this as his six month rock-bottom period. He lost 30-40 pounds through stress alone. “I was a shell of myself. My wife was like, ‘You’re not even here. You’re not present.’”
After making an appointment with his general practitioner, Mader found out he wasn’t alone when he realized how common mental health issues are. “That was the first time I talked about it. I felt too afraid or ashamed to bring it up to my wife, my family, my friends. I just felt this burden lifted in the initial conversation,” he said. He started taking low-dose anti-anxiety medication and talking about his mental health openly. He began experimenting with wellness apps like Headspace to practice guided meditation, and Gratitude to journal whatever he's thankful for. His creativity was rejuvenated, and he stopped feeling shame when he spoke about his feelings.
Now the musician is in a much better place, and after learning how to manage his stress and anxiety, he’s partnered with Wellness Minneapolis to try out alternative health practices like acupuncture for the first time.
Lazerbeak's newest album, Luther, is his attempt at working through his feelings with laid-back, trip-hop inspired instrumentals that mirror the inner peace of mind he sought to achieve. It's a creative reawakening, made without expectation and unlike anything he’s released before. Six months before the album was due, Mader was unsure if he’d even put it out: He couldn’t tell if the ambient and meditative songs were made just for himself as his own form of therapy, or if they were good enough for the public to relate to. Thankfully he decided they were, and in doing so it might just be his most personal work yet.
“This is the first solo music I have felt inspired to make since I’ve had a family,” he says. “In the process of the last three years of starting to learn about self-care, and meditation, and gratitude, I felt like it started to open me up, and I got the ‘lighting bolt’ which I thought I was never gonna get again.”
What are the mechanisms you fall back on when you start feeling more anxious and stressed?
The one I kind of scream off the rooftop–to me this is the easiest, most effective, quickest impact I have ever seen, and it doesn’t take more than 30 seconds each day–every night before I go to bed I write down three things that I am thankful for that day. I personally have an app that pings me at 9 o’clock so I remember to write it down. It doesn’t have to be this huge crazy thing like, I’m thankful for the Earth and all the air that I can breathe, it oftentimes revolves around food, or I’m thankful for this album that came out that I really enjoy listening to, or a person I had lunch with that day. The idea is to just jot down the first thing that comes to your mind, because it’s not about the specifics, it’s just about training your brain to be thinking more of the positives.
So I find that on the days where I’m really having a bad day and I don't immediately have three things that come to mind, those are actually the most impactful days, because if I force myself to sit there for a minute to think about it, you almost snap yourself out of it. By writing it down, you remove yourself from the mix, you get a birds-eye view of it.
Meditation I know is a scary thing, it does feel like a lot, it’s like exercise almost. It feels good, but it almost feels too much sometimes. I don’t do it every day, but I wish I did it more. I really try throughout the week to have a routine where I meditate every morning before I open my laptop. I get to work, and I just sit there with the lights off for 10 minutes and I try to focus, keep my mind right, and try to forget myself. And then I open my laptop more clear in my intentions.
For a lot of people meditation is just going for a walk, or reading a book, or taking a bath. It doesn’t have to be a strict thing, but it really boils down to taking a little time to check-in with yourself. At this point with technology and the busyness of our culture, we forget it’s okay to check-in with ourselves. We need to be right with ourselves before we can be right with others.
It seems like in creative professions, it’s easy for your work to bleed into your personal life, especially when you’re taking on so many more roles.
Unfortunately there’s no office hours. Once I got into management, you’re essentially in a family with that artist. It took a really long time to implement office hours for myself, where I’m always reachable from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. After 5 p.m., I’m going home and I’m making dinner for my kids, and we’re going to spend time before they go to bed, and I’m going to watch a basketball game if I don’t have work that night. Anything that comes in from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. will be addressed the next day, and usually nothing is that important, and everyone knows they can emergency call me.
It took a while just to feel like it was okay to do that, to allow myself that time. At first it felt like I was not doing my job, but in reality I’m there for artists more now because I’m more mentally sound to deal with everything.
It’s about setting boundaries for yourself.
Oh my god, yes! And that’s so much easier said than done, but it’s worth toying with the idea. Healthy detachment. Detachment with love is a beautiful thing–you take yourself out of the equation. I think meditation helps with that a lot, because you’re able to step outside your own mind. I remember having my mind blown when someone said the voice inside your head isn’t always your voice. That was so profound to me, because it feels like it is! But when you’re not taking care of yourself, it can sabotage you.
What kinds of mental pressures are unique to musicians?
Social media has almost created this fake reality for each of us. You go to anyone’s Instagram page and it looks like they’re killing it. They’re always happy, they’re getting all sorts of opportunities–and that goes from anyone in a high school band to Ariana Grande. And the reality is in my experience talking with artists at the bottom of the totem pole, artists and managers and people in the industry at the top of the totem pole, is as a creative you never don’t have self-doubt. Ariana Grande has the same amount of self-doubt as I have about my music career. It’s really hard to understand, because we’re always showing off this one good side of our face.
That’s a real pressure on artists, we’re always comparing ourselves to other people. It took me a really long time to not feel bitter, and to actually feel joy when someone that wasn’t me got a win. If there was another producer that landed a beat on a big album, my initial reaction in the past was always to be kind of bummed, or ‘Why wasn’t that me? They’re not that good why shouldn’t that be me?'
The concept of success as a musician is so skewed. Because we celebrate the big successes so much in this industry, we feel like everyone has the same opportunity to be Beyoncé, and it’s just not true. I think people grow up thinking that’s part of the deal, but unfortunately it’s not. Most artists struggle. Most artists don’t even release an album. You’re already in a tiny threshold if people are coming to your shows or streaming your album. The pressure of feeling like If you don’t do music full-time than you’re a failure, I think that really weighs on people.
I felt that. I delivered pizzas for 10 years while I was trying to make it, and I tried to quit delivering pizzas several times thinking I had finally made enough money to do music full-time. And I came back to delivering pizzas time and time again because there’s just no stability for the most part.
What was the process of constructing this album, that’s completely different than your previous work?
The last solo record I released was called Lava Bangers, which is kind of a phrase I’ve become known for. My beats are everything in the kitchen sink at once–really heavy hitting, dense things.
It was like August or September of 2017, and I made this one thing for the first time. I didn’t have anything in mind for it, I couldn’t hear any vocalists over it, and it didn’t feel like it was for a project. Usually I’m really intentional in what I make stuff for. It’s the third track on the album. It’s this weird, long, letting things breathe, giving things space–it just felt new, like a thing I hadn't tried. Essentially a literal 180 from the last record I’d done. That became the blueprint then–doing something as different as possible in my canon. By the second day I tried it again, and I realized I was onto something.
Being able to see and feel that inspiration coming is definitely a byproduct of learning to live in the moment, and starting to understand the natural flow of things.
What music do you listen to when you need to decompress?
R&B mostly. The name of the album is Luther–my son’s name is Luther, but I named him after Luther Vandross, who’s one of my all-time favorite artists. His music equals love to me, it always has. He’s the go-to in my darkest moments. It’s almost like church to some people. When we had the twins, I listened to him for energy and positivity.
I’m such a pop sucker. I have not stopped listening to the new Carly Rae Jepsen album since it came out, and I doubt that I will stop for the rest of the summer. I’m taking my daughter to see her. My tastes are very pop and R&B. I grew up making and listening to rap constantly, so I don’t listen to that unless it’s Cardi B or something.
How has your life changed since you started keeping your mental health in check?
It’s only improved for the better, for me. I don’t want to be the guy that says, ‘If you do these three things, your life is going to be awesome.’ But just in my day-to-day, I feel alive and present in a way that I can actually enjoy some of the stressful things. I feel content, and I’m able to hold onto that contentment even when things don’t go the way I want them to.
It depends on the day you ask me. Right now it’s Friday, and I’m pumped to talk to you, and I have a sitter tonight. [laughs] But Monday afternoon in the middle of three albums coming out? I might not be happy, but I bounce back quicker. I don’t take things as personally as I used to. I’ve removed the pride and the ego. I’m able to just live, and it feels good.
This interview has been edited for length.
