“Bad Habit” musician Steve Lacy, who topped the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this year, opened up about his musical influences during an interview with The Guardian last week.
The singer’s comments come at the end of an eventful 2022 that included his viral TikTok hit “Bad Habit,” four Grammy nominations and a musical appearance on Saturday Night Live in November.
Even former President Barack Obama recently named Lacy’s song “Sunshine” featuring Foushée as one of his favorite songs of the past year.
Lacy, who has worked with stars such as Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar, told The Guardian that the video game “Guitar Hero” helped him make “a lot of rock and guitar music” and as he progressed, he liked the songs of several other rockers .
“Growing up, I was raised on artists like Paramore. Mac DeMarco, Dirty Projectors, Vampire Weekend. Weezer – Undone is also one of mine [favorite] songs ever,” said Lacy, who later added that she also likes indie act Faye Webster.
Lacy described the songs and vocals of Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams, who collaborated with Weezer in 2011, as “insane” as she takes rock and makes it soulful.
He detailed his love for Weezer’s spirit and humor and revealed more about his passion for “Undone – The Sweater Song.”
“The dissonance of the chord progression in Undone is really weird,” he said. “For something like this to exist was really important to me in my musical journey, to say, ‘Oh, wow, you can make this sound fun and cool.’
Lacy, who often compares himself to music legend Prince, said he takes a little bit of everything he loves when creating music before calling the singer “Purple Rain.”
“I’m going to take some melodic cues from Prince, but I’m going to play it like someone else is imitating Prince, like Jimi Hendrix trying to be Prince,” Lacy said.
“But I like mixing different approaches together. It happens naturally. I never do everything on purpose. It’s right inside me.”
