Truthfully, he prefers itthisway.
Small shows are just always better, the Dare says.
The really big shows are fun and they feel epic but mostly people just stand around, he adds.
The Dare in New York, September 2024.Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone
I like the small-room club energy.
(He eventually got promoted to Thursdays after someone quit.)
Theres not much of a stage just an area that implies where the performer should stand.
As he sings Girls, Harrison is climbing on window sills and then flinging himself at the crowd.
On TikTok,a clip showing himleaning over the crowd has garnered more than 700,000 views.
Another says, They dont get him like I do.
I just like the play and the freedom that music and performance allows you, he says.
I just kind of crank it up to ten and say whatever I want.
So if these folks werent the ones who should be tapped into the Dare, who is?
How did they get hip to the artist who was once the Lower East Sides best-kept secret?
There areTikTok thinkpiecesabout how hes going mainstream.
I want to make the most interesting, beautiful music on the largest scale possible.
If that happens, that will be wonderful… Im just happy that people like it.
Even the old hangouts are changing.
Its a little bit different.
Theres still amazing things about it.
That was a choice he made, despite his stacked Rolodex, so that establish his own voice.
He teases that his second project will have a lot more features and collaborations.
Whats a blogger to a rocker, whats a rocker to The Dare?
he sings on the songs second verse.
Its like telling jokes.
If theres a joke in the song, the whole song cant survive off one joke.
Like if you heard it once, its not going to get funnier every time you hear it.
He sees his persona as an exaggerated version of himself that he can toggle back and forth with.
In a way, it sounds reminiscent of what his frequent collaboratorCharli XCXhas done this year.
Shes the best singer ever, he says, pulling out an arty comparison to the painter Mark Rothko.
She uses Auto-Tune as an instrument, straddling notes or something in this really beautiful way.
The Guess remix has nearly 160 million listens on Spotify and is the second-most streamed song fromBratalbum.
Once there, he played a very different version of the song that was originally called Underwear.
I was like, Maybe Ill make a remix or something of it for fun, he says.
I basically sped it way up.
I remade the instrumental which was way more like electro, house, and electroclash-influenced.
Charli cut new vocals, while Smith focused on making tweaks to the future hit.
[Charlis] like, Are you even listening to what Im saying over here?
And Im like, No.
Im sure its good though.
For now, the Dare is embracing the newfound attention.
