If you give OnCue's catalog a listen, you'll notice that he's got a lot of sounds floating around. And as he gears up to release his new project, Perfectly, Tragically Flawed, the Brooklyn singer/rapper is exploring interesting territory with some heavyweights as collaborators including Just Blaze — who signed OnCue, born Geoff Sarubbi, to his label Rebel Base Industries.
We sat down with OnCue on a rainy January afternoon in New York City to talk about the new record, as well as how indie pop duo, Postal Service, influenced him. Read the interview on the next page.
Homtown: Newington, CT
Homebase: Brooklyn, NY
Let's start with Perfectly, Tragically Flawed. What can you tell us about it?
Essentially this project is my most me ever. As an artist, you try to figure out certain things and try to come up in New York. It's clearly a difficult city to live and stay afloat in. I found a sense of self in this project. It's like a short album. It's six records, and it's great with the storytelling and sequencing. I think it's absolutely amazing work, and I'm not just saying that because it's mine. I genuinely think it's the most well-rounded album.
I actually didn't realize that you're also a rapper because you mostly sing on your last EP, You Knew Me All Along.
With the R&B stuff that came out in the last 12 months, that's a huge part of me. But this [new] project has that. I came out a minute ago, in terms of [being on the] internet, and sounded more alternative but then started transitioning into more R&B and back to almost urban. I didn't always do the alternative stuff. I was rapping when I was a kid. That's why I feel like it all came full-circle on this project and why it feels well-rounded because of the R&B influence and the approach I take with that. Aside from Maki, who's my right-hand man producer, and Just Blaze, who executive produced it. We got Jimmy Tamborello, who's one half of Postal Service. He worked on half of it.
When I was 18, and I found [Postal Service's] album Give Up, and it changed my life. It made me go into that alternative direction, and we started working on that project last year. And I got in contact with him. I went to LA and went to his crib. He showed me the synths where he played "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight," and I'm geeking. [The new record] is that stage of OnCue, R&B OnCue. It's just extremely well-rounded. I'm just so excited.
Let's talk about this evolution in your sound. Did you feel you needed to take those steps to get to the sound now?
1000 percent. The last real project I put out. I was in a bad space in my life. I had issues with my whole management. My whole team fucking dropping the ball. Then the next thing I know, it's been two years. And I haven't put out music. People are forgetting I'm existing. By the time I was making You Knew All Along, I was in a really dark place. I was going through bad things. So my music came out very dark and moody and extremely experimental. And that project did really well, but I could tell that it was too soon. It was too thought out. It was to heady with my audiences now and retaining the old ones. With that being said, it's all trials and tribulations. I had to figure it out.
I've always listened to R&B. I was the white kid in the suburbs and singing [Usher's] "Nice and Slow" word for word, but I needed to do those things. It's all harnessed and all balanced, but I had to go through all this to get here.
"3AM" got a lot of play last year. How did you feel about the reaction to it?
It did really well, especially relative to what I've been doing. You know what? I'm not surprised because I've been doing this long enough to realize the records that just do well. But I'll say this. When we were making this record, me and my engineer — I was tracking the vocal. I was actually working of Just's house because he was in between buildings, trying to build a new studio. So I'm Just's house with our engineer, and they were saying that I would lying on a leopard couch like this [Poses.] We were just fucking around.
I do love that record though. So I'm not surprised because my core fan base love the R&B. The ones who knew one or two records didn't know that side of me. That's because they're tucked away in my albums. I've been doing R&B since 2011, but they've always been inklings. So it was good to put that out, and that was strategic. I went on tour in 2015. Don't get me wrong. People were buying tickets to my shows, but it was 70 percent dudes. I was like, "I make records for women, too." But those are tucked away in my albums and were never singles. So I said, "Fuck it. Let's put out something like 3AM." And it worked.
What's next for OnCue?
There's a big kind of questions mark in the next couple of months, just in terms of where things can go. Right now, we're putting together a national tour. But I've already started working on new material. We got so shit going on with PTF. I need to get that record out of the way and then I'm back in the studio working. As long as everyone's doing their job, including me being in the studio and getting shit out, I just take it a day at a time. But my main focus is just getting back in the studio.
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