Dev Hynes
Dev Hynes
Devonté "Dev" Hynes, also known as Blood Orange and formerly Lightspeed Champion, is a British singer, songwriter, composer, producer and author. From 2004 to 2006, Hynes was a member of the band Test Icicles, playing guitar, synth, and occasionally performing vocals. They released only one full-length album in 2005. Hynes went on to release two solo studio albums as Lightspeed Champion and subsequently three more as Blood Orange, between 2008 and 2016...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth23 December 1985
CityHouston, TX
Sometimes that's the only way I exist, talking to people through pop culture.
I approach every single thing I do as a fan. It's the only way I can do things. That way, I never let myself down.
I avoid falling into a trap of doing work solely to impress people. I always ask myself, "What don't I ever see?"
Personally, I always just want people to enjoy themselves and experience something that they wouldn't normally experience.
I try to take it as it comes. I'm constantly trying to please myself. That's why I've basically realised now, that nothing else in the world matters at all, just please yourself and the people you love and that's it.
Radio voices have a solid, even texture.
I see no kind of reason to not just try everything. I mean, I feel like we all have such varied tastes, and to not just try our tastes is a crime.
When I was asked to compose a score for... 'Palo Alto,' I first thought to myself, 'What is the house that these characters would want to live in?' I wanted to paint a picture and color scheme that I could work around. I gently apply different daubs to see what fits to match the color I have in mind with these characters.
Some people say I do it too much, but I'm always asking the artist questions. Sometimes - especially with new artists - you can see they're compromising in their mind. You see that look when they're listening to a vocal take and there's hesitation. And I'll be like, 'Are you sure you don't want to do this again?'
It's funny because I think, as a general rule, that people seem to think that if you do lots of different things over the course of, like, a timeline, it means that you kind of disregard what you did before. But that's not true of me. I still genuinely like everything I did as much as I liked it when I released it.
The way it works for me is my sight and sound senses are combined. Every sound I associate with a color and every color I associate with a sound... The way I see things is constant streamers across the room, bouncing off from every touch and every sound. Over the years, I've learned what color palates I love most.
I don't want to say I hate remixes, because I don't, but I hate what instantly comes to mind now when people say 'remixes.'
If I like something, I then have to study every single aspect of it to find out if there's more things that I would like, and it's just this weird hunger to want more. I always feel like there's so much that exists.
Everything I do, I build a kind of confidence net - 'I'm able to execute this; it's fine.'