At the top of the year, singer-songwriter-producer Nick Rattigan was finished with a new Current Joys album when he hit a creative wall. The songs were there. But he had ambitions to explore a more immersive sound, leaning into denser, more intricate production, juxtapose to his intimate DIY pop sketches.
Rattigan notes his habit of falling into music rabbit holes following him into the studio, shaping the sound of whatever he’s working on. His 2024 album Love + Pop was ignited after he watched a documentary about Lil Peep. The Long Island emo-trap crooner, lead Current Joys to lean into a hip-hop infused pop-punk sound much like the Blink-182 records that inspired him to pick up a guitar 15 years earlier.
This time, his inspiration came through a session with up-and-coming alternative rap star matt proxy. The Minneapolis emcee introduced him to producer Danny Dwyer, better known as never goodbye, who became the sonic rock behind Current Joy’s rebuilding his latest effort, Rosebud. The duos industrial, grandiose production paired with Rattigan’s melancholic songwriting.
“I still want to live in this world,” Rattigan said explaining how he continues to add finishing touches as the album comes out. Making a video for every song has also given him a reason to live with the project. He was answering texts about edits to the video he shot the night before. With all its musical complexity, Rosebud has centered Nick Rattigan in a new era of Current Joys.
Medicine Box: I like to start these conversations by getting to know someone’s musical DNA. What were you listening to growing up, and what were you into when you first started making music professionally?
Current Joys: My musical DNA is all over the place. I’m sure most people’s is. I was born in 1992, and I grew up on the Beatles. I got my first CD when I was about 7, and it was Blink-182’s “Enema of the State.” I memorized that album front to back. It was a lot of pop-punk stuff, and then I got into punk: Black Flag, Dead Kennedys. Then I got really heavy into nu metal, like Korn and System of a Down. System of a Down was my favorite band and might still be. They’re just so incredible. I had this aunt who came over one day. I was showing her a Slipknot music video — I think it was “Vermilion” — and she was like, “I’m going to give you a CD.” She gave me the Violent Femmes’ self-titled album, and then I got really into Violent Femmes and Pixies.
Medicine Box: Tell me about your relationship with making and exploring hip-hop music.
Then, on New Year’s Day 2023, I watched the Lil Peep documentary. I’d just had this crazy New Year’s party at my house, and I was in the aftermath of that. The credits were rolling, and it said, “Executive produced by Terrence Malick.” I was like, “What am I in for here?” I was not expecting that. I fell in love with Lil Peep. I got so obsessed with it, and that led me down this hip-hop rabbit hole. I’d been into hip-hop before, various things throughout my life, but never so obsessively. That coincided with underground rap becoming very interesting. I got really into everything that was coming out around 2016, the SoundCloud stuff. That was my whole 2023. Then, in 2024, fakemink, Nettspend and all that stuff was coming out. I started following hip-hop for the last couple of years in a way that I always describe as watching pro wrestling. Everyone has their character, and there are beefs. It’s extremely entertaining to be part of modern hip-hop conversations.
Medicine Box: You’ve talked about drawing inspiration from whatever you’re into at the time. What was it about your studio session with matt proxy that inspired you to move in this new direction?
Current Joys: I do so many sessions, and it’s kind of like dating. You’re doing something so intimate with someone, so vulnerable, and it doesn’t always match up. But I always say that in that session, I feel like I fell in love. Matt has such a creative intensity to him. He has a passion for this stuff, and he’s so young. He just turned 20. Pretty much, I walked in, and they were like, “Let’s do some guitar.” I started playing acoustic guitar, and they took that and ran with it. Matt was like, “I’m really into the Beach Boys right now.” We somehow created this weird Beach Boys thing, and Matt wrote this beautiful flow on top of it. Then we were like, “OK, now this part needs some crazy distortion.” It was such a cool process. I’d been stuck in a rut for so long, looking for something new. I listen to all this music that’s so inspiring, but I don’t have the production capabilities or necessarily the skills to make something that experimental or refreshing.
Medicine Box: matt proxy said that it was your music that introduced him to alternative rock/indie , and you actually put him on to some music when you worked together. What have you learned from working with him?
Current Joys: When I first started talking to him, I went to one of his shows because my friend had put me on to him. I heard the cypher verse he did, and I was like, “Whoa, this kid is doing something crazy.”
I went to his show in Los Angeles. I think he played “EMF,” and I took a video, posted it on Instagram and tagged him. He immediately DM’d me and was like, “What the fuck? Current Joys?” Then he sent me a cover of one of my songs that he’d recorded when he was, I guess, 12 or something really crazy.
I’ve learned a lot from Matt. Being so far along in my career, doing this for 15 years, it’s so refreshing and revitalizing to see someone at the beginning of their career who’s so talented and so hungry for creativity, new sounds and genre-blending. That’s what the Lil Peep era really impressed on me: I love genre-blending. I think the future of music is this very unfiltered way of making something.
Medicine Box: Now that you’ve finished the album and your European tour, what have you been listening to on the road and at home?
Current Joys: It’s funny. I feel like I’ve mostly just been listening to the album over and over again. I always say I make music very selfishly. I make it for myself to listen to, with the things I want to hear.
Since I’m making a music video for every song, I’ve been running the album and getting ideas, themes and visual references. But I’ve been in a bit of a music slump. I really liked that Lucy Bedroque album that came out. The new Jane Remover single was fire. I’ve been diving back into some of my old playlists. It’s spooky season, so I’ve been listening to Sematary a lot, and Bones. The song I’ve been running the most lately is that Sematary song “Bunny Suit.” It’s a really old one. I love Sematary so much now, but I think that was one of the first songs I heard, and I was like, “What the hell is going on here?” Now I’m obsessed with it.
Medicine Box: You mentioned being in a creative rut before this album. Beyond collaboration and the music you’re drawing from, what helps you work through writer’s block?
Current Joys: Oh, man. This one was really rough. I’ve had it before. I think the biggest writer’s block I had before this was about eight or nine years ago. The last time this happened was right before I did “A Different Age.” I had a year and a half where I could not write a song. Then I remember sitting down one day and writing “Become the Warm Jets.” I got on my knees and was like, “Thank you, God. Thank you so much.” With the nature of writing music, I don’t even know where it comes from. It’s like a little faucet in your brain. Sometimes it’s on, and sometimes it’s not. When it’s not, it can be really challenging. For me, the thing that brought me out was definitely collaboration. It was almost like I had this sound in my head that I was trying to achieve, and I couldn’t do it technically. I couldn’t do it with my production skills. I’ve produced most of my albums. That’s the music I listen to. It’s got a lot going on. To achieve that really got me out of my slump.
Medicine Box: Did working with other producers push you out of a comfort zone you might not have realized you were in, compared with your usual DIY approach?
Current Joys: When I started this project, it was just me and a loop pedal. For years, I didn’t even want a band. Slowly, I opened myself up to a band, then more collaboration. Now I feel like it’s mostly collaboration. I like having sessions with people, especially working with rappers, because I can’t rap. I wish I could. I’ve opened myself up to a world where I value collaboration, and I’m excited by it. But for the longest time, I was very much like, “No, I’m going to do everything myself.”
Medicine Box: Film is another influence on your work, including the Lil Peep documentary you mentioned. What made you want to create a music video for every song on “Rosebud”?
Current Joys: I was really excited while I was making it, and every song to me was a single. One day, it popped out of my mouth: “Video for every song.” Then I think I just had to commit to it. It’s been awesome because it’s elongated the process of this album. Finishing it was so sad for me because I was like, “I still want to live in this world.” It’s been fun to work on the videos because I’m still in that creative flow, but in a completely different way. It feels like I’m making a TV show or something because there are so many different vibes, different energies going into each video and different directors. It’s been keeping me in the “Rosebud” world, which is really exciting. I’m really glad I did it. It’s not finished yet. The video that comes out in two days, we’re still editing it. We only shot it a week ago. The one that comes out next week, we shot a couple of days ago.
Medicine Box: So it’s all still very much a work in progress.
Current Joys: Yeah, which is cool. I wanted this release to replicate some of my earlier times making music, when I would release something right after I finished it. Even though the song is finished, we’re working on the video until midnight before releasing it. It feels like there’s still this tangible connection to the song until I put it out. With “East My Love,” my last record, it took me about four years to finally record it and put it out. It was almost like I didn’t have the same sentimental attachment to it anymore by the time it came out. This is a way of really connecting myself fully to something that’s coming out as we go.
Medicine Box:Is there a song that captures the album’s ethos for you?
Current Joys: To me, “Wildfire” really says it all. I was coming out of this very chaotic time in my life, and it left me in a deep depression. I’d been flying so high, drinking a lot, doing a lot of drugs, living what I would describe as this “rock star lifestyle.” People see it as that, but really it’s just addiction. It was about two years of being high, smoking a lot of weed and getting into some other stuff. It reached this really dark point where I had to stop. Once I stopped, I fell into a creative rut and a deep depression. That’s when I started writing these songs. I was also coming out of the “Love + Pop” era and the reaction to that, feeling creatively lost. I never make music for other people, but I think that was the first time I’d received such negative backlash for putting something out. That’s what a lot of the writing is about: trying to find something to hold on to when I felt so out at sea without a paddle. A lot of the songs that got cut from the record are even darker and more depressing.
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