21-year-old Miguel Veloso is more widely known as the pop-rock artist MICO. He recently released his fifth EP, Internet hometown hero, on October 25, wrapping up a U.S. tour with a stop in New York City before heading over to Europe. He’s come a long way since his first release, 2020’s 21st century heartbreak, and is looking forward to making even more strides as his career progresses. Be sure to check out MICO’s newest EP here.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Would you walk through your creative process and how your music has evolved over time?

I know that at least musically it's changed a lot because now I'm definitely not writing alone in my room by myself with nothing but a guitar anymore. We had Mickey, my executive, producing this project. I also had my drummer and music director, Matt, listening to all the songs. He ended up writing on over half of them on the EP, because we also need to think about how these songs are going to translate to live now, and how, at least show-wise, we can make this narrative that makes sense — not only listening in your headphones at home but also in a room with hundreds of other people. I don't know how to explain it other than it's a lot bigger than just me now. 

How do you think that's affected your music? Is it sort of a response? Your music has changed and that's the leading factor in it getting bigger. Or do you think the music has changed as a result of it getting bigger?

It's kind of warranted a change where musically everything needs to feel bigger because I want something to build up to in those live moments. Now the show was the most important thing to me. I mean, it's always been important, but when the MICO project started, it was in the middle of quarantine, so there wasn't really an opportunity to do live shows. Now I feel this need for the records to be as big and bombastic as possible. But at the same time, I also noticed that a lot of the fans were resonating with a lot of the later material, which I definitely am grateful for, because it's the most vulnerable and raw that I've been lyrically so far in my career.

A lot of the earlier stuff, I'm on record for saying that a lot of it was just made up. I was 16, I had no idea what anything in life was, and now I'm very much writing every single song about very specific experiences, very meticulously pulling details from everything to kind of paint the right picture now. People seem to be picking up on that. Even though at its core it's all my ideas, it has grown to be a lot more than just what I have to say. It's how people react to it, it's how people listen to it, it's all the little elements in between that people hear now whenever I'm not singing.

How do you start writing a song? What's your favorite part of the process? The lyrics, composing the music, or the production — how do you start and what do you enjoy the most? 

This project was the first time that I was working with Mickey who ended up producing on the entire thing, but also my first time properly working with the 254 sound guys besides “deserve this.” It was my first time where all of the sessions in LA were cycling in different people every day. And so first and foremost, before you even think about writing a song, you just need to make sure that the vibes are good in the room. ‘Cause I am not the type of person where, at least for the MICO project, I could just, s*** out a song concept without making sure that I relate to everybody in the room. That is the strongest component in making sure that a song turns out good, because the audience is going to hear how you felt in that room at that moment.

So it’s a group process, really. How does that differ from some of your earlier albums? How did you go about writing those originally?

Writing originally was very much a solo mission in the past. Although I was focusing a lot less on the stuff that I genuinely had to say, I would hear stories from my friends and stuff and be like, oh, that would be a cool song. And then I'd show it to them two days later and they'd be like, what the hell, where did this come from? But now, writing songs has almost become a therapy session of sorts. Not saying that it's replacing therapy by any means, but it's become my way of processing my own problems and analyzing them and being able to kind of play multiple different characters in different roles in these scenarios.

So you've spoken a little bit about how your songwriting process now is very focused on playing live. I was wondering if you could just speak on that a bit. What’s it like to be touring? How do you feel about going to Europe?

Europe is going to be really exciting because Europe has been a big streaming market for us for a while. Ever since late 2021, we've seen, prominently a bunch of cities in the UK, a couple cities in Germany popping up in our little chart that we see on our backend and being able to finally go to those places and also all of the shows selling out. We've had to upgrade three venues now, that’s really cool. I know that there were a couple markets in there that we weren't really sure if we would sell and those ended up being the fastest ones selling out, so I was very happily surprised.

I'm just excited about everything live, especially because I come from a background of live performance. I went to high school with an arts program and my entire band went to that same high school. So we've all grown up playing in bands together, playing in ensembles together. And to be able to kind of share this experience with them as well is really cool for all of us, for all of us. And we've all been learning too. That first show that we did two years ago was all of our first shows, like proper shows where we were the ones selling tickets. I feel like everybody has grown so much in the band. Definitely not just myself, my drummer and my guitarist that run all the tech and my bassist who always ends up being the one doing the most crowd engagement and helping me navigate that field, everybody has grown so much and seeing that and I don't know, being able to share that with my best friends basically is the most fun part about it. 

You’re very open on social media, especially during your creative process, releasing snippets of songs before the actual official release date. What’s the decision-making process behind that?

Oh, I'm so notorious. I'm so bad at that. There is no decision-making process. I just post things because I'm excited about them. Fully and honestly, if one of those songs happened to blow up, I wouldn't rush finishing it. That's kind of what happened with a couple posts for “Idontwannaknowyou!” and I continued on as planned. I don't really let socials get to my head like that. I use it as a way to show how excited I am and share that excitement with fans and nothing really more or less.

It definitely helps that back in 2021 when everything was blowing up, all of those songs that I was teasing that were going crazy on socials were all done before any of them came out. “Second thoughts” was done for about a year before the EP was properly finalized and “tears” was already mostly written. So, I just post because I enjoy posting, which a lot of people can't say. But I feel like the audience kind of picks up that energy. Same thing with making sure that the vibe is right in the room when you're writing. You need to be excited about what you're putting out.

How do you feel about your rise in popularity? Have you found that it's very stressful?

I mostly just hold myself to my own expectations. As much as I appreciate everything that I've grown, I'm not going to let a couple of comments dictate the direction that I take. Even when it comes to everything visually for this EP and for everything in the past, I used that as an outlet too. I'm very involved with everything creatively. I helped edit the entire EP visualizer. I edited two of the music videos that ended up coming out. I was the one that drew the original storyboard for the EP. I have my hands in a lot of different baskets to ensure that even if one thing isn't as well received as I hoped or that one thing doesn't go according to plan, I can find joy in solace in knowing that every single ounce of creativity from my end has kind of been explored.

Who are your personal biggest musical influences and how did that influence the fusion of genres that encompasses your music?

I feel like there's always been kind of a presence of youthful pop-rock, pop-punk energy in a lot of what I've been putting out. But especially with this project, I've been able to tap into a lot of just the generally more pop influences. There's a little bit of hip-hop happening in there, especially when it comes to tracks like “TV” and “The one to fall” with the percussion. There's a couple moments where my little indie electronica side comes out, especially on, “good luck, have fun.” I kind of let that roam free there. There's moments where the sad little indie boy gets to come out a little bit. “Senses” is super Jeremy Zucker–coded.

What’s your biggest goal as you progress through the rest of your music career? 

I think the best thing that could happen would probably be figuring out how to maintain the current level of fan interaction I have as it continues to grow. I don't want to give up what I currently have. I love being able to talk back to people in the crowd. I love being able to hop into a voice chat or a broadcast or a live stream and be able to have conversations with people normally. I want to find ways where we can keep that alive.

// Aadya Gujja ’28 is a guest writer for Record Hospital.