LOS ANGELES-Don”t look for a new Macklemore & Ryan Lewis album anytime soon.
The pair, whose breakthrough album, “The Heist,” has spawned three radio hits and is still in the top 20 on the Billboard 200, plans to take some time to “live life” and refuel their creative tanks after they finish their current tour at the end of the year.
Speaking at the Grammy Museum here Wednesday night, Lewis admitted that the pressure to top themselves following the platinum success of “The Heist” was there, but that the duo knew it would be wrong to try to rush out a follow-up quickly -although he added the next album might not take the three years it took to make “The Heist.”
“By Christmas, we would have played 250 shows since ‘The Heist” came out,” Lewis said. “To go straight into the studio [without a break] and think you have something to share would be wrong…If you don”t have shit to say, you don”t have shit to say.”
Macklemore (aka Ben Haggerty) said he”s tried to write on the road, but with little success since he writes what he knows. “We”ve been traveling every day,” he says, adding that his lyrics on tour usually amount to “‘I”m on an airplane.” No one wants to hear that song ever,” he said with a laugh.
And about those radio hits, “Thrift Shop,” “Can”t Hold Us,” and “Same Love”? Macklemore says he never expected the success the pair has received at Top 40 radio. “I didn”t think we had one single on ‘The Heist”,” he said. “I didn”t think it would get radio play.”
Then when the Seattle act scored big with “Thrift Shop,” featuring Wanz, and the song stayed atop the Billboard Hot 100 for six non-consecutive weeks, Macklemore worried that the pair would be seen as a novelty act. “I was the ‘Thrift Shop” guy and it was scary as hell,” he says. “Then, ‘Can”t Hold Us” relieved some of that, and with ‘Some Love,” the fear was completely eased.”
A number of the songs on “The Heist” take on issues, whether it be “Same Love”s” warm embrace of same sex marriage or “Wings,” which stresses anti-consumerism. Macklemore said he knows it”s a fine line between making a point and preaching, and he”s careful not to cross it. “I write from experience. I try to do it from my perspective from my own life,” he said. “‘Wings” is about anti-consumerism. I acknowledge I”m caught up in it. All of these are my issues; my means of communication is to be vulnerable.”
And he admits he felt very vulnerable as he wrote the lyrics to “Same Love.” The line, “in third grade, I thought that I was gay” was the “scariest bars I ever put on a song, but that”s my truth. People on the internet are going to say ‘you”re a homo.” I don”t care.” He reiterated the comment he made during his acceptance speech for Video with the Best Social Message at Sunday”s Video Music Awards that “Same Love” remains the duo”s song he is the proudest to have written.
Macklemore referred to the VMAs as a “nervewracking” experience, not because it was the pair”s first performance at a major awards show, but because he didn”t know how to win and award and give an acceptance speech. “You don”t want to mess that up,” he said, before he and Lewis gave a shout out to their publicist in the audience whom they did forget to thank from the Barclays Center stage on Sunday.
With their rising popularity, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are having the most success of any Seattle rap act since Sir Mix-A-Lot hit it big with 1992″s “Baby Got Back.” And while they hope other local hip-hop artists follow their lead, Macklemore is in no way ready to hand over the mic.
“As much as you want to pass the torch, as an MC, by nature I”m a competitive person,” he said. “It”s ego. I want to be the biggest rapper that ever came out of Seattle.”