Gerald Wicks Talks Musical Influences, Finding His Sound, and “here we go again”
Gerald Wicks is an NYC-based artist in every sense of the word. Although he’s been singing for most of his life and began “officially” releasing music in 2020, he recently saw a surge of new listeners after sharing his single “here we go again” on TikTok–and rightfully so. We sat down with Gerald to explore his wide-ranging background, from choir kid roots to Disney Channel ambitions, his path to carving out a sound of his own, the story behind “here we go again,” and what the future holds for this rising artist.
I'd first love to know more about you as a person. Who is Gerald Wicks? Where are you from?
I'm from Mississippi. I'm from this town called Clinton, Mississippi. It's right outside of Jackson. I was born in Maryland. My mom's in the Navy, so we traveled around a bit. We moved back down there when I was five, and that's all I know. So I went to college in Mississippi. I moved out here in January of 2019, and I've been [in New York City] since.
How did that upbringing affect your artistry today? What did you listen to as you were growing up?
My grandparents are from this town right outside of West Point. It's Northern Mississippi. They're Southern Baptists, so I grew up on gospel. They sang in the choir, so whenever we went to visit them, I would just sit and listen. And then my dad is a big jazz head, so I listened to a lot of his jazz music growing up, and my mom is big on R&B. She loves Beyonce. She loves Mariah Carey. Just like singers. So I had the R&B, the jazz, and then gospel. And then growing up in Mississippi when I started to find my own music that I was into… I mean, well, another backstory. I grew up as a fine art artist, and I drew and stuff for a long time. But one of the big things was I just wanted to be a Disney Channel kid. I really wanted to move out to Hollywood and do all those things.
That’s so funny.
And so from that I loved acting. I was in theater, took dance classes, and choir. I just loved to perform. So my music tastes around then… I loved David Archuleta.
“Crush” is so good.
It's so good. And then, like JoJo, John Legend, Elliot Yamin. I just liked singers that were on TV. I just wanted to be on TV and do the thing. But when I was in high school, I listened to Bon Iver, and the self-titled album was something I played front to back over and over and over again. It really just timestamped the very confusing, but also beautiful... I mean, it's just adolescence. I just really gravitated towards that album, and I think sonically it introduced me to a whole new world.
Was that when music started taking precedence over your other artistic endeavors a little bit?
Yeah, I mean, I was in choirs and things, so I'd always been working on music and singing, but yeah, I guess that was when I was like, oh, this is what music does because it's doing this to me. And these musicians are creating bodies of work and writing about things that are touching me. I think maybe at that point, I was like, okay, I don't want to just be like a Disney Channel star or just singing songs. I want to actually be writing music that means–or hopefully means–something to people or stirs up some kind of deep feeling in someone.
Yeah, absolutely. So your first release on streaming services…
So my first release on streaming was this song called “Falter.” It was so dramatic! I took it off. I made it with a good friend of mine in high school. Yeah, dramatic. I mean, my stuff now is pretty dramatic, but I listened to Bon Iver a lot. So I tried to do my best Bon Iver lyrics and things. But I took it off. My first, I call it my first official release, was in 2020. It's called “love, lost.” I think that was the first song that felt like it was–in my head–good enough, like a time capsule of that moment that I was in and I wanted to release it. That's when I started to see myself as an artist, like a releasing artist. Then I would do songs like every year–it's very sporadic.
Would you say now you've found your sound?
Yeah, for sure. I think so. I think I've found something that feels unique to me, but also is so influenced by a lot of my favorite artists. I think as artists, we're a coffee cup of all of the artists that filter through us, and I take pride in that. This feels like something that is intimate to me. It just feels right. I'm not trying to necessarily be anyone, which at other points in my career in doing this, I've battled with that. Like admiring all these people and wanting to make music as good as them. You want to sound like them, but that's never truthful.
I've actually seen a lot of comments saying you sound like Frank Ocean, Sampha, and some others. How do you feel about that? Are you honored, or are you scared of being put in a box?
No, not at all, because I think a lot of the artists that I've been so lucky to be compared to aren't in a box, and I think they've paved their own lane. What I love about the comments is, I think, naturally, as people, we compare. I think we group things in our head, and we gravitate towards the things we already know that we like, so I get that. As a listener, I do the same thing. I love that people have been able to say, this reminds me of this, but it's your thing. And all of those artists I love deeply. I still feel like this boy in Mississippi that's been wanting to make music his whole life and has looked up to all these people and to even be compared… That's so great. I accept it and I love it, and I also know that I'm not trying to be like any of those artists. I'm trying to sound like myself and figure out what that is. But also, I don't mind the comparison. Very flattering.
Yeah, like, I'll take it. Well, I wanted to talk about your single “here we go again,” because it went triple platinum in my playlist. I sent it to everyone I knew. What inspired it? What did the writing and production process look like?
That song is about that person that you just keep coming back to. I had an instance where I got the “you're so cool, but I don't think this is gonna work out” text, and then at that same moment, got the “hey, what are you up to” from someone else. I was like, well, I guess here we go again. There's that someone that you're really close to, and they understand you in ways that other people may not, but just with timing and life happenings, it just doesn't work out, but you're so drawn to that person. I think this song was kind of recognizing that maybe not in this lifetime, but the stars have aligned tonight and we're back again.
It was really fun to write. I have a small studio set up, so I started a demo and had a good bit of the song fleshed out and the idea was there, and then I had a session with Jeremy [Lloyd] and he took that and we kind of took it apart. He was playing the chords that I had given, and then we unlocked a cool sound. It was very bouncy… Do you remember Reading Rainbow? It was a show on PBS Kids and LeVar Burton was the host. I remember watching it so much when I was little, and the theme song for Reading Rainbow feels so nostalgic, very synthy and very spacey, but then you have soulful vocals over it. Whenever Jeremy was playing that I was like, oh, this feels like Reading Rainbow. It feels so nice. But yeah, I met this girl, Chloe George, she's absolutely amazing. We ended up having a session together, and I brought up this song. She helped me piece that last bit together, and it was really nice to have another songwriter.
When you were writing and producing it, did you feel like this was going to be the one that was going to gain traction?
When I made the demo for this one, I remember talking to one of my best friends, and I was like, there's something that feels good about this one. I don't know what it was. I wrote it in April, so this was right when I left corporate. I think maybe there was this excitement for finally pursuing it. I was just high on life. I don't know, maybe it's like an energy thing where when you really do feel good about something, people can tell.
About its music video, I know you worked with a cinematographer, but given your visual background–including as a graphic designer–did you feel like the song already had a visual identity that you wanted to bring to life? Or did it come much later?
Yeah, it always does. A lot of the time, I have certain scenes or a color scheme, or I know if it takes place at night or in the day. I have visual cues that I already know about, and then as the song finishes up, the picture gets a little clearer. One of my favorite things is, when I write a song, I'll make a Pinterest board of moods or typography that I like that feels like the song. For this process, I had a bunch of different mood boards that I made and gave over to Keo. Dope musician, dope visual artist and cinematographer. He got it and sent back a treatment, and it was really cool. In the snippets that I've put out, people say “this feels like a night drive” or “this feels like I'm sitting at, like, the edge of the water under the bridge.” I'm like, I see that too! I think it's really beautiful. The shared experience that we can all have in visually how we can all see the same thing.
My favorite part was the finger tapping. I love that. I feel like it’s exactly what I’d envision for that part. My last question: is there anything upcoming that you would want to tease? What can people expect from you?
Yeah! I have a single that is gonna come out called “RADIO SILENCE” that was actually written before “here we go again”. Then next year–hopefully at the top of next year–I'll have an EP.
Listen to “RADIO SILENCE,” out now on streaming platforms.
