Friends Like These: guccihighwaters x nothing, nowhere.

NME | Music, Film, TV, Gaming & Pop Culture News

“I’ve been pretty disconnected from the SoundCloud world for almost two years now,” says singer-songwriter and rapper guccihighwaters (real name Morgan Murphy). “My songs don’t even really get that much traction on there – and that was the sign to me. It’s like, ‘Alright, I’m not even a part of this world anymore.’”

In recent years, Murphy, who rose to prominence as part of a new wave of emo rappers in 2017, has begun to transcend the SoundCloud realm. He has achieved viral success across other streaming platforms, much like his long-time friend nothing, nowhere. (real name Joe Mulherin), a fellow singer and rapper. Mulherin explains: “My songs get auto-uploaded on [SoundCloud], but I think it’s dead. It feels like we were seniors back in the day and then we graduated. It’d be weird to go back to your high school and just walk around and be like, ‘Hey, what’s up guys, you hear me? I used to run this! I used to run this school, man!’”

Yet both Murphy and Mulherin, whose careers have flourished, still credit the music sharing site as the reason for their close friendship. “We’ve known each other for a while because of SoundCloud,” says Mulherin. “I’m really surprised that we didn’t collaborate earlier, but I am glad we did.”

The pair’s latest single, ‘rock bottom’, is their first collaborative effort, and it showcases an introspective blend of alt-rock and dark hip-hop flourishes – a marked progression from the online emo scene that they were once solely associated with. The track appears on Murphy’s debut album proper, ‘joke’s on you’, which landed in January, and emboldens his self-reflective songwriting as the lyrics dissect a fractured relationship.

“We’ve all felt like we’re at rock bottom, where nothing matters,” says Murphy of the song’s meaning. “And there’s just no hope or anything but, for some reason, you’re just still sticking together. No matter what happens between you and this other person in the relationship, you’re just gonna stick it out because it can’t get any worse than rock bottom.”

“I remember when you sent me the track and I was like, ‘Yep, I’ve been there.’”, Mulherin responds to Murphy. “I thought it was rad, and the beat was crazy. So I was like, ‘Yes, this is a no-brainer!’”

For the latest edition of NME‘s Friends Like These series (which you can watch in full above), the collaborators spoke to each other about their recent albums, a shared passion for playing Call Of Duty and their first-ever live shows.

 – guccihighwaters and nothing, nowhere.’s ‘rock bottom’ is out now

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