‘come outside when the lights dim’

‘come outside when the lights dim’

Illusion Hills, childhood friends turned musical rock stars have completely transformed the music game. An inspiring aesthetic, mixed with cross-genre melodies can only help but to make listeners feel exhilarated. Their newest EP, ‘come outside when the lights dim’ has the perfect amount of passion, energy, and soul that reaches every person that listens. These talented artists have so many more lives to touch, and yet quoted in their song ‘rebound’, “…we’re still young-we’re all like not even 20 yet.”

These trendsetters started years ago as childhood friends and teammates. “I kind of met everyone in different areas of my life,” MJ states. He met a majority of the group as a child playing basketball, and some a bit later. Although everyone in the group had their own start-ups, Mj started producing early and felt the urge to make it something bigger. He had an Instagram for a clothing brand called, ‘Illusion Hills’ and was like, “I have all these talented friends, why not make a group?” And ever since then, they’ve been unstoppable.

With such a large group there's always ideas floating around. They all have very similar interests although their inspirations come from different places. Whether it was an admiration for Brock Hampton or Childish Gambino, they all, strangely enough, like similar music. They expressed this during some humor in the interview, “I don’t even how we all got the same music taste” Jayden laughed. This transposes into their music production where although emotions behind a song might differ, they all enjoy the vibe they create.

But through all this, they still have challenges as every other team does. Brandon, the Video Director of the group shared some insight. “Sometimes you never feel fully together,” he states “Everybody has highs and lows at different times, and communication is something we still work on.” Even when it comes to writing, not all of them feel the same thing. It’s very important for them to remain “not selfish but selfless” as Mj states. No matter what is on their path they all continue to remain as patient as possible and let their growth be organic.“It’s a marathon mentality. This was really important after ‘come outside when the lights dim’. Being it in it for the long race.” Salad, Graphic Designer stated. 
 
Through all of this, they all share their excitement with the desire to continue to grow with one another. When asked about the glue that keeps them together, these were some of their responses. 

Brandon (Video Director): Expressionism. It’s the rawest form of art. If we don’t stay creative, we’re never going to be happy. We’re just excited to make something better and fresher. We could always go one notch higher.

Mj (Vocalist): We’re all genuinely best friends. We hangout all the time. That keeps us together constantly.

Jay (Vocalist): It’s really just giving a f*ck about art. It’s very important to me.” 

Isaiah (Vocalist): Just wanting to improve. Helping each other. They help me become a better artist. 

Ky (Vocalist): Our growth together is just crazy. They’re always driven. You absorb that drive. We’re all fighting for the same thing. 

As far as next steps for Illusion Hills there is a lot on their horizon. There is new merch coming soon and a short film! Brandon and Pada collaborated on this piece, featuring Isaiah a vocalist in the group. It was based off ‘flare’ a song from their latest EP. Brandon gave some insight on it. 

Brandon (Director): ‘flare’ is the last song on the EP we dropped recently. I was like, dude, this needs to be in a soundtrack. It felt like it was for the art. I talked to Isaiah a lot, he’s the main character and the vocalist on ‘flare’. It’s in the works, coming very soon. 

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