“Bad Habit” musician Steve Lacy, who reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart earlier this year, opened up about his musical influences during an interview with The Guardian last week.
The singer’s comments come toward the end of an eventful 2022 which included his viral TikTok smash hit “Bad Habit,” four Grammy Award nominations and an appearance as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in November.
Former President Barack Obama also recently named “Sunshine,” Lacy’s song with Foushée, as one of his favorite songs from the past year.
Lacy, who has worked with stars such as Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar, told The Guardian that the video game “Guitar Hero” helped put him on to “a lot of rock and guitar music,” and as he aged he found pleasure in the songs of several other rockers.
“As I got older, artists such as Paramore raised me. Mac DeMarco, Dirty Projectors, Vampire Weekend. Even Weezer ― Undone is one of my [favorite] songs ever,” said Lacy, who later added that he likes indie act Faye Webster, as well.
Lacy described the melodies and voice of Paramore’s lead singer Hayley Williams, who collaborated with Weezer in 2011, as “crazy” as she takes rock and makes it soulful.
He detailed his love for Weezer’s wit and humor, too, and revealed more about his fondness for “Undone – The Sweater Song.”
“The dissonance of the chord progression of Undone is truly just weird,” he said. “For something like that to exist was super important for me in my musical journey, to be, like: ‘Oh, wow, you can make this sound fun and dope.’”
Lacy, who often gets compared to music legend Prince, said he takes a small piece of everything that he loves when he creates music before name-dropping the “Purple Rain” singer.
“I’ll take certain melodic approaches from Prince, but I’ll play it as if someone else was mimicking Prince, like if Jimi Hendrix tried to be Prince,” Lacy said.
“But I like to mix different approaches together. It happens naturally. I’m never doing it all purposely. It’s just inside of me.”