Embracing and Loving Your Inner Child

Angus Doyle. Photo credit: Jasmine Glover

Angus Doyle is a larger than life writer, rapper, performer, and person. His fun energy and infectious laughter lights up a room so easily and his music has a very similar effect. With an esoteric style of rapping and bouncy beats, his music is far from the status quo. After an amazing set recently at Jukebox at the Cave Inn, Kade caught up with him to talk about his love for music, Geometry Dash, and a very special greyhound.

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Kade: Who am I joined by tonight?

Angus: Angus Doyle.

Kade: And can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Angus: Shit, I'm 20 years old. I'm a rapper inspired by Geometry Dash and I make music and play Geometry Dash.

Kade: Hell yeah. Speaking of Geometry Dash, that was the first thing I was going to ask you about. Pretty clearly through your visuals, your sound, and even your samples, there are Geometry Dash references and influences just absolutely everywhere in your music. I wanted to ask what the game means to you and how it has influenced you?

Angus: I think it's a medium of art, regarding specifically the level editor and the community made levels. And every level is like an audiovisual experience. I want to make levels to my songs, because I feel like it's a medium of art that expresses a product that you can't really get anywhere else. I think it's underrated as fuck. Also, playing the game itself just takes mad persistence but also rhythm. And I fuck with that.

Kade: So, when it comes to Geometry Dash, who are some of the players, creators, or community members who have been a big inspiration for you?

Angus: Shit, I like Zylenox and 2003devin. They're really cool art creators who, I feel like lean a little more towards an esoteric vibe. I fuck with that heavy. They're the ones that kind of made me see Geometry Dash as like, an art form and more than a game. I mess with them. I mess with Triple Six by Zylenox and World War by 2003devin.

Kade: Another person you've mentioned in the past is FunnyGame. What are some of your favourite levels from FunnyGame and do you have any plans to ever include FunnyGame in any of your visual media?

Angus: I mean, maybe include in visual media. I have a very spontaneous creative process. I guess I haven't thought that far ahead. I think more of that while I'm editing the video and stuff. I like Two Faced Agony. It's an insane Nine Circles demon by FunnyGame. I think it's really unique and a really cool take on the Nine Circles style, and it's just trippy. I'm playing it right now, and it's really hard to play. Just because of the visuals.

Kade: On the note of Nine Circles, you’ve sampled the original Nine Circles song in one of your songs before. What other songs from Geometry Dash have you sampled in your music?

Angus: Well, there's this one particular artist that goes by the name of NIGHTkilla or Rukkus or Realistik, as you might know, if you play Geometry Dash. He's one of my biggest musical inspirations. I love his style of mixing. Like, he just has a fatass limiter on all of his songs. I also like other albums that do that, [like] Almighty So by Chief Keef. I fuck with that style of mixing heavy. I don't know. It just like, makes it sound dirty and grimy. I've sampled ‘Evil’ by NIGHTkilla in two different songs. One which is kind of released, one which is completely unreleased. The one that's kind of released is ‘2eepy’. It's a full song, but it's only released on my Instagram second account, and I reversed and chopped the melody to that one.

Kade: While we're talking about influences, you've now mentioned Chief Keef, NIGHTkilla or Rukkus, and also Geometry Dash as a whole, do you have any other albums or artists that you can point to for inspiration?

Angus: Bonito Generation by Kero Kero Bonito. I really fuck with that. They’re just really, musically complex and talented. And I think topically, they are like, one of the most ahead of their time bands ever.

Kade: You've mentioned in the past Aphex Twin and Sweet Trip as well for contributions to your style. Could you tell me a little bit more about that?

Angus: I got into Sweet Trip before Aphex Twin, which I think is important, especially the album that got me into Sweet Trip, Velocity : Design : Comfort. It’s quite heavily under that IDM influence, Aphex Twin influence. What I like about Velocity : Design : Comfort is how textured it is. It's like, you can tell that there's so much time put into an album like that. It was the first album, which kind of blew my mind as far as like, fusion of genres goes. I see it as like shoegaze, dream pop, glitch, and IDM all in one album. They just have the most like, beautiful pieces. I really like the songs Velocity and Sept. Those are really good songs. Very long. I like long songs.

Kade: So you have a song, SocSocSoc, named after your dog, Soc. Tell me a little bit more about Soc.

Angus: Man, he's a greyhound that my family got at the start of 2021. He's an ex-racing greyhound. And he broke his leg in a race, so they were going to put him down but my sister saw him on Facebook, and we were like “man, he's a fucking cutie”. We got him and the first week was fucked. He just had mad trauma from growing up in that racing environment for three and a half years. Also, just a drastic change in lifestyle and environment. Like, he'd just be like barking and whining all night, and ate the blinds one time. So yeah, we had a chunk of that missing for a while.

But he turned eight this year and he's just warmed up to his new life so much more. And I don't know, it's a really good experience, you know, rehabilitating a rescue dog, and I love Soc. He's got the most weird and funny personality, as like a lot of greyhounds do. And I love him so much, I had to go and make a song about him, yeah.

Kade: Turning to tonight, we're currently recording this interview on the night of the Jukebox gig at the Cave Inn, your set tonight was amazing and the crowd was absolutely insane.

Angus: They were.

Kade: That was in part due to your incredible way of getting the crowd involved. Which leads me to be curious about what your plans are for future live performances?

Angus: I mean, just drop more music and perform it. I haven't really planned what I'm going to do. Like, I'm a very, like, on the go kind of guy. I have an idea for an all-ages gig, because some people were upset about it being 18 plus. I feel like my music definitely caters toward a younger generation, as I think all unique art does. So that's my main goal at the moment, just, you know, have a gig where everyone can get involved.

Kade: Another thing that I wanted to ask you was the very unique album cover of your latest self-titled project. What was the design process like for that?

Angus: I finally just decided, I wanted to drop the album. So, I was like, let's just make an album cover. Once again, I didn't think too much about it. I just knew I wanted an old photo of myself, and I kind of just went from there with stuff from my past. Behind me in the album cover, there's one of the first paintings, I think the first watercolour painting I ever did. There's an excerpt from my buddy that I had in Prep, who was talking about me. And it says something about the funniest thing he has said is, “hey bro”. He laughed a lot at that. I just thought that was a funny quote. So, I chucked that in. I'm just really inspired by my childhood, I guess. And, you know, I think treating your inner child with like, love and respect is a big part of my philosophy and my approach to art.

I always got bullied by my family and peers for the type of music I liked, which was dubstep, EDM, complextro, future bass, and techno. There was a while where I kind of rejected that side of me. But there was a moment where I listened to one of those old songs that I used to listen to. I was actually on the way home from New Year's in 2022 to 2023. And I was just on the train and I was listening to ‘Epilogue’ by Creo. And there’s this one part, 40 seconds in. And that shit's just euphoric and ethereal. And I was like, “holy fuck, this is like, the greatest song ever.” Like, how have I been rejecting this? After that, I slowly accepted my innocent, childlike self.

That’s sort of the basis behind Angus Doyle as an artist, and me as a person.

Kade: As we move to wrapping this up, I have one thing that I've been asking people that I'll now ask you. Over the next 365 days, if you could choose three things that you would like to accomplish, what would they be?

Angus: Oh... Sheesh. Probably, beat some extreme demons .I want to find a job outside of music that I really like. I want to have more passions, you know? I want to just discover myself a little more. And that involves, like trying new art mediums. Like, I really want to paint, because I got a lot of painting friends. That's a pretty big one. I really want to learn piano. Because I think the music theory knowledge that I can get from that will really help me make the stuff that I want to make, because I'm really into classically composed techno and trance, and it's stuff that's really heavy on the music theory side of things. And I listen to it and I'm like, “dude, this fucking scratches my ear so much.” I really like ‘Animation Warrior Theme’ by Nighthawk22. That's a beautiful song. I want to make stuff like that.

Kade: Well, thank you so much for joining me tonight and thank you for giving me the time.

Angus: Thank you.

Listen to Angus’ debut album below.