“I’d rather hurt than be alone tonight,” goes ‘Masochist’, the new single from Tsatsamis. The line, from a song off the deluxe edition of this year’s excellent mixtape Tsychophant, succinctly sums up everything the British-Greek singer’s mixtape offered – energetic, pulsating pop music about the peaks and troughs of trying to find (and lose) yourself on the dancefloor.
“It was interesting to be able to synthesise [the feeling] down to that line after I released everything,” Peter Tsatsamis-Cooper tells Rolling Stone UK. “I wrote Tsychophant [about] all of these feelings about moving to London for the first time and finally being in a gay scene. There were lots of feelings and emotions and relationships that were happening for the first time.”
Though this period was transformational at the time, and spawned a host of songs that perfectly distilled the experience, the singer then found himself “being back in the same scene and realising that maybe I’m still the same person, or that I still have all of these same desires and traits and wanting attention and validation and to people please.”
The mixtape now expands with new tracks – including ‘Masochist’ – on a deluxe edition that achieve the same pop transcendence as the original record, but with a slightly more world-wise outlook.
Ahead of a UK arena tour in support of Jessie Ware, we talk to the singer about the new tracks, the world-building of a forthcoming debut album, and how you can never outrun yourself.
Read our interview with Tsatsamis and listen to his music via our Play Next playlist on Spotify below.
‘Masochist’ feels more self-aware than the songs on the mixtape, and like you’re writing from experience – was it a case of the shine coming off this exciting new scene you became part of?
When I first [entered] the scene, it was enigmatic and I couldn’t work it out. After a while, you meet all these people and you realise that it’s actually not that different. I’ll be in certain situations, staying up late, and realise that I still get the same anxieties. The thing I kept on coming back to was someone asking me whether writing the songs helped me work through these toxic traits and resolve them. I kept on thinking back to that when I was writing the deluxe tracks, and I was like, ‘No, I haven’t’. It might be cathartic, but I haven’t resolved any of it, and I don’t know whether I will. There’s a self-awareness to being like, ‘OK, maybe that’s fine. I just have to accept that’. That’s where ‘Masochist’ comes in. I’m at that stage now where I know that this is all bad, and I’m self-aware about it, but I might as well get pleasure from it.
You’re also working on a debut album – how has it been balancing the reflection shown on this deluxe mixtape with a desire to look forwards?
It feels challenging. The album is definitely where I’m trying to push myself into creatively, and then Tsycophant and writing these deluxe tracks is a way to be a bit more confessional and [show] how I’m feeling right now, as well as being a bit retrospective. Both of them have one foot in the present; Tsycophant is retrospective and the album is looking ahead.
What do you want to achieve with the album?
I’m trying to challenge myself by being more artistic and conceptual, but still having that authenticity to the present. I don’t want to say too much about it because I’m still trying to form it, but I think it helps me to be able to set boundaries and work within them.
How has writing Tsycophant solidified your sound and what Tsatsamis is?
I’m still trying to figure it out. My music is inherently queer, and I think there is a balance that I always try and find where it’s always accessible to anyone, but if you are queer and if you are gay then you understand the nuance and subtext of it. Sometimes that’s difficult to communicate, even myself.
The music I’m making now is the music I’ve always wanted to make. The whole process [of the mixtape] taught me to be more instinctive and zoom out and think, ‘What do I actually like? What feels good?’
You’re ending the year by supporting Jessie Ware in UK arenas – are you excited, and is playing in those types of rooms your ambition for the project?
My ambition is always to headline Primavera, headline Glastonbury… the Other Stage! It’s never been like, ‘Oh, Village Underground is fine’. No. This is where I’m at now, and the music will be able to sustain [those stages]. You can put it in at those levels, and it will be as good as everything else there.
