MELANIE DE VINCENTIIS: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Melanie De Vincentiis. Thanks for tuning in. Welcome to THE BOX, where Northwestern’s musical artists talk about themselves and their art, and show you, their audience, a part of themselves that you don’t get to see through SoundCloud or their live performances. Here, artists can create their own box, their own brand, while entertaining an honest conversation. So claiming the title of first guest on this podcast, is Slade Warnken. Slade! Tell us a little bit about yourself.

SLADE WARNKEN: Hi, my name is Slade Warnken. Recently I’ve been going by the name Slade Antonia, but all of my music online is under Slade Warnken. I’m a junior in Medill. My pronouns are they/them/theirs. I’m an Aquarius with a Capricorn Moon. I’m a solo artist and more importantly I’m in the band PROM D8 with some really good friends, and yeah, that’s basically who I am.

DE VINCENTIIS: So you talked about your sign, what does that mean to you? I know that not everyone listening to this might be aware of the meaning of zodiac signs, and especially the Moons. That was a first for me when I first heard of it!

WARNKEN: Astrology is just a nice way for me to externalize parts of myself and kind of organize the way I navigate the world. So an Aquarius, my Sun sign, that’s my outgoing personality. So Aquarius is like an Air sign, it’s very weird. Most of the weird people you know are probably Aquariuses, very creative energy. And then as far as my Moon goes, that’s like my emotional side, it’s in Capricorn which is an Earth sign. So my emotions are very much centered around rational thinking, earthly pleasures, you know, indulgence as well as just being very dedicated as well as hardworking.

DE VINCENTIIS: Gotcha. So, how do you think your signs play into your music?

WARNKEN: As a Capricorn Moon, a lot of the time it’s very hard for me to just feel my emotions naturally. I think my more natural response is to rationalize them and to compartmentalize and box them up and put them away, but through music I really like to dig into myself and uncover things I may have not felt or forgotten to feel. And I really try to deconstruct the ways I’m feeling and the ways that I go about my life, and what changes I want to make. While other people may have journals, they may go to therapy, music is the space I create for myself.

DE VINCENTIIS: And how much time do you spend deconstructing yourself every week?

WARNKEN: I mean, music comes to me as life does, so I really do spend a lot of my time doing music. It brings me a lot of peace, so if I’m being honest, every day will have some type of musical influence in it somewhere along the way. Whether that time is spent actually getting somewhere and finding something about myself really just depends on what is happening to me in that moment in time.

DE VINCENTIIS: Are there other big influences on your music?

WARNKEN: I just started gender-transitioning, I’ve been taking estrogen. Music is probably the space where I really first (dove) into what it meant to me to be transgender and to be gender non-conforming and so I really love to go to music for ways of becoming and finding new ways of being. So a lot of times in music I find solace in creating narratives for myself or recreating moments where I felt at home in my body and where I felt natural in my gender expression and natural in who I felt that I want to become.

DE VINCENTIIS: We talked about your music in a very abstract way until now, so let’s get into the details. Do you have a song writing process? Do you think that everyone should have one?

WARNKEN: As a Capricorn Moon, I really, really like to be productive. It’s when I feel the most successful, so I’m really obsessed with like songwriting process. I want to find the way that works for me, a way that can, no matter what, just write a song that resonates with me and brings me answers to the questions I have. But more and more I’ve realized that having a set songwriting process isn’t really feasible for me because every song that I write, whatever topic it’s dealing with, usually it takes a different path to get to the answers that I need. It takes a process of living with the question, and in that process, it’s kind of (an) eroding of layers and of protective casings that I’ve built around certain parts of myself, and once those parts are eroded, a lot comes out that I didn’t realize was there. And sometimes I get to those truths and they disappear, sometimes I get to those truths and they are with me for the rest of my life.

DE VINCENTIIS: So you mentioned you were in PROM D8.

WARNKEN: PROM D8 was started my sophomore year between me, Gavrie (Smellhorse) and Lizzie (Zhang) and Alejandro (Paredes). We all started the band together just through jamming and our love of music really brought us together. Another member, Laura, recently joined, who plays violin. Honestly, it’s funny calling PROM D8 a band because it really does feel like a family. It’s one of the safest places I’ve felt on this campus and it’s, I think, just one of the things I’m most grateful for. As powerful people will do, we often clash, because we have all gone through our own process of self-discovery.

DE VINCENTIIS: Are you kind of a chaotic good, all together?

WARNKEN: Chaotic good? Yeah, I think that’s a great way of putting it.

DE VINCENTIIS: From your personal ideological standpoint, what’s the role of music in society?

WARNKEN: I think music in itself, when it comes from a genuine place of self and a genuine place of expression, really is always political and is always radical, especially when you’re talking about artists of color and queer artists of color. In the United States specifically, we live in politicized bodies so it’s impossible to separate ourselves from our politics. I think music gives you the chance to create a space where you can be something that does not exist yet, but exists in an emotional and sonic one where you can be something that you’ve never been seen as or maybe never been recognized as.

DE VINCENTIIS: What would you want your listeners to take away from your music?

WARNKEN: Ideally, to inspire other peoples to take that look at themselves and see who they could become that maybe they haven’t even imagined yet.

DE VINCENTIIS: Any projects going forward?

WARNKEN: PROM D8 is always working. We’re all Capricorns so we’re always trying to make something. We’re always trying to perfect something, so we got a lot on the way. Me personally, I’ve been trying to expand my sound, to really incorporate synths and harmony and a little bit more rhythm, drums and things like that so… Yeah, a lot of stuff on the way. When it will be here? Who knows.

DE VINCENTIIS: Exclusively on THE BOX, we will now give our listeners a little taste of some unreleased material by Slade Antonia. Thanks for coming, Slade!

WARNKEN: Of course! Thank you.

Correction: A previous version of this transcript misspelled Alejandro Paredes’ last name. The Daily regrets the error.

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