Take a Seat at Mad Tsai’s Tea Party

interviewed & written by Storm Nguyen

edited & co-written by Sydney Ling

Photos by Mitchell Zaic

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So do you like girls or do you like boys, a voice in the background crackles in the opening of Mad Tsai’s music video for “Boy Bi.” Under the setup of “Boy Bi: The Musical,” the video seamlessly transitions through frames as the cast rehearses for opening night, while Mad tries to navigate being attracted to both his female and male co-leads. A new twist on a cheesy Disney rom-com or a John Hughes coming-of-age film, “Boy Bi” is a colourful bright track that explores the aspects of bisexuality.

Mad Tsai is a queer bedroom pop artist hailing from Huntington Beach, California. Currently attending UCLA, double majoring in English and music industry/history, Mad strives to incorporate elaborate messages and emotions into song that may be hard to verbally communicate. His music heavily emphasizes “transition periods” with feelings of being lost or in state of anger or regret. 

Mad Tsai hopes to communicate that queer Asian artists are paving their way in the music world, and feels grateful to know his music is valued by queer Asian audiences. Whether his music sounds like the poppy and upbeat track of “Boy Bi” or the more dark and cathartic unreleased song “Euphoria,” Mad Tsai’s purpose to capture emotion through music stands strong. 

Introduce yourself!

My name is Mad. I'm a singer-songwriter from Hudson Beach, California. I'm a student at UCLA, studying the music industry, history and English. I'm also an artist that loves to create music.

What first got you into the music industry?

Surprisingly, I never really thought I could get into the music industry. In high school, I was writing all these songs, and I was just doing it for fun. I didn’t think too much of it. I didn't really think it would get me anywhere past where I was. It was hard to see any career trajectory out of music. I thought of it as a hobby - or at least, I tried to keep my expectations pretty grounded.

But what sparked interest in me and got my foot in the door was writing my songs, just posting them online, and creating buzz around the songs. The first song that had any attention on the Internet was the song that I wrote on the last week of high school called "young nights." It was a song that I wrote about my high school regrets and not having enjoyed any parts of my high school experience in my youth. And people really resonated with that. That's when I stopped myself, and I had to have the conversation with myself where I was like, “Whoa, this might actually be something that I could pursue.”

You recently released a song and music video called "Boy Bi" about your sexuality and being queer. Could you dive deeper into that? What was your thought process behind that song, and what does it mean to you?

When I was writing that song, it was last year in June. So it has almost been a year. It only took me around five minutes to write the first part, that I posted up on TikTok. I wrote it really quickly, just because I was kind of frustrated with myself. I didn't fully know how to express the confusion that I was feeling with something like sexuality, which isn't necessarily discussed in pop music. But I wanted to write a fun song for myself.

That's what I did in five minutes. I remember I was listening to “Pure Imagination,” from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” Those chords really stood out to me in that they were happy, but also sad at the same time. That was the kind of confusion that I was feeling. I was like, those chords are the perfect chords that I need to use for the song.

I just hopped up on my ukulele and I wrote it within five minutes. I put it up on YouTube and I fell asleep and I didn't put any second thought into it. I just threw it up on the Internet and fell asleep. By the time I woke up, I already had 100,000 likes. I was insanely surprised; I didn't know what to make of it. It was a shock that other people could relate so much to my experience, and how my experience could almost be a universal experience for queer people. It was also a shock that people cared about the song so much that when I released the song, it blew up. Now I'm releasing the music video for it. It’s crazy.

Who inspired you to make music?

The first person that inspired me to start writing my own music was MARINA. I started listening to Marina and the Diamonds when I was in middle school. She was the blueprint. She was the trendsetter. She wrote all of her music. She was insanely creative. She knew what she wanted. I admire her so much- I had all her CDs when I was in middle school. I was fully obsessed. I loved her. Honestly, she deserves her flowers because she was the blueprint for a lot of indie pop and alt pop kids now. That was the first moment where I was like, “Oh, artists can write their own music and release it.” I thought it was just where they had songwriters.

At first, I wanted to be a songwriter. I wanted to write songs for other people. That's when there was the moment where I was like, I could also be an artist. I love bedroom pop, I love any alt pop and indie. For future projects, I want to delve into influences of rock, even trap. I love pulling from different genres and trying to incorporate it into my own pop music.

What does your songwriting and producing process look like?

In terms of production, I'm not the best at it. I've had to teach myself over the course of the past year and a half on how to produce.

When I came out of high school, I spent all my graduation money on getting the best possible mic for the cheapest price possible. I bought a mic stand, I bought my interface, I bought my little MIDI keyboard, which was a foot long that I had to squish my fingers in to play. I didn't really know where this music thing was gonna take me, and there wasn't a lot of other people that were musical around me or could help me get where I wanted to in terms of production. So I had to teach myself.

I'm still learning on the job as I do this. I think learning production myself and having to force myself to make these demos was a big step in making me a bit more versed. I have a clear idea of what I want for production. And I feel like anybody who works with me knows that I'm I have a very clear cut vision. I make reference playlists for the producers that I work with. I detail exactly what I want the sound to sound like. I have a list of references. I have certain sounds I want. I have a very clear cut idea in terms of production and in terms of songwriting. I usually tend to focus on the idea of the song first, and what I want to talk about, whether it's a subject or a story that's happened to me a part of my identity. Then I based the musical ideas around what I want the hook to sound or the melody in terms of shaping it around the subject matter.

You mentioned that you didn't think that you would have started going down the music route. So did you originally have a different like major or have a different career path in mind while you were attending UCLA?

It was always shifting. When I was in high school, I initially thought that I should be a chemist, and then it became a pharma-pharmacue- What was it called a person that works for the pharmacy? Oh, gosh, I'm not even gonna try that. That just attests to how bad I would be at that job. Then it moved to a dermatologist, and then it slowly moved from STEM to the humanities.

I started realizing that I want to do English and journalism. I was so into English and I was ready to devote my life to writing. Then I realized, no, that's not in fact what I wanted to do. I really wanted to do music. So I came into UCLA as an English major, and at the very end of my first year, I switched completely over to the music history and industry program. I still have both majors, so I'm still focusing on both, but I knew that I wanted to do music, and I wanted music to be a heavier aspect of my goals.

“That's the central theme of the project that I've been working on: exploring the themes of youth about regrets, anger, forgiveness to yourself, and moving forward from this abyss of time, because it feels like I lost that time.”

What gets you into the zone?

Food. Honestly, I'm not even gonna lie. I can't go into a writing session without something to snack on. I don't know why. I've been like this since high school. I'll have a huge bowl of grapes near me, or a huge bowl of something to snack on around me at all times. I just like to eat something while I'm thinking. It helps aid in the thinking. That's what gets me into the zone.

What else gets me into the zone is hearing other music. If I listen to other artists and songs, I'm just like, “Whoa, that was insane.” I want to do something similar to that. Or I want to pull influences from a kind of genre or a kind of idea. Also, just journaling, putting down my feelings. When I go back and read it, I could be like, that would make for a really cool lyric.

Is there a favorite snack or certain genre that you listen to while you’re in the zone?

My favorite snack is always changing and rotating because I'll eat one thing and I'll get really tired of it. And then I'll move on to the next thing. Right now what I've been eating is these huge protein cookies from Lenny & Larry's. I usually eat them after a workout, but now I'm just snacking on them as a normal snack. My favorite genre is also always changing. I've been listening to a lot of rock and dance pop.

What is your favorite song that you've written?

It’s always changing. My favorite song that I've written as of right now is a song that I wrote called "Euphoria". It was very, very cathartic. It was just being pent up throughout high school. I wrote that song about everything that I've felt that I did wrong in high school, and all the things that possibly went wrong. In this huge chorus, I just belt out this chorus of, I'm just having fun, screw it. The song’s about putting the past behind me. That’s the project I’ve been working on: the entire theme exploring youth, especially for kids who felt like they didn't enjoy their youth or they lost that time. Because things are moving so fast, sometimes when we look back, we feel like, what the hell happened?

It felt like a fever dream, and that was what happened to me for a lot of my youth. I’m speaking like I’m an old person, but I’m totally not. But that's the central theme of the project that I've been working on: exploring the themes of youth about regrets, anger, forgiveness to yourself, and moving forward from this abyss of time, because it feels like I lost that time.

Would you say sums up who you are as an artist and like what your music is about?

I want to use my music in a way to explore certain themes that are easier to put into a song to fully understand them. If I could put those themes into a song to help grasp them a little better. That's my goal. I also want to explore a lot of different topics, and that will always be my goal, even when my music and music identity changes.

So even if your music genre shifts, those core themes/messages are still there- putting difficult topics that are hard to put into words, into song?

Exactly. I feel that my goal has always just been understanding myself a little bit better. And then kind of elaborating that because, and also just understanding bigger things in my life a bit better. Songwriting has always helped me with that kind of thing. Just kind of stepping back and putting into words, things that I have had difficulty like, processing through, and I feel like that's a huge part of my music, and that's something that I want to continue doing, even when the songs like Sonic quality might change, or like the structure might change, or even my genre not saying that I will, but even when, like, I'll put out like a song that does not sound like the same as boy bi like those are the core themes that I want to keep.

What is your favorite song to perform?

My favorite song to perform that I've written right now is probably "Stacy's Brother." It was the song that I wrote that was narrative driven. It wasn't anything that happened to me, particularly, but it was a fun song that I wanted to write because I wanted to develop a narrative song. I was inspired by “Stacy's Mom” by Fountains of Wayne. Nobody's heard the studio version yet, but I've been leaning into this 2000s pop punk sound that pays homage to the original “Stacy's Mom.”

It is very cheeky. It's on the tip of your tongue, kind of dark, fun, scandalous. The song’s subject matter is a little bit scandalous and I cannot wait to perform that song live. It's just a song that you want to sing along to because it's so cheeky and fun.

Are there any upcoming projects that you would like to share? Anything that you want to give the inside scoop on?

I just released the “Boy Bi” music video four days ago. In a couple of weeks, I'm going to release my second single. I don't know if I'm allowed to say the title of it yet, just because I want to keep the element of surprise, but I'm genuinely excited for that song. It's very different from “Boy Bi.” I don't want people to be super shocked that I leaned into this route. But I just know that people are going to be surprised when they hear the end of the song. That's all I can say.

Shortly after that, I' release my debut EP. I also can't spoil the title. I hid easter eggs into the “Boy Bi” music video of what the titles of the next single and the EP are within the set design, and somewhere in the video, it's hidden. Some people have figured it out. But I also left some clues on my secret Instagram account. For people who want to get a better look at the set design of the “Boy Bi” music video, the @ on Instagram is “welcometomadsworld,” if people want to dig deep and try to find what the next single title is.

That's what I have planned as of now. I am a very structured person and I like to have a five year plan ahead of time. So, I already know all the future projects that I have lined up and what the next song is. I'm just excited to take everybody else on the ride for everything.

What is your favorite part about being in the industry?

Seeing things come to fruition. It's one thing, conceptualizing these ideas and dreaming up these ideas of, wanting to do a song or music video, but to tangibly see it was a very new experience for me. When I first heard “Boy Bi” and when I first saw the music video, it was a very “Whoa,” experience because it was one thing to just write the song, but another thing to see things tangibly happen in real time. That was one of the experiences that I won't forget. Especially once the EP comes out and maybe my larger project after, once I tangibly see it then it'll finally sink in that I'm an artist. That feeling is really hard to grasp right now, but I feel like it's one of the best experiences that I've had, being in this industry so far.

If you can open a show for any artist who would it be?

I would love love love to do something for Lorde. I don't think “Boy Bi” would be a great show opener for her. But I think the music that I have planned is in that kind of route, which I'm really excited for. So Lorde, if you're reading this, please disregard. Just know that I'm coming to headline for you, you know?

What message do you hope your music communicates? How do you want your music to impact your audience?

If I can change someone's life through my music, then I feel like my goal has already been made now. Because that's what I originally wanted to do when I first started writing songs. If I could get somebody to sit down and listen to my song, and it changes their perspective on something, or helps figure out who they are, then my goal has been completed. That's the center around music- changing people's lives, and helping people move through things and move as people. I think that's music's ultimate goal. And that's something I want to be a testament to.

What would you say to your queer and Asian audiences that listen to your music and really resonate with you? Especially with how intersectional identity can be difficult to navigate for a lot of people, what would you say to those people that look up to you?

Take a stand and make space for yourself in a place where you feel that you're not heard. All the time growing up, I felt that I would never make it anywhere musically, because I was queer and because I was Asian. Those spaces, especially in the music industry, were not opening up for people that look like me, or sounded like me, or made music like me. That's where a lot of my insecurity stemmed from for a lot of my life.

Once I took a hold of who I am, and was like, I am me, and I'm going to embrace that. I'm gonna put that into my music and elevate my music. That’s where I was able to make space for myself in a place I wasn't being heard in previously.

There's so many Asian artists out there. There's so many great queer artists out there paving the way, and I hope that my music can help my queer and Asian audiences to come to terms with who they are, and be proud of it.

“That's the center around music- changing people's lives, and helping people move through things and move as people. I think that's music's ultimate goal. And that's something I want to be a testament to.”

What's next for you? What do you see yourself doing in five to ten years?

I do have the Notes app for my five year plan of everything. So I can answer this question pretty confidently. I want to just continue writing music. I want to continue being an artist. I definitely want to explore different genres, different sides of myself, and explore different parts of my identity into my music. I definitely want to see where this takes me. I'm not going to stay in one place for too long with my music. I'm going to be experimenting. For the people that have been watching me, you're gonna have to follow my story to fully grasp it.