ILLUSION HILLS: THE NEW BROCKHAMPTON
Illusion Hills is a music and film collective out of Southern Orange County. Creator dasss mj intended on making a clothing brand, but never released any clothing. He changed paths once he met 7 other creatives with different ideas and capabilities than him. These young artists met through school, sports, and playing video games during quarantine. He realized that collaboration expands each member’s potential, so they formed in April of 2020 and released their first single that July.
In addition to producer, vocalist, and screenwriter mj, Illusion Hills consists of photographer Jada, editor Padawong, producer and vocalist jayastro, artist and vocalist SAI 2001, vocalist and director Chris, film producer and director Brandon, and vocalist Kyle. Ranging from 15 to 19 years old, they share the interests of artists like Brockhampton and Odd Future. Since it is challenging to live separately and have different schedules, they plan on moving to LA together after high school.
Their goal is to change the sound and landscape of art and music. With their platform, they want to uplift others and inspire kids to be true to themselves. Though they make secular art, they still try to glorify God in the process. I had the opportunity to meet with five of the members on Zoom and got to ask this important question: What advice would you give to those struggling with motivation or a fear of failure?
dasss mj: No matter how many people try to say that your music is trash or compare you to others, you just have to keep going and finish your songs. Don’t half create stuff. As you finish songs and continue to do that over and over again, you will get better. Don’t allow other people to make you stop, because the initial spark was from yourself. It felt like at first we were just waiting to see what was going to happen. We didn’t expect a spurt of growth to happen now. We thought it would happen within maybe a year. There have been so many times that we have put so much effort into it and had release parties but it felt like nobody was there and nobody was listening. A week later, one of our Tik Toks started going crazy and now we have many more people in our Discord. It is crazy to see that people actually care when we are just having fun and making music and films in our bedrooms.
Brandon Kim: Just keep doing it no matter what anyone says. You are bound to improve regardless of anyone else’s opinions, but you can also use those opinions to improve and get to where you want to be. You need to remember why you are doing it and what your goal is. You’re not doing it to please other people. In the beginning of high school, I didn’t want to go to film school because some famous directors say that it is just a big waste of money. This led me to not try that hard in school, so I ended with a low GPA. I learned later on that if I go to film school, I can learn many different things and be able to get connections and communicate with different people. From this perspective, I started totally changing the way I see school.
They are currently working on creating singles right now while they gain a following before eventually releasing a debut album “unlike anything that has been heard before.” In the meantime, they are dropping the single starfire004 and its music video on June 30th. Their Instagram and Tik Tok is @illusionhills, and they plan to release something once they reach 1,000 followers on Instagram. Be sure to follow them to keep up with their journey and unique projects.