For Kulhanek, music a way to cope and to connect
Already working on a second album, freshman draws inspiration from from artists, books, relationships
Robin Kulhanek’s most recent release, “Siren,” was inspired by a toxic friendship: “The only way they could get me to stay friends with them was by talking and talking and making me believe.”
February 5, 2022
To Robin Kulhanek, known as “Spacedevil” on Spotify, music is a tool to work through his emotions.
“Talking myself through the lyrics I’ve written has helped me figure out how I feel about certain situations,” Kulhanek said. “My first coping mechanism is music. I’ve always just sat down for a couple hours and screamed at my guitar, and wrote some stuff on my phone.”
In this episode of Feedback Loop, hosts Alysa Spiro and Evelyn Griffin speak with freshman Robin Kulhanek about his heart-wrenching music, the inspiration behind it, his upcoming project and the experience of creating albums over several years.
My first coping mechanism is music. I’ve always just sat down for a couple hours and screamed at my guitar.
— Robin Kuhlhanek
The singer/songwriter gets inspiration from artists like Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu, and Elliot Smith. Kulhanek even draws inspiration from books, like Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric Larocca.
One lyric in particular from “Burning hill” by Mitski also inspired a song.
“I love how she said, ‘You’re so good at promising things,’ and I just kind of ran with that sentence,” he said. “Usually, I write lyrics, and then I just trash them, and then write a melody, and then put them together and he sound cool or don’t. And I just keep recycling that over and over again until I like something.”
Kulhanek takes inspiration from his platonic relationships to write gut-wrenching songs about romance.
“I don’t really have any relationships, romantic wise,” he said. “It’s mostly platonic.”
His most recent release, “Siren,” was inspired by a toxic friendship.
“The only way they could get me to stay friends with them was by talking and talking and making me believe,” Kulhanek said, “and I just made that, like, in a romantic sense.”
For my first album, I had to do everything myself and not really have anyone behind me.
— Robin Kulhanek
Kulhanek is especially proud of the song “VVAMPIRE,” which was released as a single in 2021.
“I wrote it after a really long dry spell of not doing anything so it was really fun to finally have something I was enjoying,” he said
His last album, Bastrop Isolation, took from June 2020 to late January/early February 2021 to complete. Kulhanek was excited to share his personal story and “that drove me to keep going and, like, let people see me”
Kulhanek is currently working on a second album, which he expects to take one or two years to finish.
“I’m really excited. It’s a lot different from the last time I made an album, not being alone really. For my first album, I had to do everything myself and not really have anyone behind me.”
