Few people have been as busy as Fred Again.. lately. In September, he started a rollout of new songs for his ever-evolving USB project, releasing fresh tracks and delivering high-energy live shows on a weekly basis. Even when the initial run finished, Fred went ahead and announced another one, set for early 2026.
Even amid all that, he still found an hour to sit down with Instagram for a recent episode of their new long-form interview series “Ask It Anyway.” It launched with Tyler, The Creator earlier this year and now Fred is the second-ever guest.
In a chat hosted by Ezra Collective’s Femi Koleoso and also featuring a group of young musicians, a lot of ground was covered. Perhaps the most impressive portion was when Fred was tasked with putting a new song together in just 13 minutes. He had a vocal and some choice sounds to start with, but he was still started a long way from the finish line. The end result wasn’t quite a full song, but it sounded fantastic, and Fred likely could have gotten it all the way with not much more time allotted.
As for the actual conversation, Fred had some fascinating nuggets to share. Early on, he discussed how having multiple outlets for his music diversifies what he’s able to do and how much he can release, saying:
“Having the record like USB where it’s just tunes that I’m making for my USB, it doesn’t need to be some deep album statement always. And then I’ve also got albums, so there’s a few different like avenues I get to put tunes out in. Or like, make an ambient record with Brian [Eno], or something like that. From, like, 20 to 28, I reckon probably 0.0001 percent of the things I made came out, and now I reckon 1 percent comes out, so that’s great.”
Also on the note of productivity, he spoke about how making music every day, regardless of how he’s feeling, is a critical part of his creative process:
“One thing that’s I’m really happy to have learned the lesson of is… Let’s say you feel rubbish one day or one week or one month, and you keep showing up, and you make something that you don’t… you’re showing up for the sake of showing up and just trying to get some ideas down, and you’re not feeling good about it. And you just leave it there, and then in a month’s time or whatever, you’re feeling a bit better and you listen back to some of those ideas and you’re like, ‘Actually, this one is good.’”
He added, “I’ve now had this enough times where something I truly love has come out of a moment that felt totally unmagical. Something I truly love and I’m really connected to in a way that feels really meaningful, has come out of a moment that didn’t feel that at all. And so then at that point, you’re like, ‘Okay, great, I might as well just keep showing up, then.’”
Finally, he offered some more advice, which boils down to keeping it simple:
“If you are someone who’s more production-based, I would really recommend trying to commit to two synths and five plug-ins that you’re going to use for the next four years and just save yourself all of that headspace and all of that wasted time comparing whether this compressor sounds slightly better than this compressor. Like… fix the chorus. It doesn’t matter whether the [laughs]… I really, really feel this.”
There’s a lot more than that in the illuminating conversation, so check out the full video above.
