Smith on the influence of SYRE: 

“SYRE was about the boy that chases the sunset until it chases him,” he says, sounding like Rimbaud in a Tesla. “SYRE was about young love, but more specifically it was about young heartbreak and overcoming heartbreak at a young age. People downplay young love and say, ‘Your heart’s not broken, you haven’t felt heart break and you don’t know what real love is,’ and yada yada… SYRE was all about that… commentary on youth relationships and how hard they can be. As you get older you realize, ‘I was tripping, I was young, I was immature, she was immature, or we both could have done better it wasn’t that big of a deal, we were freaking out, we were in high school,’ but SYRE is taking the stance of, ‘No, this is more serious.’ And for some people it’s a life or death thing. It can get very serious if someone who once loved you doesn’t love you anymore.”

Smith on his new project-EYRS (SYRE spelled backwards): 

“ERYS is not about heartbreak at all. It might be about dealing with heartbreak, but it’s taking a different approach— I’m not gonna be crying in the hills and feel like I’m caught in this weird crazy world,” Smith says. “Instead, I’m going to be the world’s biggest flexer. I’m giving people this first look at a punk whose name is ‘ERYS.’ He’s trying to mix rap and rock n’ roll together. ERYS has an obsession with vision… I think my music is helping to facilitate me finding my way,” Smith says, seemingly thinking his way through all this in real time. “Who I am. What type of artist I am. The ways I like to express myself and the ways I like to deal with my own personal issues through the music. I feel like people know about my 
life or what I wore yesterday or who I was with yesterday. It’s hard for me to always talk about, so I have to make up these characters that have different lives than me—because it’s not all about Jaden all the time. Through ERYS I’m telling a story that might be fictional to me, but it might be a true story to someone else. Both SYRE and ERYS are things that I haven’t necessarily personally gone through, but it’s a metaphor and commentary on the world.”

Smith is truly like an old soul who has been here before. The older he gets, the wiser he seems to become. What the future holds for this talented young man, is definitely something that we will all just have to wait and see, but it will unquestionably be epic. To read the article in it’s entirety, click here.

Photos: Flaunt Magazine