Conversations with Xelan The Rock Star

Today we’d like to introduce you to Xelan The Rock Star.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Hey, what’s up?! I’m Xelan. I’m 23 years old and I grew up in a Haitian descent Seventh-day Adventist Caribbean household. I had a pretty great childhood growing up, moving from Florida to Georgia. What only sucked was when I had to go to church on Saturdays and all of my homies who were involved in different religions would be outside all day. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in church, and when I get home which is about supper time, Id misses all the fun, lol. That was the only sucky part. I play five instruments guitar,bass,drums, keyboard and piano.I learned guitar at 12 years old summer of 2009, learning songs by ear. I took lessons for a year and quit. There was a special connection between me and the guitar and everyday, I would practice and play all day and night. The first riff I’ve learned on guitar was dammit by Blink 182. I’ve been a singer before I could walk. Music runs in my blood and my family has a lot of talent. -pop-punk/post-hardcore/alternative/rock music has always been apart of me since I was in elementary school and my favorite radio station back then was 99x.

My favorite bands/influences are Blink 182, New Found Glory, All Time Low, The Starting Line, Fall Out Boy, Good Charlotte, sum 41, Sugarcult, The all American rejects, Simple Plan, Yellowcard, Taking Back Sunday, Story Of The Year, Three Days Grace, Underoath, The used,Saosin etc. Later, as I got into high school freshman year, I started listening to Hip Hop/Rap/Drill and R&B. I also took an audio and engineering class taught by Andre Deramus. I pulled a fart prank in his class using a bluetooth speaker and he made me write a 5 page essay on how Bluetooth was invented HAHAHA.I graduated from grayson high school in 2015. I started uploading music to SoundCloud in 2017 and I started out with rapping and started to transition to the melodic side of music. I discovered Alternative rap artists like juice wrld ,6dogs (RIP to both), shinigami,93feetofsmoke, fatse, Global dan, Lil Tracy, Lil peep, dripping so pretty, Gab3, Lil Zubin, Lil lotus, Cold Hart,lil aaron Yungjzaisdead ect. And I told myself, “this is the lane you belong in” and I picked it up and ran with it -My fashion is basically a mix of todays and the early 2000s. Black nail polish and eyeliner are my main essentials and I don’t care what anybody thinks about what I got on. This is me, and as long as I’m happy, that’s all that matters. Right now, I’m in a cover band called Dr. Kahn where we play the 90s and early 2000s music.

We play grunge, pop-punk, Emo, rock hits. They found me after I posted an ad where I needed a band to join in a Facebook group last year. We played our first comeback show on December 31st, 2020, after a whole nine months of practicing, which was an amazing show, and that was my first time performing in a band in a crowded room. You couldn’t even see the floor! I’ve been working on solo projects, and I have a future collaboration on the way as well. My main goal is to become the next big thing to explode out of Atlanta with an angsty, nostalgic, chill, refreshing style of music that people can listen to any day and any time, no matter what circumstance is. I feel like I have what it takes to make it to the top and make my loved ones proud. I’m a humble guy and that takes you a long way.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Music is not an easy task. Going from writer’s block to people not sharing your songs to doubting yourself temporarily. But you gotta push that to the side and stay positive. And it’s always the people that you don’t know that support you the most. Some people that personally know you will support you, but the others will just watch on the sideline to see if you really make it and act like your friend when you reach stardom. I’m only keeping a select few when I make it.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
Big shout out to my mom and dad and my siblings. Literally the whole fam for always believing and me and being there from the jump. Shout out to old music teacher Mr.Deramus. I wouldn’t be taking this interview if it wasn’t for my homie linden Tyson (check out his music). Shout out to my fans and my main homies that been showing me love through out my journey and shout out to my camera guy divinely couth and elborro and the whole ammg studios management and true empire tv and my band mates

Contact Info:

• Email: Xelantheartist@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xelantherockstar/
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/J5kBqjr8k5AQBhGT8

Image Credits
Malik and R Murad