Ekkstacy

Following the critical success of his 2024 self-titled studio album, EKKSTACY, the 23-year-old made the unusual decision to move back home. He left Los Angeles, his home base for the past couple of years. He tried living in New York City (“It was awful, miserable”) before returning to the quiet solitude of Vancouver, where he grew up, and where his parents still live.  “Living here is lame,” said Ekkstacy—Stacy, when he’s off the clock. “But it’s comfy.”  The calm of British Columbia was a necessary respite. While touring Europe in 2024, Stacy fell into a cycle of hard partying. “A lot of drugs and a lot of drinking—psychosis” he said. Stacy had sworn to never do drugs after a bad trip in high school landed him in the hospital, but Europe reoriented something in his brain: “I was like, everything’s safe here.” That dark cycle continued when he returned to the States, and that’s when knew it was time for a change. “I was partying really, really, really hard,” said Stacy. “And then I met this girl. And then I was kind of like, I should probably stop.”  He wrote his forthcoming studio album, Forever, sober-ish—and in love. While earlier works were inspired by artists like The Drums, Lil Peep, Current Joys, and the Smiths— infusing Ekkstacy’s sound with modern yet doomy post-punk malaise—his fourth album possesses a fresh sense of clarity and focus: a shedding of snakeskin. Renewal. “I wrote most of these songs sober as fuck in my house,” said Stacy. “I don’t want to write about my ex-girlfriends anymore. I don’t want to talk about the Bellas.”