Emerging Vancouver Pop Talent Reid Zakos Talks New Single ‘Depth’

Readers of the site will be aware of Reid Zakos, the Vancouver based pop talent who has released gems such as Deck of Cards, Falling, You Don’t Understand Me, and the debut album Legends & Myths. Reid now returns with the single Depth, which is available on streaming platforms.

Depth shimmers with nostalgic, sparkling production and its slow-burning energy. An impassioned vocal from Reid, drawing on real experience ensures that this one of the emerging musical star’s strongest tracks.

Reid told us a little more about the inspiration behind the track, his musical inspirations, working as an independent artist, and shared details of his future projects.

Connect with Reid’s socials below:

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Can you share a little bit about the inspiration behind the track?

“Depth” (pun-intended) is a song with many layers. My partner Jayden Mckenzie is also a queer artist and producer and he was in our home studio with a friend just churning out song after song one night (and I was going through a bit of writer’s block at the time). I hadn’t written a “good” song in about a month or so and my envy of their creativity wave prompted me to sit down in the opposite room, buckle up and try to write something new. 

I was playing with different samples and loops on Splice to see if it would jar anything and this retro 80’s synth loop that you hear in the song stuck with me, and it reminded me of the song “Cool” by Dua Lipa from the album Future Nostalgia which I’ve been obsessed with all year. And it also reminded me of “Cool” by Gwen Stefani, who is also one of my favourite artists. I knew I wanted to do a cute slow-jam love song ballad with that same type of energy. I started singing a few things once I made a few drum and bass tracks to go with the loop and the rest of the song kind of wrote itself and the process was very quick, – only about 30 minutes later and I had finished the lyrics. 

The initial loop just had this vastness and depth to it and felt like water, or an ocean wave – and my boyfriend and I are both water signs (I’m a Cancer and he’s a Pisces) so that inspired the concept too. It’s the first relationship I’ve had where there has been a deep emotional depth. We are very lucky because we had a strong friendship before we started dating, so the foundation was there and that allowed for even more emotional depth. I wanted the lyrics to be light-hearted, grateful, and happy. It was such a hard year with the pandemic (for everyone) so I just wanted to express gratitude for the most positive thing in my life (which is him) so that’s what I ended up writing about. In the second verse I reveal that I’ve had relationships and friendships fall apart in the past due to people taking advantage of my kindness and my giving energy, and how after what I’d been through if I was strong enough to have a relationship again and I needed to take some time to love myself again. 

I was also listening to a lot of Ariana Grande at the time so my approach to the vocals had more of an R&B/Pop vibe that I haven’t really explored before.

What would you describe as the main challenge as working as an independent artist?

Doing everything yourself with small budgets! LOL I think also getting people to listen, engage, and still take you seriously without all the PR support you’d receive from a major label. 

Who inspires you musically?

Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, and Troye Sivan are probably the main three right now. But I love all the major pop icons – Madonna, Britney, Michael Jackson, Prince etc.

You recently released your Legends and Myths album, is another album in the progress or are you going with a standalone singles approach?

I do! I actually have two new albums in the works, I’m working on them simultaneously. One of them is all collaborations with RedPanda Productions who produced my previous singles “Deck of Cards” and “Falling”. The project is very futuristic and dance-pop oriented (but with a few retro sounding moments of course). We are aiming for a summer release, but taking the time to make it just right so it could be later with a few singles along the way to preview it. 

I’m also working on another pop album that is still in the early stages, but it will include “Depth” on it. I decided to release “Depth” as a single now because I thought it was a nice follow-up to “Falling”. 

I’m not in a huge rush, I think it’s fun to release singles every few months to keep people engaged, and then when the full project is ready they will (hopefully) fall in love with the songs all over again and understand the full context in a larger body of work.