Track By Track: Allday Releases Surprise Mixtape 'Excuse Me'

Allday waited until the penultimate day of September to release his first new single of 2022. That song, ‘Runtrack’, was initially billed as a standalone release, but Allday’s Tom Gaynor has now shelled out three more tracks, which together with ‘Runtrack’ comprise the artist’s new mixtape Excuse Me.

Allday hasn’t been entirely absent this year. He joined Skizzy Mars on the single ‘Problem Too’ in March and guested on the Ouse single ‘alone again’ in early September. But for Excuse me, Gaynor teamed up with his regular collaborator, producer Simon Lam, and reclaimed his rap roots after the guitar-centric sound of his 2021 LP, Drinking With My Smoking Friends. Here, Gaynor explains the origins of the four songs on Excuse Me.

Allday: Excuse Me

1. Runtrack

We started this one about a year ago. At the time Simon and I were just rinsing early Juice WRLD. He was a once in a generation talent. Some people associate my early music with emo rap but I never really listened to emo rap when it was big. I just had a naturally emo sound because I was always coming down from drugs.

We called up Fractures to play guitar on this one and I love what he did, and then I just kept adding vocal harmonies. ‘Runtrack’ is sort of emo rap mixed with ’80s soft rock like Chicago or REO Speedwagon.

2. Splash

I started this one when I was leaving LA just before the pandemic. I had been going through a few things there, with a close friend passing away and a bad breakup. I hummed a melody into my voice notes while driving to the studio. When I got there Max (Golden Vessel) tuned it, pitched it and made a beat from it. I basically wrote the thing in like three minutes.

It’s a diary entry of somebody who is ready to look on the bright side again. I finished it with Simon in Australia, then my guitar album started happening and I left it sitting there for a bit. Luckily my little brothers always text me about songs I’ve forgotten. “What is happening to that joint ‘Splash’?” So I put it on this tape.

3. Britney Spears

After my guitar album I needed to hang out and make rap songs for a while again, just to get back into form. Sort of like an athlete playing preseason games. This one is me wedging as many Britney references as I could think of into one track.

Simon and I were going pretty far with the delays and reverbs on this one. My favourite part is the line about Stalingrad. Sure, I will talk about drugs and sex a lot but I will also mention historical events such as the Battle of Stalingrad.

4. Crazy Trees

This is the only one I didn’t do with Simon. It was a beat from my mate Pav [Trey Pavlik] and I asked my girlfriend Memphis [LK] to add some production to it too. We were talking about releasing three songs but I thought four was a better number, so I made this one quick.

Jade Alice sings the chorus on this. She has a fantastic voice and is part of a new group called Blusher who are going to be huge. Jade also sings the bridge part on ‘Britney Spears’. And that’s the whole tape. I hope you like it.