TALK - "Run Away to Mars" | Indie88 Black Box Sessions

Ottawa-born and Toronto-based singer TALK visited Indie88 to perform live in the Black Box studio. He performed his single "Run Away To Mars," which has now amassed over 47-million streams on Spotify alone. He also performed "Hollywood" from his 2021 EP Talk to Me. Visit our channel to check out the other session and an interview with TALK.

The singer first released "Run Away to Mars" in 2021, but the song didn't immediately get the response he felt it deserved. But this year the song exploded in popularity thanks to TikTok.

"It's been a journey," TALK explained in an interview at Indie88. "I knew the song was good. Pretty much right after I wrote it, I sent it to my usual friends. Usually the response when I send very limited demos is like, 'oh this is good you should finish this.' But this one was like, 'holy $#%&!' and so I knew it was going to be great."

"I had a lot of emotions when I wrote that. It was the beginning of COVID, I was back at my parents house. I was in Toronto at first, I thought the city was going to shut down, and nobody knew what was going on. I left all my friends, and I didn't know what was going to happen with my career. I hadn't even released music yet, and I was worried that this was going to impact everything. I was watching a lot of space movies, and I figured the farthest place I could run away from my problems was Mars."

Up late at night with his guitar, he recorded a quick voice memo on his phone. "I just played on the edge of the bed, it came out super fast. It captured all the things I was feeling; loneliness, hopefulness, longing for human contact. But also a 'F this' attitude, like I'm done, I'm out. I think that resonated with a lot of people."

Like what you hear? TALK will be performing in Toronto on December 16 with New West at The Danforth Music Hall.