Inside Adrian Mata: Composer, Producer, and Choir Boy at Heart

Wilson Hernandez, a Lower East Side native also known as Adrian Mata, started making music because of popular Youtuber RiceGum. When asked how his love of music and production started, he responded that he and his middle school friends started making music so that they could make diss tracks about each other. “One day it would be one friend making a diss track on friend Y, the next day it would be ‘friend Y’ making a diss track on the other friend, and it was always at my house, so I was always stuck in the middle.” He takes a pause to laugh, “I was always the instigator of it”. After receiving the software FL Studio as a 13th birthday present from his dad; a sort of bribe to deter him from “playing video games so much”, Mata started messing around with basic music production techniques using FL. His early unreleased music, which he describes as “really shitty” in hindsight, featured some heavy autotune. However as a high school sophomore, he released his first mixtape, and has since released over 12 singles, 2 EPs, an album, and has been featured on 15 tracks with other artists. He’s dabbled in Latin, RnB, Rock, and Hip Hop.

What are the most common feelings that come up when you listen to your old stuff?

F****** hate it. Like, I’m gonna be real, I hate it. There’s some things like, my boy Urie and I, we’ll still hop on calls and listen because obviously there’s some nostalgic feelings with some of the tracks; but also it’s like damn, I wish I could go back and redo this track because I feel like this would have potential now. I try not to get caught up on the fact too much of like, stuff from the past, you know what I mean? Like, if anything I find ways to mix it into my newer stuff and improve it. 

Do you feel like the content of what you write about has changed dramatically over time? 

Now I’m more focused on storytelling. I try to be real with the music, whether it’s with myself or with creating stories that people could see in their head. I remember it started around when Euphoria dropped and I had listened to that soundtrack. I feel like the way I try to make music now is I try to imagine it with a movie in the background. I feel like when I was first starting off, I more so cared about what folks around me wanted to hear in the music, so it wasn’t really real to me. I made a couple melodic drill songs; never again. To be authentic with you, in the high school I went to there was a lot of peer pressure, so because I sing more (than rap), that was seen as like, soft. I remember there was one kid who I stopped being friends with during Covid because of this. He was like “oh bro, like nobody wants to listen to this, people want to listen to party music” and I was like, “but that’s not what I make, that’s not what I want to do”.

What are the stories you’re writing about now, are they primarily stories from your personal life?

They could be stories from my personal life. It could be stories that I’m creating with a fictional character. So, my real name’s Wilson, Adrian is my middle name, Mata is my second last name. So it’s Wilson Adrian Hernandez Mata, that’s where I got Adrian from. But, I view Adrian as an extension or more so the toxic side of myself. So like, some of it is real, some of it is fictional or or dramatized just to make it fit more to the aesthetic. 

So, toxic in what way? Like, how would you describe Adrian? 

I feel like;  indecisive, self-sabotaging, or sometimes just being selfish with things. Or more so, not looking at the other side of things, just more so looking at himself. I feel like when I was younger, I used to only look at my perspective instead of looking at other perspectives, and I feel like I try to point that out in the music. Like, the idea of only looking at my perspective and putting emphasis on that, because I feel like that’s very relatable for a lot of people.

So, tell me about this new album/mixtape, and also, what’s the difference to you between an album and a mixtape?

I feel like an album is backed by corporate or whatever, like a label. A mixtape, I don’t even want to call it any of that. I just want to call it a story. The album’s name is going to be “Adrian”. Essentially the whole idea behind it is Adrian, he has what he wants but at the same time he feels as though he’s losing it all. I feel like that’s a problem that a lot of people that might have anxiety or depression or whatever have. And like myself, I’m an overthinker, I’ll look at every aspect of the situation I’m in. The story is going to go from chaos, to some sort of tranquility back to chaos. It’s going to show the bipolar tendencies of like, ‘oh I’m okay’ to ‘nevermind, like, everything’s going to shit’. 

Mata then offers to play me a snippet of “I Hope These Feelings Fade Away”, an unreleased song from the upcoming album. A punchy drumbeat comes in over a heavy guitar riff, with a screaming chorus featuring distorted, emotional vocals. The piece is a surprising, angry, frustrated departure from Mata’s previous work; instrumentally reminiscent of 2010s emo.

This piece sounds a lot heavier/emo than your previous works, have rock and emo been a big influence for you?

Yeah, like, growing up my mom used to play a lot of rock around me. So, like, I love rock music. And I remember I stopped listening to rock or anything that was deemed as emo for a significant amount of time. I was around a lot of peer pressure, so like, that was seen as weird and I didn’t want to be seen as weird. Like, especially as an antisocial kid I wanted to be seen as cool. I feel like I allowed too many people and their opinions to affect the person that I was, and genuinely, I don’t give a fuck about that now.

Speaking of others’ opinions, you’ve collaborated with many other artists throughout your career. How do you approach collaborating when writing and producing music?

I feel like the majority of folks I’ve worked with we’ve worked together online. Most of the time, I feel like it’s just like: I’ll create some stuff on my end, send it out, and see what they like. Or, we’ll have a Discord call and find a beat that we think we could work on. So we’ll just find something that we both vibe on, hop on the call, and just like start creating together on the call.

Has growing up/living in New York affected your sound and how you work with other artists?

I feel like my sound is very different from what a lot of people around me make, like the building I live in, most of the people that make music in that building, all they make is drill. Which I’m like, to each their own, that’s just a life that I don’t live. Like, personally speaking, I’ve always been a bit of a softie. (Mata goes on to explain that although he got into some fights in his youth, he’s a church choir boy at heart, an experience he says helped him learn to sing.) I feel like the New York region of things never really affected the way I made music. I’d say more so just my Latino background, like being Dominican, listening to all these types of different Spanish genres affected me more because both of my parents are immigrants, so that’s like more of what they listen to.

Finally, if you had to go back and give yourself advice for when you were first starting out, what would you tell yourself?

I’d give myself my plugins. I’d give myself my entire vocal preset. I’d tell myself yo, lock in with posting bro; because I feel like back then, especially because I had more time, I was able to create more TikToks, Instagram snippets, whatever it was. I was able to curate more. Now that, you know, I’m an adult and I’m a senior in college, I feel like I have a lot less time. Also, I wish I told myself to stop being such a perfectionist.