What Succession Star Nicholas Braun—aka Cousin Greg—Is Listening to Right Now
Nicholas Braun has a SoundCloud page. When I reach him on the phone, he seems surprised that I know this. Braun has momentarily forgotten that, five months ago, he uploaded a new song to it called “nodelay519,” which sounds a little like a DIY take on one of his favorite artists, Bon Iver. “The more I sleep, the darker my dreams,” he pleads over skittering electronics. “And I’m only one man, but I need relief.”
Suddenly, his memory of uploading the track comes back to him. “Oh my gosh,” he says. “In a moment of confidence, I just put some songs out without telling anybody. I thought, Well, if people like them, cool.”
Braun, who’s best known as the loveably bumbling Cousin Greg on HBO’s acid-tongued dramedy Succession, has been making music for years alongside his kid brother, Christopher Deyo Braun, out in California. (He also sang on a track called “Broken Halo” by the dance-pop duo Phantoms in 2015.) But now that he’s based in New York for Succession, which is currently in the middle of its second season, he hasn’t had much time to jam. He’d like to, though, and is hoping some musicians in the tri-state area might want to record with him sometime. “I need to find a couple of people that are like, ‘Let’s track some stuff out,’” he says. “I’d love for that to be a part of my life.”
For now, his life is all about Succession. The new season brings Greg deeper into the ruthless Roy family fold, as he tries to do his job at a Fox News-esque TV channel while maintaining some semblance of a soul. Does Braun think Greg could eventually stumble up the show’s corporate ladder all the way to the top? “You want to believe that the guy who’s filling dog poop bags with muffins and scones could be the CEO of the company someday—that would be an amazing arc,” he offers. “But I don’t think you want to see him corrupted. You want to see Greg do things the Greg way.”
When I ask Braun if he ever wonders what type of music Greg may be into, he says, “I think he listens to some reggae. He might even like Foo Fighters, maybe he plays his old Blink-182 albums from time to time.” Braun’s own taste is a bit different, which he makes clear while sharing some recent musical obsessions.
Daniel Caesar: “Cyanide”
Nicholas Braun: I heard this song in a store the other day and was secretly trying to Shazam it. Then another song played, and I was like, “Oh, this shit is good too!” and I Shazamed that song, and it was also Daniel Caesar, so I was just like, “This is someone I need to pay attention to.” I should thank the store for low-key curating my shopping experience.
He’s hitting that sweet spot of R&B I just love. My mom would play us Lauryn Hill, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, and Mary J. Blige in the car every day going to school, it’s just ingrained in me. His voice is just really pure, and you can just tell what he’s singing about really means something to him. I’m not really a lyrics listener. Actually, I never really learn lyrics. The feel comes first. Like with Bon Iver songs, I just sing some gibberish and just sort of cover my mouth while singing. But I can feel this music.
Andy Shauf: The Party
Andy Shauf is a singer-songwriter from Canada, and this is one of the best albums I’ve heard in years. It came out in 2016, but I just keep going back to it. The whole thing is just pitch-perfect. The way he sings and phrases things, you can’t help but hear the story he’s trying to tell. It’s a themed album about a party, and on “Quite Like You” the guy is trying to talk to this girl. She’s upset about something with this other guy and venting to him, and he sort of thinks he’s making ground with her. Then, at the end of the song, she puts her arm around her boyfriend’s waist, and he realizes there was nothing going on there at all. It’s such a great turn, you can feel that scene as if you’re watching it.
DEYO: “Digital”
DEYO is my little brother [Christopher Deyo Braun]. He and I were making music together for a little while right before I got “Succession.” I moved up to San Francisco, and we were writing some really cool R&B-type songs. We built a makeshift studio in his apartment and were recording in his bedroom. It was a great project for us, so fun. But when I got the show, the energy kind of shifted, so he started working on his own solo stuff. This is his first single, a really fun, disco-y song.
Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
