Machine Gun Kelly says he hopes his album Tickets to My Downfall, which marks his shift from rap to pop-punk, will inspire a new generation of aspiring rock stars.
“I want young kids to be comfortable to pick up a guitar and try,” he told NME. “Because that was an important thing with me. It wasn’t like I was on some Prince s**t where the first time the world saw me I was nailing it. I had to struggle to get here.”
MGK, whose real name is Richard Baker, said pop culture needs “a lead singer with a guitar-playing four-chord pop-punk” right now.
“That’s a missing link in this current day where you can either look like Billie Eilish or A$AP,” the 30-year-old said. “Where is the pop-punk figure of today?”
Baker spoke to NME about his friendship with Yungblud, whom he praises for having “an immense love for rock ’n’ roll.”
He explained: “It was really free-spirited how we met and stayed friends. It feels like a dope, across-the-pond thing, like: ‘You hold it down over there and I’ll hold it down over here.’ Together we can make some sort of union of rock stars. We’re like Elton John and Jimi Hendrix back in the day.”
Baker also revealed he shot a “pop-punk Grease” musical film based on Tickets to My Downfall.
“It’s an interesting concept because it hasn’t been done for an album ever,” he said, “maybe outside of like Pink Floyd’s The Wall.”