Moving into the college dorms can be a daunting experience for anyone. You’re away from home, taking care of yourself and living with complete strangers. For second-year student Luca Stiehm, moving into Mary Park Hall became a blessing in disguise when he met his roommate, Emmett Penney. Both Stiehm, 18, and Penney, 19, had an interest in making music, and the two became friends immediately. The duo began producing and recording music in their small dorm room when they weren’t in classes. Their project, named Pucaloaded, was born.
Xpress: How’s your guys’ day going?
Luca Stiehm: I had a good-ass day. I had a yerb [yerba mate] in the morning, I’m feeling energized. Hit the gym. We were cooking, or you guys were cooking a little bit earlier.
Emmett Penney: Our roommate made birria tacos. They were good!
Xpress: Your project is called Pucaloaded. How did that come about?
LS: I’ll just start from the very beginning of how it started. So basically, Mary Park, I was in that dorm, randomly assigned roommate, I had no idea who I was going to be with. First day comes, and I meet this guy [Emmett Penney] right here. A few days go by and he brings in all these pianos and shit. He has guitars and then brings in his whole PC setup. Then he tells me he makes beats, which is crazy because I rap. I make music too. From the jump, we had that little click, like, we gotta make music together. It was our first year of college, so we had to balance out school. But over time, me and Emmett would slowly cook on FL Studio.
EP: We were just fucking around. We didn’t take it seriously at that time. It was kind of ass. We did make one good song. We didn’t think anything of it at the time. That was toward the end of the first semester. The second semester came by, and the shit we were making started getting way better. Over two or three weeks, we would go to City Eats [now the Monarca Dining Hall]. We’d come back to the dorm and just cook. We didn’t go out, hang out with friends, we didn’t do anything.
Xpress: How would you describe your routine?
LS: We had a routine perfected! Wake up in the morning, do our yada yada, go to class for whatever, get City Eats. We’d be in City Eats talking about what we wanted to make and what type of songs we were recently listening to. Then, we go straight back to the dorm and make music for five hours straight. We’d be in there, like I had Black Ops 2 on one side of the room and he [Emmett] had his little set up. We’d just go back and forth. He’d start producing, I’d be playing. Then I’d start rapping, he starts playing. We had the most epic routine for music.
Xpress: That was about the time you guys put out your album “Too Loaded”. Was there anything released prior to that?
LS: The first thing we ever put on all platforms was a three song, little EP. It was called “Mary Park Trap.” We were just trying to get people to listen, you know? It’s not even up anymore. We just put it out. Hella people started reposting it. We were getting a bunch of plays. A bunch of people were listening to it at the time. That was our first realization, like, “oh, we could really take this.” So after that, we got hella motivated, and we made an entire album in two weeks. It ended up being “Too Loaded.”
Xpress: How was balancing school and music?
LS: There’d be a lot of times where I would be, like, artist first and student second. Obviously, you know, I want to stay on top of my academics, so I would say it was definitely a lot to learn, balancing out making music and doing school. You ever seen ‘8 Mile’ (2002)? Like, Eminem on the back of the bus writing on a napkin? I would be in econ class, back of the lecture, and then there’d just be some days I’m listening to Emmett’s beats. I’m just in my notes, coming up with flows, writing shit. I just wrote two songs, but I didn’t learn shit. So it is definitely, yeah, you have to know the time and place to do it.
EP: My classes were hella easy, so I didn’t have to do shit!
Xpress: Who are your main inspirations?
EP: Whatever I’m listening to at the time. First semester, I was listening to hella pluggnb, like Summrs and Autumn! Pluggnb beats were hard, so I was just trying to do that because my melodies were ass. Second semester, something clicked, and I was finally able to work it out. I think pluggnb is probably the biggest inspiration, music-wise.
LS: I feel like this is a pretty basic one, but Tyler, the Creator. He has an ear for certain things out of his capabilities. He knows when there’s stuff he can’t produce, and then he finds other artists or other composers that can get that idea in his head onto a song.
Xpress: What do you guys like to do outside of music?
LS: I love boba. I love going out and just getting boba. I get a lot of inspo when I’m off that boba. I get that caffeine rush. I got hella sugar in me and I just start writing hella lyrics. I fuck with fashion, you know? I think that’s another part of the music and whatnot.
Xpress: It’s cool that you guys recorded a ton of material in the dorms. What was that like?
LS: Being in the dorm, you got neighbors. We have big speakers that we mix off of. There’d be times I’d walk out of the dorm, and you could hear us. Our entire floor can hear us making music. The process was definitely interesting.
Xpress: How does working together strengthen your music?
EP: Over the summer, when I’m trying to make beats, they’re all just kind of mid. Luca is in El Cerrito, and I’m in San Jose, so we can’t link up that often. So over the summer, I can’t make anything good or that I’m satisfied with. The second we come back here, we’re together and able to work together – it’s just completely different.
LS: Meeting Emmett last year elevated my music so much. It’s like, the opportunities are for sure endless now, it’s only going to go up from here. It’s really nice to be so versatile with everything because of how good at producing you are. Put it there, bro.
EP: Boom.
LS: Boom.
Xpress: Is there any new Pucaloaded material on the horizon?
LS: Totally. We got a bunch of stuff in the files that we’ve been cooking. We’ve probably made five songs just ready at any point. We’re not planning on stopping anytime soon.
EP: It’s a cool dream to think that one day it could go somewhere. There’s no point in not trying, we might as well try for something.
