Honestav stopped by the Genius office to break down his deeply personal song, “I’d Rather Overdose.” Produced by Heydium, the track features Z (Indie) and is off his album hara-kiri. On today’s episode of Verified, Honestav opens up about the real-life tragedies that inspired the song, how he brought it to life, and how his perspective on his parents has evolved with age and more!
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00:00My dad never really was a huge music dude, but he was listening to Linkin Park.
00:04When my dad had a goatee, he rode Harleys.
00:06He was heavier set.
00:08It's funny because you would see him and you would think,
00:09like, oh, this guy's going to be a scary asshole.
00:12And then he'd just be like, what's up, man?
00:14You know, like, what's up, motherfucker?
00:16You got a beer?
00:18His music taste is funny because I never realized how it really influenced me
00:21because it really did.
00:22The inspiration from the song, it came from a lot of different places,
00:32but it mainly came from my dad passing away.
00:34He had just passed away a couple months before I wrote the song.
00:36I remember being in the living room, watching Netflix with my girlfriend,
00:39and I'm starting to tear up.
00:40And I'm like, oh, fuck, bro.
00:41Like, I got to go.
00:42I sat down, put the YouTube beat on.
00:44I locked the door, and I start writing a song.
00:45And I'm like, I started shaking, bro, when I was writing it.
00:47I'm sitting down, and I'm kind of like catching my breath.
00:49And my homie calls me, and he's in the studio.
00:51And he's like, yo.
00:52And I'm crying on the phone, being like, I can't.
00:54And he's like, come pull up and record it.
00:56And I would have never even recorded the song.
00:58A lot of the time when I'm recording songs, it's different.
01:00But this time, it was like a freak fucking incident.
01:03I don't know.
01:03It was just supposed to happen.
01:05And it happened way different than most songs do.
01:22Can't be without you.
01:23I'd rather overdose.
01:25That started off as me putting myself in my dad's shoes.
01:29I've been through a bad breakup myself, too.
01:31So I had related in a sense of like, damn,
01:32I know what it feels like to be like, fuck, dude.
01:34Like, this might be it for me.
01:35When I was growing up, I felt like everybody gave up on my mom.
01:39I didn't give up on my mom.
01:40I couldn't be without my mom, you know?
01:41And then I get older, and my dad passed away.
01:43And now I'm like, damn, I feel like it's hard for me to be without him.
01:46So, you know, it's a bar that means a lot to me.
01:48He was in a long 20-plus year relationship with my stepmom.
01:53And whenever things started to not work out, can't be without her.
01:56He'd rather overdose.
01:57I mean, damn, like, the man did it.
02:00I just sang about it.
02:19Damn, when you are fucked up on them pills,
02:21you wasn't paying no attention to me, man.
02:23I might be begging you for some attention.
02:25I was never getting it.
02:25That came from a place of hurt.
02:27And then, you know, the next bar, I was just kind of like, you know,
02:29it's as if I'm like talking to my dad right there.
02:31And I'm being like, yo, you were supposed to be there for me.
02:34But then it's also me being like, but I get it.
02:36Whenever I think about addicts and people like my dad, that could easily be me.
02:40I'm like one wrong decision away from being that.
02:42If my dad was standing right in front of me right now,
02:43and I could tell him one more thing, I would definitely be like, I get it.
02:48Fucked up, can't slow down, won't come down.
02:51Don't know how.
02:52My dad's dead.
02:53My mom's proud.
02:54My dad's dead and my mom's proud.
02:57If you knew me growing up, it's the craziest fucking thing ever
03:00because it's like, bro, my whole life growing up, it was like, I'm playing sports.
03:03My dad's driving me like to these places.
03:05They're spending the only money they got on me playing baseball.
03:08I'm the quarterback of the football team.
03:09He's coming to every one of my games.
03:10Like, it was my dog.
03:11It was like my best friend, right?
03:12We were spending all this time together.
03:14He was proud of me my whole life.
03:15And my mom was a drug addict.
03:17And you wouldn't have thought my mom was going to make it out.
03:20And so that line is being like, I can't believe that my dad's dead and my mom's proud
03:24instead of the other way around, which I would never want it to be.
03:29Neither of them, do I ever want either of them to die.
03:31But as a kid growing up, I'm thinking, man, if something happens to one of my parents,
03:34it would definitely be my mom.
03:35And then it didn't happen like that.
03:37So it's just a fucked up thing to go through, man.
03:39You know, it kind of just fucks your head up.
03:42How is my dad dead and my mom proud?
03:47My bank account got zeros.
03:49I'm supposed to be the hero.
03:51But here I am still fucking up.
03:53I'll drink my weight in beer, though.
03:55I, my bank account got zeros.
03:57I'm supposed to be the hero.
03:58It's funny because I was like, I was making TikTok money at the time.
04:01So I was making like 10 bands a month on TikTok.
04:03Thinking, oh boy.
04:05Hey man, somebody called a Lambo store.
04:08I'm like, shit, I'm making 10 racks a month.
04:09What's up?
04:10I'm about to get a, man, I thought I was going to be rich.
04:12All my homies are looking at me like, hey man, what's up?
04:14Like you're getting 10 racks a month, legal money.
04:16I'm like, my dad just died, bro.
04:18I'm like in the bar every night.
04:19I'm getting fucked up.
04:20I'm doing drugs.
04:20I'm getting, I'm getting high.
04:21I didn't care about nothing, bro, for a long time.
04:24Since then though, thankfully, like I've been on a better path than that.
04:43I can't get over what I did to you.
04:45I'm a lot like my dad.
04:46I've ran off people in my life too that were trying to help me out.
04:49Like you get mad at somebody, somebody come up to you and they're like,
04:51hey bro, you got to quit buying polo.
04:53But you buy polo every day.
04:54It's like, man, what the fuck do you know?
04:55This is my money.
04:56I'm buying polo.
04:56Like, you know what I'm saying?
04:57It's like, what are you going to tell me what I need to do, man?
04:59I'm doing fine, don't.
05:00And I think that that was just kind of me being like, yeah, man, I'm a lot like him in that way.
05:04I can relate to that.
05:14You lose faith with every pill I take.
05:18Can't be without you.
05:18I'd rather die today.
05:20That bridge right there, it's Z's spin on it, man.
05:22And he's a talented writer too.
05:24And we were sitting down while he was writing and talking about it.
05:26And he's like, man, I want to like express how I feel about it.
05:29Him and his girl or whatever at the time, you know, he's getting stoned.
05:32You get stoned and your girl don't want you to be stoned.
05:34She look at you and can tell that you're stoned.
05:36She's pissed.
05:37You're thinking, oh fuck, like I can't get over this hump.
05:41I would rather die than not be with you.
05:43He was kind of saying how maybe he relates to my pops in that area of him being like,
05:47man, I'm, you know, too high.
05:49Please don't look me in my face.
05:50Like, don't look at me.
05:51I think that bridge is one of the most important parts of the song.
05:53Like people really relate to that.
05:57I grew up thinking like, oh man, my parents are fighting.
06:00It must be about money.
06:01Oh shit, I got to eat motherfucking cereal for the eighth time or not, for real.
06:05I got to go across the street and eat at my homie's house because his family's cooking a meal.
06:09And my family's like, hey, don't go miss out on that.
06:11We was not dirt poor.
06:12We was mad poor, but it was like two parents, eight kids, one house.
06:15It's just so weird how money affects things so differently,
06:18but you grew up thinking it's going to fix shit.
06:20And it's like, it just doesn't.