A Deep Dive Interview on the Themes, Production, and Personal Narrative Behind the Track.
Before the Act of Sinking Cost occurs, everything about the environment feels off. When that occurs, it is like the atmospheric pressure has decreased a level. The moment right before this occurs is a time that RXRXBBIT can relate with extremely well because it is that half-a-second where you become aware that the quality of your life, which at one point you thought was stable, is on fire, and you are still standing in it trying to figure out if you should run away or keep feeding that fire.
RXRXBBIT has known from an early age there will never be a safety net for them — just rent due, a fast-paced life, and a system demanding payment long before it will accept credentials. This truth can be heard in the opening moments of this song: bare-branched elements burst into the open along with an exposed synthesiser, while the guitar is on the sidelines like an angry nerve. There is no mentor to lead you forward; no group of angel investors waiting to provide the funding you need. And there is no caring system ready to support you when you need it most. The only option seems to be to either take the risk of everything in order to find a sense of being alive, or to accept the false security of the comfortable way and ultimately lose anyway.
This beat hits and suddenly you find yourself in motion; it sounds like something you’d want to dance to. But the real deception lies in the euphoria in front of you. RXRXBBIT’s lyrics are filled with contradictions; she’s smiling through it while she feels her heart race. And then the lyrics turn dark when she says: “Kill her, it’s a sunk cost.” This isn’t a shout-out; it’s simply the words of someone whose learned a survival mantra too young. The way the overall production sounds encompasses that dedication to sound and resisting excess through restraint. Even the guitar solo she plays sounds hard-fought, flawed, and strained; even that carries the weight of her story. One can hear and feel her turmoil, insecurity, and her decision to let someone else in just a little.
The song holds an abyss that is where the body-fight and body-fight ends are waiting on a nervous system failure. However, the feeling of an occasion of life does not represent success, but simply a continual motion of life. You’re alive, and you’re making choices and are alive.
The conclusion of this music is ultimately not moral but is an inevitable conclusion that RXRXBBIT will continue to transmit. Once one hears this first piece of music by RXRXBBIT, they are independent of the meaning of the song.
Interview: SUNK COST
1. SUNK COST turns an economic concept into an emotional confession. When did you first realize you were “investing too much” in something that no longer made sense?
I knew from the point at which I had life-altering decisions to make regarding my future, that what I wanted would trap me in a sunk-cost trajectory. I also knew that there was no reasonable alternative by which I would be satisfied, and decided I would rather take the risk than have no chance of satisfaction at all. I still stand by this choice.
2. The track both critiques and celebrates the self-destructive ambition required to push forward. Do you see that duality as an unavoidable part of being an artist within capitalism?
I love this question and I’d take the idea even further: that duality is unavoidable when pursuing any form of social mobility under capitalism without an enviable starting point. It sharpens when the pursuit is tied to a passion you believe your joy depends on—whether art, music, or a scientific field. The rags-to-riches stories we praise are rare; most attempts end in a level of self-sacrifice that breaks a person long before anyone calls them admirable.
3. The song touches on class, survival, and the pressure to keep going. What personal experience — or social observation — most shaped that perspective?
Unfortunately this song is a bit of an autobiography, and as such ends up being shaped by a majority of my life experiences. I understood financial instability from a young age, and also understood that I lacked any kind of traditional safety net. I knew that any avenue I pursued had a minimal chance of success because I had to support myself while trying to earn the credentials needed for a career. That reality isn’t unique to me; it defines life for many who don’t come from stable homes. I realized at a certain point that no matter what I pursued, even a more ‘stable’ career where the acquisition of a degree would likely lead to higher paying enviable job positions, I had the same likelihood of failing because I had to meet basic needs in the process of pursuing it. This realization helped me decide to pursue the only thing that I knew had any chance of bringing me a sense of fulfillment (music) even if the chance was slim. Much of SUNK COST comes from realizing, years into doing whatever was required, often at the expense of my physical and mental health, that I’d locked myself into a sunk-cost trap: abandoning the pursuit would leave me with all the damage and nothing to show for it.
4. Your production has a signature glitchy-pop experimental edge. What did you approach differently in SUNK COST that marks a turning point in your evolution as a producer?
I’m not sure SUNK COST marks a clear turning point in my evolution as a producer, but it does reflect a new confidence in my choices. Throughout the track I allowed myself to keep the instrumentation stripped back—like the lone synth and electric guitar under the hook. That restraint gave the song more impact and punch, and it’s a decision I’m not sure I would have trusted myself to make in earlier work.
5. You balance a dance-floor-ready beat with heavy, introspective lyricism. Is there a specific emotional logic behind that contrast?
To be honest, none of my choices are analytical in the moment – the logic appears only in hindsight. With SUNK COST, the aggressive, sometimes even fun, production mirrors the emotional reality behind the lyrics. The subject matter is heavy, but that weight isn’t felt while living it. The tension between a danceable beat and what the song describes reflects the mindset required to survive inside a sunk-cost way of living. If you let yourself feel the full weight of those emotions, especially as sadness, you collapse. The song must possess the same enjoyable distraction as the cognitive dissonance in which you live to survive the heaviness of the realities lurking behind the lifestyle.
6. You’ve explored anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and trauma in previous work. How do those themes resurface or transform in SUNK COST?
I didn’t think much about SUNK COST in relation to these themes while making it, but the line “kill her, call it sunk cost” does point toward a state of sustained hypervigilance—continuing forward because survival demands it.
7. Self-producing demands obsession and discipline. What was the biggest friction point in the creation of this track — technically or emotionally?
By far it was the guitar solo section. I became fixated on the idea of having a guitar solo in the track so much so that it became almost a microcosm of the song’s theme. The rest of the song would build itself very easily and I completed large chunks in relatively short sittings when I felt locked into the song. The guitar solo I struggled with getting right. I tried writing it myself, and found that the solo ideas I had always came out too bluesy and didn’t match what I was picturing for the song. I have a somewhat unhealthy desire to do everything myself- which I’m working on- and took a big step in having my friend (an actual bonafide guitarist) Jamie Gutierrez step in and write a solo for me. I did still fixate on at least playing the solo in myself, and it took me some time and effort to manage to do so as it was a stretch to my skills. I did also end up lightly modifying the ending of the solo to fit my abilities better. I ended up questioning whether the solo belonged in the song at all, but the way the creation of it mirrored the themes of the song made it feel ultimately very fitting.
8. Do you feel the culture of “never give up” is more destructive than empowering? How does that tension shape the storytelling of the song?
I’m going to take this as an opportunity to talk about “hustle culture” and the general sense of productivity-as-the-basis-for-self-worth that has become increasingly prevalent. I wonder a lot whether there are positives found in these ideas, because it is very easy to quickly find the negatives. The surface-level culture often ignores the disadvantages faced by many, and instead encourages the already-privileged. However, I do think that sometimes leaning into these ideas got me through times that I may not have gotten through otherwise. At some of the harder points in my life, as silly as this sounds, I would ask myself “what would a great person do?” The idea being that I wanted to be ‘great’ not just average or good. I tried to use this correctly though, and sometimes the sentiment would be that “a great person would allow themselves to rest” in the times that failing to do so may have burned me out entirely. I dislike hustle culture as it tends to apply to gaining upward social mobility at all costs, ignoring the passion driving it. I could care less if I made large amounts of money, if doing so meant I was never able to make music again. I think the push-through hustle culture can only really be positive when applied to one’s passions and not centered entirely around materialism and money (which it often is on social media).
9. If SUNK COST were a chapter in your personal narrative, what phase of your life would it represent?
I hope that SUNK COST represents the most challenging part of my personal narrative, but only time will tell. I had reached a place in my life that by all means should’ve been easier and more stable, but was struggling so badly in spite of that. I thought that what I was struggling with was mental, but one of the things I was pushing through was a pretty severe neurological medical issue that had been worsening. I think this song really represents me trying to stay alive, working, and functional, while my nervous system was shutting down my ability to maintain homeostasis. Now writing these answers, I am in a period of getting diagnosis, and seemingly beginning treatment that is actually helping (though I’m still not fully better). I hope to look back on SUNK COST and feel for the version of myself that was fighting struggles that weren’t visible even to myself, and still pursuing what I loved at all costs. At the risk of jinxing myself, I think it can only get easier compared to that.
10. When listeners first press play, what do you hope hits them first: the euphoria of the production or the sting of the subtext?
What I hope a listener gets from the song is entirely dependent on the listener themselves. I would imagine that for a majority of people, the excitement of a fun aggressive song would hit first- even for those that would find the message impactful on a closer listen. I actually didn’t add the intro to the song until quite late in the production process, because the heavy hit of the first line was what felt most important to me. This was also a large part of why I felt inclined to have such a stripped back production under the beginning of the first verse. Ideally, I’d like to think anyone who would properly feel the impact of the lyrics would find themselves nonchalantly enjoying the song before they realize the gravity of what they’ve heard.
11. Looking ahead, is SUNK COST more of a warning, a release, or a transitional marker for the next sonic era you’re building?
Of these I think I’d describe it most as a release. The song was extremely cathartic for me, and I chose to finish and release it instead of the song I was intending on working on because of how strongly I was connecting emotionally to the existing demo. I don’t necessarily finish my projects in chronological order- ifimOK was created long after USIN IT. I tend to choose based on what I’m connecting to most artistically, which means we will continue to see fluctuations in both my production style and lyrical content as I release more. I don’t see the difference in production style between a song like still smokin and SUNK COST to be an evolution, but more of a choice that I will continue to fluctuate between depending on what best serves the song.
The Hollywood Six 