Everyone's talking about d4vd. The 18-year-old musician from Houston has been working hard at home, crafting his debut EP Petals to Thorns on his iPhone. The artist, who began making music at home to accompany his gaming, went viral with his single Romantic Homicide last year. The track was created on the BandLab app in his sister's closet, and d4vd's process still hasn't changed. We caught up with the artist, who has been applauded by Zane Lowe, appeared on Billboard's 21 under 21, and is getting ready to travel the world for the rest of the year on a mega tour spanning the UK, Europe and North America:

"It feels like a step forward," d4vd tells us about curating the track list for Petals to Thorns. "I never made a project like this before, let alone any songs that had any correlation to each other... I was putting together songs from every stage on my musical journey. Some were super old some were super new, but I kept it all from the DIY iPhone world. The rawness I had in Romantic Homicide, the flaws that came from Here With Me, all that background noise in the older music. But keeping it fresh and raw." Petals to Thorns, made almost entirely at home on his phone in his sister's closet, is a tale of love and heartbreak. That storyline that is dependent on the EP's structure simulates the story of a relationship, which d4vd says, "was the right move, because all my music is transitional. Especially the visuals, all the music videos and visualisers. The EP flows like water."

Gaming is vital to d4vd's world - it's not only why he started making music, but the community has become his collaborators. Aside from working with producer Spencer Stewart (who introduced him to the only collaboration on the record, Laufey) and Dan Darmawan on a few tracks, d4vd worked with his Fortnite friends. "This is actually an interesting story because Backstreet Girl was actually produced by a Fortnite friend of mine, Matt Bartkus. We did not know one day we'd be doing music when we were playing Fortnite, but he was like 'let me make a beat for you'.So he produced the instrumental for Backstreet Girl. Another Fortnite friend of mine, Evan Wise, did Don't Forget About Me." While he's still gaming when he can, another source of inspiration for d4vd has been Anime. It's where he discovered Japanese rock music and it has also influenced the character he's been building throughout this era. "When you sing in a different language the melodies are insane because of the different syllables and stuff like that. Being able to expand my knowledge on how things are supposed to sound on top of other things, like vocal stacks, heavily inspired me to try different things - to try to go even crazier with it.

"I've also been building this character called IT4MI, which means pain in Japanese," he says of the first of 4 characters that will live his universe. "He's the antagonist, he wants to inflict pain on me. He takes any chance he gets, when he sees me happy, - like in these music videos - in Worthless I was in therapy, he put me there. Throughout the entire EP he's creating these scenarios inside my head and making me crazy. Everything's not actually real - love is not real. So it's like an entire cinematic storyline episodic thing where you have to listen to it [the EP] in succession to really understand that." Itami's look is a blindfold and bloody shirt, and it's what you'll see d4vd performing in on this tour. "I want to get to a point where everybody coming to the shows is wearing that outfit. I don't want to bring designers to it just yet. I want to have that uniform." Off stage, d4vd is head to toe in Rick Owens and Acne Studios. We like his style.

As d4vd gears up for a mega tour, we ask him about his experience recently playing shows in Australia. "I loved Australia," he says. "The ferry that takes you through the harbour? That was one of the most peaceful things I've experienced in the last six years... The crowds were amazing. I didn't know they rocked with my music heavier than the US. They knew every song. I can't wait to go back." For now, d4vd is on the brink of world domination as he gets ready to head out on the road and makes waves with his genre-defying, powerful record, Petals to Thorns.

Listen to d4vd HERE.

@d4vddd