Machine Gun Kelly Is Quitting Rock Music | Revolver

Machine Gun Kelly Is Quitting Rock Music

Polarizing pop-punk hit-maker says he's going back to rapping
MGK Scott Legato/Getty Images, Scott Legato/Getty Images
Machine Gun Kelly
photograph by Scott Legato/Getty Images

Machine Gun Kelly has announced that he's done with rock music — at least for the time being. Just one month after releasing his second pop-punk album, Mainstream Sellout — which, like his 2020 pop-punk pivot, Tickets to My Downfall, went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — and breaking into an atrociously impromptu cover of System of a Down's "Aerials" on Howard Stern, as well as a year spent doling out condescending remarks about the rock genre he leveraged his fame in the rap world to leap-frog into, MGK now plans to return to rapping on his next LP. 

In a new interview with Kevan Kenney of Audacy, MGK revealed that he currently feels like he's accomplished all he set out to do with his pair of pop-punk records, and that he now feels like it's time to return to hip-hop — a genre many people believe he cowered out of after losing a highly public rap feud against his idol, Eminem, back in 2018. 

"I'm going to make a rap album for myself. For no other reason, no point to prove, no chip on my shoulder," MGK said during the interview. "If I keep doing things to prove things to people, I'm going to, one, drive myself crazy and, two, not make a good product."

"I made Tickets and Mainstream Sellout because I wanted to make them," he continued. "I need to now also make people miss that sound because Tickets and Mainstream Sellout are companion albums, I don't think making a third that's so [similar to those] is going to be exciting unless it's missed."

As Metal Injection notes, he later added that he's "going to do this tour and I'm gonna step into where I left [2019 rap album] Hotel Diablo and expand on my storytelling as a rapper and find a new innovative sound for the hip-hop Machine Gun Kelly. That's where my excitement is and where me as a music archeologist wants to explore."

So it doesn't seem like he's necessarily done with rock music forever, but he's definitely leaving it behind for the time being. Those angry Slipknot fans who pelted him with boos at last year's Louder Than Life fest can rest easy now. 

Hear MGK's full interview below.