Adorned with tattoos, including the unmissable ‘Crybaby’ scrawled largely across his right brow, Lil Peep created an image for himself that was further emphasized through his music. Peep, whose real name was Gustav Åhr, incorporated raw lyrics with his unique combination of punk, emo and trap beats. Through his distinct sound, he amassed a large, underground fanbase and was on track to revolutionize music. “I just wanna be everybody’s everything,” were Peep’s last words posted on his Instagram the day before his death, an accidental drug overdose while on tour in November of 2017. He was only 21.
Documentary film _Everybody’s Everything_ invites viewers to take an intimate look into Peep’s life as an artist/ individual whose character and kind nature touched numerous lives. Premiering this week in select theaters worldwide, directors Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan edited hundreds of hours of footage to finalize a two-hour feature complete with Peep’s music, and an instrumental score by Patrick Stump. Excutively produced by the venerated, if not elusive, Terrence Malick, Sarah Stennett, and Peep’s mother, Liza Womack, the film is a behind-the-scenes look into Åhr’s world, with which many are unfamiliar.
Jones and Silyan sat down with _Flaunt_ to discuss how they conceptualized a narrative through interviews with Peep’s family, friends, and collaborators. Even for those who are not familiar with Peep’s identity, the film transcends his singular persona, allowing for any viewer to connect with the content presented.
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Photo Credit: Quiet Cam
**_Why did you choose to make the Lil Peep documentary?_**
**Sebastian Jones:** After Gus died, his family knew a documentary was going to happen and First Access wanted to finance that doc. They reached out to family friend Terrence Malik to help make sure the film was done the right way and that everything would go smoothly. As far as our approach to the material, the title _Everybody’s Everything_ is super important, and I saw that towards the beginning when we started working on it. I was really curious about what he meant by that and how he got to the point in his life where he would say something like that. There clearly seemed like a story around that sentiment, so everything was groaning out of that idea—it was an entry point.
**_How did your work change visually when creating this documentary?_**
**Ramez Silyan:** We shot a bunch of interviews, 150 give or take. All of the other material was shot by either myself, videographers on tour, or social media. We literally had all of the internet to pull videos from. So the amount of footage that we had was definitely double digit terabytes, it’s hard to quantify when you think about the amount of social media material. It was really just collecting a ton of footage and letting that rawness speak for itself.
**_This documentary focuses not only on his accidental death, but more-so on who Peep was as a person. What qualities of Gus do you hope to live on through this documentary?_**
**SJ:** I think that for the people that might’ve written Gus off — and a lot of people did in his life— we want them to see the film and give him a second chance. I hope that they see him with new eyes and really get to know him.
Photo Credit: Mezzy
**Gus clearly touched many people he met throughout his life and career. That being said, we’re there any individuals from his life that shed an important light on his persona?**
**SJ:** It would definitely be his grandfather, Jack, and then his mom, Lisa. Jack as he’s portrayed in the film has become this father figure to Gus. Through the device of the letters Jack wrote him you get the life lessons he was teaching him from afar. Those letters were one of the things Gus carried when he was on Skidrow and when he moved. It was the precious things that came with him — he left behind other things and kept those. It’s very clear that his grandfather had this immense effect on how he dealt with the world and how he saw other people. His family values were that of his grandfather’s ideals.
**RS:** What their family valued specifically was often at odds with the new world that Gus was finding himself in. I’m sure he struggled with that a lot in trying to find a way through with both of these things in mind, carrying his family’s values into this new world. Jack was a huge influence in that respect.
**_After the completion of this film, how do you envision the continued legacy of Gus?_**
**RS:** My hope is that it continues to grow, and as we get some distance from his time people will start to realize that he wasn’t this person you could just write off. A lot of people will, and we’ve gotten this reaction from people who have seen the film who are like “Oh my god, I saw his picture and listened to one song and I thought it was whatever, so I just sort of shelved it away as something not worth my time.”
We hope to change that, to let his legacy grow, to understand what was lost. Not just musically, but on a human level. It’s too often in this time period right now where we reduce people down to what we think of them based off of social media. It’s awful, it’s not human. I literally talk to people who met Gus for five minutes at a liquor store and that made an impact. And after the fact they would find out he’s a rapper or singer they were like, “Woah that guy was so cool and nice.” That to me comes before — yeah he had this immense talent but beyond that, there’s a person that was lost and a family that is grieving that loss.
Photo Credit: Jack Womack. Jack Womack (grandfather) and Lil Peep at Peep Show tour April, 2017
**_What do you hope viewers take away from this film?_**
**SJ:** I know that this will appeal to all the fans. I hope that this makes people more aware of him and that it speaks to people who didn’t know anything about him before.
**RS**: It’s a very simple lesson, but I think Gus taught a lot of people this in his life: Don’t judge a book by its cover. You hear that all the time, these very basic “treat people how you want to be treated” and so on. But this is real, it’s somebody teaching you through action. I hope that that resonates with people who watch it and are not fans, or even parents of fans. The parents who might go “Why do you like this music?” You know how it is when you put on something — I remember when I was younger listening to punk, and my parents would listen to the lyrics and their faces were like “Who are these freaks who are making this music?” The hope is that it also sheds light on that. No they aren’t freaks, they’re people. This is how they choose to communicate their message in life, and there is an intention there. There is a real message behind why Gus got the tattoos he got and why he carried himself the way he did. I really hope a lot of non fans like it. If you actively dislike him, then I want you to watch it. That’s our target.
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Watch the trailer for _Everybody’s Everything_ below.
