Two Feet

Two Feet is the stage name of Zachary William Dess, an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer born in Manhattan, New York City, in June 1993. He built his career on one of streaming's most-cited overnight breakthroughs, a 2016 SoundCloud upload called "Go F*ck Yourself" that went from a few thousand plays to a Republic Records deal in a matter of days, and on "I Feel Like I'm Drowning," the 2017–18 single that reached No. 1 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart. After a highly public 2018 mental-health crisis and an eventual split from the major-label system, Dess became a fully independent artist, founding his own imprint, 477 Records, in 2023. His most recent chapter, built around the November 2025 announcement of his sobriety and the EPs Drunken Fits of a Modern Age and Songs For February, reframes a career once defined by crisis as one now defined by recovery.

Early Life and Berklee

Zachary William Dess was born in Manhattan, New York City, though some later coverage places his upbringing more specifically in Harlem. He attended Tenafly High School in New Jersey before enrolling at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Before landing on the Two Feet name, Dess played in local jazz and blues ensembles around New York and did early pop production work connected through a friend at Atlantic Records. According to a biography from Coda Music, an elementary-school field trip to see The Nutcracker first sparked his interest in music, and by middle school he was already writing chamber pieces before drifting toward Chicago blues, hip-hop and trap as a teenager.

Dess did not finish his degree. "I had a scholarship, and I lost my scholarship, and I couldn't afford my classes, (so) I just left because of that. And yeah, now they're asking me for money," he told Revue, wryly noting that his alma mater still solicits alumni donations from him. He has also said a former songwriting teacher told him he'd end up working at Guitar Center, and that Berklee classmates mocked his early compositions, criticism he has credited with directly inspiring the confrontational title of the song that would make him famous.

The Viral Break: "Go F*ck Yourself"

In 2015 and 2016, a 22-year-old Dess was working as a bodega cashier, living on a friend's couch, and recording out of a makeshift home studio with a microphone taped to a wall. Frustrated with the slow, over-planned rollout of his earlier music, he wrote and recorded "Go F*ck Yourself" in a matter of hours after a night out drinking, then uploaded it to SoundCloud around 3 a.m. without expecting anyone to hear it. "I was drunk after coming back from a bar with friends and had made 'Go F*ck Yourself' earlier that day in a couple hours. It was late and I assumed no one would hear it but I was sick of all the planning that had gone into my previous releases and said fuck it," he told Early Bird Music.

By morning the track had a few thousand plays, a wave of comments, and inbound messages from label A&R scouts. Within roughly 24 hours it had racked up close to 4 million streams. "I was like is something wrong with the system? I was in disbelief," Dess told Digital Trends. The song went on to amass more than 200 million combined streams across SoundCloud, Spotify and YouTube within about a year, charted at No. 36 on Billboard's Hot Rock Songs chart, and was certified Gold by the RIAA. On the strength of that virality, Two Feet signed to Republic Records, home at various points to The Weeknd, Post Malone and Ariana Grande, in what press at the time called a "six-figure deal."

Sonic Identity: Dark Blues-Electronic

Two Feet's core sound fuses blues- and jazz-derived guitar with hip-hop-inflected production and a nocturnal, moody atmosphere. Marathon Music Works' artist description calls his songs "atmospheric and moody due to spacious arrangements and muscular hip-hop-tinged beats," noting he "combines a soulful electric guitar with floor-rattling bass" beneath "smoky, conspiratorial" vocals. Apple Music's editorial framing calls him "an old soul making timeless blues for a new era," describing a voice with "a faint rasp" that "suggests a glass of whiskey served neat," over "witching-hour ruminations" about co-dependence and self-destruction. In a 2026 Flaunt profile, Dess described his own genre as "electronic blues, R&B sex music."

He has cited Bob Moses, The xx, Chet Faker, and the electronic producer Mura Masa as influences, along with jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, whom his father introduced him to as a child, and Chicago blues, hip-hop and trap from his teenage listening. Notably, he has said he "didn't even really listen to rock" growing up, an irony given that rock and alternative radio became his commercial breakthrough format. Rolling Stone France called the project a "cocktail" of new-generation jazz and electro built on basslines listeners would "willingly drown in," while later albums, particularly Shape & Form (2022), pushed further into shoegaze and house-adjacent textures. Alternative Press summed up his cross-genre pull by noting he has "everyone from Tool fans to your ex in the palm of his hand." Lyrically, co-dependence, self-destruction, addiction and heartbreak run through nearly every era of his catalog, intensifying from Max Maco Is Dead Right? onward into direct engagement with his own mental-health history.

Discography Eras

Two Feet's catalog spans four distinct chapters: scrappy SoundCloud-era EPs, a run of fully self-produced studio albums under major-label distribution, and a return to independent, singles-driven releases through his own label. His debut EP, First Steps (2016, Majestic Casual Records), arrived in the same window as "Go F*ck Yourself" and was billed as a four-track set of "sexy bedroom productions" blending R&B guitar with dance-music techniques. The follow-up, Momentum (June 9, 2017, Majestic Casual), leaned into a "dirty, guitar-driven" sound across four tracks, including "Had Some Drinks" and "Love Is a Bitch," and was supported by his first extensive tour.

His full-length debut, A 20 Something Fuck (October 5, 2018, Republic Records), was an eight-track, roughly 20-minute record blending jazz, blues, rock and soul, anchored by "I Feel Like I'm Drowning" and "Hurt People" featuring Madison Love. Billboard described it as capturing "a sense of darkness and turmoil" alongside "haunting beauty" and "resonant and stunning guitar work." His second album, Pink (March 13, 2020, Republic Records), pushed electronic drums and pulsing synths higher in the mix and included the single "Grey" and fan-favorite deep cut "Maria"; Apple Music's editorial notes Dess has said the record is meant to be "listened to start to finish to be understood."

Max Maco Is Dead Right? (April 16, 2021), released under exclusive license to AWAL Recordings America, was a 13-track concept album built around a fictional alter ego, "Max Maco," an amalgamation of people and experiences Dess processed while working through the mental-health crisis that followed his 2018 hospitalization and, in his account, Republic's diminished support afterward. Tracks include "Hi I'm Max Maco," "Nightmares," "Think I'm Crazy," "Fire," "Flatline," "Blame Me," and the closer "And I F*cked Up (Live)." His fourth album, Shape & Form (May 13, 2022, jointly under AWAL and Republic), expanded into shoegaze, house and experimental electro-soul across fourteen tracks, including "Tell Me the Truth" (which Dess has named his personal favorite), "ADHD," "Devil," "Caviar," "Fire In My Head," and "Until I Come Home" featuring grandson, later reissued as a deluxe edition.

Tours and Live Performances

Dess has said he initially envisioned himself as a producer rather than a performer, but the viral success of "Go F*ck Yourself" pushed him onstage; he played his first live show in March 2017. Early festival dates followed at SXSW and Bonnaroo (2017 and 2019), and he played Governors Ball in his home city of New York and Electric Forest in Michigan across consecutive weekends in 2018, though he dropped out of the second Electric Forest weekend amid the mental-health crisis that summer.

His debut headline North American tour was announced alongside "I Feel Like I'm Drowning" in November 2017 and kicked off January 23, 2018 at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles, with stops in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston, Philadelphia, two New York shows and Chicago. From January 10 to February 20, 2019, Two Feet served as direct support, alongside Betty Who, on the North American arena leg of Panic! At The Disco's Pray for the Wicked Tour, a 28-city run through venues including Barclays Center, Capital One Arena and Bridgestone Arena. Dess has admitted he didn't initially know who Panic! At The Disco were when his manager pitched the opportunity; a typical set on that tour paired covers like Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" with his own catalog, performed with just one additional musician on keys and electronic drum pads.

He toured behind Pink in early 2020 and has continued headlining sold-out North American and international dates since, including bookings alongside Hippie Sabotage and Kal Banx at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Alongside the November 2025 release of Drunken Fits of a Modern Age, Two Feet announced The Next Steps Tour, his first live run since publicly announcing his sobriety, a 40-plus date North American headline run from March 4 to May 15, 2026, running from Santa Cruz to Santa Ana and featuring, per LADYGUNN, "a brand-new light show and stage set-up." He has also played Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, and European festival dates, with 2025–2026 listings in the Czech Republic and Poland, and a nationally televised milestone in a performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Collaborators

Two Feet's featured-artist credits span electronic-pop, alt-pop and indie-alternative acts. Madison Love appeared on "Hurt People" (2018), a piano-led alt-pop cut from A 20 Something Fuck. MELVV brought Two Feet onto "Not Me" (2016), one of his earliest outside collaborations. He appeared alongside MØ and What So Not on "Mercy" (2018), from MØ's Forever Neverland album, and later featured UPSAHL on "Drugs" (2020) and joined Gryffin for the electronic-dance crossover "I Want Love" (2021), the same period he worked with SHAED on "Part Time Psycho."

His most visible dark-alt crossover came with Sub Urban on "PATCHWERK" (March 2021, Warner Records), which the two co-produced together; Sub Urban has said Two Feet's philosophical "rant on capitalism" during their first studio session directly inspired the song's lyrical concept, and the accompanying video surpassed 6 million YouTube views. Shape & Form paired him with grandson on "Until I Come Home" (2021), described by Ones to Watch as an "explosive" alt-rock team-up, and with Frank Walker on "Day By Day" (2022).

Since launching 477 Records, his collaborator list has folded in artists on his own roster: Allie Cabal, the label's first signee, appears on "I Want You Dead" (February 2023) and "City" (March 2023); Bec Lauder collaborated on "Take Me Home" (2023) plus three tracks from her Before Everything Changes project; Ari Abdul features on "KILL ANYONE" (2023), the single that accompanied the label's launch announcement; and Toby Mai appears on "Cities" (2023). His current production and engineering circle, credited on Songs For February, includes drummer "Hufford," "opgrime," mixing engineer "mixedbydirks," mastering engineer Hector Vega, and background vocalist Lucy Ladusk.

Label History and Team

Two Feet's label history runs through three chapters. His first two EPs, First Steps and Momentum, came out through Majestic Casual Records, a Berlin-based independent label and media brand known for curating electronic and alternative "bedroom producer" talent. Following the virality of "Go F*ck Yourself," he signed to Republic Records, which released A 20 Something Fuck (2018) and Pink (2020) and drove radio promotion behind "I Feel Like I'm Drowning." Max Maco Is Dead Right? (2021) was self-produced and released under exclusive license to AWAL Recordings America, a more artist-friendly UMG-owned distribution arm, and Shape & Form (2022) went out jointly under AWAL and Republic.

Dess has described the end of that major-label relationship in relatively amicable terms: "I had a lot of success with Republic... I had a #1 song on the radio then, 'Feel Like I'm Drowning'... At the end of the day, I own my earlier music and was seeing how much money I was making from my independent music, because I never sold that to a major label... They honestly were nice enough and we parted ways totally well," he told Flaunt. Other retrospectives frame the split more starkly, with one industry blog stating that after his 2018 suicide attempt, "many in the music industry treated him like a pariah, and he eventually severed his ties with Republic."

In late 2023 and early 2024, Two Feet launched his own label, 477 Records, announced alongside "KILL ANYONE" featuring Ari Abdul. Music Connection described him at the time as a "Gold-certified rock artist" launching the imprint, which has since released all of his new music, including Drunken Fits of a Modern Age and Songs For February, along with records from artists he has signed, beginning with Allie Cabal. A French venue profile describes 477 Records as built "to collaborate with emerging artists from around the world."

Two Feet's management is handled by Raw Material, the same management company that represents singer-songwriter Christian Gates. The two artists occupy adjacent territory within the broader 2020s dark-alt and dark-pop scene, Two Feet through the electronic-blues lineage he pioneered starting in 2016 and Gates through his alt-R&B and dark-pop catalog, but no direct collaboration, feature credit, or tour date between the two has been documented; the connection between them runs through their shared management infrastructure rather than any recorded joint release.

Mental Health, Hospitalization, and Sobriety

By 2018, Dess had publicly disclosed a history of depression and substance-use struggles that shaped both his artistic persona and his music's dark emotional register. That summer, during the touring cycle around his debut album, he was hospitalized; his father, Guy Dess, posted real-time updates on Twitter, telling fans "Bill is breathing. He is under watch," and later, "He will survive." Dess has said he initially received an incorrect schizophrenia diagnosis that was later corrected to bipolar affective disorder. He dropped out of his second scheduled Electric Forest weekend that summer as a direct result of the crisis, and Max Maco Is Dead Right? (2021) was written explicitly to process the aftermath, including his account that Republic's support diminished following the hospitalization.

Melodic Magazine's coverage of his November 2025 comeback revealed that Dess experienced additional, previously undisclosed hospitalizations related to substance use in the years after 2018, continuing to perform and release music while keeping those later struggles private: "Two Feet is now nine months sober after a long battle with drug and alcohol addiction. Despite multiple hospitalizations, he continued to perform and release music, keeping his struggles private from the public. The LP is a testament to his strength, showcasing survival and self-discovery through honesty and transformation." On November 4, 2025, Dess posted an Instagram video statement publicly announcing his sobriety, a decision that reframed the years of coverage that had defined him primarily through the lens of his 2018 crisis.

Recent Developments (2024–2026)

Following the launch of 477 Records, Two Feet released "Falling to Pieces" as a standalone single in 2024, continuing his fully independent release cadence. Through early and mid-2025 he released a run of independent singles, including "Lingerie," "No Puedo Escapar," "Call Me I Still Love You (Vocal Version)," "My Heart Is All Gone," "CPR," and "Pleasure," building out his label's catalog through platforms like SoundCloud and Instagram. Ten days after his November 4, 2025 sobriety announcement, he released Drunken Fits of a Modern Age (November 14, 2025), a five-track EP and his first release completed after getting sober, featuring "Remember Us?," "Nostalgia," "Is He Done Loving You?," "Makeup in the Mirror" and "Where Did That Girl Go."

He announced The Next Steps Tour alongside that release, and on January 23, 2026 issued the lead single "Lost Your Ghost" from a forthcoming EP, which Rival Magazine described as marking "a turning point for the platinum recording artist" and his "first full release in seven years created with complete clarity," meaning written entirely while sober. Songs For February arrived February 6, 2026 via 477 Records, five tracks including "Stay Away," "Your Way Back," "Could You Still Want Me," "Lost Your Ghost" and "Why'd You Let Me Go," billed by his team as "the real welcome back party" to distinguish it from the more transitional Drunken Fits of a Modern Age. A further single, "The Way She Looks," followed March 13, 2026. Live confirmations through this period included an April 2026 stop at The Plaza Theatre in Orlando and a listed date at Marathon Music Works in Nashville.

Timeline

Frequently Asked

Where does the name "Two Feet" come from?

Dess has given inconsistent answers. In a 2021 Atwood Magazine interview he described staring at his own feet late at night while trying to think of a SoundCloud username for "Go F*ck Yourself": "I just sat there, put my head down, and stared at my feet. And then I was like, 'Oh, I'll just call myself Two Feet.'" In a more tongue-in-cheek PAPER Magazine interview, he instead joked the name honored a fictional relative who "died while exploring Mars," an example of his tendency toward wry misdirection with journalists.

What is Two Feet's biggest song?

"I Feel Like I'm Drowning" is his commercial peak, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart in 2018, climbing into the top tier of the Hot Rock Songs chart, and earning RIAA Gold certification along with a 2× Platinum ZPAV certification in Poland. His debut single, "Go F*ck Yourself," is also RIAA Gold-certified and charted at No. 36 on Hot Rock Songs.

Is Two Feet still on a major label?

No. After releasing two albums through Republic Records and using AWAL Recordings America for distribution on later projects, Dess left the major-label system in 2023 and founded his own independent label, 477 Records, which has released all of his music since, including Drunken Fits of a Modern Age and Songs For February.

What happened to Two Feet in 2018?

During the touring cycle around his debut album, Dess was hospitalized amid a mental-health crisis; his father posted real-time updates on Twitter reassuring fans he would survive. He has said he initially received an incorrect schizophrenia diagnosis later corrected to bipolar affective disorder. Additional hospitalizations related to substance use continued in the years afterward, which Dess kept private until announcing his sobriety in November 2025.

Is Two Feet connected to Christian Gates?

Two Feet and Christian Gates are both represented by the management company Raw Material. No collaboration, feature credit, or shared tour date between the two has been documented; the connection is a shared management relationship rather than a musical partnership.

What genre is Two Feet's music?

Critics and his own label materials describe it as a blend of blues and jazz guitar with hip-hop-inflected production, often labeled "dark blues-electronic" or "electronic blues, R&B sex music" in Dess's own words. His catalog has moved from guitar-driven early EPs toward shoegaze and house-adjacent textures on 2022's Shape & Form.

Streaming and Chart Footprint

Two Feet's chart history is concentrated in Billboard's rock and alternative radio formats rather than the Hot 100.

Cumulative streaming figures vary by tracking source. Marathon Music Works' current artist bio states his catalog has surpassed 1 billion streams across Spotify, YouTube, iTunes and SoundCloud, with over 8.2 million monthly Spotify listeners as of that listing. Third-party tracking site Music Metrics Vault put his total Spotify plays at approximately 3.4 billion as of November 2025, and Kworb's Spotify chart-history tool recorded roughly 3.38 billion total streams as of March 2026, figures considerably higher than the "billion-plus" headline still used in some bios. A 2026 Flaunt profile cited "over one billion streams and 6 million monthly Spotify listeners" as of publication, reflecting how volatile self-reported monthly-listener snapshots can be. Two Feet is billed in his own tour marketing as a "platinum recording artist," reflecting international certifications layered onto his RIAA Gold plaques for "Go F*ck Yourself" and "I Feel Like I'm Drowning." His music has also been placed in television soundtracks, including TNT's Animal Kingdom (Season 3) and Starz's Hightown.

Discography

Two Feet's story sits at the intersection of streaming-native virality, major-label rock and alternative radio, and a self-directed independent second act. His collaborations with Ari Abdul connect his 477 Records era to the wider dark-pop and alt-pop network the label covers elsewhere, including artists like Isabel LaRosa and Ally Nicholas who occupy adjacent confessional, streaming-first lanes. Readers interested in the management overlap with dark-alt and alt-pop artists may also want the entry on Christian Gates, a Raw Material roster-mate working in a parallel corner of the same broader scene.