Aloe Blacc, Eric Hirshberg Collaborate Again Co-Writing ‘Socially’-Conscious, “For Real”

It didn’t take long for Aloe Blacc and Eric Hirshberg to hit it off. After their first meeting at the Near Future Summit in Los Angeles in 2022, curated by a mutual friend, Hirshberg, former CEO of Activision, the video game publisher behind Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and Destiny, who had been out of the gaming business since 2018 to focus on his first love, music, even ended up on stage with Blacc. The two performed one of Hirshberg’s songs,  “I Love Not Drinking,” which appeared on his second album, Second Hand Smoke, in 2024, with Blacc also appearing on the recorded version.

“I was a fan [of Blacc’s], and I just went for it, and said, ‘I’m singing it in a couple of hours, you want to sing it with me?’” recalls Hirshberg. “And he said, ‘Yes,’ and we literally went out behind the venue and sat on like the air conditioning unit and rehearsed it for an hour, then took the stage and got the whole place singing with us. That’s the great birth of our friendship.”

Their first collaboration was organic, and a message both related to, since Blacc also leads a sober life. Both were on the same page when they decided to collaborate again, this time co-writing “For Real,” a song exploring the impact technology and social media have on human connection.

What am I so afraid of?/ Why am I so confused? / Why am I so addicted to the bad news? runs the soulful song, dissecting the social and mental impact and addictive nature of living too far into the digital.

“We have lots of access to a lot of things, so you just have to go on a diet,” says Blacc of digital overconsumption. “It’s just like with food, we go on a diet—it’s self-control. The one thing that we really lose is our relationship with ourselves. There’s no time for self-reflection, because you’re always constantly being sedated by and distracted by the phone and social media, so you lose touch with yourself, and as a consequence, with other people.”

Part of Hirshberg’s approach to controlling his social intake is uninstalling most apps after use. “We have to be able to control it,” he says. “Part of my detox is songwriting. It’s being able to just focus on the things that actually make me happy, and songwriting is one of those things.”

Hirshberg cites the shift that happened when the Facebook app was available on smartphones as the start, with Instagram and others to follow, leading to an amplified addictive connection to the social environment.

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“I don’t remember signing the waiver, but we all were a part of a global psychological experiment in a way,” says Hirshberg. “Now, we know a lot more about what that algorithm does. They tried to aim for what we like, but they hit what we can’t ignore by mistake, and those two things are not always the same. Sometimes what we can’t ignore are not things we like, but things that make us mad, scared, or push a button of division, so people are learning more about what it does to them and what they’re like on and off of it.”

When writing with Blacc, Hirshberg says he picked up a different approach to songwriting and direction to get the message across. “He [Blacc] started from a very conceptual first place, and I had never done it that way,” says Hirshberg. “I’m always scavenging and piecing together little bits and pieces I can build a song around with a broader sense of ‘What are we trying to say? Who are we trying to say it to?’”

Blacc also brought a more positive spin to “For Real,” says Hirshberg, who says he typically writes songs that can “bum you out” or are more emotional and contemplative.

“It could have very easily veered into just being a bummer or just being a song about a state of the world that we’re not happy with,” says Hirshberg. Instead, Blaacc guided the song toward a message of breaking free from the digital hold with a more empowering turn—I’m gonna break free (All of you, all of us, all of me, all my trust) / Before it breaks me / I’ve gotta believe / That we can get back home for real.

“That insight has stuck with me with the songs I’ve written since,” adds Hirshberg. “Something I learned is that you can be intentional about wanting to lift people up and wanting to deliver a positive message.”

Following his more positive flow, Blacc, who released his sixth album, Stand Together, in 2025, says he’d like to do a folk album and already has a few albums in the works, with hip-hop, yacht rock, and soul covers waiting. “It’s different genres and styles and avant-garde stuff that people probably won’t understand, but that’s what I’m writing right now,” says Blacc. “What’s sitting on my heart is the idea that we are all part of this human race, but beyond that, there’s this constant energy of love and consciousness, and how can I put that into music in a way that will be received in a broad way.”

Blacc continues, “I really want these messages to be heard far and wide. But I’ve also learned that even the songs that aren’t intended for pop reception, those messages will still find their way in their time.”

Rather than mapping out a rigid path, Hirshberg is allowing the music to lead the way. “When I’m writing music, I’m grabbing the rope behind a boat and getting pulled somewhere, and I don’t know where it’s going,” he says. “For me, it’s about following the instinct and the muse when it comes, and carving out time in life to honor it and to follow it.”

Photo: Josh S. Rose