Don Toliver’s Love for Cars Didn’t Start With ‘Octane’
Tracing the connection between Toliver’s motor mentality and the sound of ‘Octane.’
This post is in support of our Don Toliver cover story from Hypebeast Magazine #37: The Architects Issue. To order a copy, visit HBX.
Don Toliver loves cars. That much is obvious. But with Octane, that obsession becomes something more deliberate, even a guiding ethos surging through the entire project’s DNA. The album itself plays like a pedal-smashing love letter to Group B rally racing and high-performance fuel. It even opens with “E85,” an ode to high-octane fuel blend used in flex-fuel vehicles. From the start, it’s clear: where 2024’s Hardstone Psycho saw the Houston musician building a full musical and visual world around motorcycle culture, Octane finds Toliver making music for the velocity and adrenaline rush of rallying racing.
“I got infatuated with watching racers race and fans literally spectating right on the racetrack,” he tells Hypebeast. “I kind of felt like that was similar to how we are onstage.”
Concept albums aren’t new for Toliver, but Octane doesn’t feel like a one-off theme. It comes across more like an extension of something that’s always been there, a long-standing fixation on motors, motion, and the environments that surround both. Just days before our cover shoot, Toliver was in Montana for the FAT Ice Race in Big Sky as a guest of Porsche Cars North America, swerving in his personal Porsche 911 Dakar through winding roads of the snowy mountain terrain. For the album itself, he connected with West Coast Customs to rework an Audi Coupe GT into a Group B-style rally car, which would later anchor the album’s creative direction around and travel across the country with on a promo run, including a stop at SXSW.
That same car became a central character in the album’s visual world. It first appears in Octane’s trailer, where Toliver pulls up as roadside aid to a crashed-out vixen before racing through the California hills. The scene shifts to Mount Wilson Observatory, where he takes on a Dr. Frankenstein-like role, resurrecting her through sound pulled from the “cosmic void.” The narrative carries into videos like “ATM” and “Tiramisu,” where his personal collection continues to blur the line between prop and protagonist, including the Porsche 911 Dakar featured in the latter.
For our magazine cover shoot in Los Angeles, we asked Toliver to bring a car or two. He showed up in a Lamborghini Revuelto, with his Porsche 911 Dakar and Honda NSX in tow, followed by staff in a Rolls-Royce Cullinan, later swapped for a cream-colored Rolls-Royce Phantom. It wasn’t excess for the sake of it; this is just what his world looks like when the doors open.
His relationship with cars runs deeper than a surface-level stunt. Where most artists might collect cars for status, Toliver engages with the design itself. “I just love the cars, the body lines of the cars. They take me to a really cool place,” he says. That mindset extends beyond the studio, too. When asked about bringing that world closer to fans, he’s already thinking ahead. “I’ve done some small car meetups for the album, but once I get some downtime, possibly on tour, I’m going to schedule a couple. Probably in every city.”
To understand how that obsession translated into Octane, we pulled key moments from our Hypebeast Magazine Issue 37 cover story, tracing how Toliver’s love for cars became the backbone of his first No. 1 album. Buckle up.
You’ve spoken before about your love of cars. Where did the idea for Octane come from?
Toliver: The idea for the project stemmed from my love for motorsports, cars, and everything in that world. Coming off Hardstone, which was about Harleys, baggers, and all those bikes I brought to the table. But this one was geared more around Group B rally racing.
I got infatuated with watching racers race and fans literally spectating right on the racetrack. I kind of felt like that was similar to how we are onstage. When things are going as crazy as they can get and the fans are just turned up, out of control in their own world, it feels like the same thing. You’re racing down there and you’ve got fans with cameras, all rowdy, and the engines are insane. It’s like you’re performing in front of them.
I just love the cars, the body lines of the cars. They take me to a really cool place. So I wanted to introduce that into my life and the music. Then the next step was finding a home for it all. I wanted to build my own installations, maybe a giant geodesic dome, but I was like, “That’s a lot of money and a lot of time.”
I ended up stumbling across Mount Wilson and started doing a lot of research on it, what it stood for, what [astronomy pioneer Edwin] Hubble did there. I started my own journey as an amateur astronomer while making music. I got to make music there, spend time there, do a lot of photography and videography there. I blended all of that together to create this album.
I saw you were in Montana recently for the FAT Ice Race, how was that?
Toliver: The race in Montana was just a demonstration of what’s to come. That race was incredible. I was able to bring my car out there, showcase it, drive it. We won big and I had so much fun.
Switching gears, do you think car culture is better in Houston or LA?
Toliver: That’s a great question. The car culture in Houston is definitely crazy. Car culture in Texas is insane. But LA has this crazy sci-fi feeling to it. If you play video games like Need for Speed and Midnight Club, it has that kind of feeling. As a driver, LA is beautiful.
Have you ever done a car meetup, or is that something you’d want to do more of?
Toliver: Of course. I’ve done some small car meetups for the album, but once I get some downtime, possibly on tour, I’m going to schedule a couple. Probably in every city. Just to see what’s going on and what the kids have out there.
Read our full cover story on Don Toliver here, and order the Houston hitmaker’s cover of Hypebeast Magazine #37: The Architects Issue on HBX.
