MyBeatsIsDope Interviews Producer, DJ, and Live Electronic Music Performer Archetek
A couple weeks ago I posted some music by Archetek, but I was interested to know a little bit about the guy, since I only know him through his music. Since Archetek is not a well-known artist, but I have received a lot of good feedback when sharing his music, I thought you all would like a little more info on this independent electronic music producer, DJ, and live performer. So, here's a little Q&A we had about his influences, background, and his music.
A: I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. Our scene here is very tight-knit and the fans are amazing. V2 productions, the major local production unit, has gained national recognition for their events. Headliners are always impressed with what they see in Salt Lake, and I'm very proud to be a part of the local underground culture here.
Q: What are your musical influences?
A: I grew up on rock and roll, jazz, and classical music. My mother had a PHD in music from BYU so I was surrounded by music at an early age. As a youngster my favorites included Led Zeppelin, (Jon Bonham rules) They Might Be Giants, Rage Against the Machine and Phish. I've seen Phish live over 20 times. I just love watching them improvise. In the last 10 years I've been really impressed with The Mars Volta and Muse...both very well produced and orchestrated.
As far as electronic music goes, I got into it pretty early in my teens. I was an instant fan of The Prodigy after seeing the movie 'Hackers,' and subsequently got into The Chemical Brothers, Propellerheads, The Crystal Method, and Orbital. I miss big-beat to be honest, I hope it makes a comeback someday. You can still throw on Vegas by The Crystal Method and it slams on a system still...the engineering standards back then were a lot higher in my opinion, and the fact that some of those tracks can still be played alongside any new tunes and sound good is amazing to me. Around the turn of the century I got really big into Groove Armada and BT. Drum n Bass has always been my favorite current genre. I have always loved TeeBee, Bad Company, and especially Calyx. Right now my favorite artists by far are Noisia and Spor (Feed Me). Their sound design and engineering skills are legendary in my opinion and it seems like their tunes only get better and better. I just got to see Noisia twice last month and was dripping with sweat after dancing my ass off both times. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing Feed Me yet, but from the pictures I've seen he can rock a crowd with the best of them. In dubstep I am very picky, but I do love a handful of specific artists. Nero and Reso are always in heavy rotation in my sets. The music video for Guilt is perfect, best pole dancing ever. Haha.
Q: What got you into Djing?
A: To be honest, I've never really considered myself a DJ. When I started playing gigs I would play my tracks live with a Roland drum kit and some synths and a guitar. I've been DJing a lot in the past few years though and I enjoy it. I typically play dnb and hip hop, but I love playing pretty much anything. I pride myself on being able to be eclectic with my selections.
Q: What got you into producing?
A: I took piano lessons for 6 months when I was 8 years old. That's the only formal training I've ever had, other than being in a Jazz Band in HIgh School and taking theory in college. I got a drum kit when I was 13 and have been playing ever since. I've been writing music on the piano since I was young and I was really into computers as a teen, so I started messing around with basic midi programs pretty early.
I started taking production seriously about ten years ago when I got a copy of Reason. Before that I was just using Sonic Foundry Sound Forge and Vegas to record lines out of my synths. Took forever, heh. I still love Reason for its ease of use, but in my opinion it just sounds like crap so I moved onto Cubase pretty soon after mastering Reason. Now I'm still on Cubase, and I love it. I use a lot of Native Instruments' VSTs. I love Z3ta, Zebra, and Omnisphere (beast) for synths. I use a trillion other plugs for various things. I do a lot of my work on raw audio tracks, but I will take a finished sound and throw it into Kontakt for midi triggering and composing when I'm feeling inspired. My favorite piece of kit is still my Roland drum kit. I recently got a copy of Addictive Drums and it is...incredible. It really is the best VST I've ever used. The drum kits sound more real than I thought was even possible. They even have a Zeppelin drum pack that sounds just like the original recordings! Bonham rules. I also sample a lot of Billy Martin from Medeski Martin and Wood....amazing drummer. I think people are starting to forget how important sampling is...a lot of these newer artists are just using synths and one shot drums and it all sounds very plastic and robotic to me. Give me an old funk break and I'll be happy.
Q: What's your favorite style of music and why?
A: Drum n' Bass by a long shot. It hits me in a way that no other music ever has or probably ever will. The energy and vibe just do it for me. I love all kinds from liquid to neurofunk. I just started playing a liquid radio show, and its the most fun I've had playing in a while. Plus dnb heads are all crazy and super nice because there's pretty much no money in it, so that's good too. Haha. I guess that could be said of all underground music, though. Junglist for life!
Q: How would you describe your style of production?
A: I guess I would call it, eclectic. Haha. I'm all over the place to be honest. One week I'll write a house track and a downtempo track, then I'll spend two months on a dnb track. I focus a lot on musicality in my tunes because I love Jazz and classical music and for me the scales and chord changes dictate the vibe so I try to infuse a lot of theory into my productions. I'm only recently becoming satisfied with my drum tracks, so you'll be hearing a lot more focus on the drums in my newer tracks.
Hope you enjoyed this little tidbit on Archetek. We thank Archetek for taking the time to let us into his musical life and share with us.
Check out Archetek's music on Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/archetek
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