R/D - Stadium Chimera

Download: R/D - Stadium Chimera

We are big fans of R/D over here at YSK, so alongside this awesome little freebie ‘Stadium Chimera’ which celebrates the release of his Face of God EP, we’ve also thrown in a sweet little interview for you to find out more about the man himself! Wicked stuff as always, check it out, spread the word, leave a comment and enjoy!

YSK: Tell us a bit about yourself, the basics, where are you residing and what have you been up to recently?

RD: I’ve been in LA for the past 10 years. The past four years I’ve spent in Silver Lake, just east of Hollywood. It’s a conscious, artsy part of town. Lots of hills and houses peppered throughout the trees. There’s loads of creativity in every part of LA, but the Silver Lake area has a particular concentration of musicians. I love it here.

Recently I’ve taken a break from film sound to pursue music, which has been amazing. I’ve been playin’ the west coast festival circuit all summer and took a two week vacation in San Francisco to clear the head and dive into some album writing. Got to hang with some homies, peep the new ESKMO album (which is incredible), write a tune with Sidecar Tommy (Beats Antique) and catch some good nights of music. It was super inspirational. I came back having written tons of new material for the album and jumped right into the studio to polish up this EP!

YSK: The last thing we posted from you was probably the remix of Fever Ray you did. I remember the second you sent it over I was rushing to post it as it was such a killer tune and I wanted everyone to get a chance to listen to it. Seems like after that it blew up pretty hard, what was the deal with that?

RD: Hell yah, and thanks for that! Your post landed the remix on the Hype Machine charts and it just took off. I cranked on promo for 3 days and watched it climb, totally stunned. My Soundcloud account was maxed in half a day, so I had to spring for the big account. At the end of 3 days, it reached #2 on both Hypem charts and grabbed 27,000 plays. It was a complete roller-coaster ride. I was worked over, slept for a whole day after it. The whole self-promo thing is gnarly; totally exhausting. It paid off in the end, though! Eventually, I got an email from Fever Ray management saying they ‘quite like’ the remix. I’m a HUGE Fever Ray fan, so that was all I needed to hear, but I’ve secretly got my fingers crossed that they’ll want to release it someday ;)

YSK: Outside of music what do you do on the daily? Is music your 9-5?

RD: I run, do Yoga and meditate every day. I’m super into film, so I rock a Netflix rental pretty much every night. Food is definitely one of my all-time joys. I laugh at least 50 times a day and try not to take life too seriously, it’s too damn short for that nonsense! Basically, I do everything I can to live life to the fullest!

I’ve been a film sound designer/sound editor for about 5 years, but just recently stepped back to focus completely on music. I still do film gigs here and there, but music is full-time now. What’s funny though, is that half of my time is spent NOT making music. As of now, it’s still in my best interest to release my tunes on my own label, so between self promotion and working on the business side of things, half my time is consumed! It’s funny, most people still think being a musician is all stage-owning glory. They don’t realize how incredibly hard musicians have to work if they want to make a living, especially in today’s world. Even if you hire the best booking agents. managers and lawyers, you’re still cranking hard on the business. And, in the end, you owe them a big chunk of your income. It’s crazy. I wish I could just sit back and do nothing but write tunes, but it’s all worth it. I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

YSK: For people who have not checked out much of your music before how would you describe your sound?

Well, long ago I made experimental Electro & IDM. Later, I got down with the west coast glitch hop scene. Now, honestly, I have no idea! I seriously can’t wait to release this EP just so people will stick me in a category again. I feel homeless!

I generally make tunes aimed at the dance floor, mostly in the hip-hop tempo range. For the past couple years, though, I’ve been listening primarily indie bands, and that has seriously influenced my sound. I’m super into dynamics; slowly building a beautiful, soft melody into a huge explosion of knocking beats and catchy hooks. It’s all very verse-chorus-verse, almost rock based, you know; tunes you can sing along to! I’m super into melody, and less about bashing people over the head with intense bass. I try to take into consideration the full range of emotion.

YSK: What do you have on offer for us international folk out in Europe, I know you’ve been playing a lot out in the USA but can we expect to see any tours or other dates coming up?

I’m workin’ hard on getting out there! Hopefully, blogs like yours will get me some Euro love! I did a couple UK/Euro mini tours back in the early 00’s, when I was doing the IDM/Electro thing. Loved it! Especially the UK. Your humor, sarcasm and general outlook are priceless. Plus, being the inventors of the English language, your slang is top notch!

YSK: What genres / artists / sounds are you feeling right now? Some influences lets say. Any one we should be keeping an eye out for?

Most of my electronic music influences come from back in the day; Trip Hop, Electro, IDM and experimental breaks. Early Autechre, Aphex, Boards of Canada, Phoenecia, Tipper, Prefuse (Delarosa & Asora/Savath y Savalas). I got pretty influenced by the glitch hop scene, too. Deru and edIT are some of my best friends, so they rub off on me;) Lately I’ve been listening to Fever Ray, The XX and Radiohead religiously, probably too much. Also, loads of indie folk like Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Andrew Bird, etc. I’m not sure how much the average listener will be able to tell, but indie folk and rock have influenced me hugely. Strangely enough, though, the biggest influence on this new EP has been Smashing Pumpkins ‘Siamese Dream’. Mock me if you will, but I’ve been in love with that album since I was 16! The warm, thick, fuzzy, buttery distortion of those guitars almost transcends rock music, and I really tried to capture that, especially on ‘Epochs & Aeons’ and ‘Multiple Lives’. It sounds funny talking about all this indie and rock music when I’m an electronic music producer. Apparently I’m a complete contradiction!

Peeps to keep an eye on: for the dubstep lovers, my buddy Mimosa is throwing an amazing, melodic twist to the genre. Also, Ana Sia is completely killing it with her DJ sets of dubstep/glitch/crunk steeze. Gladkill, out of New York, is one of my new favorites. MartyParty (1/2 of PantyRaid) is also killin’ it right now. He did a remix earlier this year of a tune off my Cricket EP. Beats Antique are definitely on the forefront of blending live instrumentation with electronic/glitch hop. Ill Gates, out of Toronto is shredding the bass scene. My homie ESKMO is about to release his incredible new album on Ninja Tune, which is so original, it pretty much defies genre. I probably don’t need to say it here, but anything that Deru and/or The Glitch Mob do is damn good. And finally, on the Indie Folk tip, my friend Cohen (on ‘Gypsy Pop’) is pretty amazing…

YSK: What’s your production set up like?

I was working out of a proper post-production studio in Hollywood where I had my own room with full rig, but I left back in January. In the past few months I’ve completely minimized my setup. I produce everything off a Macbook Pro running Nuendo and loads of plugins. My main plugs are Native Instruments ‘Battery’, ‘Massive’ and ‘FM8 along with iZotope ‘Trash’, Amblitube ‘Xgear’, apulSoft ‘apQualizr’ and the SIR2 reverb with a bunch of converted Impulse Response libraries. I’m definitely in search of a new approach for the album, though. I’m really into distortions right now, and I’ve tried running my soft-synths through some analog distortion pedals. Maybe I’ll keep experimenting with that, who knows.

YSK: For the nerds out there - what websites do you check out on the regular and where can people find out more about RD on the internets?

Uh, Facebook? Haha, it’s a serious love/hate thing. It does so much for promoting my music, but I find myself constantly thinking I should status update about shit that’s completely insignificant. Fanbridge and Artist Data are essential tools of the trade. Soundcloud is really amazing. Right now it seems mostly geared towards artists, but I think more listeners and music fans will be joining to follow their favorite artists and discover new sounds.

My website is pretty informative. It’s got all the basics; tour dates, news, music player, download links, social networking links, etc. I built it myself, so don’t hate! I’m no web designer: www.rd-sound.com

YSK: Any final words of wisdom?

Do everything you can to pursue what you love and live without attachment. When you reach your dreams, be nothing short of grateful!

Thanks to R/D and check out a preview of the new EP below, you can purchase it here.