INTERVIEW: SUB-HUMAN — For The Wolves HQ

Dec 14

Dec 14 INTERVIEW: SUB-HUMAN

Introducing SUB-Human. Music producer, artist, audio engineer - for someone who has a project name about being less than human, he does more than most. Recently, he released a new EP ‘XL’, and it sounds just as large as its title - dirty 808s, cat-retching sounding synths, Dungeons & Dragons references… need we say more?

what inspired the EP?

This EP is an exploration of what it means to be EXTRA LARGE! So massiveness in all senses of the word.

For XL I was playing around with various ways to make a drop as large as possible. My first thoughts were to try and fit as much complicated sound design in as I could "as was the fashion at the time", but the wise words of my manager echoed in my head... he appeared before me like a jedi ghost wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt "less is more... less is moooorrreeee...". So I experimented with removing as much as I could from the drops, leaving in moments of silence, and the track opened up! The track develops over three drops and each drop has bigger and bigger gaps. Not only does it make the drops feel harder, it literally gives the speakers more time to reset in between drum hits, making it SMACK on big speakers.

Crispin Bad Boy is named after a Dungeons and Dragons NPC my brother wrote as part of a campaign my friends and I were playing. The experiment in 'Extra Large-ness' comes in the verses. I was trying to take the piss with how big and disgusting I could make the 808 style bass lines. I designed the sound in serum with multiple voices controlling different parts of the sound, the fundamental (lowest sub frequency) being one instance of serum and the harmonics (all the dirty, higher frequency parts) another. Lots and lots of hours of processing and mixing later - I'm pretty happy with the result! For the main body of the track outside the verses, I have a 'motif' for the character Crispin Bad Boy. This is a simple melody of a 'call and response', which you can hear repeated throughout the song. The melody stays the same but the sound design changes and is played from various different synths throughout. My favourite part is the synth at 1:26, which sounds like a cat dry retching.

Any advice for working through writers block?

Don't be afraid to make bad music. As you get better at any aspect of music, you are training your brain to detect bad things. Being able to stop mistakes or problems is vital to improving! But... the issue is that you begin noticing all the problems in your writing even before you've properly managed to get the idea out. You need to let all those early, unrefined ideas have time to bloom. So the advice is, make some bad music! Just let it loose. You can then come back another day and put back on your critical hat, then dive through the ideas and find things worth saving, or hear what can be used and improved. I've found this super helpful and has got my back to what it felt like writing music when I barely knew anything about what I 'should' be doing.

Last dream you remember?

Bit grim but someone stole a family member and I hunted them down and tried to kill them with a rock, but then in classic dream mode I wasn't able to do much, every time I tried to hurt the 'bad guy' the rock just made little donk sounds like hitting a spoon on a table. (I promise not all my dreams are like this!)

Thoughts on the future of music?

I think we are at an interesting point of 'post-postmodernism' if you will, where we are recycling ideas and feelings from our past and adding something new along the way. I think we're also overdue creating a new technology that will greatly transform music again (think the invention of the electric guitar or digital audio). So it's hard to imagine what might be next, but I'm excited for the next massive shift as it's been a while.

Weirdest project name?

Tony Smock Prawn

Red or blue?

Red

Something you wish you knew 5 years ago?

That getting up early and working throughout the day is not the same as working super late at night and waking up late. I thought you could just do your 'day time' whenever and working late was part of our industry but turns out I feel way better about life waking up early.

If you wrote a book, what would it be called?

‘How to Kill a Smocking Bird’

Would you rather: have to experience life in slow motion of fast forward?

Slow Motion I think, unless I'm missing some obvious monkey's paw drawback then you'd get to experience more of life.

What does it mean to be human?

To be human is a unique experience to our world and maybe even the universe. We are self aware and have the ability to affect so much, yet nothing at the same time. As a species we are capable of such greatness but also so much bewildering horror at the same time. If I had to give meaning to us then I think it would be to find contentment within yourself, and have as much of a positive impact on your community and world as realistically possible.

Three studio essentials:

Good chair, gaming mouse, water / coffee

Would you rather: not have knees, or not have elbows?

Are we talking about having just a straight limb?! Damn, probably no elbows, I think it would be the least frustrating of the two?

what’s next for SUB-Human?

I've got a bunch more music on the way, touring is starting again and I'm continuing to have great fun mixing and mastering for my dear clients (with some very big project dropping V SOON.