WORDS WITH RAY VOLPE — For The Wolves HQ

Meet Ray Volpe. Not only is he one of electronic music’ fastest rising talents, he also has our favourite Youtube bio we’ve ever seen.

“Ray Volpe is a music producing currently writing his youtube channel description in the third person in efforts to make himself sound 500% cooler than he actually is.”

Having just wrapped up a crazy AUS/NZ tour (no joke, we actually saw a guy nearly knock himself out at Chinese Laundry he was headbanging so hard) around his new killer single featuring Aviella - ‘Our World’, we borrowed him for a few quick words.

First 3 things that come to mind when you think of Australia?

Great meat, the Westfield Sydney mall, and Chinese Laundry.

Would you rather be deaf or blind?

Deaf, easily. I know's insanely counter productive as a musician LOL but as someone that already relies on glasses to see, I'm genuinely terrified of losing my sight. I get really bad anxiety if I wake up and can't find my glasses right away and start to freak out. Sight is number one for me, for sure.

Weirdest project name you have on your computer at the moment?

I have so many omg. It's hard to pick one but a random is "HAPPY HOLY FUCK 16 INTRO new new fast 4 no drum cuts other" HAHAH. Most of my projects have semi-normal names but they drag on forever with edit notes in the actual project name, or just state which version it is, for ex: "alt drop 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 weird 2 4445 SPIN5766777788899 12 SPIN 2. triplet22348 5635333 long intro374 564445 final 2 new43" which I promise is real (see below) I just type in random numbers to differentiate.

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What’s your current favourite BPM and why?

150 for sure. I'm basic as fuck for it but I just really love all the different styles of music you can make around that 140-155 window.

How do you feel about where you are now as an artist compared to a year ago?

I think I've had steady growth! Which makes me happy. No one really blows up over night, and if they do, they usually come back down as quickly as they jumped up. I'd rather take ten years and stay at the top longer versus peaking for a few months when something is trending and head back down. I'm super excited to see what comes next and with everything that's currently planned, I'm thinking it's gonna be a great rest of the year!

What’s in store for the rest of 2019?

I have two big official remixes coming over the next two months. Both should be announced soon, so I can't say anything about who they're for just yet, but one is for a melodic king and the other is an iconic dubstep name. Two remixes I'm insanely excited for. Aside from that, I'm gonna be rolling out singles for the rest of the year too, starting with 'Break It Down' - a new heavy one I just premiered in my Banger Zone Volume 3 mix, on August 16th! As for tour, we're planning out 2020 at the moment. So focused on the long term rather than short right now!! I hate saying "can't talk about it yet" but it happens, you know?

Would you rather be able to teleport anywhere, or read minds?

Teleportation, 100%. The inner Marvel fanboy in me is geeking out at the pure thought of it.

What’s your all-time favourite song and why? (any genre)

That's such a hard question. It changes every five minutes I swear. Right now it's 'Follow You' by Bring Me The Horizon. Yesterday it was 'Sunflower' by Post Malone & Swae Lee. I'm indecisive, please help…

What do you do when you’re creatively stuck/lacking inspiration?

When I'm lacking the drive to create, I stop completely. Forcing anything does no justice, and makes things worse in my experience. I focus on hanging out with friends, or playing video games. Doing anything other than creating. It helps your brain create new ideas in the background/subconsciously. Besides, it's great to take breaks. That's my main way of handling it. Admittedly though, sometimes I'll go and just try making a random other genre I usually don't mess around with to help as well. Trying new things can really get your creative juices flowing. I don't know. I suck at helping. LOL