Finally got around to finishing up the Eprom interview! This was done the night of Eskmo/Eprom back in January @ Aces Lounge, Austin, TX. Both dudes are a lot of fun and very down to earth, chill people. They really had me cracking up most of the night.. and part of me really wants to sample some of the audio from that night into an awesome breakcore track, haha. Eprom, engage!
Psymbionic: Tonight is the first show starting a tour in anticipation of the upcoming release with your friend Eskmo on Warp records. How does it feel to be a part of legacy such as Warp?
Eprom: It’s pretty humbling, man. I’ve been listening to Warp Records since I was very small. So, uh, it’s def a dream come true for me.
Psymbionic: What is your thought process in naming your tracks?
Eprom: Hahaha, I don’t think there is any.. it’s kind of like, whatever comes to mind to save the first version, I usually just end up using that. And a lot of times it’s in jokes with friends of mine. And it just ends of getting used because I can’t think of anything better.
Eskmo: I had one called Donkey Balls one time.
Eprom: Donkey Balls? You gotta send me that one dude.
Eskmo: It ended up changing to Donkey Kick.. or Donkey Punch.
Eprom: I had one called ‘Donkey Nap’ that me and Justin (Boreta) made. Which was actually a progression from Donkey Lunch.. which is a progression from donkey punch.. which is a sexual act that bears no description.. at least in context of this interview.
Eskmo: Not family stuff.. [at this point, I'm just dying laughing]
Psymbionic: Your style is distinctly nasty, yet trippy. Crunkadelic, Psyphy, AlienAbductionStep.. how do you explain your music to people who don’t have a solid contextual basis for it?
Eprom: At this point, if someone hasn’t heard it, I just say “electronic music”.. haha.. because I’ve given up on trying to come up with new genre names. It’s hard for me.. I just don’t think that any genre names can really describe it I guess, so I just try to play them my music which seems to work better.
Psymbionic: I’m sure you’re exploring new geographical territory, more and more. What kind of response are you getting from playing at places where your style is unexpected?
Eprom: Well, I’m still pretty new to the whole touring thing. Brendan’s been doing it for a while, but I am hitting up a lot of virgin cities on this little tour we’re doing. I’m always real excited to play in new places because I get to bust open some new heads, which is always fun. And I think, I definitely feed off of that energy. I really liked playing in Denver and I got to play outside of Houston recently, that was really fun.
Psymbionic: I hear that you have some tunes coming out on a new label called “Bad Acid”, which seems to be focused on the more psychoactively heavy tunes. Can you tell us a little about these guys, and when we can expect a release?
Eprom: Hopefully I’ll be getting the test presses on that in a couple weeks. Should be pretty dope, got some killer remix artists lined up, and I’m super stoked to get that out. It’s gonna be dope, the cover art is fucking sick.. it’s like this crazy skull with like this psychedelic texture in the background and it’s all cut so it looks like a blotter sheet. They are actually an offshoot label of Black Acre, and they’ve been pushing some really great sounds coming out of the UK.. Akira Kiteshi, Slugabed, and some really progressive cool artists who are doing great things at the fringes of dubstep or whatever you want to call it.
Psymbionic: I’ve seen multiple spots online where you’ve shared personal techniques or tricks that you use. How do you find the time to help others when I’m sure your schedule is plenty full?
Eprom: My schedule is actually mostly playing video games.. and I try to make to make some music occasionally. So uh, if I ever accidently do something productive for the community, I apologize.. it was a mistake on my part.
Psymbionic: About how long does it take you to finish a track to the point where you would be proud to play it out?
Eprom: I’m not sure if I’m ever really ‘proud’ to play them out.. I dunno, I get them to a playable state usually within the first two sessions, which is usually 8 hours. If I’m feelin’ the song, and I know it’s gonna end up being a playable tune, I’ll just bang out the whole structure within one night, and tweak it over the next couple sessions. I usually end up doing no more than like 3-4 sessions on a song, because after I that I just feel like I’m driving myself crazy on little detail things that people aren’t going to notice anyway. But that’s why I like having a hardware synth, because you have to commit at a certain point, and just be like, “ok, I’m just going to record what’s happening right now and just use it in the song”, and then beyond that, you can fuck with it a little bit with effects processing in the sequencer, but you’re basically committed to that bassline sound and that’s a good thing from my perspective because you’re not endless tweaking it and trying to get it more and more dialed when really it probably sounded great in the first place.
Psymbionic: What hardware synth do you use? What about Digital Audio Workstation?
Eprom: I use a Moog “Little Phatty”, which is really great for bass sounds.. really great. Super warm. It’s a dope synth, the whole signal path is analog, and the preset storage functions are digital, and it’s going to some digital functions like preset backup and you can digitally control it like a midi controller. I use Logic to do most of my stuff as a DAW, but I have been doing tracks in Ableton now and then as well, because it’s really great to be able to bang out melodic ideas using some of the melodic ideas using Ableton midi functions like the arp.. the built-in arpeggiator is real dope.. and the chord generator is real awesome. And I’m super excited about the possibilities for Max for Live. I’ve been watching people like Richard Devine use that and it’s just fucking.. pretty mindblowing.
Psymbionic: HOOKERZ AND BLOW.. really?
Eprom: Yeah, really.
Eskmo: It’s just real life, it’s the way he is.
Eprom: That’s just how I roll, pretty much.
Psymbionic: I remember all sorts of buzz about your “The Mixtape 2009″, with many tracks still unreleased from it. What’s in store for “The Mixtape 2010″ or when will see a full length Eprom album?
Eprom: Uhh, I dunno? I don’t really have plans to do an album. A bunch of those songs are actually coming out on various labels, and some of them will probably never come out. I think that I like that format, so I will probably do another tape like that, just like a beat tape type of thing.. just maybe make it shorter. That way I won’t have to put the all 4000 vocal samples on there. But I think that whole format is a good one for gaining public awareness.. I basically copied it from Lazer Sword.. and I was like, “Oh that’s a really good idea.. do a mixtape of all original beats” and make them like dropped like dancehall music style, where’s there’s not really any mixing.
I managed to dig up a couple of tunes to give away, as well as a video compilation from the night of the show that this interview was done at by none other than Mike Abb of Abboriginal Productions. The first tune is an Eprom remix of a band by the name of The Earlies out of the UK, and the second is a mashup of sorts that Mochipet put together of an Eazy-E track fused with some unreleased Eprom amazingness. The third bonus track is a Nasty Ways (Eprom + Boreta) remix of Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop”. Enjoy!
The Earlies – Breaking Point (Eprom Remix) (via Stay Lucid)
Mochipet Ft. Eprom / Eazy-E – Eazy-Eprom
BONUS: Lil’ Wayne – Lollipop (Nasty Ways Remix) (via xlr8r)
Don’t forget to grab the track from this video, “Bubble”, released yesterday via Bad Acid on the Shoplifter EP! Special thanks to everyone involved, especially to Polaris Presents and Scoremore for doing it BIG in Austin, TX!
