From SoundCloud to sold out shows, Mr Carmack needs no introduction. A purveyor of soundscapes, he is one of the world’s best beatmakers, Jack Cain caught up with Mr. Carmack to talk all things music ahead of his upcoming Australian tour
So what’s up?
I’m just chilling in LA, I’ve got a few shows coming up in Miami and the Bahamas, then flying out to Australia!
How’s life?
Things have been good, since I’ve seen you last. I’ve been trying to work on music and projects, got a house and a car, got a life in LA, got a GF and a dog and I been travelling a lot. I’m living a good life. I’m looking forward to the next year, the new year got a bunch of new things happening.
Yeah it seems there is a lot of people making a good life from music, doing what they love, grinding away. I had a good chat to Flosstradamus about the same thing.
Stick to your grind yeah, but you know like it isn’t easy, because we work tirelessly. Well I do, and a few other people too. Flosstradamus was a huge part of a massive mash-up scene in the states, and they used to do a lot of that when I first found out about them. But about doing what you love, to a point it does make sense to do what you love working on your music, but don’t expect people will love it too. There is a very fine line between being successful because you are good at what you do, and because you have a good support team. Make sense? You have virtuosos in the world that get no love, and you get hacks that just copy music and are rich and people make their shit for them and they get all the credit. You never know what you are going to get, all you can really do is stay true.
That’s so true, when I was chatting to Floss, we touched on the fact heaps of things especially in trap have become so overused, that you could hardly determine who makes what these days, it can all sound the same.
At the end of the day you know who you are. I know what I do, I make music for me, and for my own tastes and when I produce I try to make it so I can play it and perform it in my way, I don’t make songs so a bunch of DJs can just play it everywhere etc. Like I’m writing music, not just a bunch of songs. I try make the changes and translations make sense.
I think music needs to be that way, in terms of production long form is back, and the best kind of music is being made to be performed.
Yeah that’s what I love, I love the shows and the live setting, I love sharing it. I love watching a dude drop a song that no one knows, and that’s what I’m going to be doing in Australia, hopefully they go over well. Some are chiller, not so much trappy, just like you man I’m getting sick of the typical trap.
Yeah I mean trap is now an umbrella genre, it can be anything, so many things are a part of it, it’s going to be around for a long time.
Yeah and it’s been around for years, it’s been cultivating in America for years, but south central music and stuff is new to a degree, house electro and all that comes from the 80s, but trap as a dance genre that’s new, only 20 years old... But yeah trap is an umbrella genre because it can evolve and change meaning as it goes. That’s the pretty exciting part of music man.
So on that note? How much new music are you gonna be dropping?
I’ve probably got a bunch of tracks I could release here and there, but I have a bunch of songs on my computers that aren’t really finished, and I want to finish them but unfortunately with the tour I have no time and I have no ghost producers or anything. But after the tour I want to come back and treat the music well. The good thing is the music is there to be finished, and by the time I come back to Australia it seems like you guys will be the first to hear all the new music, I’m so excited to come back here, the first place I ever toured, and I love Australia.