How has staying in New York been during these weird times?
It’s unfortunate to not be able to interact so much with people, but outside of that my day to day has not changed very much. I work across the street at Bronze and spend a lot of time at home working on music. I’ve taken a short break from skating but I’m gonna start again soon.
When and how did you start making your own music? What instruments do you mainly use?
I started playing piano in 2010 or 2011. I practiced a lot, like three hours a day probably. I had little formal training so mostly just learned from trial and error. Had my time been spent more strategically I would be much more advanced at piano but I was always attracted to a less conventional approach. I never wanted to know exactly what I was doing. I think around 2013 or 2014 I started messing around with recording. Early on I made some music for some of my buddy Kurt Havens’ skate videos. Just some really crude keyboard and synth stuff. In 2015 my buddy Rich Quintero gave me an opportunity to make music for some short Converse commercials. As soon as that happened a lightbulb went off in my head that I could actually make money doing this. From that time on I’ve invested all my money and most of my time to learning more and acquiring gear. I regularly have work making music for brands in and out of skateboarding, but I have my eye on film scoring. I mostly use synths but recently have been learning guitar and bass. I have good software with orchestral instruments also.
You’ve got a pretty catchy name. Did you ever consider using a different name for your music?
Up until this point I haven’t had any desire to do so but recently I’ve been messing with sampling and more beat oriented sort of stuff so might come up with an alter ego for that.
What artists have inspired you to make the music you’re creating now?
I would say top 5: Philip Glass, Yo La Tengo, The Velvet Underground, Brian Eno, Aphex Twin.
If you could choose someone to skate to one of your songs, who would it be and which song? Maybe someone can make a remix part.
Honestly that’s not something I think about. I’m grateful if someone wants to use my music for a skate video, but I only hope my music doesn’t suck and supports the edit. I really don’t care who it is.
You’ve been posting some great stuff on Soundcloud recently. Do you have plans for an album or any other projects going on?
My main focus lately has been making music for the Bronze X DC edit for our shoe with them and an album eventually.
How did the new DC Bronze shoe collaboration come to life?
In the last few years Shanahan became pretty heavily involved with Bronze so that’s how that conversation started. It’s something we wouldn’t have expected to do a few years ago but I think it came out great and assuming I don’t blow it on music, the video should be rad.
What’s the first place you want to skate when you get back out on your board?
Flushing. If the fountain’s not on.
Lastly, any advice you want to give people to help stay motivated and creative?
Learn to meditate. When you meditate you simultaneously address your mind and clear your mind. Addressing your mind helps you clarify your goals, and understand your motivations. Clearing your mind allows for concepts, music, art, whatever to come out. If you are an aspiring artist, chances are you’ve experienced endless amounts of art. This all exists somewhere in your subconscious. Try to pull from that and piece things together. But mostly just make stuff a lot, and don’t worry too much about how good it is. If you like it, put it out there. And don’t worry too much about reception. Chances are your early stuff will not be good, but that’s fine. Don’t have high expectations in terms of reception. Maybe some people are naturally good at art but mostly you need to put in a lot of work if you want it to be good.
