Posted on: September 5, 2015 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Hello, R10T. In a few sentences can you provide our readers some information regarding your musical background and career so far?

Before R10T, I formed a band with two other people who were looking for a guitarist  for a metal core band. The music was probably a lot more closer to progressive metal. Before that I was more a bedroom musician and getting my early start in music production. 2 years of my life went into that band, we got the rest of the members in, I begin churning out riffs  and melodies and the others helped to integrate the arrangements. 

The band started recording a 7 track EP and about this time had established a reasonable reputation in the scene, just a shot away from getting more gigs. At this  point my time with the band ended. There was a big space for a bit where I just didn’t do anything musical, till about 2014.

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Can you describe your creative process and your recording set up for us? How did your Digital Riot EP move from initial thought to finished effort?

My recording set is pretty sparse for now. I don’t actually have an actual studio set up as much as I like to. I use a Line6  UX 2 interface with a korg midi controller and a cheap but appreciated MS16 monitor speakers by Behringer.  With electronic composition how I write is really open ended, i’m generally experimental and exploratory in how I mix the sounds or make arrangements. I generally start with laying down some beats or synth sound on the tracks. Process  them and see how they sound hearing them in a mix, then decide if I want to warp them even more. I’ll a lot less judgmental of myself in making electronic music than I would be with writing rock songs.I don’t have a set goal of what kind of genre i’m writing for, all i’m interested in doing is writing good tracks. I guess the end goal for why i’m composing electronic music is try to merge genres or deconstruct them and be a better producer.

The songs for Digital Riot were written before the thought of creating a electronic project like R10T. I originally  planned to collaborate with a DJ friend for a music project, which didn’t really materialize out of schedules and essential life realities. The first track I wrote was Death Pony Express, it was my first electronic composition. It was new for me because generally I composed music with the usual guitar melodies or riff and then make the arrangements. I begin writing more electronic tracks and eventually I wondered about what I was going to do with all this music. I felt I was on a roll  as more tracks churned out. It felt odd making electronic music just cause I saw myself more as a band type musician person. Somewhere along the way I considered starting a electronic music project,  the name R10T sort of emerged. The process of putting out an EP was a straight forward affair, get a selection of finished decent songs and publish them as an EP. Fortunately, while the music world is saturated, at least an artist is  able to work on their craft and put their work out just as easily.

Who has influenced you as a musician? Are there any tracks from these influences that you would ultimately like to cover or give your own spin to?

I ‘ve listen to a variety of genre and artist. However if I had to put some names down it would be Robert Smith, Andy Summers, Jimmy Page, Adrian Belew, Kevin Shields, Trent Reznor, Brian eno, The Edge, and  producer Flood. Suicide, that electropunk band, I once made a remix for the Rocket USA song. I’ve always  wonder about doing a remix of their debut album, but I really I love to do a cover of Ghost Rider in a show.

How do you feel that Toronto differs from the rest of the world in terms of musical tastes and culture?

There’s a lot going on in Toronto and Montreal in terms of an active music scene. I think Toronto by nature sort of embraces and appreciates the artist and arts because they may represent a kind of figure to fill a cultural void. However as much there is a reasonable cultural output musically from Toronto, there isn’t a uniquely identifiable sound or idea if you were to compare it to the Madchester scene in the UK or post punk scenes like No Wave or Wave. There isn’t a focused collected effort or a musical movement, while comparing it to the times we live in maybe that’s to much of an expectation. I tend to think that Toronto has a lot of potential aside from music, it just needs a focused force that won’t spread thin. That being said,  I liked to contribute to the music scene and if the opportunity to play a role in defining it comes in, i’ll go for it.Picture3

Do you have any particularly interesting stories about your travails as a musician?

When I played with my old band we landed a gig at some bar. We had no idea what kind of bar it was or the kind of bands that played there. While we were waiting for our turn, we started to get an idea that we really were going to stand out in this bar. It was very much more like a chinese community type bar and the live bands mostly seem catered more towards soft rock or acoustic pop. We knew we were going to make quite an impression on the crowd, in both good and bad way. Here was this loud band playing in this quiet sunday, a kind of music they could not understand. It was pretty amusing to see their reaction

Here’s a video below from that gig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjxiAMxNwxo

How can listeners locate samples of your music and keep up to date about your latest news?

The official website is  a good place to start – www.r10tproject.com ,  the usual facebook  page https://www.facebook.com/R10Tproject Or twitter https://twitter.com/R10Tproject.

 

What does the rest of 2015 hold for you?

I’m planning to release another EP in the months to come for R10T, at the moment the working title for that EP will be called Heavy Numbers. Generally being an indie artist who just occupied a corner in the internet world, i”ll be focusing effort in putting myself out there.  I’m also going to work on another project, which would be more band related music  analog type music, meaning guitars and drums

Finally, do you have any more thoughts for our readers at NeuFutur?

Wild tame machines acting human to fool the human

 

Thank you so much for your time.

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