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EDM Interviews, Experiences, and Everything in Between.

A Colorful Trip through EDM Genres with High 'n' Rich

11/17/2018

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Interview with High 'n' Rich
Well let's start at the beginning with how you got into EDM and what made you want to start producing.
I got into EDM when I was fourteen or fifteen years old. I was laying in my bed after school listening to Coldplay music and I kept thinking about how boring this was. So I went to the Google Play Store and started looking into the genres I never heard of before. Through that, I discovered artists like Deadmau5 and Skrillex. Between the two, Deadmau5's music captivated me the most and I started to wonder how he made those sounds and plucking noises in his tracks. So I sat down in front of my shitty computer and searched up "deadmau5 music program" which led me to Ableton. I started by trying to make anything that sounded like a Deadmau5 track. In addition to being a creative outlet, I quickly found that making music was also a great way for me to channel my stress.
How did you go about evolving your sound to get it where it is today? 
When I started out, I had a different alias, "Andreolus" where I tried to took those Deadmau5 plucks and put a more complex and melodic spin on it. I produced under that name for a short while before abandoning the project and started "High 'n' Rich." At the time, I was really into future house but I wasn't able to produce decent tracks in the genre because of the difficult sound design. So I decided to make bass house instead. By exploring this genre, I was able to learn about the complexities of sound designs and adding in more exciting effects like distortion into the mix.
View this post on Instagram

A post shared by High 'n' Rich (@highnrichofficial) on May 29, 2018 at 12:02pm PDT

After a while, I started to get bored of the genre, so I switched back to more melodic music again. I was still enjoying the dark energy of bass house, so I worked to make my melodic sound more aggressive and ended up finding my sort of niche in the genre. But even that wasn't enough to keep me engaged with the genre. I was looking to create even more complex tracks which is where I started adding that Hexagon sound into my songs. What blew me away was the fact that some producers like Steff da Campo, Retrovision, or Alpharock were able to make some massive bangers with just some saw waves. So I changed the focus of my productions to make the most simple element the most complex one in my projects and now here I am!

One of the things I've always had issues with is coming up with good breakdowns. Whenever I get stuck on this part, I like to go search for inspiration in simple, real instruments like the piano or guitar. It's also fun to explore instruments from other cultures to find something unique to try and reproduce inside the DAW. A perfect example of taking a simple instrument and making something exceptional.
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A post shared by High 'n' Rich (@highnrichofficial) on May 19, 2018 at 8:45am PDT

Let's take a bit of a turn and talk about some of the challenges you've faced as you've progressed through the industry. 
So back then when Soundcloud was still a thing, I built my audience by giving lots of feedback to random artists and DJs on the platform. Like, I even sat through mixtapes so that I could give some helpful feedback on it. It took me about one and a half years to discover that there were other labels besides Spinnin' Records. Imminent Network was the first one to reupload one of my tracks which was a great surprise for me. 
After that, I started to send them more demos. They ended up releasing "Bring Me Back" as well and then it got reuploaded on the big YouTube channel, "Diversity" which really helped me gain some more fans. I've got to give them a huge thanks for helping me get that initial exposure. My problem was that I was only sending demos to these few channels and so when Imminent became inactive for a while and Illicit rebranded, I was faced with the choice to make better music or keep doing what I'm doing and self-release. Since I'm not good at promoting, I forced myself to go back to the studio to create something that bigger labels would want to pick up. I started sending demos to other labels like Fated and Illicit but for me, collaborations with other artists gave me a lot of inspiration and opportunities on other labels. For instance, if I hadn't teamed up with Blaze U, there was no way I would have made it on Revealed Recordings on my own. On the flipside, having too many collaborations can be a huge stressor because you're facing this pressure coming from so many sides. It really began to weigh me down over time. 

How have you dealt with those pressures? 
The only way I could handle it was by improving my workflow. While doing things like saving presets and streamlining your creative process can help your overall output, it was also important for me to talk with the people I was working with and being honest with what I could deliver. If I knew some collab wouldn't work out anymore, I just told them. We're all human beings in this industry and we all need to sleep at some point.
Quirky question, but tell us the story behind "Magic Chocolate." For those of you who haven't heard this track yet, it's this really unique, airy sound that is both melodic but extremely light. The first drop is one of the most interesting things I've heard all year and the second drop builds upon it perfectly. 
I was wondering if you were going to ask about that one! It's just a really funny story through and through. For that track, I was still in this place where I wanted to make the lead out of just one wave shape. Like for instance, "Revenge" is just a single square wave, "Never Wanna Stop" is a single saw wave, and so that means I had to make a track out of a single sine wave! I tried to not distort it that much but that also made it really hard to work with. Eventually I just told myself that I was going to have fun with this track and not take it too seriously. By the end though, I had made something really happy and fun to listen to so it all worked out. Sometimes I like to tell people that it's connected to an hysterical story with my friends in Amsterdam, but the truth is that I thought it was a funny name!
Tell me how you came to partner with United and what can you tease about your track on the album?
The founder, Gabriele, hit me up on Facebook and explained his idea to me. It's this passion project where a bunch of artists come together to make a track for this album that will benefit UNICEF. Each one of our tracks covers one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and all of the revenue will be donated directly to UNICEF. I firmly believe that if you have the technical skills to make good music, you should use it to make positive things from it so I wholeheartedly agreed to be a part of the album.
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A post shared by High 'n' Rich (@highnrichofficial) on Oct 20, 2018 at 10:20am PDT

For my track, I wanted to challenge myself to create something outside of house music so I took this opportunity to create a drum and bass track. My Sustainable Development Goal is "Clean Water" so I included a bunch of water samples over the snares and creating this liquid feel with the leads I used. I'm very excited for the album to come out on December 10th!
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#Mixcon was â–¡

A post shared by High 'n' Rich (@highnrichofficial) on Mar 6, 2018 at 4:47pm PST

Tell us about one of the most memorable moments you've had so far.
There was this music fair called Mixcon where I became friends with this producer named Marlon. As it turns out, he actually studies in the same town that I live in and goes to the same university as my friend, Alberto. So one day, they happened to meet up and started talking with each other for the first time and Marlon brings up the fact that he's a producer. Alberto tells him he also knows this producer who has kind of made it in the scene and pulls up my music on YouTube. Marlon recognized me from Mixcon and so it was just a funny coincidence that they happened to meet up. All while this was happening, they're both texting me in real  time. Alberto sent me this hysterical voice memo hyping me up as this successful producer because he met this other guy that knew my music. The message was just so  funny, I was literally cracking up in my bedroom! It's something I won't soon forget!
Outside of that moment, Tiesto playing "Bandit" was a highlight for me as well as getting accepted by the PopAkademie Mannheim which was also attended by Virtual Riot. Getting into that school made me realize that I'm a better producer than I thought.

Lastly, where are you hoping to go from here? What are you looking to accomplish next?
My ultimate goal is to find a way to make a living out of making music. Overall though, I just want to release quality music and make people smile and dance when they hear one of my tracks. There's also something in the works that could be really huge. I know it's a bit of a cliche for a producer to say "something big is coming up," but this time I really mean it! I hope to share it with you all soon!
A huge thanks to High 'n' Rich for taking the time to answer our questions! Be sure to follow him on social media to stay in the loop on his latest releases and updates!

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