Interview with Stegosaurus Rex
(Questions by Ed)
Stegosaurus Rex is an electronic musical artist. You can hear his music at his myspace page, http://www.myspace.com/stegrex.
My friend Ed and I both enjoy his music, so Ed decided to ask for an interview. Stegosaurus Rex agreed. Below is the interview.
1. How did you get started with music?
I started making music in high school when I was about 14. I had
already taken piano lessons for a few years, and I played drums in
marching band. What I dislike about lessons were that I had to play
someone else's tunes instead of my own, and I already had my own
ideas, so I began trying to make my own tunes. At the time, I had very
limited ways of recording the ideas in my mind, and I would write
sheet music or write notes out using MIDI. It wasn't until I was about
15 that I found out about drum machines and sequencers, and I began
making music through that. My last year of high school, I was the
drummer in a jam band with two of my friends, but band practice was
always a hassle, so I eventually fell back onto sequencers when we
left for college.
2. Are there any bands or artists that you consider to have a big
influence on you?
I'd think that everything I listen to has an influence on me, whether
it be the genre, the style, the sounds. For the more dance/disco
oriented stuff, I would say that disco music as a whole has made a
huge impression on me as a kid, and translating that to the
synthesizer world was sharpened by listening to Daft Punk and Morgan
Geist in high school. At the time, Daft Punk sounded much less disco
than just electro because the sounds were so strange to me. I also
didn't think about sampling until way later, when the Ninja Tune
record label along with the sounds of J Dilla, early Ice Cube, and
Murs made be think more about the musical structures behind hip-hop.
And with the genres of rock and also new wave, I listened to a lot of
metal and 80s growing up, so stuff like Depeche Mode, New Order, and
even Rammstein have made their way into how I think about musical
textures. I'd like to think that I let everything influence me.
3. What have you been listening to lately?
I've actually been listening to a lot of J-Pop and K-Pop lately. I
wasn't really exposed to much Asian pop because in high school, I was
primarily focused on listening to a lot of rock and metal. Asian pop
I've noticed has a much brighter sound because of the extensive use of
FM synthesis. Where a lot of 70s and 80s new wave and synthpop bands
from the US or Europe used analog, subtractive type synths, artists in
Japan developed FM and other digital types of synthesis (along with
video game music) that sound totally unlike anything that is possible
with analog synthesis. I'm trying to learn to use FM, digital type
synthesis to challenge the status quo of using analog synths in the
current fashion as many other artists of today.
4. How much time to you have to devote to a real job?(lol) In other
words does making music pay the bills? What is your dayjob?
This is a great question because I work a 9-to-5, 40 hours a week. For
those who think that music is a way to pay the bills or get rich, it's
not really. There are a lot of articles out there about how the music
industry works, so I won't get into that. My day job is white-collar,
behind a cubicle, sipping coffee and doing a lot of typing up reports
at a tech company. Sort of like the movie Office Space. I don't mind
it much, it's not bad, but to everyone who wants to make a lot of
money making music, make sure to go to college and get that degree as
a backup. The money I make from music is only enough for me to buy new
equipment from time to time.
5. There is some nice guitar work on your album? Did you sample that
or was that you?
Thanks! Guitar isn't my strongest skill, but I did all the guitar work
on my album. My guitar skills aren't really too extensive, but I try
to make the best use of what I got.
6. Green is a pretty personal song. Are those lyrics inspired by actual events?
The lyrics to Green aren't inspired directly, literally by actual
events, but they are heavily influenced by the way my mind was working
at the time. I get sleeping problems pretty often, and the lyrics to
Green was influenced by a nightmare I had after a bout of horrible
insomnia. Most of my other songs that are as dark as this one probably
all come from that part of me that is not quite sane, not quite
insane.
7. What recording software do you use?
I primarily use FL Studio (the sequencer formerly known as
FruityLoops) to build my synth patches and also to build patterns. I
do all of my recording and most of the mixing and mastering in a
digital audio workstation called REAPER. It's built by the guy who
made Winamp, so it's pretty robust and fun to use.
8. Are there any pieces of hardware that you use extensively?
I tend to like to jump around with different equipment, but I do have
a Tama Rockstar drumset that I practice on and record. The drums on
Penumbra was recorded with just 2 mics, and me playing some beats on
my set. I also have a Washburn guitar that I used for guitar work on
both The Dino Soars and Undeniable, but I just recently bought a
Schecter C-1 for future work...both guitars reflect my heritage in
listening to metal, as I prefer guitars suitable for heavy music, even
though I use them for very light sounds just like in Gauchos Caesura.
As for synths, I jump around a lot between software emulators and my
Alesis Micron, but I build all my own sound patches from scratch.
9. Where did you grow up? Has that had an influence on your music?
I was born in Xi'an China, lived briefly in Fort Collins, Colorado,
and grew up young in San Diego, California before moving up to Norcal,
Bay Area. I don't really feel like I was raised in one particular
place, though I still feel like I can call San Diego more of a home
than other places. Both San Diego and Berkeley have had influences in
my music, because I grew up around a primarily Latino neighborhood in
Socal, and the way which music was approached seems to be different
than how people listened to music while I was in college or around San
Francisco. In San Diego, music was everywhere, loud noisy, and enjoyed
simply, whereas while I was in college, people had to break down music
by genre, by artist, by the instruments they used, and they basically
dissected music apart. With that more relaxed approach to music, I
tend to focus on just enjoying it. Sure, I can talk about music in a
more sterile, academic way, but I prefer just making something I can
enjoy, and something that I hope other people can enjoy as well.
10. Are you planning on doing any live shows anytime soon?
I did two shows summer of 2009 while I was unemployed, but after that,
I got way too busy once I went back to work. Both shows were kind of
sloppy and I want to really dig in and think about and develop a live
show before doing any more. Instead of trying to do everything all at
once like how I produce my music, I'd much rather focus on my drumming
skills for live shows. Once I figure out something better, less
sloppy, I'll do more shows.
11. Whats your favorite food?
Oh gosh, that's like an entirely whole other interview. I like food
way too much. I like Japanese food, I like Middle Eastern food, and I
try to cook Chinese.
12. How do you feel about internet piracy? Does it keep guys like you
from making any money?
To be honest, without music piracy, I probably wouldn't be a musician
today. When I was in junior high school, I used this FTP search engine oth.net to find mp3s and then quickly moved to Napster, Kazaa, DC++,
and then Torrents. For me, I found a lot of stuff I couldn't find in
record stores through the downloading of music, and it's the more
obscure stuff that really made me want to make tunes. Now that I have
some money and finding all music is so much easier, I feel much better
buying the music. I don't think piracy has as much of an effect on
musicians as it does for the record industry as a whole. This is
because for every CD, cassette, or record sold, the musician makes
maybe less than half of the profit. That's the same with the
songwriter as well. For me, music is just a means of expression and
it's something I enjoy doing. I didn't start making music with the
idea that I'd make a ton of money. I feel that if people can see the
music industry as just that, an industry, then piracy itself would
just be dealt with on the business regulation level. So to make the
answer short, I think piracy definitely cuts into the money I could
possibly make, but for me personally, I would much rather people
listen to my tunes and have it change their lives rather than me just
making a buck off of that. Of course, the people on the business-side
of my music would probably have to disagree with me...
13. What is your recording process like? How do you get ideas and
develop them? How long did it take you to become competent at audio
production?
My production process has changed throughout the years, but these
days, when I have an idea, I'll begin doodling out melodies on my
guitar or keyboard, or I'll program something into FruityLoops. Once I
have down something very basic, then I begin building the right type
of sound, and I'll spend a lot of time tweaking the sound patches. I
usually let my sketches sit for a few months before I come back with
some lyrics, and I'll basically just clean up my ideas into a more
finalized structure upon which I can record perfect parts for drums,
guitars, or vocals. My recording process at that point is to record
individual parts, one by one before layering them on top of each other
in the mix. In terms of being competent with audio production, it's an
art form and I'm always learning more about production methods. I
guess it took me maybe 3-4 years to figure out synth patch building, 2
years to figure out how to record vocals, and I'd like to spend more
time recording drums. Mixing and processing raw audio clips is
something I'm still learning, and it gets better everyday. I don't
think I'll ever consider myself competent at audio production because
I'm such a perfectionist about that. When I listen to The Dino Soars,
there are some tracks that make me wince and think, ughhhh, I'd do
that differently now.
If you are interested in Stegosaurus Rex be sure to check out his Myspace, or go buy his music at Amazon.