Producer. Innovator. Musician. The soul of the party. A builder, a tastemaker, and a pioneer. Turn up and cool down. With the wisdom of someone far beyond his age, Aaron Carmack does it all. He’s authored some of the most influential music ever posted online and continues to blaze a new trail.
Sitting on the green room stairs of Denver’s Bluebird Theater, we briefly caught up with the don himself. The 29 year-old SF-raised, LA-based Hawaiian has this incessant, tranquil focus about him. You can’t really tell what he’s thinking, but you can certainly feel the passion for which he directs his attention.
Aaron has been on quite the journey since he first started releasing music from his college in Long Beach, CA nearly a decade ago.
[I had] much less money. Much less. I was flat broke in 2010. Flat fucking broke. I was just failing out of college. I was selling my clothes for weed. I was promoting club shows for free. I was just living like a dummy. But I had a lot of good friends take care of me.
Having crafted a larger than life discography, spun at some of the largest music festivals in the world, inspired an entire generation of producers and won over the hearts of countless listeners, it’s safe to say Aaron has come a long way. And now?
“Still broke. A little less broke. Now we’re traveling. I’ve flown a million miles. This is the third band I’ve had in three years. Writing music in more ways than I could ever imagine and living off of it.”
With more timeless anthems under his belt than we can count, Aaron has surpassed the level of influence that most musicians will ever reach. Carmack established a formidable legacy from a decade of genre-defining uploads that span from easy going classics like ‘Old Beat’, ‘Humbled’, ‘CHOWFUN X LAURYN HILL’, ‘Brazllian Blowjob’, and ‘Free Baby’, to zealous bangers like his ‘Aerosol Can’, ‘DNA’, and ‘Charge’ remixes, ‘Kick It Up’, ‘Roller (New Look)’, ‘Drugs’, and the infamous ‘Pay For What’. The dude has more hits than we could even begin to cite, and after relinquishing over fifty tracks this year, 2019 witnessed an unfathomable addition to this pot. He destroyed our ears with his DEMOLISH EP, revived us with the hard hitting REBUILD EP, and dropped an experimental collection of songs intelligently paired with human chromosomes.
“I’ve always had the concept… I wanted to kind of use it as a way to learn something about it. I’ve always been interested in the way DNA works. The task was to find out a specific function for each of the chromosomes and apply a certain song I’d written to each one.”
Tastefully paired with a collection of art from the talented Ethan Schanberger, this project explores a more colorful side of Carmack’s production style. Ranging from house music to jazz and sprinkling hints of his signature future beats style, these tracks added a wonderful flavor to the endless chain of Aaron’s recent works. Although we noticed #19 and #21 are missing…
“That project was overshadowed by all the stuff we’re working on now… We had to stop the project short to start recording the album”
Following the release of two phenomenal EPs and nearly 30 singles, Mr. Carmack fully opened the flood gates by delivering his first cohesive, full-length vocal album titled VIISTA. Proudly showcasing the sweeping extent of his musical prowess, VIISTA registers a contemporary chapter of the ever-growing musician’s discography. Immersing listeners (cough Immersion Tour cough) into a new neighborhood of the Carmack sound, this project broke from familiar ground into palpable, uncharted territory.
“I’m trying to move more stuff in that direction. I want Carmack to be more in that direction anyway. Carmack’s my name. I can’t have myself be held to one kind of sound just because it’s under my name. I can alias it. I can still keep Mr. Carmack as my DJ stuff too, turn up shit, because I mean, obviously I love that shit. I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t love that.”
In the modern ever-shifting musical landscape, breaking away from a brand that’s been sculpted over years of releases can be a risky move. It’s a pressure that even one of the most well-respected and musically diverse artists in the game is conscious of.
I actually have an alias on Spotify, but I’m not gonna tell you what it is.
That sentence sent gave me goosebumps. Imagine all the tracks that artists make for themselves and don’t want glued to their name – let alone all the Carmack beats that have never seen the light of day! He didn’t share much, but we do know this:
“There’s music on it. I put out a track a week.”
Needless to say, the man has been busy.
“The chromosome idea was two months ago. I’ve been working with this dude (Ian) for six months.”
Ian Roller is a large reason VIISTA and this past Immersion Tour was made possible. Having met Aaron nearly two years ago, Ian helped bring the album to life by laying down some creamy smooth saxophone lines (along with a few other wind instruments) and arranging the project for a live orchestra.
Ian: “We did 17 piece arrangements with 5 saxes, clarinets, 4 trombones, 3 trumpets, guitar & keys, bass, drums, and Aaron on vocals, keys and trumpet. We reduced it to a 7-piece to make it more feasible. We can’t do a cross country tour with a 17 piece band. You can’t just go from a DJ thing to that.”
Mr. Carmack: “Yea you can. We just did it! (laughs)”
Ian: “Right, we just did it! But not for 10 shows of big band. So we have a 7 piece band, but they each have their own character.”
FUXWITHIT: “Are they coming back for any more shows?”
Mr. Carmack: “We got a whole new band. New York is kind of a lesson in professionalism. We hired a band before we’d even heard them play. In New York, they’ve had the music for a couple weeks so when we get to NY, we’re gonna have one rehearsal.”
As hectic as this might sound, it’s just another day in the life of Mr. Carmack. The forward thinker has always played by his own rules, especially when it comes to uploading music.
SoundCloud era brought actual, real amateur music to the front. And that made everyone scared because no one can control it. And that was why it worked on SoundCloud – because no one was controlling it. Anybody could upload, anybody could comment, anybody could do anything.
This struck a chord. Audius, a new SoundCloud competitor built on P2P blockchain technology champions the fact that, “Your artist profile can never be ‘deplatformed’, and your tracks can never be censored or removed.” Aaron was also one of the premiere artists during the launch of this promising disruptor.
Mr. Carmack: “A buddy of mine was a huge supporter & proponent of Audius, so I’m in it. How do you guys like Audius?”
FUXWITHIT: “So far so good”
Mr. Carmack: “I don’t really use streaming platforms anymore, per se. I don’t really use web based platforms. I just don’t know anymore.”
FUXWITHIT: “Where do you usually listen?”
Mr. Carmack: “My favorite thing now is finding old shit… New music not so much. I’ll hear new music as they come ’cause I have so many friends that, you know, are about that kinda shit. I don’t really feel like I need to be active like I quite used to be.”
Ian: “It kinda comes to you?”
Mr. Carmack: “Yeah. I just don’t dig as much as I used to. I’d love to. I think the spirit of digging comes and goes, you know? I wasn’t really a Gilles Peterson or Anthony Balthez, or like, a Zane Lowe or a Joe Kay, where digging is part of your art form. Where digging is part of your moniker, your charge. That’s your duty, to dig.”
Ian: “It seems like yours is more just like, creating.”
Mr. Carmack: “Ehh I dig when I want to. If I need new shit I’ll go find some.”
Ian has been at the forefront of the album since its inception, and carries a unique insight into the mind of Aaron Carmack.
“It’s hard to describe him with genres… I would just call it genuine. He really wanted to put together a record that showcased what he enjoys in live music, that feels good, and will bring good feelings to other people. It’s just a genuine record from a genuine dude.”
Carmack has given the world something he’s always dreamed of; weaving together a groundbreaking album while maintaining his artistic integrity.
“This is just something he wanted. He was like ‘This is separate from the tour dates, this is separate from everything else. I’m hiring you to do this because I want this. Because this matters to me. Because I want to hold my music in my hands. These charts matter to me.’ He said to me, ‘I’m tired of spending so much money on lighting rigs. I wanna spend that money hiring musicians to come and play my music with me.’ And I fucking will not ever forget that, you know? Because that means so much. “
It warms our hearts to see the legend continue to manifest his dreams. We can’t wait to see what else the future holds for Aaron Carmack.
Picture credits:
Quasar Media
Michael Mckain
