This week i interviewed SIRsir, our Spotlight artist of the month and a name that has been featured on the blog a few times already. SIRsir is from Brazil and his first official release was in March, with the track “Horse”. Now, with his debut EP scheduled for release in late July on BugEyed Records, he’s been making some noise on this blog and I am going to try find out what else he is planning for the near future. So…
01. Hi! Would you mind introducing SIRsir?
SIRsir is another side of my musical personality. It’s me producing, playing and singing on my own tracks, covering kind of all the heavy and distorted side of the maximal electronic music.
02. You grabbed our attention with your track “Horse”, a heavy track that had a very characteristic “rock influenced” sound. Would you say that was the first Metalectro track you ever came up with and what was the feedback you got for it?
Here in Brazil I’ve been long known as a rock artist. My band Fresno is pretty famous here and people, at first, were surprised with such news.
I’m always into side projects, like Beeshop (folk-indie songs in english) and Visconde. But for people really interested in electronic music, it was kind of a blast! With only one song I’ve got contacted by lots of people who really deserve all of my respect, such as DJ Zegon, FTampa, Dirtyloud, and got invited to play at the Crew party here in São Paulo, which is one of the best electro-oriented parties here. So with the other songs, things kept running really fine for me, especially in other countries.
Now I’m being requested for some good remixes and I’m planning some great releases in the next months.
03. What are your influences/music background and what or who might have played a role in shaping your sound and style?
As I said before, I’ve been very interested on electronic music for my whole life, but bands such as Prodigy and Pitchshifter really caught my attention when I was younger. But what really pointed me towards this musical direction was the french producers like SebastiAn, Justice and the whole Ed Banger crew that came along in 2005/2006. For me that was kind of a new approach to music and it totally blew my mind away. I’m a big fan of Drivepilot, Skrillex and Bloody Beetroots too.
04. Speaking about influences, I will assume you’ve had your share of rock/metal music in the past. Did you ever play in a rock band?
Yes. My main band is called Fresno. We love bands such as Muse, Anberlin and Emery and our sound goes towards that direction as well. I play guitar, piano and sing. But I’ve been in other bands as well like Dezembro, an instrumental quartet influenced by Explosions in The Sky and Mogwai.
05. What would you say is your biggest music achievement/highlight so far?
We won viewer’s choice on VMB, that is our VMA’s. And we played lots of big festivals around the country. Too bad we have never played on other places. We sing in Portuguese and that is a huge obstacle for sure. But our country is so big that we don’t think about that too much.
06. Do you prefer working only with computers/sequencers or do you get your hands dirty playing and recording instruments? Do you use samples and what’s your opinion on sampling and copyright?
In the beginning I used to “play” everything but got stuck on my own limitations. Putting blocks on a piano roll can look and feel really boring but it enables you to get sounds that would be impossible otherwise. All of my guitars are heavily sequenced, and I like to do all of the automations by hand, as well as those ‘complextro’ basslines. It’s pretty heavy work, it takes hours but nothing compares to the faces of my friends wondering ‘how the fuck did he do this?’. I’m not that much into samples, maybe ’cause I’m much more a ‘player’ and not a sampler. Sometimes I use microsampling though, but most of it is unrecognizable when the song is done.
I think copyright laws are pretty obsolete and people in charge of it don’t have a clue on how people are making music today.
07. If your studio was on fire what would be the first thing to save?
Hm, I would run for my life. The rest we can recover somehow. But my preferred gear is the Apogee One. It is such a bargain for its price and it comes with a built-in mic that made me sell all the others I used to record with.
08. You have been doing quite a few original tracks and remixes, do you prefer working on one more than the other and why?
Maybe that’s because of my background. I’m a singer/songwriter, so I’m always writing music and have ideas to work with. I prefer to use my ideas on original material than putting them on someone else’s track.
09. I know you are currently collaborating with a few other artists on some tracks, would you like to give us a few more details on that?
My first collab was with FTampa. I wrote a song and recorded some synths for a track called ‘How’s Your Romance’, released on BugEyed Records. It’s a modern-electro track, with my vocals in it. I’m also working with a Brazilian rapper on a track, I hope it turns out great. And there’s an upcoming remix for a Turkish metal band that contacted me through SoundCloud, as well as some EP’s which are on the making. There’s some stuff ready to go, too… I’m just waiting for the right time.
10. What is music for you and what do you think about the way the music industry is changing?
May sound cliché but music is pretty much everything for me. During my whole life I knew I was going to do something related to it and when I first grabbed a NOFX album I finally realized that I was going to be doing it for the rest of my days.
The Industry is changing a lot on the last few years, and most of it happened thanks to the electronic music scene that has been always much more forward-thinking and smarter than the other ones.
11. What do you think about today’s mainstream music?
There’s always those 80% shitty stuff but that ain’t news. On the other hand, the mainstream revealed to the world very talented people, like Jack White, Alex Turner, Josh Homme, the Strokes, Muse, Foo Fighters, etc… These are people who really believe on what they’re doing.
12. Do you believe that an electronic music artist can earn his/her living from music nowadays?
I think it’s easier to get some money DJing/producing than being on rock’n’roll bands. In Brazil most venue owners prefer hiring a DJ than a band, due to the obvious lower cost and the technical aspects involved in a band concert.
I have lots of friends that have bands and do some DJing just to get some extra money, so I think this explains it all. I love electronic music but it’s kinda sad to see stuff like this happening.
13. You’ll be releasing your first EP through BugEyed Records in late July, would you mind giving us some a heads up of what we should expect to listen? What’s the title of the EP?
It’s a pretty straight forward mid-tempo indie electro/nu-disco danceable music. I used some orchestrations and tons of micro-sampling on ‘Immo’, the main track of this EP. ‘Down’ is going to be the first single, it has got a catchy distorted synth riff all along the track, matched with myself rappin’ and singing on a Kanye West style. It kinda reminds of Justice’s ‘DVNO’, a track that I definitely love. And of course ‘Horse’, a noisy Marilyn Manson-ish shuffle bass-driven banger with heavy metal guitars, war chants and tons of epicness. It could be a Muse track, I think…
With these three songs I tried to translate precisely what comes to my mind when I think of club music. It’s an ode to the artists I like. People who know my influences will be able to detect them on my songs.
14. How many original tracks are there going to be on the EP and will there be any remixes? If yes, by whom? Give the readers something to look forward to…
I’m sending remix packs to people I admire. Brazilian DJ Chernobyl is kind of an oracle of ‘bailefunk’ music, and I asked him to remix ‘Down’ his way. I can’t confirm the other remixers yet because it is still being negotiated but I hope to hear different approaches to my tracks. It’ll be fun.
15. Any other plans for 2011? (live shows, releases, videos, remixes, etc)
I’m already doing shows here in Brazil. I’m resident at my own party, called ‘Crunk It’ where we cover everything from dutch house to dubstep and everything in between. There’s a strong scene here in Brazil. I’m travelling around here, trying to get enough experience so I can start touring abroad. It’s not too expensive to book some dates, due to the fact that I’m only one person touring. I hope to visit lots of countries with my music and I’ll be doing everything in my reach to do that!
16. Whom would you dream to share the stage with?
Tough question… It’s hard to say but I think one of those Ed Banger incredibly packed crazy parties would be more than awesome.
17. What are you listening to lately? Any tracks/artists you recommend?
I’ve been listening to Lazer Sword a lot. It’s trippy, old school dubstep/grime. These guys are the greatest. And I’ve been digging the works of Drivepilot, he is pretty consistent and heavy.
18. What do you like to do when not in the studio producing music?
Besides going to parties, I like boxing. Really love it. I don’t have that much free time, but when I get some days off I like to try some new restaurants, riding my BMX, and playing vintage videogames like 3DO and Neo Geo. I have a huge old videogame collection back home.
19. What do you think about the Metalectro blog and the music featured on it?
It was the first website about it that I visited, thanks to my friend Dirty Noise that sent me the link. Me, Dirty Noise and Udek talk about the blog a lot. It’s a very cool place to discover some new earbleeding music!
20. Something else you’d like to mention and we forgot to ask?
I have 2 more EP’s done, so you guys will be hearing a lot more by SIRsir soon and I hope you enjoyed this interview! Sorry for my rusty English, let’s all have fun and dance to extremely loud noisy music!