INTERVIEWS
What So Not On How He’s On the Verge of the “Greatest Work of His Career”
For What So Not, life was but a beautiful chaos before the world shut down in March 2020. For years, the Aussie had been touring his project for months at a time, playing hundreds of shows a year while attempting to write and release music on the road. But then, as countries shut their borders and people began to isolate, the renowned music producer—“High You Are” and “Gemini” fame—found himself quite literally locked down to one singular location. “It was a very big change, but it wasn’t an unwelcome change,” What So Not told EDM.com in an exclusive interview. “I was kind of deep down longing for that time.” He certainly made the most of it. Unlike those of us that baked bread and binge-watched Tiger King, What So Not spent his time on his craft, tinkeri...
Adventure Club On New Album, NFTs and the Future of Melodic Dubstep
Starting as a hardcore pop-punk band before evolving into a powerhouse dubstep production duo, Adventure Club have cemented themselves as bass music legends over the course of the last decade. However, despite touring the world and putting out dozens of singles in that time, they’ve only released one studio album, Red // Blue, back in 2016. But that’s all about to change. After dropping a slew of singles this year, including the euphoric “Broken Love” (with Cammie Robinson) and the uplifting “Anywhere” (with ARMNHMR and HALIENE), Adventure Club are on the verge of releasing a new album called Love // Chaos. Now back on tour and with Love // Chaos complete, Christian Srigley and Leighton James of Adventure Club caught up with EDM....
How It All Started: Fairlane Talks Upbringing and Emergence Into the Electronic Music Scene
Canadian electronic producer Fairlane has been musical for most of his life. At a very young age, his parents had him enrolled in piano classes, where he first got a taste of music and performing. Unfortunately, it was a bitter memory, as Fairlane recalls making a minor mistake during a piano recital when he was 10 years old. “I vowed to never perform music again,” he tells EDM.com. Eventually, Fairlane got over that mishap and went on to play in a band. However, there was one small problem: he did not know how to read sheet music. “I’ve always learned everything by ear,” he explained. “I had the same problem with piano. I would just practice and memorize it and so I froze up when I went to read music because I was unable to read the music.” A...
Hawkeye Head Writer on What Superheroes and Mad Men Have in Common and How Hamilton Inspired That Captain America Musical
Hawkeye head writer Jonathan Igla, it turns out, is uniquely suited to the role of telling the story of the least powerful, but perhaps most relatable Avenger. For one thing, the experienced writer/producer’s credits include the well-regarded series Mad Men, Bridgerton, Pitch, and Sorry for Your Loss. For another, he knows his way around a bow and arrow. And also, as he tells Consequence, “I read everything in the comic book world, I really grew up with Marvel Comics and I love all of the biggest and smallest stuff as a writer.” One of those comics, the 2012 Hawkeye series written by Matt Fraction with art by David Aja, was a very clear inspiration point for the six-episode series which just debuted on Disney+. The latest TV adventure spotlighting a specific MCU player, Hawkeye features Je...
“I Feel More Alive”: How ACRAZE Achieved Chart-Topping Success Through Sacrifice
Imagine going from the opening slot at Exchange L.A.—performing to a near-empty venue—to headlining and selling out the following year. For 26-year-old DJ and dance music producer ACRAZE, this was reality. Before becoming the red-hot “Do It To It” artist we all know and love, his music production journey started on a much different path. In an exclusive interview with EDM.com, ACRAZE admits that growing up, he “was not very musically inclined.” But his interest was piqued during his senior year of high school, when he knew he wanted to become a DJ. ACRAZE then went on to release his first original production, “Pull Up,” in 2017 via 4B‘s MACA imprint. It’s now a far cry from what fans have come to know and expect ...
Claudia Lennear, The Inspiration Behind ‘Brown Sugar,’ Regrets Song Leaving Rolling Stones’ Live Set
Claudia Lennear has been a witness to some peak moments in rock and soul. First as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, she’s sung backup on classic recordings and toured the world, shared stages with former Beatles and Bob Dylan, and was the inspiration behind David Bowie’s torrid 1972 epic “Lady Grinning Soul.” Just as famously, Lennear has been widely credited as the inspiration behind the Rolling Stones’ increasingly controversial classic rocker “Brown Sugar.” Founding bassist Bill Wyman confirmed her role in one of his books, and she’s always taken pride in that, calling the track “one of the greatest rock songs of all time, and not because I had anything to do with it.” Lennear was still an Ikette when she dated Stones frontman Mick Jagger in 1969, the same period the song wa...
Meet the Songwriters Behind the Best Song on Lindsey Buckingham’s New Album
When Lindsey Buckingham released his self-titled record in September, the media frequently lauded “Swan Song,” the fourth track, as a standout tune. What’s more, Buckingham himself told Newsweek that it’s one of his two favorite songs on the new record. But when Blinker the Star founder/frontman/songwriter and record producer Jordon Zadorozny (whose credits include producing Chris Cornell and a songwriting credit on Hole’s Celebrity Skin), first heard “Swan Song,” he felt like he was starring in an episode of The Twilight Zone. “My thought was, ‘How do I know this song, and why do I suspect that I have sung it before?’” says Zadorozny over the phone from his home in Pembroke, Ontario, Canada. Zadorozny was driving around running errands on a Saturday afternoon when he began streaming Bucki...
Why Disney+’s Hawkeye Takes Place at Christmas
The upcoming Disney+ series Hawkeye is set apart from other MCU adventures by a number of factors, but here’s a big one: It’s officially a holiday story. The series begins in the days before Christmas, with O.G. Avenger Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) trying to spend some time with his family — until, of course, things go sideways. This marks the first major MCU project to be set at Christmas since Iron Man 3, and as part of an extended interview with Consequence, head writer Jonathan Igla (Mad Men) explained that the series being set at Christmas was something that came out of early conversations in the writers’ room, as they established a structure for the season where each episode represents one day in the week leading up to Christmas. As Igla says, “I love the compressed time frame and th...
JVNA Finds “Hope In Chaos” On Stunning Debut Album: “It Became a Journey of Discovering Myself”
While you might think you know JVNA, one of the most promising young producers in the electronic music space, you’ve never heard her like on Hope In Chaos, her bombshell debut album. Fittingly, the record was self-sung, written and produced. Out November 19th via Violet Arrow, Hope In Chaos is a melodic bass masterpiece, tapping into the 22-year-old at her deepest and darkest for an aural journey of epic emotional proportions. 12 tracks carry us through a transformative coming-of-age opus with impressive momentum, narrated by lyrical brilliance à la Taylor Swift and Halsey. Opening single “Chaos (Prelude),” for example, thunders along with an orchestra of drums and strings. “Total spiral in my mind…searching for an unknown sign,” JVNA rif...
Director Mike Mills on His Gentle Drama C’Mon C’Mon: “I Think I’m Always Writing About Love”
To see a Mike Mills film — Thumbsucker, Beginners, 20th Century Women — is to be steeped in a deep pool of empathy. He’s an acutely sensitive director, his works feeling less like didactic authorial statements than loose, open meditations that allow his actors to take the lead and guide him along gently interpersonal journeys. His latest, C’Mon C’Mon, is no different, though Mills focuses his eye this time on the electric, unpredictable relationships between adults and children. Here, we get something akin to the avuncular, A24 version of the Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy: a childless thirty-something man (Joaquin Phoenix’s jocular but forlorn Johnny) suddenly thrust into a situation where he must unexpectedly look after a precocious young boy (the spectacular Woody Norman, playi...
Sam Fender Vs. The World
“I think a lot of people try to force positivity out of it. Quite frankly, I thought it was horrible,” Sam Fender says when asked about the time he spent alone during lockdown. Sure, those months proved to be fertile ground for the self-examination threading together his second album Seventeen Going Under, but he’s not suggesting all of his time was spent on introspection and inspired songwriting. In fact, at one point during our video call, he clearly differentiates himself from people who walked out of lockdown claiming they’d survived on “quinoa the whole time,” jokingly retorting “Fuck off, no you didn’t. I ate chicken burgers, drank loads of beer, and took loads of drugs.” But all quips aside, shit was bad. “It fucked up a lot of people’s lives and a lot of people’s mental health. I s...
Angel Haze Shares Track by Track Breakdown of New EP Girl with the Gun: Exclusive
Our Track by Track feature gives artists the opportunity to share the inspiration and stories behind each song on their latest release. Today, Angel Haze peels back the curtain on her new EP Girl with the Gun. Following a five-and-half year hiatus, Angel Haze is back with her new EP, Girl with the Gun. Stream it below via Apple Music and Spotify. During the former Rookie of the Year’s break from the music scene, one of the interests Haze leaned on as a creative outlet to heal from a traumatic upbringing was painting. This newfound love for an outside discipline helped the 27-year-old artist return to a mindset in which she could once again create music for herself — free of outside expectations. Advertisement “Girl With The Gun is the start of a new life for me. It’s everything I...
