Here's my interview with Golden Calf
How'd you get started in music?
I started playing guitar as a teen and played in a couple bands. I tried to get into a Music Production program in college, but it was very competitive and I was rejected. Then as time went on the bands dissolved, but I still wanted to make music so I started using a DAW to make drums and backing tracks. Eventually I discovered the genre witch house and fell in love, so I began to try making it and started learning more about music production. I've been taking it seriously since about February 2021. It's been incredibly enlightening to see how deep the production rabbit hole goes. I think there's a common misconception that I certainly started with, that electronic music is just clicking in notes, copy and paste. But there's so much more involved than that, and I have grown to love and respect that complexity.
Who are your inspirations or influences?
In general the genres I take influence from most are witch house, hardwave, black/death/thrash metal, shoegaze and dream pop.
AXIUS LINK, Sidewalks and Skeletons, MYSTXRIVL have all been huge. Crystal Cage and other artists on the Untitled Burial label.
Systematic Doses and the others on Blvsphemy Records.
Many others in the witch house community. I love how they capture feelings of darkness, beauty and brutality very well, which I feel is a common tie to metal.
Then there are bands like Beherit, Katharsis, Darkthrone. Older Opeth albums when they were still sort of melodeath. The list is always growing.
What advice would you offer aspiring performers?
Since I'm still pretty new, I am still learning all the time. The biggest things that have helped my own development are 1) to keep practicing. Don't get hung up on small details, just keep making songs and you will get better over time. And 2) to keep it simple - that applies to arrangement, melodies, mixing, everything. Often less instruments sound better together than many. Sometimes a sound doesn't need any processing, EQ etc at all. One or two good ideas in a song is better than a 10 minute riff-salad opus.
How do you set yourselves apart from other bands or singers?
Well it's not really something I consciously decide. More like a culmination of influences that reveal themselves as a song gets written. The more people I meet in the witch house community, the more similarities I find to my own tastes. It's interesting to see how other artists with similar influences take those ideas in so many different directions.
Any new gigs or albums in the future?
Right now I am trying to release one song per month. As workflow gets faster, I hope to put together an EP in 2023.
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