Emay Interview

Emay is a name that you may not be familiar with just yet but as soon as I heard his latest project, Emay, Karen O and the Kids, I was sold. That EP is available as a free download here and at the bottom of this page.

Firstly. introduce yourself.

I am Emay [pronounced M-A], and I am a Canadian producer and MC currently living in Hamilton, Ontario. I love making music, and making fun of stupid shit.

The current release, Emay, Karen O and the Kids is essentially a remix project using tracks from the Where The Wild Things Are OST. What drew you to that source material and aren’t you worried that you may get a bit typecast as a producer?

The thing that drew me to sampling Karen O’s soundtrack initially was when my dude Austin aka Judge Mental from Vinylmeltdown.com referred me to listen to the album. After I heard it, I was pretty blown away at how great the music was. Especially because I was used to Karen O’s stuff with the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s which seems to have a more pop feel. I enjoy a lot of her work with the band, but this made me see her in a new light as a solo artist, which is pretty awesome.

I don’t really mind being categorized as something specific, but once in a while it can be a drag because people expect me to stick to one distinct sound all the time. Sticking to one sound is something I’m pretty incapable of doing because I always want to gather and mix everything I learn as I progress in this art. So I guess in the end, I do worry about being “typecasted” because it feels like people might be trying to trap me into a box. Which is wack haha.

Tell us a bit about Vinyl Meltdown. Who’s involved? What’s the ethos?

To me, VinylMeltdown is pretty much a family of people who love art, and the progression of it. It was started by Patrick [Indivisible], and Austin [Judge Mental], and I’ve been a part of it for a while to. We’re also affiliated with Wax, EOM, Remot, and Autorock. There are more individuals, but I don’t want to list too many. We do have a blog which seems to still be developing, but we have ideas far beyond that that we’re willing to make sacrifices for. The philosophy behind it is pretty much the promotion and creation of what we consider to be great art!

What sort of things were you listening to when you decided you wanted to start making your own beats?

The type of shit I was listening to when I first wanted to create my own beats consisted of a lot of stuff I consider to be wack now. It was mostly consisting of “mixtape artists” that were simply carbon copies of whatever was popular at the time, but as I grew as an artist I started listening to a whole new variety of artists I found were amazing. First it began with hip-hop artists like DJ Premier, AZ, Nas, MF DOOM, Kanye West, and Black Milk. Then as I broke out of the walls of hip-hop I started listening to some classic rock with bands such as King Crimson, The Beatles, Velvet Underground, Pavlov’s Dog, and Wishbone Ash. The stuff I listen to now contains that, stuff plus a lot of indie acts and some key mainstream artists as well.

I would say the times have now irrevocably changed and the free music movement means musicians futures are increasingly in their own hands from a much earlier stage. Now someone can give away their music and start building a one on one relationship with their fans from the moment they have mixed a track down and placed it on Bandcamp. Do you think all this free content will just lead to an overall drop in quality as the amount of music out there increases? Producers feel they can release anything they want digitally without the need for a label to quality control output.

This is a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because artists such as myself that are deprived of top notch equipment are still able to create music that they love without the pressure of deadlines and such. It’s a bad thing also because people that don’t take music as seriously as they think they do start thinking “Oh, that’s easy. I can do that!”, and that creates a crap load of saturation. Generally though, I feel it’s not so bad because in the end, most of the artists that take their craft seriously, and are talented will be noticed, and that will eventually lead to them being on a label or some type of organization that cleans their sound up for them.

What’s got you pricking up your ears these days?

I’ve been listening to a lot of Wavves, Dinosaur Jr., Guided by Voices, Sonic Youth, Moka Only, Coma Cinema, Star Slinger, Ghost Animal, Baths, Flying Lotus, Guilty Simpson, T.I., Rick Ross, Wild Beasts, Yeasayer, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Foreign Born, Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think…. I wish I could go on and on, but nobody will read all of it haha. I’ve been pricking up my ears for a crap load of stuff is all I can really say.

What have you got in mind for future projects?

I’m currently working on my solo LP, which will consist of my lyrics and vocals over my own production. The entire project also has me sampling a very distinct sounding band from the 90′s that I wont mention yet, but it should be interesting. I’ve also completed another instrumental project, but I’m still uncertain on whether that will be released soon, so I’m holding onto that for further notice. I’m also working on a project with Star Slinger, and Blackbird Blackbird. If you’re not familiar with them, be sure to hit up ze googles!

Any final words?

Errrrm….. Be sure to check out my stuff if you don’t know who I am, and always give new artists a shot. Even if you end up being disappointed with something, there’s always something you’ll love that’s sitting their waiting for your ears. Peace, and respects to Inaudible Answer for this interview!

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