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RAC: André Allen Anjos On Remix Culture And The Digital Frontier

Lilian Min |
April 9, 2014 | 2:36 p.m. PDT

Music Editor

From The Shins to Strangers -- RAC founder Anjos makes moves into original music.(Photo by Michael Dwyer/Courtesy of Interscope Records)
From The Shins to Strangers -- RAC founder Anjos makes moves into original music.(Photo by Michael Dwyer/Courtesy of Interscope Records)
As the digital world became more democratic throughout the early 2000s, Internet users and, in particular, music listeners started finding ways of creating and sharing their original takes on tracks by their favorite artists. But the industry didn't want in: there were issues of copyright, of "artistic integrity," that cast the burgeoning digital remix movement in a negative light.

But remix culture couldn't be denied, and now, in perhaps a fated twist, one of its most prolific and influential contributors, RAC (that's Remix Artist Collective), recently released an album of completely original music.

Though RAC's makeup has changed throughout the years, founder André Allen Anjos has built up a steady portfolio of work with everybody from Radiohead to Lana Del Rey. In the wake of the release of "Strangers," his first all original album, I chatted with Anjos, who called in while on tour, driving through NorCal.

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Strangers features collaborators like Tegan & Sara, Alex Ebert and St. Lucia. (Courtesy of Interscope Records)
Strangers features collaborators like Tegan & Sara, Alex Ebert and St. Lucia. (Courtesy of Interscope Records)
How different is it to be working completely with your original material versus looking at someone else's song and using those existing elements?

It's actually kind of a similar process. To me, it's always been writing music -- the creative side of it is pretty similar. You're obviously referencing material that's pre-existing, but the only real difference from that and writing original music is just a different starting point.

With original music, you're crafting something from scratch, and with remixes, you're crafting something built on something else. It's slightly different, but I find them both to be pretty great creative outlets.

When writing original music, there's some things that are a little more complicated. There's more "big picture" things you have to think about, like what you want the album to sound like as a whole, what does RAC sound like as an original artist -- things like that that you have to think about, that are different.

With the remixes, I'm technically hired to do these for other artists, but… I put more pressure on myself, for the original stuff.

How did you get in contact with the various collaborators on "Strangers," and what was it like working with a group of artists (versus just one, for a specific remix)?

It's kind of interesting -- part of reason the album's called "Strangers" is because for the most part, [my collaborators and I] did it all through the Internet and I didn't really know them. In fact, most of the people on the record, I haven't met them in real life. It's a weird process… We had talked over email or maybe on the phone, but we never got in the studio or anything like that, it was all done through the Internet.

As far as how I got hooked up with [my collaborators], they're mostly people that I've worked with in the past with remixes, so I had a relationship there. I was closer to some artists than I was with others, but it was primarily through the remixes that this whole thing came together.

What would you say the impact of the Internet has been on both the spread of your music on sites like The Hype Machine and reaching out and collaborating with other people?

I can say this absolutely, without a doubt, that I wouldn't even be talking to you if it wasn't for that. I wouldn't have a career. I think I was pretty fortunate to start at a time where… It was a little bit like the Wild West, in terms of what you could do. There wasn't really a set way. I was just there at the right time, and able to craft something out of this ever-changing landscape.

With the blogs and all that, I got in early. This was before Hype Machine, so there wasn't any aggregator or anything like that. There was no way for you to really know how well stuff was doing. You just kind of had to wing it a little bit. I already had an in with the blogs -- a lot of people were really supportive of my music, so when sites like Hype Machine came along and started aggregating everything and putting it into perspective, that's when things really clicked, more people started to take notice.

For the first time, I really had a grasp of what was actually happening in the blog world. And now even more so -- there are so many tools for you to gauge, to see how things are doing. It ends up being more of a numbers game, when before it was just, whatever.

What are your feelings about being able to track your music and how it spreads, and having a definition for how "successful" your songs are doing?

It's weird… it's good and bad because sometimes it's easier to leverage yourself within the industry because of those numbers. But on the other hand, it takes away from it, and ends up just being about numbers. I try not to get too caught up in that, so it's more for my own personal good, trying to see how things are doing.

It's easy to get caught in that mindset. You always have to do better than, or sell x amount of whatever than, or you have to get this many plays or this many shares… it's weird how, especially in the music industry, it all ends up being about that now. I still like to think that there's something behind all those numbers and that, like, people sharing music with their friends, you still can't track that. Despite it being a lot about numbers, there's a whole other side of it that just can't be tracked.

To actually answer your question, I don't think it bothers me. It's just another tool.

About the industry -- it seemed for a while that remix/mashup culture was going to be a problem, but now when you look at it, people are really embracing these forms. What is it like to be in the industry now, and how have you seen it change?

It's been an interesting ride. From the very beginning, it wasn't considered to be very legitimate. That was actually kind of a big goal for me, I really wanted to do something that people would think had value to it.

As of right now, going back to the numbers question, numbers speak louder than any question of legitimacy. Once it's obvious that [remixes were] a promotional thing, it was good for everybody, all those questions about copyright and about making something official and all that stuff, that sort of went out the window because it didn't matter.

Basically, the way it works with remixes specifically, they give you the files and they pay you a fee. Then they go sell it and make their money back and probably more, or they give it away for free, and it ends up promoting the original song. It serves that function.

It used to be kind of a DJ thing -- making a remix for a club. But I'm kind of glad that it's not just that anymore, even if it's still just a promotional item. It probably comes with a promotional budget. It's an interesting place to be… I sort of fell into this. I didn't set out on this goal of becoming a remix artist.

I've always thought about it in a way where I want to do something I think the artist would enjoy, that they would find interesting, a different take that's just as musical. - Anjos (Photo by Nick Walker/Courtesy of Interscope Records)
I've always thought about it in a way where I want to do something I think the artist would enjoy, that they would find interesting, a different take that's just as musical. - Anjos (Photo by Nick Walker/Courtesy of Interscope Records)
On that note, how did you fall into remixing? What was it like getting into all this?

I had been doing some remixes for fun, and these were technically bootleg remixes so I had to find the vocal files and all that stuff. I've been doing that since 2003?, so I had a grasp on the process and I had some experience with actual recording. I was already self-sufficient at that point.

In college, I was playing in other bands, and this was a side project to fall back on, maybe make a living doing it or something like that. It was very low key, I had pretty low ambitions for it in the beginning. I had this idea of creating this persona and doing that.

I ended up spending six, seven months calling random people, or emailing and just trying to get an in in the industry because I didn't really have anything going. At that point, I called up the manager from The Shins, 'cause they actually had the phone number on the website, which is kind of weird, that's not very normal. I called them up and told them my story and asked them if they'd be willing to try it out. And sure enough, they said yes, which was kind of weird.

I'm actually convinced that nobody had ever asked them for a remix before because they were an indie rock band. I think they were baffled and surprised and were like, "Okay, sure, let's try it out." So on my first release, I got a song out on one of their singles, with Peter Bjorn & John as well. I just got really lucky -- from there, because of The Shins, doors started to open.

What is it like building a more electronica, electro-feeling track versus something with more traditional rock instrumentation? How do you carry that over into a new iteration or how do you build in these very different genres?

Especially with remixes, I always try to do something that's fitting with the song. I want to be tasteful with the original material; I'm not gonna… You get requests pretty often from these people that sort of know your work but don't really know what you're doing. They want you to turn a folk song into a dance banger and that's just not what I do. There's plenty of people out there who do that, and that's fine, but I've always tried to do something that's appropriate, given the original material.

I've always thought about it in a way where I want to do something I think the artist would enjoy, that they would find interesting, a different take that's just as musical. That's been a pretty important thing to me.

As far as the electronic thing goes, it falls under the same idea. If it makes sense to put electronic stuff in there, sure. If not, then just use guitars and drums and bass, whatever. There's no formula, you just feel it out.

Then say on "Strangers," when you're working with collaborators and you're trying to figure out how to make songs that complement their vocals, how do you hit on that? Do you come up with something first and then play around with it in different genre stylings?

The way this album came together, I wrote about 45 songs, just demos, very simple beats and guitar and some synths and stuff. And then I sent them all, all these tracks, to all these people, and gave them the option, like "Hey, check it out. I know it's a lot but, check it out. Pick something that you feel comfortable with and that you think you can do something with."

There were a couple songs that I wrote specifically for artists, but they never really went for it, they always went for something kind of surprising and interesting. I like that approach, give them all the options and see what happens.

From there, they spend their own time in between tours, and on the road too, recording something, and send it back to me. That's where I take it and shape it into what I was trying to do with this album. It's a little bit of a back-and-forth -- there are a couple songs where they just nailed it, and it's perfect for how the song was, and there were others where I changed it considerably, to make it work for the album as a whole. There's a whole lot of messing around with the stuff, so it's gone through many different iterations.

Do you want to keep using this collaboration model for your original music?

I think I have to… I can't sing, and I like working with other people. It keeps things fresh and interesting. There's definitely a lot of benefits to having a single vocalist, but I just like working with a bunch of different people.

When it comes to building your music, what elements do you start off with, and when are you okay with a song being "finished"?

Songs are never finished… There are more deadlines than there are finished songs.

I take that back. With original music, I had the time to finish stuff, but then again, every time you listen to it, you think "Oh, I should've done that." As far as elements, I specifically start with drums because you have to get a feel, and then you start adding elements on top of that. There's really no set way, it just depends on the song.

Some songs start with guitar and then you mess around with it, and then you add drums, or -- I don't know, it changes from song to song.

Are you writing lyrics at all, or are the vocalists writing them?

I'm not writing any lyrics, it was all done by the featured artists. I think that they're writing their own melodies so it makes sense. I did give them a very general idea in the beginning before I even worked on it. They went with that.

When you're on tour, what is the performance process like, when you're performing without your collaborating artists?

This goes back to what I was saying about the upside of having a single vocalist! One of the downsides of having multiple collaborators is that the live becomes a lot more complicated.

We sort of addressed this problem. What I came up with was, it's a full live band, a four-piece: guitar, bass, drums, keys. And then we have a digital show as well.

What that actually means is, it's sort of loosely based on "2001: A Space Odyssey," and it's like this monolith in the film. It sits center stage, and it's very large -- like eight to nine feet tall. And what we came up with was, if you send the vocal tracks through this machine, it reacts to it in real time.

It's a computer system, but… I don't know if you've watched "Knight Rider," when the car talks. It's like a visual representation of the vocal. It's a very weird thing, but I think it works. The band is front and center and then in the back of the stage is this giant thing hovering over everybody, it has all these crazy visuals on top of that.

It's a weird problem to have, a weird band without a lead singer. I joke around and say that it's the elephant in the room. We're very aware that we don't have a lead singer, but we have fun with it. That's the general idea behind it. I built the system with this guy, Strangeloop -- he's done stuff for Kanye, Kendrick Lamar, Skrillex, Flying Lotus, I don't know anybody else that's doing it.

So we have a mix of this visual show and whenever we can, we always have the artists play the songs with us. Obviously, that doesn't really work when you're playing smaller cities or, you can't just bring these people on tour. Lana Del Rey's schedule doesn't really fit with ours.

[The show's] actually a mix of remixes and original stuff. We play all the remixes live, so it's just a big party, basically. It's been a blast, we've been on tour since mid-February. We only have a couple shows left on this tour, and then a couple of festivals, but it's been a lot of fun.

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Download RAC's album "Strangers" on iTunes here. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Read more of NT's interviews here.

Originally published here.

Reach Music Editor Lilian Min here; follow her on Twitter and Google+.



 

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