After ill.Gates‘ dreamstate set for Bassnectar’s Freestyle Sessions, his follow-up set for The Other Side‘s Re:Search Wednesdays in Denver then his trip to Japan to throw down with Aphex Twin for a week, we got a moment to talk with Dylan himself.
Enjoy our exclusive interview with ill.Gates’, the artist, the mentor, the luminous jellyfish and much more.
You just released a killer remix of Apashe’s ‘Kung Fu’. For people who are unaware, who is Apashe? How did this remix come into fruition? How would you describe the sound of this remix?
Apashe is a really amazing French + Canadian producer who makes uncompromisingly dope music in a variety of BPMs. We’d been swapping DJ tracks for a while so I was really happy to oblige his request for a remix.
‘Kung Fu’ was one of the more popular tunes on his record and had a really great foundation for me to build upon. I wanted to make sure that the vibe + concept came across as clearly as possible so I got my man Mayor Apeshit to do a vocal. It came out really easy on my live stream and the rest is history… Banger!
I discovered you do some mentoring for up-and-coming producers. Would you mind telling us a little more about that? When, where and how did that project begin?
My mother is a teacher and my dad is a full time guitarist so I didn’t fall far from the tree… It’s just sort of always been a part of who I am. I started out mentoring people back in Canada when I was a teenager, then I developed a workshop series that I’d do while touring. Eventually that turned into online video lessons, then a membership site, and now a record label called ‘Producer Dojo’.
The first release was ‘The Sound’ by Matter and it hit #1 Dubstep Release on Beatport in about two days. That was all very encouraging so we’ve got big plans for the end of the year. There are about 100 members of the Dojo now and a big backlog of tracks. If you’re an upcoming producer and you’re interested in training check out www.TheClassOf808.com
Listen to ‘The Sound’ by Matter:
We are really digging your track ‘More Tea’ and it seems a lot of other artists that remixed it like Liquid Stranger and Mr. Bill do as well. How would you describe that track? Any message behind it?
Nice! Yeah that’s one of my favorite ill.Gates’ tracks as well. It was really fun to write. Basically what happened is that I had a tea traveler fan named Nathan send me some tea from Taiwan and we hit it off. He offered to set me up some shows in Asia if I was ever there and I love to travel so the next thing you know I’m doing a Taiwanese tour with my girl Night Nurse.
On the tour Nathan took us to this gorgeous tea house and let me know that this older Taiwanese producer had given him access to this huge archive of samples for an ‘Urban Teahouse Remix Project’ uniting the music of east and west. I agreed and flew to Austin to work on it. We busted out the Alan Watts, Jackie Chan + Bruce Lee samples to round it out and BOOM! More Tea was born!
Listen to ‘More Tea’:
You set the table so nicely for Bassnectar for his Freestyle Sessions on the Dreamstate night. How did that come to be? What was your musical direction going into that unique set?
I’ve known and worked with Lorin for over a decade so that gig was a long time coming. Back when we first linked up we were both in the breakbeat end of the festival scene and were known for our morning sets. This event was intended to be a throwback to that era with a modern twist so it really made sense for me to open it up.
There is a huge amount of my music that is too chill for me to play in a headline set, but that fits perfectly into a left field sort of scenario like Freestyle Sessions so I happily agreed. You can check out a lot of those tracks on my releases Autopirate, The ill.Methodology + Schmunday School. I also played a pile of new stuff from my upcoming album ‘Departures’.
Listen to ill.Methodology below:
What was your musical direction coming into your set a The Other Side in Denver?
Coming in HOT! Taking it to 11 with the ‘Kung Fu’ and then curveballs galore. That set was a BLAST! Much of that material was from my upcoming album Departures which I made traveling all over the world. It expands on the Asian influences of ‘More Tea’ with big dubstep tunes like Krakatoa and Bamboo… there’s also this insane banger called ‘Cthulhu’ that people get pretty excited about. I can’t wait till it comes out. I have WAY too much unreleased music right now. It feels amazing!
Do you have any life hacks or life mantras?
From quantity comes quality. Face your fears first then fall in love with the process. Focus on your message and transcend the medium. Communicating your emotional experience is the ticket to timelessness.
Finally, serious order of business, what is your spirit animal and why?
I’m a big fan of luminous jellyfish, but anything with tentacles will suffice in a pinch. I’m a weirdo and a multi-tasker. Lots of love everyone! Thanks for giving a shit!
ill.Gates‘ set at The Other Side rounded off the whole Bassnectar Freestyle Sessions experience perfectly, leaving all us bass heads fully satisfied. Find more shows coming up at The Other Side’s Re:Search Wednesdays and the rest of there stacked calendar by clicking here.
Keep up with ill.Gates by following him on his social media handles linked below. He will be in New York for Down To Earth Music Festival next.
