With his latest project, What So Not is going back to his roots. It feels like both a look back at his own journey and a fresh take on the 2010s trap and bass era that completely changed electronic music worldwide. Being right in the middle of the original wave, What So Not helped build the exact sound that took over every festival stage, SoundCloud feed, and radio station.
I SAW A TRAP DJ AND IT CHANGED MY BIO CHEMISTRY taps into the energy of those early days while bringing a modern approach. Inspired by iconic collaborations and the peak of internet music culture, it blends the unpredictable nature of early trap with everything he has learned along the way.
Time for a chat!
How are you doing? How’s the summer been so far?
I’m doing amazing. I did a two month tour in Australia after a US run here for three months, and then I had three weeks off. I went to Europe, did a bunch of writing there in the UK and did a show in Kyiv. That was right in the middle of two big bombings, so it was crazy being out there. We did a beautiful show on a rooftop and worked with local artists. A lot of them can’t even leave the country, so that’s at the forefront of my mind as I come back to America and start this tour here now. I think the craziest thing for me was just how much everyone had learned to tolerate it, it was almost normalised. When the alarms sounded, everyone went to the basement, brought some wine, laptops, some music, and we just hoped it didn’t get close. The next morning, everyone goes to work, goes to college, goes to service, whatever it may be. That was the craziest part for me, how the next day is expected to be a normal day after an experience like that.
It really must have put things into perspective.
Yeah, 100 percent. Through this job, you go around the world a lot and see what different cultures and different economic climates are like, and it just puts a lot of things in perspective. If they can be happy, lively, enjoying life over there, then we should not take everything for granted and complain about things so much over here.
You said that you were touring and travelling and then writing at the same time. But then you’ve got an EP to promote as well. How do you combine all of this?
I’m writing every day. I’ve had a really fun journey sort of back to the core of what I love about this project and music, and I’ve been very inspired by halftime music again. I spent a lot of time away from it making drum & bass and experimenting with other genres. Now I’m really back in this pocket that I used to be in a long time ago, and I’ve been really inspired by it. I think there’s a lot of cool artists around the world experimenting with the same sound in different ways. I’m seeing a hybrid of traditional dubstep and breakbeat culture. MPH, Sammy Virji, they are mixing it with the UK grime culture and this halftime trap, future bass and evolutions. It’s all coming together in cool multi-genre sets, and it’s popping up all around the place. It’s such a cool time for music where people come to concerts and they’re up for anything. Back in the day it was really clicky and niche, and it was frowned upon if you did something different.
You said that you’re going back to where you started? What inspired you to do that?
I felt like a calling to it, I hadn’t made it for a long time. A lot of us made that sound for such a long time and we were there near the start of it. We ran out of sounds to make, and rhythms that were challenging in that field. We all moved on to different things, but there’s this cycle back into it. There’s an excitement, and a freshness to it. A lot of the UK scene has opened up again, breaking the mould, it’s not just house and techno. In the middle of house and techno sets, they are now dropping a ripping breakbeat 140 tune, and the crowd is erupting. It’s so nice to see that mould being broken.
Thinking back to when you started versus now, how have you changed as an artist? What lessons have you learned?
I don’t even know where to start with that. The whole journey is learning every day, every week. You’re constantly seeing things from a whole new perspective, looking at things you did five or 10 years ago and thinking, there was something really special in that when I was naive. There was something really special in that when I didn’t fully comprehend it and I didn’t overwork it, I didn’t over tweak it. I can see now the beauty in that naivety. But now I know I could finish it faster, finish it at a higher level without so much struggle, and that’s such a cool feeling. I’m thinking, wow, I can really get this to a place I never could before, without too much headache. I’m running around the world doing a different country every other day, but I know what I need to do to get this to a level that I can at least play it and test it out. I like the pace of it right now.
It’s almost like you’re bringing back that childlike fun that you had, but then with all of the knowledge that you’ve got now.
That is the exact way to describe it. All of us start in music creating in this childlike form and childlike sense of, I don’t know what to do, but I’m just going to try. The best records are an expression of how you’re feeling in the moment. This is how I feel, and this is what that sounds like. It’s quite pure and innocent and you get into flow states and it comes out of you almost like you’re relinquishing control and it’s just coming through you. Those are always the best records, and I’m back there now. That’s the starting point. You get into that flow state and you make something really special, but then often it just sits on your hard drive and you don’t know how to finish this. At this point in my career, I know how to finish a lot of those records. I know what that wants to be, and I know how to get it there and I can do it quickly. I can start playing it at shows, start testing it, start sending it to friends, start having people play it around. Then it comes into the world’s existence, not just my computer hard drive graveyard.
What’s the story behind this EP?
Taking ownership of where I came from. There were some things in the past of my project where I was trying to run away from things that were expected. I remember when it first started, I kept getting put on heavy dubstep stages and all these really aggressive stages, but I’m not about that. I’m a bit softer, a bit more dynamic. I like songwriting. I sing on my records. So I ran away from it and ended up on a lot of main stages. But I’m not really making main stage music. Suddenly I’m competing with the Dua Lipa’s of the world, and I’m getting put on stage with these people. So then, I started playing drums, singing live, doing live synthesis, having a guitarist in my band and all of these things to balance out the energy that’s required when you come out of your niche and you get thrown onto these stages, sometimes playing for 40,000 people. I don’t really make music for a crowd of 40,000 people, but in the right moments with the right energy, the right hype going on, it works. For me coming back to this, the genre that I love making and feel inspired by, that’s the reason why I’m there again.
You being asked to play main stages, did that push you to go further?
Absolutely. It challenged me, and it forced me to grow so much. It threw me in the deep end and challenged what I thought I might be able to do. I like playing a “no lights on, in the corner, just playing records” kind of show, and watching people enjoy it. I don’t even care about being seen. That, particularly in America, got flipped on its head. The DJ is the star. I think Europe and the UK understand it a bit more, where you can be a thing in the background and be a tastemaker, throwing down records.
What kind of audience do you have in mind for this EP?
A lot of it is coming back to having fun with music, putting some concepts and sounds together that maybe haven’t been done in that way, and trying to make something that nods to that nostalgia. There’s this track called ‘Candy Flipping’ with a Nerve, Jack Blom and Alina Pash. It makes me think of old Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, but done in a modern garage meets halftime bass music world. That one to me is so now and it’s nodding to lots of cool things without biting anything. It’s really exciting for me to be putting out records like that. Nitepunk, one of my friends, was on tour with The Prodigy in America, and he told me that, in the changeover music between me and them, they’re playing one of my records, ‘Divide and Conquer’. That’s such an honour to hear that that’s happening.
You’ve mentioned Candy Flipping, a track on the EP. Are there any other cool stories behind some other tracks?
The story behind ‘Mona Lisa’ is pretty cool. Mr. Carmack is an iconic figure in our scene, and he’s a little bit aloof. He disappears for a while, comes back, puts a hundred demos up on SoundCloud for just a few days, and then deletes them. We’d hung out a lot over the years, but hadn’t bumped into each other since COVID. I saw him at Burning Man and we were just hanging out all through the event. We realised we lived around the corner from each other in Los Angeles at that point. So, a week after that, I went over to his house and we just made three or four records in one afternoon, smashing them out. We also had our friend Benni Ola come over, and he started freestyling over the track. ‘Mona Lisa’ came out of that. There are a few other records like that, where it’s just fun. Don’t overthink it.
What inspires you?
People inspire me. My favourite thing is when you get in the studio with new people, and you show each other music you love, whether it’s yours that you made or just songs you’re inspired by. That’s how the culture grows, that sharing of people that have taste in very particular niche fields, sharing that taste with others in different fields, and then finding overlap. That’s how we get really, really cool ideas going. I recently discovered Dr. Ushuu. He’s making crazy stuff. I was in France working with a bunch of friends, and he told me he lived there. I was supposed to be working and making music one day, but Paris got hit by a heatwave and my session got cancelled. It was too hot. No aircon in the studios, no aircon in the apartments. It’s actually brutal. So I told him, I’m free today. Do you want to meet up? We met up and I learned he’s Portuguese, and that’s why his sound is so interesting. He’s Portuguese, grew up in France, and he’s making very cool UK dubstep flips. We made a couple of songs together, and he showed me a bunch of his work. Now my set has a few of his records in it and some things he showed me. I think that’s how we all keep growing and being inspired.
Is there anything else that you’re working on at the moment?
I have a lot of music, it’s all stuff that I’m so passionate and excited about. When I was in Ukraine, I worked with some of the biggest artists there. It was really cool but also crazy at the same time, because the men aren’t allowed to leave the country. They’re all conscripted to do service, so the only way to work with them is to travel there. When I went there, we probably made four records in two days. I worked in the studio for a few days with 10 artists total. They were coming in and out, meeting everyone, trying little ideas, all of that. There’ll be a lot of cool stuff that comes out of that for me. I worked with one of the biggest pop artists as well, Nadya, and we worked on this record of mine that might come out really soon. I’m excited about it.
How’s your summer looking for the rest of it?
I have a full US tour right now, and I then continue that run back to Europe to do some more writing over there. Afterwards I’ve got some shows in Australia, a fall tour in the US, and then I think I’m coming back to Europe properly, maybe through October and December.
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