Aweminus: Savage To Society

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Aweminus – one of bass music’s most frequently mispronounced aliases – is really carving out a nice nook for himself amongst those in the know. Truth be told, this guy has been absolutely crushing the underground circuit to bits for the past few years now. Which is precisely why we are going to sit here and sing his praises.

For myself, it was a 50 Caliber VIP that first caught my attention. Now, the idea alone that somebody should even so much as entertain the thought of reconstructing a FuntCase original is considered nothing short of ludicrous. Right? Nonetheless, there was something about Aweminus’ valiant attempt that definitely stood out to me. The savage brutality and raw carnage embodied in the track itself was unlike anything I had ever heard. While his production techniques have unquestionably improved over time, the ability was clearly present from day one.

Since then, Aweminus has gone on to release monsters like the overly aggressive IJDGAF VIP and the spotlight-swiping Sheer Cold. On top of those bangers, he also distributed some major damage with top-notch works like Chuckie, GBus, Profit, and a whole long list of others. Pure madness seems to ensue whenever this individual shows his face, and trust us, that is no coincidence. After countless days and nights or honing his craft, the payoff has been beyond sweet for this dedicated musician on the come-up.

If early returns from Never Say Die Black Label’s Short Fuse EP are any indicator, this fella is in magnificent shape moving forward. While some believe the dubstep community is currently being poisoned by the riddim boom and 150bpm bandwagoners, Aweminus proves, without a doubt, that sticking to an original and organic style truly trumps all. Venture outside of your comfort zone and discover an artist that is gearing up for greatness.

Sum up your sound…

Dark and groovy. I’ve always been drawn towards the darker sounds. Sometimes I’ll come up with tunes that have melodies, but there will always be some sort of dirty bass in there. Got to chuck it in there.

When you find yourself frustrated with the production process, what do you do?

Going out to a show and seeing other DJs play is very inspiring. Watching artists that I look up to play their sets, that’s always been inspiring to me.

Or I’ll just switch into another music program. Switch to another DAW. I use mainly FL Studio, but sometimes I just can’t write anything in FL Studio, so then I’ll open up Reason. Usually I’ll write something down pretty quickly.

So how did Never Say Die initially get wind of Aweminus?

It was awesome because I was trying to put an EP together to send to them. Basically to see if they wanted to let me make an EP. SKisM hit me up after I played this show called Toxic Summer in Northern California. He saw my set and then he also saw a video on twitter of Hijinks. Then he asked for an EP, so I just sent him Hijinks and three other tunes that I was writing specifically for Never Say Die. It worked out! He wanted all four of the tracks. It was really convenient.

The Short Fuse EP received tons of positive feedback, please tell us a bit about the makeup of the release.

The track that I had the most fun with was Under The Bed. I hadn’t really written a tune that sounded like that yet. It was a really industrial sounding kind of thing. I was doing everything a bit different with that particular track.

As a whole track, I would have to say Short Fuse is the most underrated. I enjoy it a bit better than Pyramids, but the intro on Pyramids is really weird. That’s just a really weird tune.

You mentioned Hijinks earlier, so now I’m contractually obligated to mention Phiso.

Well, usually what happens when we collab is that we try to make the weirdest, loudest, and most adventurous tune. It [Hijinks] kind of came together like Sheer Cold, where we just made a weird intro and this super loud drop. With Hijinks, I started the original project and thought it was kind of stupid. It was just funny to me, but Phiso really liked it. So then we collabed on it and I started to really like it too.

Who else has helped elevate the Aweminus name to new heights?

Starting off, I would have to say Getter & Barron. I won a remix competition that Getter was doing around the end of 2012 or maybe the beginning of 2013. That was for my remix of Fallout. This was before the whole Facebook reach restrictions, where it wouldn’t show all your fans your posts unless you paid. So they each shared my music on their pages and I got like a thousand followers overnight.

DEFINITIVE! Got to mention them. Alfonso and Billy let me live in their house in Southern California. I got to come to LA and really embrace the music scene. Not only is dubstep big here, but the music scene in general is great. Those guys really helped me a lot – and I really love their tunes!

Do negative comments from naysayers affect you at all?

Here’s how I see it…. Everybody hates Lil Yachty, but he’s making millions doing his thing and being happy. So I just do my thing. I figure if there’s people that hate [on my music], then I’m probably doing something right. He’s the happiest guy in the world. He makes all this money and helps his friends out. I think that’s so cool! Everyone hates him for it and it’s hilarious.

What’s next?

I’ve been really trying to step up my production game. I’ve also really been trying to elevate the calibre of shows that I’m playing. I’m trying to build myself as an artist. I’ve played some big events, like ANIMALZ in Paris. That was scary! The night of the show, I had just got off the plane after flying for 20 hours and then just looked out on this crowd of 6,000 people. Which is like six times more than I’ve ever seen. And I was looking at their faces, not the backs of their heads. So yeah, that was crazy! Great time.

As for music. I’ve got tons and tons of drum & bass that I need to release. As far as dubstep goes, I’ve really been trying to refine the tunes. I would like to write tunes that I could just send to people and play out for fun, but they probably wouldn’t get released by anybody because they wouldn’t be anything spectacular.