“I’m one of those painful articulate types who sits there and learns something until I’m happy. It’s bad to say, but I spend hours neglecting friends, (now ex-)girlfriends, family, my puppy and everyone else I’m close to until I’m satisfied. There’s no excuse now: If you want to know how to do something, go out there and fucking do it! If you want to learn a guitar, just pick it up and learn. Just do it!”
If Draft wasn’t busy cooking up all sorts of next level beats, he could quite easily change his career to motivational speaker. But don’t take him up on this inspirational speech quite yet… Read on and find out how this track got its unique video thanks to a 30 second clip on a Metalheadz podcast:
“It started as a colab in 2010,” explains the man more conventionally known as Liam. “My friend and fellow artist Zeros stopped working on it and I carried on. The original sounded nothing like it does now. It started as a downtempo track I used as an intro on a Metalheadz podcast. Eric Tosstorff [the director] emailed me out of the blue telling me he needed to do a video for the tune. I told him there was no budget, no release date or anything and he came back saying he didn’t care, he just wanted to make a video.”
“It’s great having a video that’s not shot in a nightclub and not having some kind of deep hipster context. Just two great dancers , Becky and Quenton, doing their thing on a rooftop with a Manhattan skyline.”
Job done. But what else is there to know about Draft? We’ve learnt he was once played both football and rugby at a high level, he considers himself a Jack Daniels connoisseur, he’s ambidextrous and he has a six month puppy called Finn.
More’s the point, what’s capable of besides inspiring music video directors or conjuring up comments so motivational there’s a chance most of you paused to learn an entire orchestra of instruments before resuming this short feature?
If you break down electro and bass music you’ll see a huge similarity: it’s just riffs. Massive aggressive riffs.
“I’ve always played guitar and drums,” he explains. “I can play the Irish tin whistle, the recorder, the piano. Anything I dedicate time to. My parents brought me up on a strict diet of folk music, Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen. Even deep south Cajun music. My first real personal inspiration was heavy metal. I was that nerdy kid who didn’t look like the metal fan but I’d be busy researching, reading, working out the tablature. And if you break down electro and bass music you’ll see a huge similarity: it’s just riffs. Massive aggressive riffs. It’s the same dynamics. I’ve recently read this really inspiring article on transitions in fiction writing and it opened my eyes… Music is conveying emotion via dynamics and transitions.”
You can hear those very dynamics and transitions on Draft’s mix embedded below. But don’t go thinking he’s just about the big riffs. Once known as Draft The Depressant, he also peddles a fine line of lush downtempo, all minor keys and inward reflectiveness. In 2012 he self released an entire album of the stuff and he’s sitting on another 18 track opus right now. Back to his dancefloor operations, and you can expect some major EPs and high profile US shows before the summer begins.
“My new six-track EP Makeshift Constellations is due out very soon, then I’ll be Stateside in the next couple of months!” grins the 27 year old.
Not quite as motivational as his opening gambit, but something to get very excited about nonetheless. Now let’s all enjoy this superb new mix of his…
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