Ravachol is the US based producer that has rapidly been rising through the bass scene with his exquisite releases and dedication to the music he loves. Although fairly new, Ravachol has been hard at work in terms of production. He has two original productions that generated rifts in the electronic community since their initial releases. In addition to those, he has a newly formed EP that has been the culmination of months of work. Through hard work, diligence, and a lot of hours experimenting with every sound in the book, Ravachol presents his Catnip EP. The four track EP is compiled with some of the most unique, yet diverse bass productions out there.
In addition to the gnarly tracks that are on the EP, we also get a look at some awesome artwork that’s paired with it. The cat influenced art is ever suiting for an EP titled “Catnip”. RaverRafting had the opportunity to sit down with Ravachol and discuss his newest EP, cats, influences, and plans for future productions. Check out our exclusive interview below and keep your eyes peeled for more Ravachol releases!
Tell me a little bit about your Catnip EP, what type of work went into producing it?
Ravachol: I was producing over a year ago and was gaining some mild traction then, my worst nightmares came true when my p.c. took a shit on me. I spend the next year and a half working at my job and saving up to get a new p.c. I had ALOT of time to think and plan out the next steps I wanted to take with my music. I went back into this and told myself to take a much more business approach, which is something I generally scoff at and find to be sometimes shallow and annoying. However, I was approached by management and was essentially told “you know all that shit you find annoying, I’ll do it for you!”.
Ravachol: Ever since then I have been grinding, planning and writing new music almost nonstop. I have spent this past 7 months cooking up this e.p., getting art together and making all the possible moves to come back in the game with the best music I have made yet. So as far as what type of work, I would say ALOT of hard work, and ALOT of hours in my room fucking around with sounds.
The artwork for the EP looks awesome, any story behind it?
Ravachol: Well me, my manager and a friend of mine had been cooking up branding ideas. They tossed a couple good ones my way, but I turned them all down because if I was going to have any sort of branding, I want to decide what that is. So I kept thinking of all the heavy weights in this scene. I realized that they all had some feel, or common thread in either their art work, or their music. Some are more cryptic and symbolic, some are straight down the middle. I opted for a simple approach and thought “what’s something many people like?” My first thought was, people of all walks of life love cats. I personally own several cat shirts simply based off of the fact that it is a cat on a shirt. If cats can have that amount of pull for simply existing, Imagine if you put a person, and sounds behind it, and kind of developed a little character. That was how my idea was born.
Ravachol: As for how I got it to relate to me a little more, I pulled inspiration from my favorite video game, The Binding of Isaac. A lot of the lore in that game is related to cats. There are a lot of cat body parts you can find throughout the game that grant you some of the best upgrades. You can find those parts in items rooms, which is exactly where “ravacat” is on the cover, where he discovers a big ol bag of cat nip. All of this though would not have been able to be done without my brother Dominic, who drew the initial concept art for the album art and my new logo
Can we expect more cat based releases in the future?
Ravachol: I would say so yes. It will be a large aspect of my brand for quite a while.
I take it you’re a cat person?
Ravachol: I’m a much bigger fan of dogs than I am cats. However, I identify with cats much more. Dogs trust you too much, and can be pushy and sometimes annoying. Cats kind of roam around, not giving a single fuck, wanting to only be fed and left alone, and that’s essentially me. Sadly nobody feeds me though, still working on that.
Which track off the EP is your favorite and why?
Ravachol: I would have to say Cat Nip. Not for any particular reason. I do really enjoy the lead in that tune, even more than the drop its self, but I can’t exactly pin point WHY I like it the most. For some reason when I play the e.p., my mind says “yayyy” to Cat Nip more than any of the others.
Was there a particular sound you went for or did you let your intuition guide you?
Ravachol: I would say a little bit of both. In some songs I went in and told myself “this is the song I want to make”. In others (like Headbop) I just opened up ableton, and turned nobs until I produced something that was good enough to make me move on to the next part of the song. When I reach that moment of “ohhhh shit ok this is going places, let me take a break and recollect my thoughts then dive fully into this”. That moment is usually followed by me pacing around my room, blasting it, and trying to imagine exactly how a crowd would react to it. I usually get a specific feeling in my chest, if the tune ends up giving me that feeling, I roll with it until its done.
Has dub step/bass always been your favorite genre? What prompted you to start producing it?
Ravachol: Shockingly enough, I thought dub step was garbage for a long time. I thought it was boring. I had always been extremely into metal acts like born of Osiris, the faceless, veil of maya, etc. I had been playing guitar since I was about 12 and would even learn tunes from bands like Within the Ruins by ear. I had a knack for music and my parents always said “keep at it and you will be going places.” After plenty of failed bands, I gave up on the dream of being in a metal band and thought there was no future with me in music.
Ravachol: Until one day, my buddy Nate was fixing my broken computer and he just goes “we should make dubstep”. I laughed and changed the subject but he kept pushing. So I said well ok, you are on my pc, get me software. Sadly, he wasn’t musical at all, not in the slightest, so I ended up going home and programming beats on my own until my eyes were bleeding. I kept writing and kept writing and kept sending it to people and kept sending it to people. My early tunes were laughable but I ended up meeting Cooper (Oolacile) online who funny enough, was also the lead guitarist in the band I was in before I even moved to California, and he basically politely said, your mix downs are bad, but you are onto something. So I kept going and going and going until boom! Here I am, doing an interview and realizing that my early assumptions of dubstep were entirely wrong. Lol
What types of artists do you look to for influence when producing?
Ravachol: Hm that’s a tough one. I kind of go two weeks HARD writing, two weeks no writing. While im writing I try not to listen to anything other than my music. Not because I love my music but because try to make quadruple sure that I don’t end up accidentally internalizing somebody sound and accidentally use it as my own. I would say on any given day when I’m not writing, you can find me listening to Dr. Ozi, Kill the noise, Tupac, System of a down, The Faceless, Oolacile, or video game sound tracks.
If you could collaborate with any artist on a track, who would it be?
Ravachol: This is a tough question for me. It honestly depends on what angle I’m taking. If im trying to write with someone who I know can teach my large amounts of technical sound design, I would probably pick Kill the Noise or Virtual Riot. If im wanting to write with someone who I think would really work with my sound, I would probably pick Dr. Ozi or Dubloadz. I also produce alot of rap beats so I’d love to work with just about any rapper in the game right now.
What plans do you have for the future in terms of releasing content?
Ravachol: Well, aside from the four tunes that are on Catnip, I have about 10 more sitting here waiting. One thing I am doing now, is deleting commonly used sounds just so that I am forced to produce a new sound so that I have much more variety. I’m also trying to shake it up style wise so that i don’t pigeon hole myself as “cooky cat dude that only write 140”. I have some house tunes in the mix, some trap, and ALOT of rap beats im just sitting on waiting for the write moment to put my foot into the door.
Connect with Ravachol:
https://soundcloud.com/ravacholmusic
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