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MALAKAI Talks Influences, Independent Music, Genres & More [Exclusive Interview]

May 23, 2017 By Pasquale Zinna

Sending rip tides through the underground music community in the US, MALAKAI is the brainchild of a lifetime of musicality combined with an intensive education in musicianship, composition, and audio engineering. I recently got to sit down with the man and dive headfirst into the foundations of the MALAKAI project, and flesh out the finer details of this prodigal musician.

Pasquale: So, where do you come from in the US?

Malakai: I was born in California, and I moved around a lot. We moved across the country to North Carolina, then to Colorado, then to NYC for college. California until I was about 4, then North Carolina until I was around 13, then to Colorado for high school, and finally to New York, and I’ve been here since.

P: I’m sure, much like the rest of us, you’ve been around music in at least a limited capacity your entire life. When did you first find an affinity for being a musician?

M: I went to the [Emerson] Waldorf school in NC, so I started playing an instrument in 2nd or 3rd grade, as it was a requirement for the curriculum. Everyone has to be in orchestra for a couple of years, and choir classes and things like that. That’s really where I was exposed to it. My dad is a huge deadhead, my mom is too, so I was always listening to a lot of rock’n’roll and folk music. I came out of a very blue-grass scene in NC.

P: What were you into by the time you got to high school?

M: By the beginning of high school I was really into Modest Mouse, the Dead, Jimmy Hendrix and things like that. I was playing the mandolin for a while, that was my main instrument for a long time. Then, I started playing guitar and getting more into rock, taking guitar lessons. My teacher was actually D.V.S* (Derek VanScoten). He was my mandolin teacher growing up, and then I started taking guitar lessons from him. I met him right around the time he started to make beats and electronic music, so I got interested and started asking him a bit about that.

P: When did you start the MALAKAI project?

M: I started the project in high school. It started out more guitar-heavy, somewhat similar to D.V.S*’s music. Playing guitar was my strong suit at the time, so as I was learning the ins and outs of productions, I would really center it around the guitar. As I got better with production and the programs I was using, the music began to shift towards a more synthesis-forward style.

P: How did you get into electronic music in the first place?

M: In the 10th grade, I did a semester abroad as an exchange student and lived with a family in Germany. I got pretty involved with club scene in Freiburg, and got into minimal dub and tech house and things like that. The very first projects I tried to make were mostly techno. Rusko was really the first broken-beat artist that I got into.

P: Were you still listening to classic rock and some of your more youthful influences by the time you came to NYC?

M: Kind of. Definitely a lot of jam bands and things like that, stuff like Emancipator and other similar artists that D.V.S* had shown me. And of course, I was living in Colorado, so I knew about Pretty Lights and all those people. I played in a show with Michal Menert in high school, and came up around a very close-knit community. I remember when Pretty Lights was playing in the Fox Theater in Boulder, tiny little places like where I would play now. I was influenced by that style of sampling and hip-hop, so there was that element mixed with all of the bluegrass and folk music happening in the same area, which brought me to the direction I’m in now.

P: You’ve been around this grass-roots, self promoted, independent music scene for quite a long time. In seeing the way a lot of these artists would promote and manage themselves, did you pick any of it up along the way to adapt to your own needs?

M: I think I was really lucky to have D.V.S* as a teacher, because he was able to deflate the distance between the artist and myself as a consumer. People that I really looked up to, like Emancipator for instance, he had known them for a quite a long time and was able to introduce me to them, and really show me that they were just regular people. It is a big thing I’ve taken to heart, and so I’ve taken a no-persona approach to meeting people and networking. MALAKAI is me. I’m not trying to project an image as I make the music, it is just an extension of my everyday self. I was in a few bands in high school, but I didn’t like not having control over the creative output, so this is sort of my response to that.

P: Let’s talk a little about the tools you use to produce your music, and your methodology for production.

M: I use Ableton Live as my DAW. I naturally gravitated towards it because it is what I learned on to begin with. A lot of the sounds that I use and develop come from the Ableton stock tools. I use a lot of the synthesizers that they provide, like Operator and such. I have sat with them for a good 7 years now, so I’m much more confident with them over some VSTs that i’ve tried using. I just got this Korg Minilogue, a 4 voice analogue synthesizer. It’s really cool, and I’ve been exploring making a lot of bass tones with it. I went to NYU for music technology, so I approach the elements of synthesis from a ground-up perspective. I try to avoid using presets as a goal sound, but I will still use them as a launching point to set me closer to the sound that I want. I use my knowledge and education on how different waveforms interact to really flesh out a sound in my head, so I try to build everything from start to finish, or if I stumble upon a preset that is already close to the concept, I will modify it until I’m satisfied that I have what I want.

P: What is your approach for writing and arranging the music? Are there certain motifs and tropes that you go after, or is the flow more of an open-source idea?

M: I try to go in a different direction every time. A lot of times I’ll noodle around a guitar and find something I like, mostly just to find the right notes or melody. Then I’ll find/design a sound that I like and try to translate the idea. I play around with different instruments and different controllers to evoke different methods of song structuring and ideas, which will then trigger a cascade of bigger ideas. I find if I use the same equipment or approaches too much, my flow will become too stagnant or similar, and tracks won’t evolve the way I want them to. If I find myself going no where, I’ll pick up a different instrument to try and refresh myself. Having a different look or feel to interface with when using all these instruments and controllers helps to keep me inspired. Sometimes I’ll start with a drum loop, add some bass, then start setting the swing and motions, or search for good tones for higher timbre instruments.

P: Is there a particular genre you would associate yourself with?

M: I prefer to think of myself as a general musician first. I can never find the right way to fit my sound into one category. A lot of producers tend categorize their music by tempo, but my tempos are all over the place track to track. The sound design choices that I make and the vibe I try to go for are always my stamp, though. The music isn’t a pattern, but it all caries my watermark, so to speak. I want to be able to curate different experiences with my sets, but through all of my own music.

P: Where do you see the progression of your music and this project going?

M: So basically, long term I am way more interested in the MALAKAI experience, rather than myself in the spotlight. I’m thinking forward about the feeling of being a concert-goer at my own shows. I don’t speak on the microphone that much, I’d rather the music and experience speak for itself.

P: What are some shows you’re excited to play coming up in the summer?

M: There’s the Wild Woods festival up in New Hampshire. They always have some really cool stage designs. There is also Luna Light at the tail end that I am really excited to play at as well. I’m playing direct support for Ott in Portland next weekend, and that’s going to be a really great experience.

Wrapping up the interview, here’s 2 selections from the man himself to get you familiar with the music: