Tobacco Rat is a Melbourne-based beat maker, he brings hip-hop / rock / electronic / dance together to create textured soundscapes that demand attention. The 2017 WAMi Best Electronic Act Winner Tobacco Rat took a moment to sit down and talk to us about what he has planned in 2018 & more.
Who are your main influences?
I’m easily influenced and love all types of music, I can listen to death metal / classical / hip hop and take inspiration from each. A lot of the time I will hear a techno track and think ‘I want to make a techno track!’ it can be that easy sometimes. Back in the day I was a big fan of Prodigy, Nine Inch Nails & Chemical Brothers to name a few definitely feeding some of these sounds into my music today. I’m a big fan of industrial glitch and heavy beats, synths are a huge part of my sound.
What gear do you use to create music?
Ableton Live is a main component of my sound, I’ve been using it from 2005. I am also a big fan of analogue synths, I have a Moog Voyager and an old school Prophet 600. I have a rare Japanese Akai VX 600 from the 80’s, that thing sounds really fat. I use the mono synths for bass lines and the Prophet for pads etc . I’ve fine-tuned my live rig to an Ableton Push and sometimes use live video feeds to create a unique visual aspect to my shows.
You have an EP dropping soon?
Yeah so I have an EP dropping soon with Trench Records, I’ll be looking to twin this up with some shows and ideally head over to LA next year. Berlin and Japan are in the works later in the year, would love to get over there.
What’s happening for you in the next 6 months?
I’ve met this virtual reality artist called Sutu, I’ve been bugging him for a bit as I love his work and now we were collaborating and I am doing all of the music on a new VR space journey based on ‘The Heart of Darkness’. This will be released on The Wave VR, these guys are building virtual nightclubs and are a start-up company from LA. Really looking forward to that!
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