Your music blends a wide range of genres and influences. Who or what are some of your biggest musical inspirations?

oh man, there are so many. In terms of electronic music, I’d say all the PC music artists helped me realize what I really wanted to put out into the world. People like easyfun, maxo, A.g. cook, Danny l harle, and sophie were all very inspirational to me. Not connected to pc music but, DZZ and henrik the artist are also super inspirational to me.

My very first exposure to electronic music was deadmau5 and Skrillex, so their music holds a special place in my heart too.

nowadays my listening ranges from IDM, hardcore, nightcore, footwork, dubstep etc, but I also really like nu-metal and some rock music.

Your tracks often have layers of many elements and blends of unconventional sounds. How do you typically approach the creation of a new track?  

I used to start my songs very intentionally (i.e. with a melody, a rhythm I was thinking of, a vocal hook, or a sample), but after I was done with music school I was making tracks more improvisationally, going in with no ideas and just winging it. I’d say I sort of mix the two approaches now, but it’s not something I’m even conscious of a lot of the time.

A recent example is, my friend sent me a funny song she found with this voice sample I really liked, so I was like “I NEED to remix this”. So I just dragged that sample in and then ended up making an actual whole real song from it lol. But none of those instruments or rhythms or vocal chops were there before, not in my head or otherwise. It was just vibes and it worked out really well. Where in the past, I would imagine melodies and song structure in my head and pretty rigidly stick to that.

In short, I’ve become very flexible with the way I approach starting projects.

On that note, how do you know when a track is “finished”?

I sort of DON’T know when a song is finished lol. It’s like any artform, it’s never really finished. But you have to be happy with/tired of the thing at some point.

I think a song is finished to ME when nothing sticks out anymore. I listen to the songs I’m working on very often, partly because I’m excited about them lol, but also partly to finish them. When I listen to them over and over, I notice things that stick out to me. Things I don’t like. I write them down, I change them, and then I repeat the process until the nitpicks are small enough to call it quits.

Basically when I’m trying to finish a song, I try to make it so I never have to say “ugh I wish I did _____” when it comes to the release.

That’s so interesting to hear, I like that your process is heavily dependent on vibes because I feel like that’s how I make a lot of my creative decisions too. Your tracks have so many intricate little parts that make re-listening a delight, I think that’s why I love them so much.

Since creating is such a personal process, what’s your take on the role of AI or machine learning in music production? Have you experimented with any new technologies, or are you very much anti-AI in music?

This is such a nuanced question but I’m glad you asked it.

I actually was very fascinated with AI in 2020 when it was all sort of coming up (back when it was like, impressive but still bad lol). I remember there was an algorithm that would “extend” a song and I had someone extend one of my songs that I was working on, and I used the freaky AI sounds interpreted from my song in other parts of that song. I never released it, but it was honestly cool. I love sound design and alien sounding sounds so it was cool to explore that.

Later on, AI sort of just made me annoyed. It’s very overused. I see it in places it really doesn’t need to be, and it generally just makes things more convoluted than they have to be (artistic or otherwise). I still feel this way to be honest, but I’ve learned to accept that this is just the new paradigm.

Something that recently made me have a bit of a crisis is, there was a song I really enjoyed. It was a funny catchy pop song, and I was immediately a fan of it. I tried to hit up the artist to collaborate, and that’s when I discovered that the song was actually AI generated.

The fact that I can no longer tell what art is AI or not is very scary to me. It is very bleak and depressing to me that anyone on earth can type in a song prompt, get the song, and distribute the song onto streaming services and make money. There is no copyright violation because it is technically new material, but the new material is just coded by a machine using my tracks and others as reference, and that is depressing to me. We live in the world of music drop-shipping now. It is very depressing and strange, but it is the world we live in and it’s not changing. I think as artists all we can do is just do what we know how to do. Only we can make new content, the AI only regurgitates.

Sorry, that’s a lot but I have strong feelings on this one lol.

No need to apologise, the topic is super provocative! Especially now when, as you say, AI is able to be used to manufacture tracks indistinguishable to those created by an artist. Personally I also find it pretty scary.

In an interview with Red Bull, you said “I want people to know me for me and not as Tony Hawk’s son” so… please don’t hate me for this one. The phenomenon of people not recognising him and telling him he looks just like Tony Hawk is fascinating and hilarious. I was wondering, have YOU ever been told that you look like Tony Hawk by people who have no idea about the relation?

 no I haven’t. People only realize when they find out my name.

That ‘s fair, it is a pretty dead giveaway!

I wanted to finish things off with a lightning round… if you had to choose one…

“Thos Moser” or “mos thoser”? 

“thos moser” is always gonna have a special place in my heart so that’s my vote.

Instrumentals or tracks with lyrics?

I personally prefer instrumental tracks, sometimes waveform exploration moves me more emotionally than words do.

Being Skrillex or kissing Skrillex?

frax is gonna hate me for this but I would choose to BE skrillex bc then I could know how he makes all his sounds… and also then I could just make out with deadmau5 AS skrillex so…