We recently chatted with one of the future stars of Dance music for a friendly, deep interview.
The world of Dance music is full of surprises, and some of them are truly spectacular. Such is the case with us having found out about Truthlive, a special producer from San Francisco, who’s got to the ears of many, and the worldwide charts lately too. And the best part of it all is, he’s got no one style to stick to: he masters many trades.
With two Beatport #1 chartings this year alone, he’s going all-in this time around. Having released a dancefloor-heavy belter, ‘Going Up‘, not too long ago, and just having released an impressive Melodic House record, ‘Surrender‘, we kindly invite you to take a look at just how good a sound this guy has. He doesn’t miss.
Just off the heels of two monumental releases, and the potential Evan has of absolutely blowing up sometime soon, this was the best time to get an interview with him. We discussed it all, from his styles of music, to his philosophy on the industry, and everything in between. Without further to do, sit back and read on, as we dive deep, quite deep, into conversation with Truthlive.
The Interview
(Please note, the bolded text represents a question, while the paragraph(s) following it represent Truthlive’s answers.)
Congratulations on the release of ‘Going Up’! We’d love to know, how did the track come to be? What’s the story behind it?
Thank you. The song has overlapping origin stories. I had two basic ideas floating around in my head for a while. One is to make a song that captures the sound and feeling of what it’s like to enter a warehouse party, underground, or rave. There is this shared experience people don’t talk about much that is a really special part of the culture.
The whole anticipation of what is next as you first walk up and can only make out in the distance the rumble of the bass, the pounding of the tempo. You hear it, you feel it. The closer you get the louder it gets, the clearer it gets, until you finally make it all the way inside and can actually make out and hear all the different frequencies and are with all the people. It’s this beautiful communal birth and rebirth each time. My mood always changes going through that process. I cherish it, and I tried to capture it in the arch of the arrangement. And the other concept hit me every single time I have used an elevator for like the last 10 years. You know that generic elevator voice? “Going up. Going down. 5th floor.” All of that. I have always been like, I need to sample that! So I did. It’s literally an elevator sample.
The original track titles I wanted to use were San Francisco Elevator Music or Warehouse Elevator Music, but that seemed sorta clunky, so I went with simply Going Up. The notion of going up and going down is then applicable to so many things, from the experience at raves to just whatever in life in general. I noticed the song is being added to lots of gym and workout playlists, which isn’t what I intended, but makes sense. It’s dope when music can apply differently to different people.
Now, about your fresly released track ‘Surrender’, out today, that’s quite a leap from the hard, dancefloor-oriented energy of ‘Going Up’. What’s the story behind that one?
Yeah, they are way different, for sure, but both are still very much me as a person and artist. My creative process is motivated more by feeling than genre. Sometimes I have a certain vibe already in mind, but overall I try not to fight or force inspiration. I do think it’s a smart craft discipline to continue to work even when you aren’t inspired, but overall allowing what you feel to come through, rather than what you think you should be making because of what other people expect of you, is what leads me to my best results. It’s also what helps keep me inspired and interested. Experimenting and exploring. Sometimes I go hard, like Going Up. Sometimes I am at a beautiful rooftop vibing, like Surrender.
So Going Up is very much not chill. It goes hard. It bangs. It is high energy. But both songs do what I want my music to do—make people genuinely feel something.
Surrender is definitely a more musical kind of electronic music and almost sounds like an actual band even though I composed it with synthesizers and drum machines, sorta in the vein of Kaytranada—if I dare mention the God in the same breath as me. I would call it Soulful Deep House or maybe even straight-up R&B? I don’t know. I don’t really care. I like it. I feel it. It sounds good. It feels good. I am proud of it. It’s smooth, beautiful, and dreamy. As a DJ, I am definitely playing it poolside, or in sexy lounges, or maybe even in warm-up club sets. It is still 120 BPM even with all that Dilla-inspired slump in the groove.
Erica Ambrin, the vocalist, is a very dynamic and super talented artist. She sings, raps, plays instruments, all at a high level. She blessed the vocals on Surrender big time. I can’t thank her enough. The rough draft was in the can for a while. I think she thought I wasn’t gonna finish it or put it out. I appreciate her patience. Also, my dude Kerry Conlan from Parson Jones, another musical mega talent, added some live instrumentation that took the track to a more magical place with some really pretty guitar and xylophone runs. The final session engineer, Jake from Xotix, known for his own really dope-ass bass music production, really took the track to the finish line with the mixing and mastering work. It sounds polished yet organic at the same time. That’s sonically a hard balance to achieve. Dude is the shit.
I had the beat done for a while, and my demo sounded pretty close to the way it does now, but having the honor to work with such gifted collaborators made it so much better and complete feeling. It was a team effort.
How does an artist’s mind work to create music in different styles? We’re so used to a name representing just one style of music that we’d love to dive into it. Do you come to the studio with different moods, for example?
Absolutely. I am a human, right? People are many things. I am many things. I go through mood shifts like anyone else does, and it definitely influences my musical direction. I am not knocking what anyone else does or what works for them, but I am a dynamic person who loves a wide variety of music, who has successfully DJ’d and created a wide variety of music. I’ve earnestly invested a lot of time in different communities—locally, regionally, nationally, globally—both personally and professionally. It’s only right that all of that is represented in my process and songs. Who knows? Maybe people will respond more or less to certain sounds, and I will let the audience guide me to some degree, as that is part of compromising for economic survival. But whatever I do, I gotta feel it. What I feel is probably going to change and evolve. That is being human. That is art.
Have you ever considered using different aliases to create different styles of music, or does it make more sense to you to have your Truthlive name on your entire catalogue?
This has been an ongoing war in my mind. I do have other aliases. A few of them. I just haven’t shared them. I have almost fully rebranded or tried alias-based projects a few times to keep the same styles more cohesive. But a name is whatever you make it. And I am all of these things. It might be a smarter marketing approach to stick to a more narrow expectation, but what’s authentic to me is to do all of these things under one banner. At least for now. If I can garner more attention, maybe I can make that move for future projects. In short, fuck genres. I just want to make music that I feel, that hopefully makes others feel too. Not all of it is for everyone else. And frankly, it’s a little boring, in my opinion, to make the same shit over and over and over again. I believe listeners are also as dynamic in their tastes, and lots of people will appreciate the range. Dope music is dope music. Maybe people will find it more interesting that the same artist does different things?
After having great releases which top the Beatport charts, does that ever feel like an added weight on your shoulders? Like extra pressure to make music “as good as those songs”?
First off, shoutout Mise en Place Records and my dude Mykill, who put out both EPs that hit #1. They are also releasing Surrender. They’ve been really supportive of me artistically. That success has been cool, but also modest. It was certainly unexpected to hit #1. I think it was a little bit of my social media presence and mostly my DJ career that drove it. Lots of people are familiar with me as a DJ but maybe hadn’t heard my original music. Those releases were as grassroots as possible. No budget. Literally $0. I am still hella grassroots with it now. The response is real and organic, granted it’s time to put fuel in the tank. I wouldn’t say that I feel pressure to make music as good as those songs as much as I feel motivated to focus, hone in, fine-tune, improve, and expand. It’s time to apply more intention and better practices. It’s like, okay, I have some momentum, some people are paying attention, let’s harness that. Honestly, those prior releases don’t even sound like fully finished songs to me. I have an unorthodox production process. I usually don’t let myself spend more than a few hours on a track in total. I think it should all flow and come together pretty quickly, or don’t do it, move on. The tracks from the EPs technically aren’t even mixed or mastered in a way I’d call commercially ready. I do like them. They sound good enough sonically, but it was more of a mental exercise to just get stuff out, build foundation, get going. The main thing is output. Keep outputting. And keep getting better while outputting. I am in that mode now.
What’s one unexpected thing that music has brought you and you’re thankful for?
That is an excellent question. I am a person who has been fortunate enough to have such a blessed life where I genuinely feel a sense of gratitude, always. I don’t need to conjure it or be offered a sense of perspective to see it. It’s there. But that feeling definitely gets expanded through musical experiences. I have learned to appreciate different kinds of music, different scenes and sub-scenes I haven’t always been initially drawn to. I am thankful for how that has made me understand and appreciate different people, places, and communities, and myself, in a more connected way.
If you could travel to the past any number of years you might find interesting, and meet your past self of that era, what would you tell him? Was there something you were far too worried about for instance?
Damn. I don’t typically relate to my life that way, as everything I have ever done has led me to right here, right now, even the mistakes. I am good with that. But I guess I would tell my past self to always have the curiosity and humility to listen to the wisdom of others to help inform and shape your understanding, but ultimately trust yourself. Follow what feels creatively right to you. Considering the industry rules has some value, but trying to squeeze yourself into a box defined by others’ interpretations probably won’t make you happy or fulfilled, even if it works commercially. Do you. Do what you love. Share more of that. It’s okay if it’s not perfect. Find your people and your audience that way.
Final Words
This is the kind of interview I love, and that I’m so grateful I can sort of be “the vehicle” for such output. Evan is quite the interesting person to talk to, and you can see in the depth of his answers, that his artistry doesn’t really answer for a call for anything other than pure, unfiltered passion. I love it when artists, well, make art. As obvious as it may seem, in today’s world, we don’t always have that for granted.
Thanks so much Truthlive for this feature, and the valuable (priceless) reflections and deep dives. Once again, this is my idea of an ideal interview: true honesty, and hearing words that come from a place of, not vulnerability, but behind the usual rockstar-ey mask one tends to associate artists with. We’re human too, at least, at the time this post has gone live.
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