Day by day*

Adam Stover, label manager at Brainfeeder, and Flying Lotus’ second opinion man, sat down at a quaint Italian restaurant nestled in Silverlake with me to enjoy some pizza, a few beers, and tell me a little bit about himself.

E:So you got your degree in in graphic Design.. Cal State Northridge, right?

Adam: That’s right

E: Do you have a background in music?  Was label manager always a career choice of yours?

Adam: No, it was total happen stance that made it happen really.   I mean, everyone listens to music.. I was listening to electronic, indie, experimental, blah blah blah, hip hop, for many years, and at a certain point I met Flying Lotus, and we became friends. He was starting in his musical career, and there was a certain point where he  decided to create a label and put out the rest of his friends basically. So initially he started doing that. Then he realized it was a lot of work, and he was having to do too much. He couldn’t be an artist by having to work on a label all the time. So at first I started out with doing social networking, pushing the label, the idea, and the name everywhere.  Slowly but surely, he was like I need to give somebody these responsibilities, I can’t handle them.  And for me, I started out totally naïve, I was like ‘yeah okay I’ll try, I don’t know what I’m really doing here, but I’ll try.’ Through trial and error I started learning what it was about and what you need to do to run a label, I’ve been doing it for about 5 years now.

E: Have you done anything with your graphic design degree for the label?

Adam: I’ve done some fliers, just little stuff. When I look at designs I say “that’s good,” or “I don’t know about that, maybe we can do ‘x, y, z.’” Sometimes they listen, but sometimes they’re like “it’s gotta be like this.”

I do so many other things that I can’t necessarily work on graphic design, I just pay other people to do layouts and covers and stuff like that.

E: You used to make music, for yourself.. have you released any of it before?

Adam: nope

E: Has anyone else heard it?

Adam: Yeah, I mean some of my friends have heard it.  I’ve collaborated with people. I collaborated with Steve (Flying Lotus) on a track, it’s called “Vegas Collie” on the Reset EP.  It says Natvralism nano loop, which is me making music on this Gameboy program that makes music, we sampled it and did this weird stuff to it.  I  also made a song with Samiyam called “Trick Platform,” and that was released on Hyper Dub.. so a few things happened, but I never wanted to take the credit.

E: So you don’t want to put out your own LP or EP of any kind?

Adam: Maybe, I’ve messed around with stuff but I don’t think its good enough.  It’s funny cause I’m such a critic of music  that I over critique myself into thinking its not anything, even if it was something. Steve and some of my other friends know I play around once and a while and they’re like “send me your stuff, lets make something.” I’m like it’s not good enough for you to hear, cause I always put it off.. I feel like it’s just a hobby thing.. I haven’t made a beat in a long time.  I play around and stuff, cause my roommate who is Flylo’s manager does some production with the people he works with. Not with Flying Lotus, but with the Cinematic Orchestra and this group called Cold Cut who are the guys who created Ninja Tune. They’ve been around for 20 something years, and they’re coming out with a new album either this year or next year.

E: When you do produce, which program do you use? 

Adam: The last time I did it I used Ableton. Ableton is so versatile.. even though there are things with better sound engines,  and compression.  A lot of people use Logic or Reason because they have really good sound compression which is a key thing.  Ableton is a little flat sounding, unless you know how to bring it out. But I use Ableton cause it’s so simple.

E: You guys are putting out Jeremiah Jae soon?

Adam: We put an EP out this last year, and we’re putting an album of his out July 23rd. We’re also putting his single out May 14th and that’s two tracks off the album.

E:What do you guys look for in new artists?

Adam: Things happen in weird ways, in a majority of cases, people just go to Steve.  A lot of the time people talk to each other on Twitter. Twitter is like the easiest, casual platform where someone can just go like “hey what’s up?” So in some cases producers hit up Flying Lotus, and Flying Lotus is like “I’ll check it out.” If anything sparks his interest once he hears it, he’ll send it to me and go “what do you think about this?” and I’ll go “oh that’s good,” or “I don’t know about this,” but in most cases he trusts my taste.  So if we both agree on something, then we’re like “let’s do it.” I’m like the second opinion on a lot of stuff. There’s been a few cases where he’s not paying attention to something and I’m like “check this guy out!” And he’s like “oh yeah, that is good, let’s do it, if you want to run it, let’s do it.” 

Now a days, I have to run  a lot of it basically.  Steve will initially talk to someone and be like, “we like it let’s do something,” and I’m like “okay cool.” And from that moment on I have to go like okay “I’m Adam, this is what I do.. I do everything basically.  Let’s start talking and go from there.“ A lot of time they send music, and we start talking about it, and we’re like "this is what it’s going to be.” They sign a contract, and then we start moving on and setting it up.

E: Where does Natrvlism come from?

Adam: Honestly it’s just a weird name I came up from many years ago, it doesn’t really mean anything, I thought it looked cool, and stuck with it.. It’s just a nickname, so I don’t have to put my real name out. It doesn’t have a deep meaning or anything.

E: If you do release anything, would it be under Natvralism?

Adam: Yeah, I was thinking about it.  If I did, I’d use it for graphic design or directing a video, or something.

E: Have you produced a video?

Adam: No, I’ve worked on videos we’ve done, but this is still tentative, I might be directing my first video for Jeremiah Jae. If it happens it’ll be top notch, cause I’m directing it, ha. It’ll be interesting if it works out.

E: You lived in Thailand for a couple of months, have you been anywhere else?

Adam: Europe, London, Hong Kong, Taipei, Thailand, all over Japan (6 times), Mexico and Canada.  A lot of Europe I haven’t been to, like the Eastern part or France, but I’ve travelled a circuit with Steve. Every time Steve goes to Japan I go with him . London we did Red Bull Music Academy, we played Fabric and a bunch of other stuff when we went over there. That was the first year of us being distributed by Ninja Tune. We met everyone there.

E:  While you were in Thailand, did you get into the music at all

Adam: Oh yeah. I went with a friend and we went all over Bangkok, and all the regional music is so out of this world.  The native instruments they have is totally different from what we have here, I bought some even! They have these weird note mouth organ things, and all kinds of instruments I can’t even describe.

Actually, the first place I heard traditional Thai music was in this giant swap meet that was like two or three  miles long, it was just like these markets within markets.  They sold everything from fruits to chickens, to instruments, to music and clothes.. everything. I’m cruising through this place for a few hours, just buying everything cause it’s so cheap, and I’m just like “yes!” And we’re eating, and there’s these guys in the distance and I hear this crazy music, and I’m like “what is that music?” And my friends like, “oh they’re playing these traditional Thai instruments, let’s go check it out.” So we check it out, and they’re playing this trance induced sounding music. There’s a few people around, smoking cigarettes just hanging out. It was a standard thing there, but like  I stood there for like fifteen minutes, and I was like “yes!” My friend was like “ I know a place where you could buy those instruments,” and I was like “let’s do it.”

I tipped these guys, people were putting in coins, so I gave them like ten bucks, and my friend got really mad at me cause she said they wouldn’t be there tomorrow, cause I just paid them for a week by giving them that much money.  I was just like “sorry, I loved it, it was fucking amazing.” Thailand is a dope place, it’s amazing.

E: Did you ride any elephants?

Adam: Nah, it was weird cause, well I’m not saying I’m still not into it, but I was a vegetarian, I was totally into animal rights, and I felt like the elephants didn’t want to be doing it. So I was like nah, I’m not doing that. But I saw it, I’d be driving in a taxi, which is the most insane thing to do in Thailand, and it would stop, there’d be a thousand mopeds around us, and then some dude would come by on an elephant. I was like this is fucking amazing.

E: Were they painted?

Adam: I didn’t see any there. But its Buddha world, it’s super Buddhist, so it’s like Buddha everything. It’s amazing, the temples, everything will just blow your mind just the way it looks. At the Grand Temple, where the Royal Family lived are these temples with these weird bell shapes that are made out of solid gold. There’s all of these jewels around it, and thousands of bells ringing , monks walking everywhere. I was like this is great, I don’t want to leave this place. I would love to go back

E:Where do you see the beat scene in 5 years? What’s next?

Adam: Wow, that’s the question of questions. I think the beat scene might very well not exist in 5 years. I don’t think it’ll be the beat scene, I think it’ll be a completely different scene. To stick to the beat scene for the next 5 years would be a sinking boat basically. I think with  Brainfeeder, it’s all about progression it’s all about expanding the sound, I mean I love beat music, and I hope it works out, but if it doesn’t continue to evolve, it’ll fade out. So we don’t want to stick to the beat scene,  we want to define an aesthetic that we call Brainfeeder. So it can be anything, it can be jazz, it could be pure electronic music of a million different forms, it could be straight hip hop, rapping, it could be anything, I don’t think it’s gonna be heavy metal or country.. but it’s really going to be like a hybrid that comes from Brainfeeder. So as long as you stick to that, the beat scene, won’t probably be called the beat scene, but Brainfeeder in five years will be a super diverse idea basically. The beat scene, I can’t even predict what will happen in two years. I think it will go strong as the beat scene for probably at least another year, if not two years. But you know, the people I work with are at the forefront of what it is, and those people know what they have to do to keep evolving. So whatever those people evolve into is what the beat scene is going to be, whether it be in the next two years, or in the next five years. It could be anything basically.. That’s what I think.

E: What’s playing in your car right now?

Adam: New Lorn album which Ninja Tune is putting out, a ton of unreleased stuff, starting to get stuff from Teebs, stuff he did with Prefuse 73, which is a new thing he’s working on.  Ryat, Jeremiah Jae, and a bunch of stuff from my friends. New Lazor Sword. That’s what I do, I listen to stuff a lot before I put it out. Whatever is new in my inbox goes to itunes, goes into my phone, and gets played in my car.

E: Cool spots in LA to check out?

A: Low End Theory, where we all hang out, where people experiment on the crowd and play whatever they want. Go drink coffee at Intelligentsia and Lamill.