#innercut

The Barcelona-based artist, InnerCut, explains his story, making an album, Primavera Sound, and how music is becoming more and more blended.

“I’ve been making music for 8 years and I haven’t made an album and I want to make it count.”

“Music is made for people to feel, if they feel even just a little thing from my music, I’m happy with that.”

There are few artists that can craft a sound that shows their real character and personality with elements that come together to blend the boundaries between genres. InnerCut is an artist that brings his songs to life with inspiration from the artists he grew up listening to and a winning combo of dubstep, sharp melodies, and ecstatic beats. With a willingness to explore new mixtures of sounds, he has created his own signature style with standout tracks such as "Drained" and "Anoia" that show off his diverse blend of music. An artist in Barcelona, a city saturated with culture and with a thriving music scene inspired by the art and fashion all around. InnerCut is an artist whose music has already spread globally and could one day become one of the next big stars of electronic music.

Adrià Domenech, better known as InnerCut, originates from the province of Lleida in Catalonia who was discovered after he began uploading his songs to Soundcloud and YouTube. He has found success by incorporating different styles of electronic music mixed with impressive rhythms, which has become a perfect sound for the growing electronic scene in Barcelona. Even without an album out, his polished and refined sound, has shown his talent and allowed him to play at the world famous Sónar music festival in 2015 along side major stars such as A$AP Rocky, Skrillex, and Cashmere Cat. He will be returning to the music festival stage in the summer at the 2017 Primavera Sound music festival in Barcelona alongside Grammy nominated artists such as Frank Ocean, Solange, and Arcade Fire. He hopes to be as successful at Primavera as his set at Sónar and feels confident and focused on the stage. Also interested in design, he has been designing his own track artwork and using his art to inspire the creation of songs by giving a sound to the images his creates. With high ambitions for a future filled with traveling all over the world to play shows for his fans and finding the right moment to make an album to make the perfect first impression to the world, InnerCut is an artist who stays humble and is just a music fan like everyone else who just enjoys being able to make music for a living.

What made you want to make music?

I started 8 years ago, it was not a thing that I did, I didn’t know that I wanted to make music. With a friend of mine we downloaded a program and we just played it like it was a video game and we started to make sounds and things. That was 8 years ago but maybe when I was 22 I realized that I liked doing that and I wanted to keep doing music and from 22 to now that I’m 28, it was really a thing that I knew that I wanted to do professionally, so I went to school and studied audio engineering.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BK5nrEWAmEw/

Who are your musical inspirations?

           There are a lot of artists that I like and sometimes I like to watch what other artists do but artists with different music than mine. I like to watch bands and other producers. I also like artists similar to me like I love Mura Masa, I really recommend that artist, he’s pretty dope, Point Point or Flume and I’m maybe making music similar to them. I also love Arca, or other producers that I think that are really unique and I always love people that are individualists and maybe their music is not that similar to mine but I like to watch what they are doing. I love Arca. I just love everything he does but he’s so weird, it’s electronic music too but it’s really really weird, he has some unique techniques and I like to take that from him and incorporate his things into my music. I like a lot of different artists and I like bands too and my all time influence or idol is Kurt Cobain from Nirvana, when I was a child I just always loved him and I like to go back to and listen to his music. The bands in the 90’s were the music that I listened to when I was a kid. I just love all kinds of music.  

And Barcelona is definitely a great place for music…

           I think maybe lately it’s getting even better and it’s a really good city. I think Barcelona has a really good scene at least in electronic music, I think for rock and other styles too but electronic music in Barcelona, it’s growing fast. I like festivals in Barcelona like Primavera and Sónar too. I played at Sónar two years ago, and I really love that these festivals are supporting artists from here, from Barcelona and I just think it’s a really good thing to support your local artists and Sónar and Primavera, I think they are huge festivals that are famous all over Europe and even the world.

How would you describe your music?

It’s difficult because it’s always difficult to describe what you do. At least for me, it’s really really difficult but, I think it’s pretty intense but calm. It’s not like club type music or like music made for dancing. It’s really really difficult to describe what your music is. It’s just weird, you’re just in your studio and you do music and you never, at least for me, want to put labels and genres in music. The feeling of the tracks, they are always I think intense, nostalgic, not sad or even dark but I like to think that it’s nostalgic, at least for me, I don’t know about everyone else when they listen to a song, I think they feel different things. Music is made for that, for feeling things, just to feel something.

Why the name InnerCut?

           I don’t have a cool story about my name, I just picked it. It was like 8 years ago, it was the nickname that I used to play Counterstrike and things back then and my friends and I were always changing the nickname and putting letters here and there and one day I just did that. I like the way it looks too, it’s like two separate words but they are together and I just like visually how it looks and I’ve stuck with it. I don’t have a cool story, it’s just a name and I don’t use my own name because for me it feels weird to have your own name in music because it’s like an alter ego and I like to separate my name and my personality from the music. For me, especially when I’m on stage or something, if it was me I think it wouldn’t work because I’m shy and when I’m on stage it’s another personality. You have to be confident to get on stage, it’s like an alter ego and I never even think about putting my real name in music, never.

As I did more research on you this phrase about you kept appearing, “Sometimes, when you least expect it, artists appear out of blue, seemingly becoming permanent fixtures in the blink of an eye,” how does it make you feel to be recognized like that? 

           It feels amazing; this sentence it was from the Sónar website, they wrote that so it was even better for me because I always loved Sónar and it just feels amazing. Now I just want to make this a reality you know because it just feels good and I hope that it becomes a reality.

How did you feel when you found out that you would be performing at Primavera Sound and on the same day as artists like Frank Ocean, or The XX?

           It’s surreal, like I said for artists like me; festivals like Primavera give us this kind of opportunity to play on a big stage with really famous artists. I can’t find the words to thank Primavera. It’s surreal, like everyone I’m just a fan, like of Frank Ocean too, just another fan. When I played at Sónar it was amazing, I pulled it off better than I expected because I was really really nervous, I had never been that nervous, but when you are on the stage, in the first minute, you’re focused and everything disappears, it’s the same as just playing in a house party but minutes before the show started I was super nervous and I think it’s going to be similar this time because the nerves never disappear. You’re maybe more nervous than usually because they are big festivals but when you are there, you just do your thing. When you finish these kinds of festivals like Sónar it’s difficult to describe what you’re feeling, I finally played here, I’ve spent months just preparing this, it’s intense.

Where do you hope to see yourself in 5 years?

I’d be grateful if I can keep doing this, and I would like to travel more and play shows in different countries. Yeah, if I keep doing music and just keep making a living from that, I’ll be grateful. I would love to have an album, I’m waiting because I think it has to be good, I have this obsession that the first album has to be always really really good and leave a good first impression and if you make the first album and it’s good then in the next two years after the first album then maybe you can do another one but the first has to be super well put together and that’s my opinion but I always think that it has to be like that and I hope it happens in the next 5 years or even less. For me, the first album has to be so good, I’ve been making music for 8 years and I haven’t made an album and I want to make it count. I could do it, I even have a lot of songs that are never going to be put out but I’m just waiting for the perfect time. I’m waiting for the perfect moment to be surrounded with the perfect people and maybe good labels. It’s definitely something that I want to do, if in the next five years or even if in the next month, if I feel like it’s the time to do it, I’m going to do it. I would like to travel more and do shows but I need an album. Now with Facebook and Soundcloud, I can see where my fans are and there are a lot from here Spain but I have people listening to my music a lot in Australia and Brasil too, and United States. I would like to play in Australia, in the UK, in the United States; all countries are good for me, if they want me there that’s good. But definitely I want to travel and keep spreading my music. My career is made from the internet so I just make music and upload it on social media like YouTube or Soundcloud. If I know that at least one person is listening to my music in Australia it’s thanks to the internet.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKS3Xyyj5WO/

What music artist do you dream of working with?

           I would like to work mainly with singers because when I’m making music I always like to have vocals. When I think about collaborations, I like really weird singers like I love SOHN, I just like his voice, and Grimes and she’s a producer too and I think she has like a weird tone in her voice and I love it. I like a lot of rap too so I would like to have a feature from a rap artist. I like American rap but now in Barcelona the rap scene is growing so fast and I love that. For my music, I would like features and all that in English; I like to think that music is global and even if they’re Spanish singers I like to think that they sink into my tracks in English. I’m open to anything that sounds good to me. I’m listening to a lot of rap lately and hip hop from United States and from here too. I love Post Malone, I think he’s doing a different thing, I just like him. Definitely him for example and SOHN, and Grimes, I would love that for sure.

Where do you get the inspiration or ideas for your songs from? 

           From other songs, I’m not going to lie, I listen to other music and I’m inspired by it but I like to look a lot at design, I think I get inspired by art in general, from music and from pictures and from everything but especially art. I design too and I do practically all of my cover artwork so I pay attention to other people designing and I get inspired from that. I think my music is pretty visual so when I’m making music I always have a notebook or something and I’m listening and at the same time watching, I like to match my sounds to pictures.

As an artist who is praised for being experimental, do you get worried about how people might react to these new sounds?

           I was more afraid maybe like 2 or 3 years ago but now I’m not really afraid, I think it’s blending the genres and I think people are more open to hearing different things.  I’m not really afraid because I think people are comfortable listening to rap with country and reggaetón and whatever and that’s a good thing. I’m not afraid at all. I think it’s getting really open and is really blending; the genres are blending fast. Everything sounds experimental now; people are accepting it so that’s good.

When are you most inspired to make a song?

           I’m inspired from intense things like when something really bad happens to you or something really good like the extremes, those are always like a trigger. When you experience something really really good, you go to the studio and you are motivated and the same when something really bad thing happens to you. You get ideas from the extreme moments. But it always depends, I always like to do things, when I wake up I know that I have to go to the studio and sometimes you force yourself and nothing comes out of it but when you are really happy or really sad, those are the moments that always trigger inspiration. When something extremely good happens to you, I’m not going to make a super happy song; it just fills you with something. When you are sad, it’s not like you go to  the studio and you write a sad melody, no but you are filled with something but it’s not that easy, it’s not like oh I’m super happy I’ll make a happy song, it’s not like that, it’s just inspiration and being filled with something you can express.

How do you want people to feel when they listen to your music?

           I think people feel different things from different situations and music and if they feel something, I’m happy. I just want them to feel something, not something concrete or specific, it’s not math, and if it’s a sad melody maybe you feel happy. Music is made for people to feel, if they feel even just a little thing from my music, I’m happy with that.

Besides music, what other interests do you have?

           I love cinema and I have Netflix and HBO now and right now I’m watching 6 or 7 shows. I love design too, I design a lot of my artworks and I work for other people too. Lately I’m into cooking too, I like to cook. I’m not good at it but I’m getting better. I like to cook raw things, that’s not cooking but I like to prepare raw things. I’m living with two friends of mine, I wasn’t living here in Barcelona, 4 or 5 months ago we rented a flat here and that’s when I started to cook , I wanted to cook for people. One of my friends is vegan so he started to show me different recipes and I’m learning and I really like it. I’ve always loved cinema and music of course. I’m not really excited for the Oscars or even the Grammy’s. I don’t like the award shows, I don’t really pay attention to that. I love cinema, I always have and now with Netflix and things I watch Stranger Things, I love the music made by Survive and I like the 80’s vibe and I’ve watched Stanger Things 4 times.  Of course Game of Thrones, now I’m watching Westworld from HBO and Santa Clarita Diet, it’s weird but it’s really good, I think it’s original, I’m watching everything that Netflix makes.

Check out InnerCut on Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, and at Primavera Sound this summer in Barcelona!

https://soundcloud.com/innercut

https://soundcloud.com/tastynetwork/innercut-drained-1

https://soundcloud.com/innercut/breed

"After all the crazy shit I've been through…"

"I hope I find love, find love in you…"