Community Spotlight: JYRYMY
Tell us about yourself — What make you tick, how did your love for music start?
I’ve always loved music. When I was around 5 years old, my mom used to clean the house while playing some disco songs. I’d say this is where my love for music started.
Dance music came from my Dad. No matter how good or bad the day was we’d always listen to some mixes by Dan D-Noy coming back home.
I also have 2 uncles who showed me how to play the drums. One of them even recorded a country tape back in the days. I’ve always been surrounded by music.
In my teen years, I got a drum kit from one of my uncles and a few months later, my mom and stepdad were able to find me a Pearl drum kit. This was the moment I knew I wanted to get involved in music for the rest of my life. I didn’t know exactly how but I knew someday I’d figure it out.
Who are your influences?
I like to think I’m influenced by pretty much every genre. Like I’m not putting metal elements in my songs but playing some Metallica on drums will get me in the mood to make more music.
I’m definitely influenced by bands like Daughter and Kings of Leon. They both build atmospheres so well for songs it still feels magical every time I listen to their music. I’m always trying to replicate that in my own way.
Country music is also a big influence. I used to try to make complex productions and it would never really work or I wouldn’t like it. Then I’d go listen to some country playlists and wonder why I like it so much. One day it clicked and finally understood they just keep it simple. Since then, I’ve been focusing on fewer elements but making them all good. I now live by that: simple but solid.
Also very important to me. It’s more motivation than an influence but almost all of my memories left about my father are related to dance music. I feel like in a way I may be chasing them to recreate them in some ways I can’t really explain and it is why I will never stop trying. I know for sure I’ll make awesome new memories for myself and others along the way and that’s all I could ever ask for.
What are some other ways you use your creativity?
I like to mess around in photoshop and after-effects. Most of the projects end up in the bin and that’s okay. Sometimes you just need to let the creativity out.
Tell us about your impressive track record entering remix comps
Aha thanks for describing it as impressive. Sometimes I still wonder why I’m spending so much energy on remix competitions. I’m having so much fun doing them but I really hate waiting for results and the judging aspects of it can affect your confidence.
The first one I entered was for Jon Sine’s “Stay” featuring Gavin Beach. I remember thinking: If I don’t win this, then I’m not made for this and I’ll quit chasing the dream… this is my last chance. I won 3rd place and got my first release on a label. It felt so great! I was finally getting a confirmation that it can happen, I can make it happen.
The second one was for Hazey Eyes’ song called “Emotion” with Panama. The song was already so beautiful I really couldn’t imagine making a remix doing it justice. So I made one anyway and uploaded it to the contest without thinking I even had a chance. Reading the email telling me I won 1st place was an insane experience. I couldn’t believe it. Hazey Eyes really chose MY remix???? Since then, I’ve been focusing on music so much it’s now constantly on my mind. It became like a necessity to create.
A few months later, I tried another contest hosted by Cyrus Reynolds for his song “When You Call” with BELLSAINT on vocals. I ended up as 2nd place. The song should come out soon through Universal’s Killer Tracks label. I look at the contract with the big UMG logo on top of it every morning. It’s still unbelievable to me. In a few months, I went from almost quitting to landing a remix with a major label. It played a big role in building up my confidence to try more contests, to get in contact with more musicians and to finally take this whole journey a lot more seriously.
Earlier this year, I also ended up in second place for Emanate’s contest for Saavan’s “In My Head” which is already up on the platform and is one of my favourite production so far.
Also very recently, I won another 1st place for Katrina Cain’s “Promised Land” remix contest. This one will be out May 8th!
I feel like I really discovered my style of music and even myself overall through all of these competitions. I started making music thinking I’d want to produce hard-hitting house bangers, but in reality, I’m in love with deep chill house vibes and pop records.
What you do think about being an independent artist VS getting signed to a record label
So far, I had way better results with tracks signed to labels than self-released. Even on small labels! I’m still very new to this so I haven’t had the chance to really build up an active fan base.
Going with labels seems like the better option for me at the moment. They already have a promotion network which will help you way more than starting from zero by yourself.
Waiting on a release date is the worst and sometimes the communication with labels isn’t always like you’d want it to be. I did release some songs by myself in the past but they all flopped hard. I have so many goals when it comes to getting on specific labels. I’ll still be doing releases this way for a while, but I’m definitely planning on doing independent releases in the future for full creativity.
My biggest release so far recently passed 100k streams and my latest one is sitting close to 40k at the moment and there’s no way I could’ve made these numbers happen by myself.
Tell us about your latest release
My latest release is my remix of Hazey Eyes’ “Emotion” with the talented singer/songwriter Panama. I went for a slower bpm than I’m used too. Also experimented with different sounds to go for a chiller vibe. All the stuff I used to do before was faster and a bit more energetic. I really discovered a new side of me with this one. I instantly fell in love with the smoother sound and it became the vibe I go for all the time. I used some more experimental piano sounds in the breaks and I’m still very proud of how it turned out. It’s super smooth while staying very danceable.
I got more productions in this style coming out in the next few weeks. I do plan on making more deep and clubby tracks in the not so far future as well.
Where did you go to learn about music production?
The good old school of YouTube. I started by watching basic tutorials about FL studio. After a while, I recreated some of my favourite tracks for fun. In my opinion, this is how you learn the most.
Later, I bought Ableton Live after trying it out for a bit. This is where my productions improved. Ableton is expensive so I was taking it more seriously. I got in touch with YouTuber and sound designer Frankie from Zen World/EVO sounds and he helped me a lot with his detailed feedback. I’d never be where I am right now without him.
Nowadays, I like to watch other producers’ streams and interviews to get an idea of how they think about music. It’s slowly becoming more about the mindset/philosophy towards music and less about the techniques/plugins/tutorials.
Learning music theory from people working in other genres also opened my mind about music production. I’d even go as far as to say you’ll probably learn more watching interviews from already established artists and engineers than searching for how to make the next festival banger or a hit song.
How do you think emanate will evolve the music industry particularly the independent artists and labels?
Emanate’s future is bright and full of good things that will be able to carry the industry to a better place.
Getting real-time payments is a massive game-changer! Waiting on statements and payments from the stores is already a pain the ass. It’s even worse when you have a label in the middle making their own paperwork. That’s already a big problem fixed with emanate.
They have big names supporting the platform and the emanate team is supporting smaller artists and labels. To me, that’s pretty much perfection. Give it a bit more time and it’ll become a major player for music.
It seems like everyone wins with emanate. Not to hate on other platforms, but I always had the impression others are mostly in it for the money. This way, they only focus on who is already big. From a business standpoint, this is completely understandable. On the other hand, care enough about the independent guys like emanate does and you’ll have friends/supporters for life.
We need more positivity and friendliness in the music industry and I truly believe emanate will be the leader of this change!
Listen now!
Want to get on Emanate?
Jump in the Discord and ask how to get started! — https://discordapp.com/invite/dznxyW3
