In this spotlight interview, we speak with Derek of Social Science about music, influences, and more.
Full Q&A, links, and the video for Oxymoron below.
Personally, I’m a huge fan of this piece and what Derek is doing. Stuff this cool and refreshing doesn’t come along too often.
Seriously, how often do you hear a song made from beating on a hot rod?
Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?
Even though it’s terrible for marketing, I tend to be very eclectic in the choices of styles I work in.
For me, the distinction is between ‘music which moves me and music which doesn’t’ rather than ‘I do hip-hop or I do jazz’.
For this track – Oxymoron – the inspiration was found object percussion. Similar to Stomp or Blue Man Group. Both of which I am a huge fan of.
What led you into this journey with music? And further, what drives you to push it out to the public?
I am actually following a vision I had when I was 16 years old. The best phrase I have found to describe this vision is Rock Opera.
Not musical theatre. More along the lines of Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
The only place I see in the musical spectrum today where there is a real breadth of styles in one place is actually in movies.
Watching a film, audiences don’t think twice about changing from orchestras, to bluegrass, to metal as long as it works with the narrative.
I have heard that filmmakers think of the soundtrack as 49% of the movie going experience.
My aim is to flip that, so that the visuals + narrative in a video or onstage are 49% of the experience of music.
I know the music and videos I am working on at the moment may seem a long way from Rock Opera however I am clear this is all foundation work in developing repertoire and skills to bring my vision to the world.
Who or what influences your creativity? Have your tastes in music changed over time?
I am actually a pretty huge fan of BIG classical and BIG jazz. Not the relaxing meditative stuff – the “balls to the wall, lets get 20-100 people all playing at full tilt to tear the roof of the hall” type of music.
I find the musical colours, shape and intensity really takes me to my happy place. The rock equivalent of this is somewhere between Queen / Led Zep / Muse.
My tastes are probably actually not that different to the music which has moved me throughout my life.
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?
Well, it may sound a little cheesy but the first intention in the creation of this track was to have fun.
So easy for me to angst and stress and work at creating music and forget the vital ingredient of play.
It certainly helped in this track that I was working with a great mate putting it together.
I am fascinated by the idea of ‘progression’ when creating videos – so there is some development and interest throughout the whole clip.
When we came up with the idea of ‘lets build a hotrod and use it as a percussion instrument’ I felt that would fit the brief perfectly.
What was the last song you listened to?
Foo Fighters is on pretty high rotation for me at the moment. The Pretender is the last track I was listening to. Love it.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
I am so not the man to be asking about this. I find that the sound quality has more to do with the speakers and amp that I am listening through rather than the original sound source.
Although I have many colleagues who are horrified by this, I tend to listen to mp3s simply because it’s the easiest way for me to carry a reasonable sized music library when I am jogging (which is where I listen to most of my music).
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
This is going to sound terrible – but none of the above.
I have spoken to quite a few professional musicians about this and found that the majority of musos (I have spoken to) don’t often sit down and listen to music for pleasure.
Of course, many do and full respect to them, however I find that after a big day in the studio, silence is what I am craving.
I suppose I am little old school in sticking to my mp3 player when I am listening to music in my library.
Most of the new stuff I find would be on YouTube.
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what is the biggest challenge you face when trying to connect with or find new fans?
Often the personality type and skillset it takes to create a track is very different to what is required to effectively promote a track.
I do my best to live by the golden rule ‘do unto others….’. I hate receiving promotional emails/tweets/ads and therefore I tend not to send out a lot of it.
Not the best approach to get heard.
Also, as I tend to shift styles fairly strongly, it can be a challenge to know who to reach out to when sharing new music.
It is my strong belief that in most cases it is not about ‘good music’ or ‘bad music’. It is about finding the right music for the right person.
So often, when people get nasty in response to a track it’s because a dance track has landed in front of a folk fan or a mellow track is heard by a metal fan.
Sometimes tracks have pretty clear audiences but often it’s quite a challenge to know who is going to respond positively to a new track.
People tend not to hold back online if they don’t like the music and although I am getting better at dealing with it, I do find haters affect me.
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more music?
If you would like to have a listen to other stuff I have put together I would recommend my YouTube channel: Social Science Music https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC75laDG-bRNsQkPcZBWGVlg
To connect, I would suggest twitter is best: @SocialScience3
Or you may like to check out the IG profile: Social Science Music
Anything else you’d like to add before signing off?
I really appreciate the work you are doing here. Such a pleasure to find people who are committed to bringing new independent music to people and an audience who is open to new music.
Keep up your great work and thanks for having me.
