#46: Sunglasses Kid | How to Turn Your Ideas into Songs

Sunglasses Kid is a London-based producer who makes nostalgic vocal-driven pop and instrumentals inspired by the music, fashion, and films of the late 80s and early 90s. He has collaborated with artists and musicians including Ollie Wride, Jay Diggs, Zach Robinson, Tim Cappello, Megan McDuffee, Myrone, and more.

He started making music under Sunglasses kid in 2013 and has produced two albums, two EPs, and dozens of singles that have been featured in commercials, video games, and short films.

To follow Sunglasses Kid, click here: https://www.sunglasseskid.co.uk/
To follow Sunglasses Kid  on Instagram, click here: https://www.instagram.com/sunglasseskidmusic/
To follow Sunglasses Kid  on Instagram, click here: https://www.tiktok.com/@sunglasseskidmusic

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Transcript

Marc Matthews: 0:21

You're listening to the inside the mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews. Hello, and welcome to the inside the mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician producer, and mix and mastering engineer you've come to the right place. If you want to know more about your favorite symp music, artists, music engineering, and production songwriting, and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing, and mastering music for over 15 years. And I wanna share what I've learned with you. Hey folks, and welcome back to the inside the mix podcast. And in this episode, I am very excited to welcome our guests today, sunglasses kids. So. Just a bit of a buyer here. So sunglasses kid is a London based producer who makes nostalgic vocal driven, pop, and instrumental was inspired by the music, fashion and films of the late eighties and early nineties. He's collaborated with artists and musicians, including Ali ride, JD, Zach Robinson, Tim Capella. Yes, Megan McDuffy and Moore. And he's gonna share with us the story behind sunglasses kid, his experience as a self-taught musician, uh, approach the songwriting and content generation and his thoughts and reflection on networking in the music industry. And I'm gonna breathe now, uh, ed, uh, sunglasses kid. Thanks for joining me. And how are you?

Sunglasses Kid: 1:29

I'm good. Thank. Um, dunno how much I'll be able to reflect on networking in the music industry. I'm not even sure what the music industry is now me. Right? Like it's just a nebulous bunch of people on the

Marc Matthews: 1:37

internet. Yes. Yeah. I would agree with that. Um, , we'll delve into that in a bit, in a bit, but, um, no, I love that. That's a great description. I'm gonna use that as a quote, um, from this we haven't even, we're only a minute in and I've gotten a quote already for this. Fantastic. So what I'd like to start off with is, um, life before the sunglasses kid. So you started making, uh, music or releasing under this sort of Monica back in 2013 and you produced two albums, two EPS and dozens of the singles that have been featured in commercials, uh, video games and short films. But can you tell our audience a bit about your sort of musical life before sunglasses kid? Where, where did

Sunglasses Kid: 2:11

it all begin? Um, I mean, I, I, I grew up around music. My mom was her well, was she still is classically trained pianist. And she was a piano teacher though. I never received any like piano lessons from her. I think she knew better than to try and teach me because I wasn't the kind of kid that took well to being told what to do. Um, so I was, I grew up around music and heard a lot of it in the house. So I was literally, you know, listened to children, learning to play the piano underneath my bedroom. And so I guess that was sort of around me a lot. And then also, I guess my mom was quite an influence in my life in that she, she also was an early adopter of, she bought like, um, like the cor game one workstation because she was, she was also doing songwriting and she wanted to be able to record it all in the box. And so she had that so suddenly there was an M one in the house, but my first kind of instrument, I suppose, arguably is an instrument, was the drums. So when I was like about 12 or 13, I, um, decided I wanted to play the drums. And, um, and then I had a kind of, I suppose my kind of big moment really was, I mean, this was, this was in the early nineties and I was into, I was drumming. Like everyone was to kind of rock and all the standard stuff you start do doing with drums. And Niana were kind of big at that time. And I was drumming along to things I never mind and all that stuff. And then, uh, a boyfriend of my sisters at the time. So a couple of years older than me was a chap who was a percussionist for the Royal Philharmonic. And he, when he was coming, visiting my sister on the weekends, he'd give me some drum lessons. And he was really into like expanding my kind of knowledge about the drum styles and he was very into jazz. And so he introduced me, I have this kind of very vivid memory, which I've told this story on other podcasts of him bringing over Herby Hancock and the headhunters album on tape. And teaching me to drum along to the, that version of chameleon that, that is on that album, which is a, kind of got this very kind of funky baseline that goes, boom, bang. And you've got like these offbeat drums. So there was this moment where I suddenly like discovered the offbeat. And I think that sort of unlocked this interest for me in, in jazz and that sort of stuff as well, but it was all kind of happening at the same time as there was a massive like dance explosion in, in electronic music in the UK, like London and the UK was outputting a lot of Manchester, places like that. The UK, we were outputting a lot of dance music at that time as well. So I was just jumping around from. I, I listened to my like M radio every day religiously. So I was, and they were always rerunning, eighties pop and stuff like that. So I was all around all that round, jazz, round dance music around the keyboards in the house and around drums. So I guess that's where it all sort of started. And I started tinkering around trying to make music using the cog and, and all that sort of stuff. But, you know, I was born in 81, so I wasn't around like loads of gear or computers or anything that was all started coming in and around, I guess the early nineties really, it started really kind of being accessible to like people. And, and I, again, I've, I've told this story I was at, I went to film school and whilst I was at film school, there was a Norwegian guy called Inmar who composed all his music to his own films. And he, he was real genius and he had a cog tri on and he had. Um, I can't what he used, something like cube based or cakewalk. Anyway, he hooks me up with a CD of, of software. And, um, the only thing I could get to make anything make a sound out of anything was a, was a really early version of fruity loops. So it was literally like fruity loops version 2.0 or something like that. So I was running through E loops on a, whatever, it was something ridiculous, like a 4, 8, 6 PC at film school. And you, you didn't have a piano role. I didn't have a keyboard. So it was all, I was making all this sample based stuff and I was getting very into like break beat. And I was into kind of, I, I got really into like DJ shadow and uncle and those sort of acts that were combining kind of orchestral stuff. So it was sort of like the synthesis of everything that I was interested in. There was film music, all that, um, And that that's, when, what I then wanted to kind of go on to do, I had this kind of idea after uni that I was gonna try and be a film composer and pursue that. And I, I took it very seriously, although I'm completely self-taught. So I was sort of trying to run before I could walk, jumping into orchestral music, um, before I really knew the basics and I actually kind of got somewhere with it a bit and I had a kind of what I thought was a really well, it was a really good chance and it didn't quite come to come to pass to do work on a video game. And I kind of gave it all up a bit and had this massive hiatus about like 2004 to about 2013, where I just decided to work a regular job. I had this kind of moment where I was like 25, 26, where I was just like, if I carry on fucking around trying to be a musician, I'm gonna be this unemployable person who can't get another job, cuz I've never, you know, I've just carried on trying to. If I'm looking back, I'm like I was 24, 25 going it's over. like, and then the irony was when I stopped trying to give a and stopped giving a shit, something weird, kind of happened with people taking in interest in what I was doing. But I, I genuinely, when I started sunglasses kid, wasn't trying to make something of it. I was, I did it as a kind of, just as a, as a thing for.

Marc Matthews: 7:51

Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting way you put that there, cuz there's a number of, um, artists that I've interviewed for the podcast. And it seems to be that I dunno what it is about this particular sort of style of music in particular, but a lot of them do come in at it, in their like thirties. I think there's a, there's a number of producers I talked to cause I'm in my thirties, myself and I didn't start doing it until I was in my thirties. And I much like you, I was in a metal band and um, I didn't, you went in a medal band, but I was in a band doing music previously and it got to the point where I was like, if it's gonna happen, it would've happened by now. And I, I wanna go do X, Y, Z. So I'm gonna knock it on the head for a bit and then come back to it and then come back to it because I enjoy it. And I that's the reason I wanna do it. Kinda like what you said there about why you started sunglasses kid just to, for the enjoyment of it rather than trying to pursue some sort of

Sunglasses Kid: 8:37

goal. Yeah. I mean, I guess, I guess on the thirties thing, I mean, I'm, I'm actually technically now 40 I to term 40 last year. So. But I think, I think there's my theory, which I've actually then found articles by other people online. Echoing. My theory is that there's a sort of 30 year cycle of like, of, of interest in past decades. So as everyone basically reaches the magic age of about 30 to 35, those people are the decision makers in all cultural institutions. They're the editors, they're the directors. They're the, the music supervisors they've reached that kind of peak career age, or, I mean, not, not saying you have to be at the peak of your career at 35, but people are in that sort of area of their life. And that's also sort of maybe the age that people start getting nostalgic looking back at their childhood. So right now we're in the eighties cohort, that's gonna come off stream. And the nineties will come on. I mean, you're already seeing that I'm already seeing like, Y two K nostalgia people getting nostalgic about fucking 2003, like, and then you go, oh yeah, it was like fucking over. It was like nearly like 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I, I think, but then there's something, so I think there's that like unique kind there's that kind of 30 year cycle. And then there's also on top of that. I think there's a thing about the eighties being just an interesting, a uniquely interesting genre where it was the sudden explosion of a completely new sound. Like all synthesized sound was just totally new is that the guitar was there for the fifties to 60, you know, goes back however long, far back the guitar goes. And then suddenly in the eighties, entirely new, never before heard palette of sounds and given, put into their hands off at the time, like incredibly skilled musicians who were all come outta jazz funk. Classical trained. So it was the, in, it was the, it was the infancy of that stuff that was so in that made, that gave birth. These really interesting sound. Cause now we've better it in with having computer music for like 30, 40 years, it's all got a bit more business as usual for everyone and, and everyone's got it in their hands, but right at the beginning of the eighties, you had like these incredibly skilled musicians suddenly being given this whole new palette of sound to play with. So that's what I think it, musically is interesting about the eighties and why, I guess it appeals to me as a

Marc Matthews: 11:09

genre. Yeah, I would agree. And I think I've noticed with the nineties nostalgia that's, as you mentioned there, that is slowly creeping in what, with the aesthetic of it as well. I was chatting to my girlfriend the other day about, um, I saw something, some person on TV and I was like, That look itself. There is very nineties. And even in my own productions, I I've noticed in elements of the nineties now, creeping in, in particular with sort of like the, uh, the house style pianos and, and these, these sort of like these trance chords that I'm bringing in and stuff as well. And it's certainly creeping, I'll be intrigued to know what the Nies is gonna look like when that comes around. Cause I remember the nos and I was big into new metal in the Northeast. So that would be interesting. And I, how that's

Sunglasses Kid: 11:46

perceived, I mean, it all depends on what everyone, what every, each part of an era people want to channel with. If they're gonna do nostalgic music, they're gonna go back to an era. It's like, well, which bit of the era? Cause there's, you know, if you, if you look at synth wave and. Say well, it's, it's channeling it's, it's sort of weird because it's sort of channeling this very specific part of the eighties. And also it's kind of invented to this sound that didn't quite exist, but is all, feels like it did, which is a sort of, it's a hybrid of like film score. Cause there's a lot of score influence in synth wave. If you listen to like, like I don't consider myself to make typical synth wave, I make eighties inspired kind of pop. Um, so I'm probably more in the synth pop kind of category than, than the pure, pure synth wave though. Everyone would argue about what is, what is that genre? But for me, it's, it's clearly taken an influence from the sounds of film scores, like Meda and carpenter and people like that. And then it's chucked in a bit of sort of house and electronic other kind of electronic music. And it's, it's kind of birthed this, this sort. Sound, but it's like, well, that was one era of the eighties. It's like people were still making jazz in the eighties. Yeah. Yeah. People were still making hair metal rock rock in the eighties. So it's, it's like, we're not just talking about any old eighties. There's like this specific slice of the eighties that we've all decided to kind of channel a bit with, with the synth. Well, the synth wave genre has decided to channel that a bit, I suppose, having

Marc Matthews: 13:13

been doing this and releasing this music since 2013. And in, as you mentioned, having listened to your records a lot as well. And I know there is that more synth pop element rather than sort of synth wave and kind of it fluctuates you. But do you think I'm only, I've only been in really entrenched in, in this synth realm as it were for the past two or three years, do you think it's more popular now than it has been? Because it seems from my perspective, very popular.

Sunglasses Kid: 14:04

I mean, massive. I mean, when I, when I started making sunglass kid was just a, this bit of fun I was having on SoundCloud. But like the, you know, the origin story that most people have at least my fuck generation, this kinda this old far into Syra now, like, I guess I'm, I'm considered like a second, maybe a second or third, depending on who you ask generation of synth wave musician with like the first generation arguably being the sort of Valerie collective guys like college and, um, electric youth and people like that. Right. And when that everyone has, you know, most of our, our, my kind of gen has the same story of, of talking about seeing the movie drive, hearing the soundtrack, getting inspired, particularly Kavinsky I think Kavinsky, you know, night call was the track and then going on a kind of rabbit hole. And I think collectively across the planet, all these bedroom producers thought they were the only person doing it. And then they all found each other on, on SoundCloud. But where I, where I kind of. Tangented off was, I was whilst I liked the kind of dark cinematic elements of like Kavinski. I think I'd slightly had enough of spending all that time in a dark cinematic world. Cause I had my fill of it and got irritated with it, with film music or trying to make film music. And so I wanted to just do something for fun. And so what spoke to me was like the sound of, um, future copper Mitch murder, who were the only real two people doing anything like Mitch murder was the one who was like, suddenly I heard him and I was like, oh my God, this guy's got a little audience. And his music's so like tongue in cheek and fun and silly and yet really well executed. And this is really inspiring to just see somebody going out on a limb, doing something where they've taken a bit of a, a risk and. I think like, I, I never, I, I always remember just, I remember specifically saying the one thing I don't wanna do is rip off Mitch murder, cuz I'll forever be the poor man's Mitch murder. So all I, what I did do was really sort of pay attention to like the atmosphere of what he was doing and the approach he was taking and just the kind of like him being like a pace car for like giving permission to go here's someone out there who has an audience of people who take him seriously. And yet what he's doing is very fun and silly and lighthearted and, and I thought, oh yeah, I won't do something like that. That's quite fun, but not, not exactly that cuz he's got that covered. So I'm, I'm gonna do my own thing.

Marc Matthews: 16:49

I think the idea of taking a risk is, is brilliant. And um, I think in music taking risks. I like that. And I think it's good for progression experimentation. Um, and I've noticed it in your music as well, listening to it. There are there's, you can hear the different, the fun you're having with your music in particular as well. Um, which will come onto in a bit when we, when we delve into that. Cause there's loads of loads of bits and pieces that I wanna wanna pick into. Um, but no, I totally agree with taking risks and, and, um, it's something that I do and it's something I sort of encourage on the podcast with regards to music

Sunglasses Kid: 17:22

as well. It's just, I think you've, I think you've gotta kind of, I mean, it it's in the same Venn diagram as being original taking risks. It's like the risk free, the risk free approach to making music is go study what works, copy it. Put your own, spin on it. If you want. The, and, and, and I'm not saying that that doesn't work and that you can't end up by spinning it enough. You might end up coming out with something original that isn't a complete rip off of the thing you were copying, but true originality is gonna force you into the area where you are doing something where you don't know. You've never heard anyone else do it before. Yeah. Like I was doing, I'm not, I'm not like begging myself up and saying I was being really original, amazing, but there were points with sunglasses kid where I was literally going. I don't have a contemporary reference for what I'm doing. I do not have another person apart from like, like I say, Mitch murder, maybe there is no one else out there going here. It's only exists in the actual past. So I'm literally going out and limb going. I know, I like it. I hope someone else likes it. And, and, you know, one thing I did for a very brief period in my early twenties was standup comedy. Oh, wow. And it feels like the same. It has the same feeling of going. There's a point where you're gonna walk out on the stage and go, I think this is funny. And I will find out if you all agree with me in the next 10 seconds. Yeah. And it's like that with, with music where you are just going, I, I like, I, I like the, or kit. I like that fucking sound from the eighties or I like the fucking slap bass or whatever. I like saxophone. And the thing is once you've done it and PE if people then like it, then, then other people can come in afterwards going they've, they've kind of gone out and, you know, scouted ahead for us and safely confirmed that. Yes, you can apparently get away putting a sacks in a song like, or you, I'm not saying I invented the S put saxes a song or anything, but whatever that might be, you know, whatever that thing might be, you know, that's, that's always the way with people, like, sort of. Creating a genre or coming up with new ideas. It all seems easy and simple and obvious in hindsight.

Marc Matthews: 19:40

Yeah. I, I think one question I do have off the back of that then. So you mentioned there about taking, we mentioned about taking risks and also it's kind of like you mentioned, you could, you've got a formula. You could, you could adopt the formula and you could paint by numbers for one of bad way put and release that music. And going back to what you said previous to that as well, with regards to the accessibility of music now, cuz you've got this whole sound palette before you on, on a 13 inch laptop, potentially. Do you think then that there, there, there is a lot I've I've asked this question to a number of firm artists, like, because it is so accessible and because you can't literally just, you could paint by numbers. Do you think it's quite hard to stand out as, as a new artist then in this, in this synth world, I mean, this

Sunglasses Kid: 20:23

is, this question gets asked a lot, everyone and everyone feel, everyone sort of says. There's too many fucking people at it., you know, there's too many fucks doing it. I mean, I mean, and, and there's, there's kind of, I think there's sort of, it's a double edge sword, that argument. Cause on one hand you could say, well, back when there were far less people doing it, there was, you know, it was, it was high, higher quality. So it wasn't, it was, you could argue now it's quantity over quality. But I guess back then to have the sounds that I've got in any sunglasses kitchen, I'm pulling up a VST. That's like a Fairlight, right? A Fairlight was like 130 grand and only five people in the world had it like Michael Jackson's DB wonder and Jane child. And so on one hand, the gate is, there's not. So the, the entry to what's it, the barrier to entry is, is far lower and everyone can have a go at it and. But on the, on the other hand, the barrier to shoe is low and everyone can have cut . Yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess the problem maybe is like, when you, when you start thinking about things like the statistics that like make you go, what the fuck is like 20,000 songs a day are uploaded to a Spotify. And so this, this idea, and also that the primary kind of method for like marketing your brand, your mu your music is now social media, whether you like it. Well now it's been social media for the last 10 years, whether you like it or not, you are in the attention game. And everyone's now, now with, to, and all the rest of it's gone X, but fucking ential. So you're not just, you're not just, you're not just competing with other musicians. You're competing in the feed with fucking dogs, dances, fail videos, Uhhuh. And there's four seconds maybe, you know, just to catch someone's attention. On the other hand, I only joined TikTok the other week and one of my videos has had like 120,000 plays really and gained me like 5,000 new followers who I had like 200, like the week I joined. Wow. What was the,

Marc Matthews: 22:33

what was the content?

Sunglasses Kid: 22:34

It was literally just me jamming on a piano. Um, I, I didn't, I, I, I didn't, I kind of had a go like a lot of musicians trying to jump onto TikTok and went, got no engagement where fuck that this is load of balls and gave up. And then I kind of went back to it because after reading a lot about organic reach and things like that. So, you know, on one hand you could say, well, there's too many fucking people at it, but on the other hand you could say, well, think about yourself. How far would you be getting with your music? If you didn't have all these tools, these democratized tools in your hands? I couldn't, I wouldn't have got anywhere. I'd just be some guy going, oh, if I had 50 grand, I could buy all the equipment I need. And you know, your, so on one hand you can say TikTok, everyone's fucking doing it or music everyone's fucking doing it. But on the other hand, you can say, including me and I definitely couldn't, you couldn't be doing it without it. So in a way, the, the playing field level, just down to like, have you got a good idea or not? Is the song good? I mean, but then, but then also, you know, you could easily say even good songs don't necessarily get, get you there. I've heard plenty of talented people who get ignored and plenty of talentless people who, you know,

Marc Matthews: 23:50

yeah. I, I, I I'm with you on that one. And I think I'm, I'm, I'm a fan of the fact that it is accessible with technology. And then you can, if you've got an idea, you can quickly sketch something out or you can start somewhere and it's successful to the point where actually, if you think, you know what I fancy given this music. Game ago, I fancy writing some music and I feel inspired so accessible and is easy to do. And also I find because there are so many people doing it, the, the actual community and the network that, uh, I've established through the podcast for example, is, is amazing, cuz the amount of people doing it. But I think going back to what you said there about social media is I think social media, as you said, rightly so is, is, is, is playing a massive part of you breaking through the noise now? Cuz you could have, like you said, you could be an amazing musician. Um, you could have this amazing song and unfortunately, um, you sort of social media could be the avenue that you need to, to get heard. Um, and I'm on top myself and I'm still experimented with content to see what works and I'm envious of the fact that you've managed to get that many views and you've only been back on it for two weeks. I've been toiling away and I'm still still at those like 1000, 2000 if I'm lucky views. So, um, fair play

Sunglasses Kid: 25:00

man. I mean to is like, I, I think every. Video is like role is like playing the lottery. And I think they've rigged it. They've rigged it to an extent, to feel like a bit like a lottery because, and every, and it's in their interest to sometimes make somebody, you know, hit famous because it keeps everyone coming back. It's like a lottery. If no one ever won the lottery, then no one will play it. So every so often you need someone to go massive and become a viral staff. You'd go, oh, that could be me.

Marc Matthews: 25:25

It's like the machines at the arcade. Doesn't it. You see somebody win and you know, they're rigged.

Sunglasses Kid: 25:29

They're gonna pay out. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Um, you know, like I, I've got, I've got two videos in, since I've since doing that one, one's had like 50,001 has 120,000 views, but then I've got loads of videos on doing anything. And I think that's a for known phenomenon, even with talkers, with like three, 4 million followers, they can, they're still bringing out videos that then get no traction and you're in this arms race. But I think the, the, the bigger issue, the bigger thing that's created is, is it's made everyone have to become. These kind of multifaceted individuals. Yeah. Yeah. Like these kind of your marketer, you're doing all these things. And I mean, already as musicians, as independent musicians or electronic musicians, we're already covering about 11 bases just in the production process alone from like producing. But you're also mixing, you might also be mastering you're composing. You're doing like jobs that there would've been like a team of people working on that on a song in it back in the, you know, back in the day. And then also not only are you doing that now, you're jumping on fucking Photoshop. You're graphic designing, you're marketing, you're copywriting, you're fucking making videos. You're editing. I mean, it's highly stressful for like people. I mean, that's, you know, you could argue that on one hand, the barrier to entry, you know, is, is lower than ever. But then to cut through the noise, you've gotta do that much more. And so I think you see the people who rise at a surface. They're they're using one of, usually about one of maybe three strategies. Number one, strategy is some sort of an attention grabbing fucking low brow thing. Like they're being the lowest hangered fruit really isn't it. Or they're just doing something shock or whatever they're doing something. Then you've got people who are like, Usually trying to do something that's kind of funny or sketchy or something like that. And then you've got people who are just trying to be as talent as they can. And hoping that that gets cuts through. like,

Marc Matthews: 27:26

it's, it's crazy. I've I've mentioned this a few times and, um, cuz I've I've on the previous podcast, I've mentioned that I've, I've moved into the world of YouTube shorts and um, in, in doing so, cuz I put this podcast on YouTube every week and the, the, the attraction on that isn't as high as it is on apple podcast and Spotify and whatnot. But the, the time invested in putting the video onto YouTube, there's quite a lot that goes into it. Cause you've got the post production behind the interview that you've got the interview, then you've got the bits afterwards, but yeah, I'll put, uh, put something on, on YouTube shorts. Um, and it will, and it's just something silly, like a reaction video that encompasses, I dunno, some Jean van dam, for example, and it got 7,000 views in sort of like two hours, um, yet, uh, one of these podcasts ever say that's an hour long and put all this effort in, I get like 10 views in a week. I

Sunglasses Kid: 28:16

mean, business this's difficult cuz we are we're in this sort of weird world where we're in a kind of, we're in a sort of cognitive dissonance where on one hand you've got everyone's attention, spans, dropped down to four seconds and EV and everyone has followed to suit in going to short form video because no one's got any attention span, but on the other hand, we've seen the biggest boom ever in long form content led by fucking Joe Rogan and. Who led the way in doing four or five hour podcast chats and things like that that have, have paved the way for this. So there is an appetite for there's an appetite for that long form stuff as well. Um, I think, I feel like it's, it's almost like right now it's created this. There's no middle ground either. You are making really engaging short, punchy stuff. That's just bang, bang, bang, this constant feed of shit. Or you are making intense long form. If you sit in the middle, it's not gonna work. Yeah. You're, uh, you're in the middle of the road and you're gonna get run over.

Marc Matthews: 29:13

That's a really, really like that. That's a really, really good way of putting it actually. And it's sort of echoes my experience of like putting out the short form stuff, which you can put together in a matter of five minutes, you know, it's just my phone pointed at a screen. And then I've got the longer format, which is the, the, the video itself. And. I think if I were to invest more time into the longer formats content with regards to the production and the production quality and stuff, we probably would get more traction and the SEO. But as, as you mentioned earlier, because we're multifaceted, we've got all these different hats that we're wearing. It's finding the time, man. Um, it's, it's, it's insane, which kind of before I move on the next bit, one bit I, one question I did wanna ask you, this is sort of going back a bit now to what you mentioned there about, um, your, your music being sort of this the way you've synthesized all these different genres and, and, and whatnot. You're, you're a self-taught musician. Do you think being self-taught has helped you in terms of your experimentation and the, the direction that you take your music in that you're not sort of rigidly sticking to the formulas that you would get given if you were a taught musician. That makes sense.

Sunglasses Kid: 30:16

I think that really depends on what sort of level of tuition you've received. I think like if you've come from a class, if you've been classically trained. I think that you can, there is the thing of getting hamstrung by all the rules and overthinking things. And, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't go as far as to say being self taught. I think, I think this whole idea, I hear this argument a lot of like, yeah man. Yeah. I'll just break the rules. but you know, to, uh, to like, you know, to coin, to use the, uh, the famous phrase, you've gotta know the rules to break the rules. There, there is a diff there is a difference between, um, knowing like you are breaking a rule because you understand the rule fundamentally, you understand, like, so say like take like a simple thing, which I won't even be able to articulate musically because I've just lacked the musical vocab, but here's a go, I'll have a go at trying to explain it is if you've, if. Creating suspension with a baseline, right? Dance music does it all the time, classical music, everyone does it in different ways. So say you've got a three chord like progression and you are gonna sustain the baseline. That's under the, you've got the root base note and you don't move that route base note. It will immediately create suspension. Like it will create a sense of wanting that baseline to resolve along with the other three chords. But if you hold it, you know, you can build up suspension and you know, you can manipulate your listener into becoming suspenseful with it. And you know, any moment you can undo it now, there's, there's arguably, that's arguably sort of breaking a rule of saying, well, the rules are, the base should move with the things, but then you go. But once you know those rules and you also know that our sustained that base will create something. And because the listener knows the rules as well, even though the listener might not be able to articulate the rule. They subconsciously know the rule is the bass should move. And so when you have those like drops building up in trance music, whatever it's, cuz everyone universally in the, in the Western listener ear, right. They all know what the baseline should be doing. So they're all waiting for that moment. And so this idea of like, oh, I dunno what I'm doing so I can just do whatever I want. It's like when you can do whatever you want, but it will sound like shit, you can't, you have to have some rules. You have to, you have to follow some rules. Like anything like filmmaking, you feel self taught filmmaker, but you can't just, just put together arbitrary images. That will just be shit. Um, I mean I do, I do think that the going back to really briefly to that thing about the barrier to entry may maybe one of the issues now is that it's, it's, there's a lot of sample based like music and it's very easy to, to, um, Rely on samples. And I think sometimes that can be it to the detriment of you teaching yourself, like, well, you don't need to learn anything cause you can just get this three chord riff off. Um, and so as if you've got music, if you, if the whole like music, if the audience is taste, doesn't crave anything more than the three chord riff, then you can get away with never having to learn anything like 20 years ago, songs weren't three chord riffs that that's a new thing to just have a three chord. I mean, there were three chord rift songs, but a lot of songs had like verse chorus, mid late structures. Right. So even if you could find a three great three chord sample, if you needed to progress beyond those three chords, you wouldn't know what you're doing if you were, if you had no. Musical knowledge you'd be going right. I need another three chord sample. That sounds good. After I just need the whole fucking song. Does someone give me a whole song, which they do? You can, you can download whole fucking song stamps now, which I've never quite understood. I'm like, well, everyone's got access to the same thing. Doesn't make sense. You're not anyway. Yeah. I think

Marc Matthews: 34:26

what? Sorry. I went off on the wrong. No, no, no, no, no, no, please do. I like this. It is great. Um, and I think what you, what you said there is, I think when you have those three chords and then you realize I need something else that goes beyond that, you probably come to the realization. Actually, I should probably know a bit about how to write music. Well, you can,

Sunglasses Kid: 34:41

you can get this great idea. Starer it it'll be like, like again, to use analogy, if you were like wanting to be a novelist a bit, like if they brought out our website where there were like story starters, right. And like download a pack of really cool opening fucking paragraph. And it was like great premises, but we know we, anyone who's tried writing anything knows there's a big fucking distance between a great premise and a fully realized story. Like the idea of, you know, what if, what if, uh, it's in the set of the future and you spies could steal each other's memories. That sounds really cool. Yeah. What happens? What's the plot? Well, I don't, I dunno what the plot is that that's a lot of work and effort and that's like with songs, getting an idea started is one thing, getting it to the, to the finish line is a completely different yeah, beast.

Marc Matthews: 35:31

It, it, it kind of, um, makes me think bit about artificial intelligence and I read stories every now and again, and I see bits and pieces about how, um, artificial intelligence is being used to write music. And there was a piece I did listen to a piece of music that was written by artificial intelligence and it was very forgettable admittedly. Um, but it'd be interesting to see how that. It might already be there. I know, I know, for example, you can upload things like, um, I'm not, I'm not knocking Lander or anything like that, but you can upload your music to these sites and it uses machine learning. I'm I believe to, to, to master your music and other bits and pieces. So it would be interesting to see how the, what the future holds in terms of songwriting with artificial intelligence.

Sunglasses Kid: 36:12

I mean, we've got, we've got a kind of early, the early kind of indicator of where create the creative world's gonna get pulled by AI is this, this Dolly thing that's, everyone's trialing at the moment, this AI, you just write in a sentence and it will draw an image based on the sentence. This is, this is already all over the internet. It's, it's not fully accessible to everyone. So it seemed like beta, but you can. I saw one the other day that was like someone had typed in something like, um, ancient Roman battle from the view of a GoPro. It created this image that was like Roman cents in central Rome or fighting, but all shot through like fish islands as if someone was filming on a selfie stick and people can, are writing in all kinds of things. Like, um, there's people love to write things about like their apocalypse. It's like, it's it, they're kind of slightly painterly oil painting, que images, but the, you are already on the way to like people no longer needing artists. They'll just be like typing in a thing. So music can't be far behind. Although I feel like music might be hard enough for AI to crack, but yeah, I feel, I feel like, I think, I think like two only two or three years ago, I was thinking, well, AI might be able to crack a load of ship, but it's not gonna replace. Roles. And now I'm like a little bit less confident about that prediction. It's scary.

Marc Matthews: 37:36

Isn't it? I think with the, with, I mean, quantum computing hasn't proliferated through everywhere yet. And, um, I dunno if it'll be used in that particular context, but computing power and artificial intelligence and machine learning. I think you're right. I think, I mean, it depends what you wanna do as you creative. I mean, I dunno if you'd call yourself a creative, if, imagine if you wanted to write a song, you're like, you know what, I need a song for my album. It needs to be, uh, I want it in a miney or harmonic minor of some sort. It's I want it to be sad. It's gotta be about X, Y, Z, and something just creates it for you. It's quite a scary thought. I

Sunglasses Kid: 38:06

mean, on the, on the other hand, it it's like, well, if you had this AOI that creates this music from sort of sentence, sentence commands, or instructions or directing, whatever on one hand, that seems like brilliant. And let's imagine we're in a future now where I can just say, make a funky eighties pop song in the style of the system or something like that. And it spits it out. And it's exactly why I wanted. Unless the thing can do it again. Exactly again and again again, and, and create my identity. The identity of the music will be the, I will be the AI's brand identity, not yours. It will have cuz when you see all these AI images, they all have the same distinctive look about them. So on one hand you might be going as an artist. Oh shit, we're gonna get replaced. But on the other hand I'll be like, but they all look the same, no matter who's generating it. They all have the same look and feel. So I feel there'll be a, there'll be a time where we'll be, we'll be kind of. That sounds AI. That sounds that doesn't sound quite like, like a there's the, like, I dunno, I think it's a weird frontier and I don't care to project too much into the future. it is.

Marc Matthews: 39:15

It's sort of like you move away from the not arguments wrong word, but where individual will say, well, that's analog, that's digital and move into the realm of, well that's, that's, that's human and that's AI. Very interesting. There's a website. It's a total tangent now, but I dunno if you've seen it. You can go on that. And it's artificial intelligence has been used to create a human face that is totally

Sunglasses Kid: 39:36

unique. Well, and it also, or, um, Adobe's got like voice synthesis stuff where it can take a, not, not much more like 32nd sample of your voice. Um, once it's done that, it learns your voice and then you could, I could type an essay and it would synthesize your voice and sound like you've spoken it. So we're in like a brave new world with all that shit. I mean, all, all of it is an E it just becomes a more and more complicated evolution of the obsess obsession. We all have over art, which is, does the process matter how you got from a to B? Do we care about that? Do like, does it matter if the person cheated whether they used samples or whether they made it all themselves? Like how, like, like how much does that matter? How much does anyone care? I know, I think as musicians, we all deeply care how someone's got there. We'll feel like someone's cheating. If they've used shortcuts wherever, and then we get really annoyed when the audience doesn't know. or give a shit that's the thing is you want the audience to care. You want the fans to care and they don't know or give a shit how you got there. They're sometimes impressed if you're really overtly doing something clever with a guitar, or you're really obviously out when it comes to like electronic music, where there are new, no mute, physical musicians, they don't know whether you are. You spent 10 years learning how to play Neo soul core progressions. Whether you downloaded Neo soul core progressions or a MIDI pack in five seconds, they, they don't know or give a shit. And that's the thing that's really annoying as a musician, cuz you, you feel like, well, surely hard work should be rewarded somewhere in this, this, you know, equation. Literally this person is cheating. They should be in the back of the queue. If they're gonna download all their fucking sounds and I'm here making it all. Doesn't work like that. Let's take a

Marc Matthews: 41:21

quick break from this episode so that I can tell you about free resource that I made for you. It's a PDF checklist that describes what you need to do to properly prepare a mix for mastering. So you've done the hard work and you love your mix yet. Suitably preparing a mix for mastering is often overlooked by musicians resulting in delayed sessions, excessive back and forth conversation and frustration on both parts. I want to help fix that. So if you want this free resource, just go to www dot synth music, mastering.com. As this checklist will help and guide you to make the mastering process as smooth, transparent, and exciting as possible. So again, the URL is www dot music, mastering.com for this free preparing a mix for mastering checklist. Let's get back to the episode. But what my question was gonna be. What are your thoughts on that? And obviously you just, you've just sort of, uh, mentioned those. There is it's, it's that isn't it as creatives, we're very, very sort of precious about the, the creative process and, and how our music's put together. But I think fundamentally, and I know a lot of the music, a lot of the consumers are probably just listening to it through this might be a very sweeping statement, but listening to it through their phone. Um, and there's that argument that like, you're not listening to it, how I perceive it to be reproduced using a phone speaker. Um, and it's it's because like you say, they don't really care. They just want something that sounds good. How it's got from a to B doesn't really matter to them.

Sunglasses Kid: 42:43

I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I don't wanna say I'm an anti I'm not actually anti I actually not despite everything I've just said anti, like using samples. I, I think they have a place in. Really recently, I've been diving in two loads of late nineties, early nineties, like iconic sample libraries and I'm, and I'm, you know, I'm still massively into film music and I'm kind of at the moment, like low key obsessed with the 2001 soundtrack team reader, thoses on my grand river reveal. And he uses I've discovered all the spectra Sonics samples that used. And I was like going, oh my God, that is, I thought that was like a fully like original bit of composition by Ravel, but it's not, it's a sample, but he did the score in 10 days. So it's so I don't, I, I still dunno what the exact backstory is. That was quite a legendary film composer called Michael Caman. He was attached and the very last minute they. They got rid of him for some reason. And Graham Ravel was brought on board to score this, move this Hollywood movie in 10 days. And so, and it's, you know, it's a, I'm sure you've seen the film, but it's, you know, it's got all this kind of ethnic mystic kind of spiritual magical kind of vibe to it. And so actually when you go to, when you say right, I need to, I need to evoke a sense of place. Ideally, the quickest way to do this would be if I could just have like a fucking Dadou or a SHA Shaha she fucking flute or something, um, I don't have time to go out and record that right now find one of the world's best like SHA aha. She players. But I do have are like these sample CD loops. So. You know, and he, he couldn't have got it done without samples and sometimes, and I, and I've no doubt that he might have even used some of those samples as the quick inspiration point. He's just there going, I don't have time to think. I need to do a cue every fucking hour for this. I need to write two and a half hours music by the end of the week, he was like in America. And they were, they had people over in, in London recording the orchestra and they're like overnight sending it via the highest speed internet they had in 2001. But for me, there's, there's that moment of, that's the kind of perfect symbiosis of where like tech is serving the, the job and everyone's working and kind of, like I said, he's, he's, he's he probably was using those samples as inspiration. And you, you asked me like earlier about, you know, she didn't asked me earlier, you, you, maybe you were going to ask me about a track. I did called night swim. And that was the only, that's the track I've done, where I was doing it for a job. I was asked to write it for a game trailer and I had like four days to write it, which now makes me feel, feel really embarrassed. Cause like Graham Revell got a fucking films score done in 10 and I'm like, oh shit. Cause I've like a song in five days or something. But when you are under that pressure and you've got a really specific brief, there's a moment where you have to go into just some zone, the like the complete full intuition zone. You do not have time to go like back. And second, guess it, and try out loads of idea. You kind of almost just gotta go first idea that vaguely starts to work intuitively fucking hit, go with it and run with it. That's

Marc Matthews: 45:59

um, that, that brings us onto a nice segue, uh, actually to it, which was gonna be my next question, which is about the creative process. Um, and I like the idea that you mentioned, cuz it's something that comes up a lot in these, in these interviews with regards to deadlines and goals and you give yourself four days and it's almost like you have. Um, you have those time pressures and those constraints that forces you to use what you have rather than spend that time. Ex experimenting would be nice, but sometimes I dunno about you, but some of the best stuff I've, I've probably come up with has been when I've been given a brief or I've been given a, a set time and I've just gotta get, I've just gotta, my, my door is a sketch pad and I'm gonna get something down using what I have. Um, so it kind of moves on nicely to the next question, which is when it does come to songwriting and your composition process. How does that generally start? Um, do you, uh, have an idea before you sit down or do you just sit down and think, write, I'm gonna come up with something today?

Sunglasses Kid: 46:55

I think I generally start with a. With a sort of a, at least vague kind of sense of the, the, the, the vibe, the genre, the, the kind of, what am I, what kind of track am I do? I feel like making or wanna make, or what have you. And, and sometimes I might, if it's a hyper specific thing, I might have listened to some other piece of music and gone, oh man, that's fucking brilliant. I wanna write something a bit like that. So sometimes, sometimes I'm kind of not, not in, not copying, but I am in I'm, I'm, I'm going in with a very, with a very kind of clear agenda for like, I wanna make something that sounds like that. Um, and sometimes it could be I'm I'm in a firm believer of improvisation as well. Sometimes you could just be noodling on, you know, the piano and improvising and something comes out of it where you are like, oh shit, that's good. I better record that. And then you might build something around it. So. um, but I think having that mentally, having that roadmap in your head before you set out going, at least if it's at least kind of, okay, I wanna make a mid, upbeat kind of call, um, sultry, eighties, inspired, synth pop track that might have a female vocal or something cool on it. And I want it to sound a little bit like that track I just heard or this, or have that atmosphere and, and that sort of thing. I think that that already gives you a lot of inf like a lot of, kind of next steps in what you're gonna do. Um, and largely I would, I, I generally start with a core sequence. I feel like there's kind of, I sometimes if I, if I have some very specific, like rhythmic idea in my head, I might start with drums, but I, I gen generally will. Put down like a very basic drum kit, just so I'm not working to a click track. And then the next, the thing that I will spend the most time on before I move on will be core sequences. Because for me, they're like the foundations and it's, it's too tempting to, to move away from core S that you haven't got nailed and start fucking around with drums or ear candy and things like that. Hoping you're gonna get, that's gonna save you from having not really come up with a song, but it depends on what depends on what you are making. Cuz most of what I do is is are like songs, songs, or I make instrumental stuff as well, but they're they're songs with verses and pre-chorus and choruses and middle eights and things like that. Um, and you, and like, so you, it's not it's, it's very much about the core sequences and. So, you know, you could, there's an amount of times I've got a great, like three chord idea and I go, and this is really, ah, this is great. I cannot work out where the fuck this goes after that. And that's kind of everything, all you, and it comes back to what I said before. All you've got is a great movie premise. You've got a great opening scene, but what do, what is happening? What is the actual plot? Where is this thing going? You need at least like for a great pop song. I mean, well, let's say now nowadays for great pop song, you need three chords, but if you are gonna go beyond that, really, if you can have a song that comprises of at least three different cord sequences that have all equally as catchy, that's when you that's, when you can, you know, that's when you've got something, although. Some songs I've written have been popular, have been literally three chords. Having just said that no, I think that's really

Marc Matthews: 50:44

good advice. I think starting with the chords because, um, I follow a similar process myself. Um, and I've, I've fallen into the trap previously where I've got, uh, two or three chords or not even a chord. Sometimes this's a baseline. And then I think, right, I'll get some drums on this and I spend hours just come up with these elaborate drum patterns. Um, and admittedly, I, I'm not a drummer. Not that that's an excuse, but drum programming is not, um, a friend of mine a lot of the time. Um, so I try not to spend too much time on it, but yeah, I I've done that. And I think you're right in, in core progressions and that, so when you do have a core progression and you mentioned there about the fact that you're stuck for an idea, how do you overcome that? Or do you just sort of pull it to the side, move on to something else

Sunglasses Kid: 51:27

and come back to it? I mean, just, just to say pause, say starting with the baselines, not, I mean, I've actually, I mean, I have it on, off. I I've had conversations with my mom, going back to being classically trained musician, where she's often actually emphasized that she's starting with a baseline. Isn't a bad way to go because, and even starting and starting with a melody is also a great way to go, because if you've got a great baseline, it kind of dictates what the chord sequence will be. So the chord sequence will emerge from the baseline. Uh, then you are still into the next, if you are planning to do anything more than three or two chord wonder, then you are like, okay, do I have to come up with now another really fucking good baseline to progress it to the next, but now I've gotta come up with the next, but I, I guess, um, that's again where some of the, the kind of rules and things can come into play where, um, I suppose it would depend. It depends on what that starting core progression is. And I think sometimes like a, what feels like a really instinctively like hooky core progression, you can mentally think this is diverse. Then you suddenly realize actually this would be better as the chorus and I need to come up with something less exciting almost to be my verse, to build up to this chorus and kind of go, okay, so this is the main, this is the main bit. So now I need to think of what would precede this, what would be coming before it, that would build up to it. And I guess there are like some rules around. If you've got a chord sequence, that's going no name chords. Let's just call them numbers. One, two, three, you know that an chord sequence following it 3, 2, 1 wouldn't work, cuz you've have cords three and three next to each other. So there wouldn't be the satisfying moving from one chord to another, which are things that I can hear when people are over saying to you before we started this chat about. When people share their music online and ask for feedback in like forums with producers and things, people will often ask that question of like, why aren't my transitions hitting or, and then everyone feels in like, there's a, there's the answer must lie somewhere in the magical mystery of the mix and not in like, yes, there's song there's sound choices. Yes. You could jazz it up with white noise and effects and maybe you could make a better drum feel. And there's lots of things to do with the mix that could be improved, but strip all that back. Fundamentally, the reason that this isn't landing is because you've got two core progressions going next to each other, I'm working or, or basically you've never got out of that one core progression. So you want it to kind of go somewhere and it's not going anywhere because harmonically is not going anywhere. Not because there's some failure in your mix or everything. And. I think because there's so many self-taught musicians. Now, these days, the advice everyone gives falls back to mixed advice because no one knows how to articulate, including myself, especially in writing on like Facebook comments or Instagram comments. No one really knows how to articulate it. And also you're talking to someone who might not understand what you're saying, even if you could articulate it. So the conversations become around, man. Yeah. Try making like the base hit a bit more. Maybe give it a notch in the so and so, or try and do this with the snare and do that. And I'm like all good advice, but the thing they really need to do is go back to the basics of composition and go get your core sequence sorted, and then worry about all the other surrounding confetti and stuff, because you are just trying to kind of jazz up something that's. There it's just not there as an idea.

Marc Matthews: 55:17

Yeah. It's kind of like a, I know there is an international audience for this, but it's kind of like a purse out for SALs ear, I think is the phrase that we're using the Southwest a lot. Um, , I mean, you

Sunglasses Kid: 55:28

can, like, you can make amazing tracks out of three chords and, and especially if, especially if like, and again, that goes back to the knowing the rules to break the rules thing. If you are like, I am knowingly making a three chord loop where I'm really gonna find this really brilliant three chord hook that I'm just gonna really, like, I really know how to build on this. And I mean, you know, dance music does that so well. Um, but yeah, to answer your question about, sometimes it is just knowing when to just leave it and. Just leave that I'm gonna go mad trying to fix that in this one session, trying to figure out what's next. Sometimes it's going, having the discipline as Robert DERO was saying heat to walk away from the idea, have discipline to walk away. Um, and sometimes it's about actually just going, do you know what? Just keep fucking powering through and break the back of this and do not resist the temptation. Start noodling around with drums and fucking other sounds hoping that's gonna save you. Just do the fucking hard work, cuz then the fun can begin. Once you've got that structure down, there's nothing more satisfying for me as going. There's my verse. There's my pre chorus. There's the chorus. There's verse two, pre two chorus, middle eight final chorus. And I've got all the core sequences down and the base is down. And now I can start looking at how I can, what other things I can add into that to make that interesting, but no, sit back going the heart. The horrible part is over with the hard part is the, is the core secrecy and the baseline. That's how I always think I was like, until I got that core secrets nailed. I can't, I can't like, I dunno, I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be easier on myself lately. I'm trying to go easier and just, just, just live with doing three chord wonders. And I think that's great advice

Marc Matthews: 57:20

though. I love the idea of just getting the chords empowering through cuz it's something I'm guilty of and I'm sure the audience listening is as well. We get to a point where I'm like, it's not, it's probably not cause the song's not working. It's just because I'm just not, I, I give up too easy maybe, but I think you're right. I think you just got power through sometimes and get those chords in those based out and, and,

Sunglasses Kid: 57:39

and, and also. Singing along is underrated as a, is a means to help you coming up with those core frequencies. So even if you don't, you're not a singer. Uh, or you're not planning to be the voice on the record, or you know that if you get somebody else to sing on it, you know, their, their top, line's not gonna sound like yours, or you are not planning to tell them what to sing, but the amount of times I'm singing a piano going, because that can sort of help you go well, if the melody were doing that, where would that now go as a that even if that's not what ends up being. I like that it's having a sort of some sort of melodic roadmap in your head. Otherwise you're just flying completely blind with no sense of what this could sound like. So it's always worth just kind of making up your own top line, even if it's just gonna help you stay in the moment and go, okay, well, where would this go? This like that. And I'm scattering a load of shit, you know? And sometimes I will, if I work with a singer, I might go, this is sort of what I had in mind. And I might send them a guide track. And it's me like going they're like, yeah, no

Marc Matthews: 58:51

bet. You can a whole album off of that. There's probably like all these artists somewhere they can pull, pull it all together and have this sunglasses kids, scattering album. Exactly., I'd love to hear that this, this kind moves I'm well aware of time here. We're almost at the hour, but I, I kind of wanna get this question in there. Um, so you mentioned there about working with artists and sending, um, Tracks across, um, and, and top lining. So one of your, um, one of my favorite tracks of yours is your collaboration with Olli ride, which is stranger love, which is, um, I think it's got what 2 million plus views on YouTube now on new retro E um, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And big on Spotify as well. So, um, just a bit of a, a story behind that collaboration and how that started.

Sunglasses Kid: 59:29

Yeah. So I, I, I heard OIE singing on F M 84 S running in the night. I actually heard it in weird context, was on a boat in Amsterdam and heard his voice was like bloody oh, is good song. And And, um, and I reached out to OIE over the course of the next year via DMS and bugging him in all kinds of ways and saying, we, you know, I'd love to do something with you we've and sending him kind of different ideas and things mainly kind of upbeat, funky stuff. And then, um, we actually met and I, I met him backstage at a show he was doing in London and, um, In the end. I kind of, we, we kind of, for various reasons, we didn't progress the conversation around collaborating together. But what I had been doing a lot of was just posting little ideas that I was having musical ideas on social media, particularly like Instagram and I had just come up with, and it's such an about face way of doing it, but it's an interesting inspiration story. I suppose, in that I was literally getting really into posting visuals from random like eighties movies. And I almost had found like this really random, like Jennifer Connolly movie from like 1985 that I just love the visuals. So I like cut together this little minute video and almost went, I kind of, this needs some sort of, I quickly write a piece of music just to. Have an excuse to share this Jennifer Conley. And so I just came up with this three and it was almost like an experiment in how quickly can I wrote a synth wave esque piece of music. So I quickly wrote these, these three chords and put like a, a page and cog politics based under it, bit of side chain compression and a few bells. And I had a tape, um, saturation emulate called satin that could do some pitch, whopping stuff and walked a few of the bells to make it sound a little bit retro posted it. And all he commented on it going, oh, I like this. We should do something with this. And I was like, messaging going, do you, you serious, cuz right now it is literally, that is, it is that three cord loop. And he was still, he was all about like less is more. And he, we, we then kind of worked on it together. And the, the, the, the one section we couldn't quite. It was a one moment where we had a not disagreement, but a little bit of a discussion about how it should sound was we'd come up with a middle eight section and I'd come up with this chords variation that Olie sang over and he was doing something completely different to what's in the final track, he was doing this very like chilled out, kind of, he was always doing these little Lalas. He was like, ha ha stranger love. And I was like, no, I was like, no you're Oll ride. Do we need the fucking big, whoa, like we need a massive thing. And, um, He was like, okay, well, I'm not sure the core sequence is working. Do you mind if I kind of have a muck about with it and he slightly rearranged the core sequence? So actually the middle eight section is, is kind of truly co-written by me. And cause he actually input on the core sequence and I was like, fine. Cuz then he did a top line. That is the top line that you hear on the track. And I was like, well, if it gets us there, that's what I wanted the result to be. Was this massive epic crescendo leading us into the final chorus, not some timid kind of lull in an, in an energy, which it was at the time. And so he, then I then brought that core sequence back into Cubase on my end and we worked on it and it was probably the most collaborative I've ever been with someone in terms of us backing and forthing and sharing ideas. Cause usually I give the track away to a singer, sit back, cross my fingers and they, they come back with something good. And don't, I'm very, nonprescriptive, I'm not a fan of telling people what to do. I think it, it, it. It's telling them how to write and what to do, and it's very limiting for them and annoying. And unless you're gonna kind of prescribe it exactly and hire them out like a session singer and pay them a flat rate fee. Um, so yeah, that's, that's how it came about. And I think, I think at the time it was the one time where I thought, I'm not saying that it's a hit, but it was the one time where I had the sense of this is, this is good. Right. We were like, this is quite good. Isn't it? We're like, I dunno if anyone's gonna like this like that much, but we were like, it's quite catchy. Isn't it. And I remember playing it to my mom and saying, this is, this is the one isn't it I'm like, if I've got a, if I've made a track, that's like any good, this one's pretty cool. My mom is, you know, incredibly high, like, uh, standard. She was like, I, yes, I really like this one, this one, this one's the one. Um, and so like, yeah, it was. But what's interesting about that is that that was, that is largely a three cord wonder with some slight variations in it. But it was, I think that was my lesson in kind of going, you know, sometimes simpler is better and I think I often make things too busy and don't leave enough room for vocalists and that's something I'm always trying to kind of get better at doing, but

Marc Matthews: 1:04:28

that sort of echoes is there's an episode I did a few, few weeks ago, which was pretty much exactly that, which was, it was a reflection on a song that I released. And my reflection was that sometimes less is more, um, and that I, it was the composition was just too, there was too much going on and it was a, it was a pig to mix purely because I just tried to CRA so much stuff in there. Sometimes it is a case of specifically with the vocals as well, like just, just stripping it back and it's an approach that I'm gonna take going forward. So I think that's really good for the audience to hear, um, is, is, is that, and I. From that episode, that previous one I've had, uh, a few people mention that, exactly. That to me. And they they've been sort of like I released this track. I took the approach of lessers more and I'm like, it sounds great. Um, so it's, it's really cool to hear, and it is a banging track as well, man, the hat's off to you is so good. So, so good on, well,

Sunglasses Kid: 1:05:16

thank you. I mean, on the other hand, I'm also throw everything at a fucking track of put in as many cow bells in orchestra hits and slap bass and as stupid shit as I can and funky plugs and things like that. And that has its place as well. But I, I think definitely if you are com, if you are very confident, you want vocal on something. I think there is a lot to be said for being sure you carve out the space for that vocal. And, and I think, I think it's more appealing to, to vocalists in the amount of times, if I've sent an instrumental over that has an in, has a melody on it, even if in your head. It's a counter melody. So in your head, you've got, you are envisaging a top line running over this thing. And the melody you've got going on is like, would be a counter melody or something. The amount of times of vocalists will latch onto that melody and, and start kind of using that as a guide and coming back with the top line, that's like just copying that melody. So actually sometimes not having too many melodic things happening in a track can kind of give people space, but it's, it's a, it is a, it's a kind of balancing app between presenting someone. Some I I'm often presenting someone saying right now, it's kind of, this is half the track that there'll be more stuff we'll add on, but I feel now we need to get your vocal in, work out what that's happening with the top line, and then maybe. Decoration around it, depending on what's going on with that top line afterwards. So sometimes you've gotta kind of back and forth a bit with the singer. I like

Marc Matthews: 1:06:40

that idea of carving out space for the vocal. And I think you're exactly right there. Um, and I think it's something the audience can take away in, in, in their own productions, which is amazing. Um, ed I'm I'm well aware we're well over an hour now, so, um, I've, I've got I

Sunglasses Kid: 1:06:53

talk for England. I told you to control me. No, no, it's great. I

Marc Matthews: 1:06:56

mean, well, I've got one, two questions. One of them is you mentioned there about the baseline, the funky baseline. I've seen some of your, your, your, well I've listened to your music and I've seen the, the shorts that you put on, on reels, et cetera. What are you using to create those slap bases? What VSD cause it, it sounds so good.

Sunglasses Kid: 1:07:17

Um, I mean, depends which, which sound you're referring to. I mean, a lot of the base, a lot of the base on my fir on graduation and quite a bit of. Um, can't

Marc Matthews: 1:07:28

hide

Sunglasses Kid: 1:07:29

sophomore. That's the one I'm thinking of and can't can't hide yet. Can't so can't hide is the cog poly six. Ah, so it's the same. It's the same. I I'll I'll even give everyone the exact preset because it's so it's so, so like Sy, um, synonymous with Sy wave everyone's U a lot of people were using it, but not in the way I use it. So it's the, it's literally the preset it's called fat line base. Okay. And it's this really like choy kind of base preset. And then the trick is to shorten is to make, is get the, the length just right. So it's making it very, um, fast attack and short, um, release and, um, So it's playing it quite percu. It's playing it in a very percussive way. And then you can, you can either like layer or another slap based sound, which slap bases I'm getting from, like Corgen one cog, Triton, Triton, VST, or wave station, wave stations all over my first album. Um, and you can either, you could either literally like have literally an exact layer copy of the melody, but on a slap base going over. Or you could do choice slaps, like every, like just accent slaps. But what I'm doing with the slap base is I'm carving out all the low end. So you've just got the top end slap information. So if you just solo the slap base, it's like, okay, okay. It doesn't sound like a base once it's laid over that percussive polys stabbing bass sound, especially if you're doing choice accent. So you have boom on the base. Then on the slap, you could BA BA like you could be doing these little choice notes or you could be kind of doing it all. So that's how you, so it is nothing like just a tiny little spiking on the slap. Could just create the illusion that there's a slap base going on somewhere in the yeah. Mix. And you can dial that in and out levels wise to your kind of taste or whatever, and make it either a really big feature or just knock it in every so often. Yeah. That's, howing it fantastic.

Marc Matthews: 1:09:35

All right. Right. I, I, I knew there was a call again, one in there somewhere at some point and, and the politics I'm gonna investigate. So my, my final question for you there. So we, there's a podcast community group, and I put, put it in there that I'm interviewing. Um, and, uh, and ask if anybody had any questions. So, uh, there's uh there's um, one of the listeners called Reese Hayward, he says, um, you enjoy using sounds from both eighties and nineties, but which is your favorite decade for music?

Sunglasses Kid: 1:10:01

I, I love both, I think, oh, prob God, I really like both of them prob probably the eighties, but, but I do like, there's a lot of great songs in the nineties and I think, I think what I like what I think that's. For people who are like, love both theories and are thinking about like, how can you kind of fuse the two, the answer lies in around 19 98, 19 89 to about 1993, you can hear the crossover, cuz it is like this. People think that decades one, one decade ends suddenly it exactly the end of the decade, the new decade comes in the entirely new sound and new fashion. Everything comes in doesn't work like that. So at least for the first three years of the next decade, 19, 19 90 to 1994, but virtually still the eighties in terms of the sound and the ideas and shit. So you can hear if you study, if you were really interested in studying that kind of how you fuse those two sounds that's that's the, the, the secret sauce hidden in like 19, 19, 19 90. and then it's about finding those genres that are doing what you lo you are interested in. So going like the one thing I love doing is going back and listening to what jazz musicians were doing in the eighties. Cuz some of them are just doing still what sounds like regular jazz. But then if sometimes you'll discover a gold mine being like, holy shit, miles Davis did load of freak out shit. And like 1985 with those are drum machines and Syns and stuff. And you just tap into this unknown, like goldmine of wacky things. And you can find that in the early nineties as well with different genres. So a tangented there, but yeah, no,

Marc Matthews: 1:11:39

no, I love it.

Sunglasses Kid: 1:11:39

No, that's brilliant. Eighties. Let's say eighties

Marc Matthews: 1:11:42

is best. Yeah. I like, I like, I like that idea. Um, I, I dunno why I like the idea, but where you mentioned there about like when the eighties ends and the nineties begins just this whole thought process, it's a new decade. So everything is new. Um, there's no transition.

Sunglasses Kid: 1:11:55

Yeah. It doesn't work like that. No, no, exactly what you can, what you can hear, I guess it's at the end, the end, the beginning of a new decade or the end of it, end of a decade is arguably where the most kind of. The sounds and ideas have really better in, so by like, it's, it's, it's most experimental at the start of the decade as new ideas that things have been explored, but everyone hasn't got too comfortable with it yet. So like 88, 89. The eighties is out. It's most peak. Every eighties idea is synthesized into kind of pop and it really knows what it's doing as a sound. And then early nineties, as it's trying to introduce and invent new sounds, you've got this weird hinterland of like genres where no, one's quite sure what's going on. And that could be a really interesting kind of place to dive into and explore and familiar. Right.

Marc Matthews: 1:12:39

Sales third for four. No. Brilliant. Thanks you for that. So, um, add sunglasses kid, where, where can our audience, if they haven't heard of you, um, which I'm sure they have, where can they find you online? Where's the best place to go?

Sunglasses Kid: 1:12:50

Uh, best place to go is probably Instagram at sunglasses, kid music. Um, or you can help me grow my nascent TikTok on also at sunglasses kid music, um, or, uh, at Twitter at sunglasses kids, but mainly I'm active on Instagram and TikTok. I'm at sunglasses kid music because sunglasses kid was taken on TikTok already by someone. Instagram, I think I might have managed to lock myself out of my own handle. I think I got sunglasses kid and then did some major fail and I can't claim it back. So there is actually sunglasses get out on Instagram. That is just a ghost account that I think I might even own, but will locked out of it forever. Have you got

Marc Matthews: 1:13:29

any key dates or anything coming up that you wanna share? I put you on the spot here. I didn't actually prime you for this question.

Sunglasses Kid: 1:13:34

Do you know what I do not. I don't, I I'm right now I'm focused very much on some sort of behind the scenes stuff, doing some, working with other producers, doing a bit of ghost writing. I am doing some moving and shaking with some people. Um, I will try and get an album out in 2023, cuz I seem to operate in these three year cycles. But um, there is nothing. Imminently on the horizon. I mean, I just dropped an EP and I just dropped a single, um, called Toley, which is kind of more of my kind of eighties, nineties pop funky candy fair. Or if you want that kind of slower jam sound, tracky ethereal stuff. My recent EP called, um, nightlife. Exploring some late eighties, early nineties, kind of ambient trippy sounds so you can check that out as well. Love

Marc Matthews: 1:14:21

it. Thank you. Thank you so much for spending the time with me today. It's it's great. I've been, I've been eager to, to get you on here for, for a while now, because I like, I follow your music. I follow your, your post and stuff you put online and your creative processes. So it's fantastic to, to hear your, your thoughts and takes on. I know we didn't get quote through everything we wanted to, but it's one of those ones with the podcast. No one

Sunglasses Kid: 1:14:40

can with me. no talk

Marc Matthews: 1:14:42

it, it never happens with these episodes to be fair.

Sunglasses Kid: 1:14:45

Hopefully there's some vague, vague, vague nuggets in there. Maybe you have to have me, uh, back for part two. No, I would love to. I'd

Marc Matthews: 1:14:51

love to have you back. And, uh, I know we were chatting off air about you giving demonstrations of how you, how you create a track. So I think it'd be fantastic to get you back on and have that. So we can nail

Sunglasses Kid: 1:15:00

that text to try and figure we, we got the screen. We've got the picture share bit nailed. We just need to figure out the audio share bit. I think we can.

Marc Matthews: 1:15:07

That would be fantastic to do absolutely brilliant. Well, yeah, big. Thank you again, ed, for joining me today and I will leave cheer. So I know it's late now. I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of your.

Sunglasses Kid: 1:15:15

Pleasure chair, cheer, buddy. Cheer. Bye.

Marc Matthews: 1:15:19

Thank you for listening to our show. If you like what you're hearing, make sure to rate our show on apple podcasts.