Justin: Absolutely. Everybody’s got their own influences and they’re all from different areas from the world. The U.K. grime scene is completely different than the U.S. dubstep scene right now.
Michetti: Yeah, yeah, it’s all different. The coolest thing for me about making electronic music is coming from playing in bands since I was in middle school, I remember doing our first demo when I was in like 9th grade or something like that. It was like, you’re in a band, you write these songs. Basically you’re writing a song but you’ve got to write it for a band. You’ve got to write it like, “Here’s the bassline, I want you to play it like this,” and then he changes it a little bit or this guy changes it a little bit and then you go into the studio ‘cause you don’t know how to work any of this equipment and this guy makes it sound like he thinks it should sound. Now that’s been going on forever, all the way through my whole RAQ career, you know? And with Michetti I started learning how to do it all and now I just think it’s the coolest thing in the world that with a laptop and a shitty pair of headphones, it doesn’t even fucking matter, you can use your laptop speakers, you can make a product that’s viable in this world. It’s a fucking song! It’s not just like “Oh that’s a great demo” but “Dude, that is a fucking banger! Holy shit man, I want to spin that, I want to put that up, I want to put that on beat board, I want to make that shit work.”
It’s liberating. It doesn’t take much, it takes a little computer. I use a 13 inch Macbook Pro. [laughter] You know what I mean? And I started on these little crappy speakers and I still use those little crappy speakers. I just think it’s cool to play it for 12th planet, to play a remix of his song and have him be like “Oh that’s awesome, man that’s fucking killer. What did you use for the basses, how did you do that?” It was awesome, I did it on my laptop, you know? I didn’t have to go into a big studio, I didn’t have to like go through the rigmarole of talking to four other individuals about this song or practicing the parts or teaching the parts. I finished it in three days. It’s so cool. And then obviously with the internet, you can put it right up.
Justin: Yeah it’s all that do it yourself punk ethic that’s going around right now.
Michetti: Yeah! And with technology and everything it becomes less punk and just amazing. From the technology of the equipment that people are using at the shows and the actual plugins and capabilities of a little laptop. The fact that there are eighteen year old kids who are just incredible producers, it’s awesome. The bar just keeps getting raised, it’s unbelievable. These people who are making this music these days are young, young people and making shit where it’s like “How the fuck did they do that?”
Justin: Yeah like Skream, Skream started when he was 17, so he’s got a couple years on you.
Michetti: Yeah I mean, most people have a couple years on me but you know, I still look pretty young. [laughter]
Justin: So with Conspirator I know you guys are trying to release a new album, you’ve got a big extensive fall tour behind it. What’s in line for Michetti? Are you going to do a tour? I know there was an EP that you were working on.
Michetti: I think I’m going to start playing more shows after Conspirator, probably in November-December. I’m going to start DJing shows, I’ve been practicing a lot, spinning my tracks and getting them going and yeah, pretty much just touring. It’s a lot of fun. I mean, DJing is a whole other world. Even producing is a whole other world. But I’m hooked on it. It’s so much fun to spin your tracks and my guitar friends are like “Dude, you’re not doing anything up there!” But you are, you’re doing a lot up there, you know? You make a wrong move and it’s like ugh. You got a whole crowd of people raging and if you stop that dance party, you suck. [laughter] It’s more like energy transfer. So yeah, I think I’ll be touring a lot more and just trying to keep it Conspirator and Michetti, those two projects are my focus right now.
Justin: So you were saying it’s all about energy transfer and getting the crowd into it. What do you feel makes a good live show? How do you feel your debut performance at the silent disco at Camp Bisco went?
Michetti: It was tough at 5:00 in the morning at a silent disco to debut songs. But it was fun for me because in Vermont one of the guys who really got me inspired to go for it is my friend Adrian Sakgrime, AKA DJ Haitian. He’s incredible. He’s an amazing DJ and he’s a great producer. This guy has been DJing forever and just knows how to do it. He knows all different styles of electronic music, and I played him a couple of tracks months ago and he was like, “this is awesome, I’d love to work with you.” And then it turns out he lives in Burlington and then it turns out he moved like right next to me.
So we started making some stuff and doing some stuff and he was like “I’ll show you how to do this.” He’s almost like my DJ mentor. So it was cool to have him show me the ropes and honestly practice and work on my set. And that aspect is awesome. I feel like I have my set of music and it keeps growing and I feel real confident in playing a show, you know? I think that was the best part of the silent disco, it was probably the perfect place to debut anything because at that point, who really cares?
They’re designed to be fucking bangers, you know, loud and proud. So, I can’t wait to play them loud and have fun. It’s all about having fun with that stuff. So, yeah I thought it went ok. I think the real debut is when I put them up on the internet and see what people say. But I feel that I debut songs for people all the time and everytime I play one of my songs for someone it’s like a debut. I listen and I say, “What do you think? Should I change this, should I change that?” It’s cool to get feedback.
*Justin: So do you have any plans to turn back to the Heady Metal project or are you going straight Michetti from now on?
Michetti: I get asked to do that a lot in Burlington because for some reason it was cool in Burlington, people love it. And it’s just, I don’t know if I have time right now. The Heady Metal thing was a lot. It made me realize how with RAQ it was much more of a democracy in that, we’re going to learn a song and you’re expected to know a certain part. With Heady Metal, I’ll never forget the first practice—we totally got baked, puffed a couple bowls, drank a couple beers and then I was like, “Okay…” and they were like “Okay…what do you want to do?” And I was like, “Uhhh…” [laughter]
And every practice from then on out I literally would show up with a game plan. I would practice to practice before I even went to the practice. And show up and go “This is what we’re going to work on.” I would try to be as quick as I can and efficient as I can and learn the songs. We haven’t played them in a while where I’d have to relearn all the songs again and it was a lot of work. I don’t have any immediate plans to do that again. I consider the electronic music very similar. And my wife, she heard the Heady Metal throughout the whole process and she’ll say “It kind of sounds like that song!” And I’ll be like, “Oh my god, it is. It is that song but it’s not done on the guitar. It’s got a different tempo and it’s got a lot more bass.” But yeah, I don’t really have any more plans to do that. I’ll probably just focus on making more bangers. It’s so nice and comfortable here in my apartment studio.
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