Interview: Datahowler
Radio UTD sat down with Ross Edman (aka Datahowler) about his involvement with the Dallas music scene, his opinions on electronic music and more. Datahowler was recently featured on our special with Radio K, Crossroads. You can download his track (and many others from the Dallas & Minneapolis scenes) here.
When did you get started with music?
I’ve been playing music since I can remember. I had an organ in my room probably about until I was three.  My parents gave it away because they thought I wasn’t interested in it, I guess. Which is a bummer because I’ve been trying to find one ever since. I don’t really have enough room for one. My grandpa played music for  75 years. He didn’t play music the last 7 years of his life, but he started when he was like 6 or 7. But I really got into it when I was 12, thats when I started practicing everyday. It became an obsession after that.
Where you involved in school bands or something?
Yeah I was classicaly trained, so I learned percussion and did music theory and I marched and did drumline. And while I was doing that, I was playing in bands too. I started playing in bands when i was 14 or 15.
What sort of genre were you focusing on at that time?
Oh my gosh, I don’t know are you serious? I was 15. It was like ska music and punk rock and hard rock and metal and speed metal and thrash. It was all just extreme 16 year old stuff.
Where you playing in clubs at that time?
Yeah, my first show in Deep Ellum was when I was 15. It was at the door and that was where I met Joel Fruth for the first time, which is funny cause that guy has been around for a long time too.
So I saw one of your previous projects, Objektiv One— is that one of your more substantial projects?
The thing that was weird about Objektiv One is I changed my name to Datahowler. And I had been doing hip-hop for a while and it was something I was really pursuing, and I was doing that while I was playing in bands— it was kind of like a side project. I ended up doing all these mashups and they took off and blew up really big, but I hated it, so I changed my name. Cause they were a joke, it was all a joke and it got really serious. And people started knowing me for that, so I had to quit. But after I quit and I changed my name is kind of when it really blew up. I think some of those songs have been downloaded in every continent in the world, thousands of plays or something stupid. It was all just really dumb, so I was like I don’t want to be this. Nobody knew I played instruments. Everyone thought I was a DJ, or a producer, or I was sampling records and I wanted to get away from that.
Is that like that Kesha mashup you did?
Yeah, all the mashups and stuff. It was all remixes, just for fun.
But you do samplings in your own music now, don’t you?
Most of my music isn’t sampled. A lot of people think it is, but I actually play ilk 95% of it. And from this point forward its all 100% played.
Even female vocals?
It depends on the song, because even if it has female vocals, it still might be me. Cause I’ll take stuff and pitch it up and run it through processors, so even if it sounds like a woman, it could still be me.
When did you get involved with electronic processes?
I don’t even know. A lot of people say electronic, and I’ve never been into electronic music. I don’t even know how I got grouped into that, I guess. It started with hip-hop. And it didn’t even start with electronics. It started with I guess hardware… I guess it was electronics. I started with an MPC when I started doing hip-hop, really. And when I started digging records and looking for records is when it became a full blown obsession. And then after that I couldn’t stop. For years all I did was buy records and sample and make beats. That’s kind of how I learned to use all the equipment I use now. One day I was just like “I can play all this stuff, I don’t even know why I’m using these.” but it was good to learn that way. So after that I just quit using records and just started listening to them.
What genre would you prefer to call your music?
I don’t know, I always just classify it as electronic just general but I don’t really know what to call it. People have told me lots of different things. I always get like, instrumental hip-hop, or downtempo or electronic and I kind of lean towards those genres, but I’m starting to get chill wave and independent dance music and I don’t know all that stuff. I’m really into the abstract beat scene, like Flying Lotus and stuff like that. Nosaj Thing, Blockhead, DJ Shadow, thats the stuff that I really liked. But I’ve been getting lumped in with indie bands. I didn’t really know much about so much of that music until a few years ago.
Is almost has sort of a psychedelic component because it just flows really well..
Yeah.. I collect a lot of psychedelic records. The late 60s, I collect a lot of psychedelic records. I collect a lot of african funk and ethnic records. I’m really into percussion. I get a lot of my percussive sounds and ideas from those kinds of records. I really like calipso music and soul music. I have a lot of soul.
Have you always performed as a live band?
No, the band just started performing with me recently. I hired them on. One of the dudes was in a hardcore band with me for a long time and I lived with him— the bass player, Austin. I lived with him for 3 or 4 years in college. We did some tours together too. But I started playing shows in January., I haven’t done too many.
 Why did you choose to add that component?
I was kind of like asked to do a show, and it was a really cool show and I decided to take it. Â But I don’t know I think too I really like the challenge of performing live. Its a lot more complicated than it looks. The art of programming all of it, and stuff like that. Its just a totally different monster. It takes your skills somewhere else. Thats why I got into that I guess, it was all about the challenge.
I noticed there seems to be a trend towards the importance on visuals, particularly among electronic artists. Do you agree with that, because it seems like you put a lot of importance in your visuals?
Yeah, I mean. I think its a holistic thing. Some of the guys I know that are doing some of the stuff right now, they are designers too. I met Com Truise like a year ago when I was touring and we started talking. He is a designer too. I’ve seen that in a lot of electronic artists. I know a lot of people in Portland that are designers and electronic artists, I think it’s about the holistic branding of it. I started with the name and I had this brand and this idea in my head, and even what the music would sound like, what the art would look like. A lot of the times, the art is done before the music. I’ll do the art and think, “aw thats a cool idea” and start doing music around that. It kind of becomes this story. I want there to be concepts, underlying concepts— maybe not a full concept album, but the point where people can infer their own stories in the music even.
Have you thought about adding a video component?
Yeah, thats being worked on right now. I’m currently programming a lot of MIDI and stuff like that so I can do it live. But there is going to be lights and video soon hopefully. I think that will make my music make more sense live.
How do you like the Dallas scene? You’ve grown up in it, how do you feel about it?
I grew up in Dallas, I grew up playing here. I’ve played everywhere in Dallas and Fort Worth and I’ve toured everywhere. I did 8 months last year, and the years before that I did 3 or 4 months each year. So for 3 or 4 years I did like 5 or 6 nationwide tours. I got to see a lot of music scenes. There are a lot of good music scenes out there, but I still really like Dallas. I don’t really care what anyone says, I still love it. A lot of the people here, they don’t like it, they are always trying to go to another scene. and I don’t know, those scenes are cool but I’ve had fun here.
Do you ever have trouble making a bill with local bands, because it doesn’t seem like there are a lot of people doing the same thing you are?
Yeah, I’ve had a lot of trouble even seeing eye to eye with people musically, because its just a different philosophy behind whatever Im doing. Not that its better or elevated in any way, its just so different that I am just like an outside wonder to some musicians. I’ve had a lot of fun with Botany, he’s from outside Fort Worth, and me and him have played a show together and we’ve talked since then. Me and him see eye to eye really well. He’s been a person I’ve seen and thought “aw man, he knows whats going on.”
Is it difficult to manage touring with your day job?
I haven’t toured since I’ve had this job. The music that I do, I don’t know how much of a tour you can do. The demands are getting better, Ive started seeing more of them happen at least.
What sort of things are you thinking about when you are making music?
When I make music I don’t know what I’m thinking. Sometimes it’s just really caught up in the moment, I just do stuff and keep playing and playing and playing until it sounds good and then I’m satisfied with it.
You come out with a lot of music. How much time do you spend on it usually?
All my free time. I probably work 40 hours a week, but I probably do this 30 hours a week. When I wasn’t touring and working, I was doing this 90 hours a week. It was all i was doing. I wrote Slow Drifter like a year and a half ago, and it didn’t come out until like 8 months after I wrote it. The last thing I really released was Passengers as Eggs, and I wrote that 13 months ago. So there are hundreds of songs that aren’t even out yet. Half the stuff that ended up on  Slow Drifter, I wrote when I was Objektiv One and then I changed my name. Some of the stuff that has come out has been really old, so thats how I’ve been able to come out with so much.
Do you choose everything that comes out?
Everything up until this point I produced and did everything. Now that I’m on Spune, we are talking different ideas. They have a good vision of what I’m doing. So it’s nice not to have to make all of the decisions.
Have you worked with a lot of labels in the past?
Not really, just like in my old punk rock days, DIY labels. It wasn’t much. Spune is really the first people I’ve worked with that are a label.
 You can really sense that DIY ethic in your music, especially because you control the whole marketing aspect, and your name is really well thought outâ¦
I think that comes from doing punk rock. I mean, we did everything ourselves. We printed all our shirts and everything in those days. So I just see a lot of artists just not doing anything themselves, and to me it kind of kills it. To me its like.. ‘aww, you’re not really guiding your artwork, you’re not really producing your songs’. Some of those people aren’t recording all the parts, or even writing the parts. It takes the magic out of it I think.
Full videos from his performance at Club Dada on Nov. 7, 2011:
