Interview: ROMderful talked about a debut album with his roots of music🍍

Interview-en | 2019.07.11 2019.07.11

文： Asahi　

Roots of music
Debut album "Press L to Continue"
The goal from now on

The producer, Multi-Instrumentalist, Singer and Live Performer, ROMderful based in the UK, who has made better known on Soundcloud and signed a contract with . In this time, we interviewed him about his debut album "Press L to Continue", roots of music, how to make music, and so on...

ROMderful Profile

Roots of music

ーPlease tell me something about yourself.

I’m a SUPER curious person! I love the mysteries of life and tech and love and everything, I’m always asking questions and trying to find the answers haha

ーI think you professed you have been producing and playing guitar since you were 9. What made you start?

I’ve been playing guitar since I was 6 and producing since I was 9 or 10! My overwhelming curiosity of how sounds can make you feel so good or so sad, angry. I just loved the fact that a feeling or a sound inside my head could become real. I’ve always loved The Neptunes, Timbaland, Just Blaze so growing up hearing these guys on TV, Radio, Video Games literally for my whole childhood just made me want to be like them, later down the line, it also made me want to become an Artist. Just like Pharrell makes beats and sings, raps or the same with Tyler the Creator when he came on the scene, he became my instant favorite artist and I’d literally listen to him every day and just want to learn his kind of creativity and mindset.

ーYou also said you inspired by late 90s and early 2000s RnB and jazz, what musician made you inspired?

Yes! So Easily: The Neptunes, Amerie, SWV, Blaque, Lalah Hathaway, Musiq Soulchild, Darkchild, Letoya, Till Bronner, Robert Glasper, Roy Ayers, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, Fourplay, Joe Sample. The list can go on forever but there was always a range of Rnb, Jazz and Hip Hop being played around the house.

ーWhat are you addicted to these inspired musicians?

The feeling, the chords, the overall musicality, the structure, the unique nature of the sounds and harmonies and layers, the cute songwriting. I just wanted to learn and make it my own. Still haven’t fully let out the musicality I’m capable of but that was just old fears holding me back and I’m slowly letting out more haha

ーI saw some pineapple on your social media, music video, song arts. What does it mean to you?

The Pineapple is just such a unique looking fruit! It’s like the fruit of happiness to me and it’s like my little mascot or my little inanimate Pokemon haha. Ever since I was around 14, Pineapples just kinda became my thing and I’ll always love them. Little cute pineapples.

ーYou’ve released EP on Soulection. How did you get a connection with them?

I did! Back in 2016! Time flies so fast huh? I actually met Joe Kay, Andre Power, Sasha Marie & DA-P in Paris in 2015 when I played my first show out of the UK and they came to surprise me, Mikkoh and Deffie at Social Club in Paris and we all connected, they invited us to their show the day after at this venue called La Machine du Moulin Rouge and it was just really inspiring to think I can be on a stage that big one day with people that love my music this much. Sure enough, Joe Kay hits me up on Twitter shortly after I release my track “I just want you to know” at the end of 2015 going into 2016 and he tells me how much he loved the music he was hearing and offered me an EP with Soulection and that’s how it came to be!

Debut album “Press L to Continue”

ーYou released debut album “Press L to Continue” on April. What is a theme for this album?

This album is like all of my feelings between 2016 – 2019. I had gone through my first relationship ever which turned out to be one of the worst things I ever experienced, my parents split up, I was super broke and dropped out of University and couldn’t get a job, I was just always stressed and kinda upset and I feel like I started to lose a lot of the color and happiness I had previously had and I just honestly felt like giving up with music a lot of the time. I was drinking pretty excessively with my friends, I was kinda lost on the direction of music I wanted to do because I was scared if I tried something new, my followers would stop following me and stop interacting with me so I was having these ongoing battles in my head. After I went to therapy for a while and just let out all my feelings and confusions and started to try treating myself better and trying to regain my positive outlook on life, Mid 2017, things started to go better.

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I had just done my first China Tour which was an amazing experience and I made so many beats on that trip, I did my first Boiler Room at Appelsap festival in Amsterdam which was such a cool memory and gave me a lot of confidence as I previewed loads of new music in that set. By this point, I already had around 4 tracks I really wanted to use for my album. I then went to Tokyo for almost all of November 2017 and I made a bunch of music, I partied, I drank, I had so much fun, I de-stressed.

I met a girl when I came back to London then the same week, I accidentally put my passport in the washing machine and it was damaged and I couldn’t travel and I had no money to get a new one but she just made me feel good about everything and I generally started to feel better about everything in my life. I then got new management, signed an amazing deal with Same Plate/Sony Music, started making more tracks for my album in Spring 2018 whilst I was going between America, Asia, and Europe and it all just came to me. “Press L to Continue” you have to get over all your losses and accept them for what they are to continue in life. If you don’t choose to let go, accept and improve on certain things, you’ll never move forward. Obviously, I’m also a huge tech nerd so that’s why I managed to mix in a deep theme with such an interesting name. The album consists of meeting a girl, thinking it’s love, then getting confused on whether its really love, being alone and being full of regret, being confused with life and my decisions and feelings and then coming to a resolve that things will get better. They always get better if you let them.

ーOn this album, you featured with Jay Prince, KayFaraway, DEAN, etc.. What made you decide to choose them?

These are people who I’m friends with and I love their sounds, their energy, their lyrics and people I just felt comfortable and happy making music with and some who I had never worked with before but I’ve been cool with for years. Like KayFaraway for example. He’s been one of my closest friends for over 8 years now and didn’t even record a track till I asked him to do a verse on my track “SummerTimeTing” but he’s also one of the best rappers and singers I know. DEAN was one of my first friends ever from Asia when I visited Korea for the first time in 2016 and we had just spoken a few times over the years and hung out a few times and went to each other shows and then we just did a track together and I was like woooo yeeeessss haha!

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ーAfter release album, did your environment that surrounds and relationship with music change?

The album release gained me so much more support and I really had to see how much people loved it and also this is the first project where I decided to sing to so happy to see people being so supportive of that. After the album drop, I just had this super strong feeling to make something much better, much better feeling, much better energy. I have a huge urge to make my next album 100 times better than this one and I got very inspired by Tyler The Creator’s – IGOR dropping 3 weeks after mine.

I now have a much stronger connection with music and putting together more original music and challenging my creativity and musicality especially as I came from a scene where it’s more popular to do remixes and edits for clubs. I wanted to make something more timeless, something more me.

The goal from now on

ーIs there a musician that you want to collaborate for the future?

Anderson Paak, Tyler The Creator, The Internet, Pharrell, Snoop Dogg, Tobi Lou, Kali Uchis, Rex Orange County, Kanye West, Kaytranada, ASAP Rocky, Frank Ocean Any of these people would be a dreeaaaamm.

ーI saw some posts that you talked about Japan on social media.

I do! I love Japan. It’s literally one of my favorite places on this earth. I have so many good memories there and my creativity always reaches new heights and I get super inspired to make new, cool things! The food, my friends, the colorfulness. I LOVE JAPAN. Every time that I go there, I always just feel so happy.

ーIs there a Japanese musician that you pay attention?

SIRUP are so dope, My homies who are a trio and release music as CIRRRCLE in Tokyo are really really cool, and also the tokyovitamin crew are also amazing! SushiBoys! Always down to keep exploring and learning more

ーPlease tell me the good music you listened to recently. (Whether new or old)

Ahhh! Matt Martians – The Last Party (i love this project so much), Tyler The Creator – IGOR (LEGENDARY), KayFaraway – Hours After Midnight (it’s KayFaraways first EP and he killed it soooo much). These are all 2019 releases!

Save Album

Open Spotify

Save Album

Open Spotify

Save Album

Open Spotify

ーWhat music scene will you focus on?

WORLDWIDE! I want to be as inclusive as ever! I want to work with Japanese artists, Korean artists, Indonesian, French, British, American, Australian! EVERYWHEREEEE <3

ーWhat is your goal from now on?

To expand my creativity in as many ways as possible and not limiting myself to just doing music and to keep learning, to always be a student to create and keep growing with it.

ROMderful

ROMderful. is a producer, Multi-Instrumentalist, Singer and Live Performer based in Birmingham (UK). Immersed in music since his childhood, he learned to play guitar from the age of 6, Bass guitar and Drums at 10 then, it was in 2006, at the age of 11 that he touched on the production for the first time. He has a very unique style which is known as ROMderful. Fusing genres, layering guitar and always maintaining good feelings and interesting musicality.

Recently released his debut album “Press L to Continue?” on Same Plate/Sony Music and gaining over 1.3 Million streams in less than a month and featuring Jay Prince, Dean, Shakka, KayFaraway and more, he is set to have a great and promising career ahead. He also has recently landed production on Duckwrth’s EP “The Falling Man” and produced “Anytime” for Kehlani and Jean Deaux, he shows no signs of slowing down.
ROMderful has played shows in all over the world including Europe, Asia and the USA and is very known for his Boiler Room set at the prestigious Appelsap Festival in Amsterdam as a DJ.
He is currently working on a live set which will include Guitar, Bass and his singing.

He has also gained much support from Billboard, Complex, MTV, 2Dopeboyz, Celeb Mix, Dummy Mag and more.

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