Over Half a Million ear drums served.
Over Half a Million ear drums served.
Secret Recipe's Secret Ingredients:
[PREMIERE] FunkFiles.023 ::
Secret Recipe - "Fight Evil Today" | Plus Artist Interview
March 10th, 2017
by Kyle Taylor
The solo music endeavor is, without doubt, an increasingly familiar phenomenon in this modern age. Still, it is no strenuous hurdle of thought to suggest that perhaps the most spectacular moments in music originate from collaboration. Such collaboration can, and does, occur in many forms; it is not always the immediate and most commonly thought of instance of two or more musicians entering a studio with premeditated intention to come together on a single piece of material. Instead, a collaboration of ideas can occur in less apparent ways, simply from hearing another’s style or approach, and then later applying those ideas, sometimes even subconsciously. The overall progression of music as we know it can be attributed to a ceaseless stream of artistic collaboration via artists relentlessly chasing the application of new ideas and expanding upon those of their peers.
West coast producer Benji Hannus- known to most as Secret Recipe (previously adorning the alias of Intellitard)- is a hero in the sense of this perpetuating, artistic ideology. Not only does Hannus strive to expand his own personal audial horizons, but arguably of even greater importance, he has developed (and continues to develop) an interconnected system of like-minded artists pushing one another to their most absolute limits & perspectives.
Nearly half a decade ago now, Hannus was one of three individuals responsible for the birth and curation of the now renowned ‘Wormhole Wednesdays‘ event series. At that time, the triad of founders surely saw the potential in their creation, but the sheer magnitude of impact that has since resulted could not have been predicted by even the wisest of individuals.
“…from ten of us on a balcony playing to a semi-swanky dinner crowd that hated the music to what we’re doing now, it’s come along way. Even when we first started throwing Wormhole with proper late night hours, we never thought we would get more than 100 or so people there on a regular basis..."
Not only have the Wormhole events outgrown their original home, but even more commendably, the brand has mutated multifariously, giving forth to a variety of new tendrils, and thus a full-blown, independent, artist-run music network. Today, the Wormhole Music Group serves as a platform for artists all across the globe to showcase their music and expand audiences. Such is a model ever becoming more relevant in our rapidly developing entertainment world. To say Secret Recipe’s contributions to music- and art as a whole- extend well beyond his own productions would be a vastly overwhelming understatement.
So, it is with great pleasure that we welcome Hannus to Philadelphia for his debut performance in our great City of Brotherly Love. This coming Wednesday (March 15th), the humble & determined producer will join fellow Wormhole frequenter Somatoast, as well as east coast natives Pluto Era (Philadelphia) & Jizzy Fra (New York City) for a very special ‘Altered States‘ at Silk City.
In the meantime, we invite you to indulge your audio senses with a brand new, previously unreleased, exclusive single from the mind of Secret Recipe: “Fight Evil Today”. As if that were not enough, Hannus invites us to take a further stroll into his brilliant mind as he further elaborates upon his own history and that of the movement which he continues to nurture.
Secret Recipe - Soundcloud • Bandcamp • Facebook • Twitter • Instagram
Wormhole Music Group - Soundcloud • Bandcamp • Facebook
[PREMIERE] FunkFiles.023 :: Secret Recipe - "Fight Evil Today" -- FREE Download!
Complete Interview:
Funkadelphia: "Is this your first time touring the east coast?
If so, what're your first impressions?"
Secret Recipe: "This has been my first time playing anywhere on the East Coast and it’s been great. The response to my sets has been really genuinely positive and enthusiastic, and I’ve met a lot of awesome people and some other great artists so far. It’s definitely been really encouraging to bring my weird brand of West Coast Bass Music to the other side of the country for the first time and see what I do be so well received by new audiences."
Funkadelphia: "When did you first start curating the Wormhole events;
and how have they evolved since?"
Secret Recipe: "Wormhole was first started by a couple of friends of mine named Morgan and Gleb in 2012 as an early evening shindig on the balcony of a restaurant in Oakland called Portal. In September of 2013, after a few different venues and off periods, Wormhole moved to a bar called Era in downtown Oakland and that’s when I got involved and started doing a large portion of the talent buying and behind the scenes work. We’ve been at our current venue, The New Parish, for almost three years now. So from ten of us on a balcony playing to a semi-swanky dinner crowd that hated the music to what we’re doing now, it’s come along way. Even when we first started throwing Wormhole with proper late night hours, we never thought we would get more than 100 or so people there on a regular basis. All of us were used to crossing the bridge into San Francisco every night to go party, but what we quickly learned is that we were tapping into a huge market in the East Bay that no one really thought existed. Nowadays there’s three to five hundred plus people in the building every week with artists, painters, vendors, lights, and visuals everywhere, and it’s been really crazy and rewarding to watch it just keep on still growing all the time."
Funkadelphia: "What was your musical experience and background, if any,
prior to learning production?"
Secret Recipe: "My musical experience before producing electronic music was pretty slim. I used to play guitar but was never very good, and I never learned much about music theory. I was in some crappy punk bands in high school, you can probably still find the Overgrown Bunnies myspace but it’s pretty terrible. After that I didn’t do anything musical until I started getting super into bass music and wanting to make it myself. Sixis has actually been a good friend of mine since middle school, and he was the first one to ever show me how to DJ. But all that said, one of my favorite things about electronic music is the wealth of knowledge available via the internet. You can literally learn everything you would need and want to know by watching youtube tutorials and adding other producers on Facebook."
Funkadelphia: "How would you go through your general creative process,
from scratch, when starting a new produtcion?"
Secret Recipe: "Basically, I sit down and smoke a bunch of weed and drink a bunch of coffee while I listen through all the partially finished tracks I’ve been working on while making minor changes as they catch my ear. Then once I’ve been doing this for way too long, and I’m super good and baked, I start a new project. I usually start with a basic drum beat and then I either make a fun noise and write a little bass line or sometimes a nice chord progression and melody and just start looping that and making little variations and different sections. I find I only really finish stuff and end up liking it when I lay the out pretty much the whole track in the first session. Then I’ll spend months after adding and removing things, throwing in little tricks and flairs, and obsessively mixing everything down."
Funkadelphia: "What's next for you- live, in the studio, or both?"
Secret Recipe: "After grinding harder than ever in the studio right around the start of this tour, I’m currently sitting on a ton of tunes plus a new four track EP, so I’ll be dropping a bunch more new music over the next couple months. Right after this tour I’ll be on a little break from life traveling through Southeast Asia with my girlfriend, and then as soon as I get back I’ll be touring all over the West Coast with Toadface and Big Chocolate. We’re currently planning dates for that and it’s starting to come together really nice. That all culminates at The Untz Festival where Wormhole will be hosting our first ever official festival stage, and after that there’s a bunch of summer festival stuff in the works that I’ll be announcing soon."
Funkadelphia: "What're your three 'desert island' albums?"
Secret Recipe: "Easily the toughest question here, but I think I'd be fine if I had these:
Tipper - Broken Soul Jamboree; Animal Collective - Feels; Defiance, Ohio - Share What Ya Got."