In my insatiable quest to bring party music to the masses each and every week with my Friday Party Playlist, I consistently come across some really intriguing up-and-coming producers. Kid Ranger first caught my ear with his remix of Savage’s “Swing”. This track lit up every party I went to and quickly moved up in the ranks of all-time best for these weekly playlists.
After a while of getting to know Kid Ranger a little better and hearing the depth to his music, we wanted to know a little more. So, today we’re bringing you an incredibly in-depth interview, as well as three exclusive tracks. We hope you get a better understanding of someone you will be hearing a lot more from for years to come.
’Kid Ranger – It’s A Vengeance Sample (Original Mix)’
’Avicii & Project 46 – Crime (Kid Ranger Remix)’
’Big Chocolate – Blue Milk (Kid Ranger Remix)’
’Savage – Swing (Kid Ranger Remix)’
TMN : Hey Sam, thanks for taking some time to chat with us today. First up, why don’t you talk about your favorite moment as a DJ/producer has been to date?
KR: I think I’d probably have to say it was about a week ago, when I was back home in Marin. My mom told me she wanted me to meet a new friend of hers who was in the music industry. Her friend ended up being Narada Michael Walden, who as I found out is a multiple grammy-winning producer/drummer who’s produced a ton of number one hits with Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and plenty more. Basically this dude was the REAL fuckin deal. I walked into his studio in San Rafael, and about 10 minutes into meeting the guy we were sitting in his studio with my computer hooked up, and me hesitantly opening up my laptop to pull up a copy of my Crime remix, in whatever uncompleted stage it was. I could tell he had met with a lot of his colleagues sons’ before and wasn’t exactly expecting a ton from me, but after listening to a couple minutes of the track I guess he was sold.
He kept telling me that I was “funky,” and I couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing until he explained it… he said “You see this guy, this girl, this guy,” pointing around to pictures and bobble heads of James Brown and the other incredible musicians he’s works with, “you know what they all had? They were funky. Some people just have it and some people don’t. And you’re funky.”
Granted, Narada isn’t exactly the most exposed person to electronic music, but regardless just having someone at his caliber of skill and success tell me that I had that “it” factor was definitely the most mindblowing experience I’ve ever had. And to put the icing on the cake, he actually asked me to start working on a couple projects with him and Tarpan studios, and while I can’t say much about em right now it should be really cool to see where this stuff goes. I still haven’t really registered all of it yet, it still feels kinda unreal that someone with that much clout would actually be impressed by my work, I just hope I can keep up and exceed the standards I set for myself now haha!
TMN: Let’s go back to your musical upbringings. You played guitar in metal bands as a teenager. How did you transition from metal to EDM?
KR: Yes, I’m another one of those guys who went from metal to EDM, however I never actually saw any success in metal, haha. I started playing guitar when I was about 12 or 13 I wanna say, and it kinda took over my life. And as it came time where I thought I was ready to start playing in bands and actually doing something with all the time I spent in my room, I quickly came to realize that trying to organize a group of 14-16 year old boys for weekly practices was not nearly as simple a task as I had hoped it would be. After starting a couple different “bands” with different groups of friends around my area, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to get some music actually down on paper I’d have to do it myself. And that’s what EDM gave me. One of my friends showed me Swagga, and I remember just being absolutely blown away at the fact that the song triggered the same emotions in me as a metal song would. Shortly after that, one of my best friends picked up a copy of Ableton and started making tracks, and everything finally clicked. I was like, “well, if he can do it that I probably could figure it out too!” hahaha. I definitely had no idea how much I’d fall in love with the genre, I remember a time where I firmly believed I’d never let EDM take over my passion for metal, but there was really no stopping it once it had started.
TMN: Just out of curiosity, who is your favorite metal band?
KR: Oh, man… as I’m sure you’re aware that’s probably one of the toughest questions you can ask a musician haha! I’ll try to keep it brief though… I contribute 100% of my desire to pick up a guitar to Metallica, and at first was totally enthralled in Thrash, and as time went on I started listening to more metal core-ish shit. There’s honestly so many bands I used to and still do listen to that I don’t know if I could really pick just one. Stray From the Path have always been a gigantic inspiration to me, I could and have literally played their track Damien for hours on repeat, it’s just perfect haha. Also I couldn’t leave out We Came As Romans, their melodies and song composition is always so on point. Also Suicide Silence, definitely some of my biggest idols and a large factor of why I got so into heavy ass music. RIP Mitch!!
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