Tell me a bit about the beginning of Jpod? Where did you start out as a musician and what got you into producing and dj’ing?

Music has always been a part of my family life. My parents play various instruments and put all of my siblings in piano lessons at a young age. I didn’t care for it a whole lot back then but I have always been focused and practiced well. Looking back I can see the tangible difference it has made in my talent and skills with melody. As for rhythm, I have fairly early memories suggesting that I’ve always had it. I remember getting annoyed when groups singing acapella would “rush the beat” instead of waiting for the full meter before starting the next verse.

In high school i started playing around with simple sequencing software called Making Waves. At that time I was 100% sample-based and started building my collection then. This was around 1996. I first learned by taking small samples from Prodigy’s “Their Law” and then re-creating it. That was the first song I ever made. But the software was a demo version so I couldn’t save or export. My friend and I would create compositions in the few hours we had access to our computers at night and then record them onto cassette tapes and share with each other on the bus in the morning. I made music like this for a while and it was very experimental. I wasn’t exposed to a whole lot of electronic music at the time which made my influences toward any particular style fairly minimal. Sometimes I wish I could get back to this clean slate of mind and write music with the skills I have now.

I got into DJing in 1999 when I went to university where i met various DJs with gear. Up until that point I had a fairly strong dislike for what I crudely understood and generalized as rap music. But I made new friends who exposed me to real hip-hop music and turntablism and was instantly taken by the sounds, rhythms and positive message. I remember listening to scratching on the bus and figuring out how to scratch before ever really playing with a crossfader. My best friend at the time (estwo) bought really nice gear and we would spend every weekend together digging for records and DJing in his basement. When I went to scratch the way I had imagined it turned out that I had it backwards. To this day I still scratch with the crossfader “hamstered” (reversed). It wasn’t until 2001 that I was able to purchase my own turntables and from there my skills and passion continued to increase.

I continued producing music but was unable to DJ with it as vinyl was the only option at that time. estwo and I dabbled a bit making hip-hop beats and emceeing over them as well. I still have some of these songs and think that the concepts on some of them are really good. But I wasn’t as skilled in the production realm at that time and was still using Making Waves.

About 5 years ago I decided to finally upgrade to professional software. I tried all the major options (Logic, Cubase, Reason, Fruity Loops) but none of them truly resonated with me the way that Ableton did. I was instantly sold on both the production and DJing abilities of Ableton and its intuitive interface. I forced myself to really learn it while traveling with my wife for 8 months in South East Asia, during which time I had no access to turntables and thus set out to learn as much about Ableton as I could.

SWS006 – Halfsteppin Album (Preview) by JPOD the beat chef

I’ve been listening to the preview for your new album Halfsteppin, it sounds great! How long has it been in the works? And what sets it apart from your previous music?

Halfsteppin has been in the works since we got back from Australia in the spring of 2011. Right after the Canadian Ghetto Funk tour I jumped in the studio with all the excitement of having been without studio monitors for 5 months. I think I made six of the tracks in a month. While some of the music is similar to other music I’ve made, I tried to differentiate this album in several tracks with the use of half-time or half-step drum beats. I also learned a few new texture techniques during the process which I employed on tracks like Miniature Monsoon and Heyouwitha.

Other than just performing on tour, you also conduct workshops for budding producers, can you explain how that became part of the Jpod repertoire, and what kind of material you cover in a workshop?

I’ve only just started teaching Ableton workshops. For a while I’ve been seeing various people doing production workshops. ill.gates has really pioneered this concept and I’ve always been one to avoid jumping on someone else’s good idea and copying them. I know I have a lot of valuable understanding but I decided to give it a bit of time before doing my own. Recently people from everywhere have been asking me to do workshops so I finally decided to make it happen. My first one was in Victoria only a couple of months ago and so far everyone has always been pleased with the information I bring.

My workshop tends to be fairly practical. I cover mostly production topics such as how I organize everything, how I make drums, bass and fx. I try to focus on methods that improve efficiency to help people get more music made with their time. The best tip I can give any aspiring producer is to make LOTS of music. No artist has ever gotten big with only a handful of compositions. So maximizing efficiency is an important part in becoming a professional producer. I also give the option for teaching DJing with Ableton as there are lots of helpful tips I’ve learned as well as really neat iPhone wireless midi controller tricks.

I’ve seen you perform at music festivals in BC before which is obviously a huge part of the culture here, what are some differences between playing clubs in cities and playing outdoor festivals? What is the importance of these festivals to you as a musician, as well as to our culture on a broader level?

Playing in city clubs as opposed to outdoor festivals can be both very different and strikingly similar. In general, playing indoor club events tends to require a bit more attention to the crowd and what they might need. Since these events are not far away from home, nor do they require a fierce and often rugged commitment to attend, you’ll get a wider range of clientele – many of whom don’t understand the culture or how to dance to the music. Requests are definitely possible and often likely. However at festivals it is understood by the participants that the musician is going to do what THEY want to do. Most festival-goers in fact want it this way. I think it is safe to say that at festivals people generally want to hear something new while at clubs they generally want to hear something familiar.

However, what I’ve noticed about west-coast Canadian dance music culture is that both these crowds really blend well together. In other parts of the world where I’ve toured there can be a very noticeable difference between the club and the festival culture. But here I find that much the same people support all the events. I’ve played music that is very much not what I would think is club-friendly in packed club environments full of people I know to be unfamiliar with it and yet (quite possibly because of a critical mass of people who do appreciate it) they are able to get into it. This, among a myriad of other things, makes me proud to be a part of this culture in this place.

It’s hard to describe what makes festivals so special. Obviously there’s something important about a group of people gathering together for a purpose. The sum becomes much greater than all the parts. But let me take a step back here, as “purpose” differentiates between two kinds of parties. There is a MASSIVE difference between quality festivals and your average outdoor party. When I talk about festivals I’m speaking of the ones that actually have a purpose beyond hedonistic partying. The organizers will often put forth very positive and educating intentions. Many of them organize workshops that are educating on a wide range of positive topics. They aim to improve people’s lives, communities and thus the world. Great festivals are always full of art, are well-decorated and the people will help with a smile. And of course the music is generally uplifting. This contrasts with the obnoxious feeling of an average outdoor party where the general sentiment is to get messed up and party hard. I feel like i’ve learned important things about how to better love people from my quality festival experiences. This is what really speaks to me as I was raised with a firm sense of justice, conscious choices and considerate actions.

Is there any correlation between your name and the book by Douglas Coupland of the same name?

The name JPOD neither has to do with Douglas Coupland’s book nor with the infamous iPod music player. I officially chose this monicker in 1999 and it comes from my older sister’s knack for silly nicknames. Since my initials are JPD she one day decided to string them together into a word, and I liked it. It really stuck during university when JPOD was the only name my friends knew.

Do you find time to read in your busy schedule? if so, what do you like to read?

I wouldn’t say that I’m much of a book-reader, although in all honesty it comes and goes in (saw-tooth) waves. I go through long periods where I don’t read anything at all. But if I get into something just a bit, I’ll make time to read it. This is usually at night before bed as I sometimes have trouble falling asleep and reading is my best cure. I like reading all kinds of things from novels to fact-based articles and expositions to theology. Recently I’ve read the Cosmic Trilogy by CS Lewis and A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L’Engle.

Bran Van 3000 – Drinkin in LA (JPOD & The Funk Hunters remix) FREE by JPOD the beat chef

What is your reaction to the amazing popularity electronic music has been gaining over the past year or two, and where do you imagine it going as we enter into 2012?

I don’t know if I would argue that electronic music on the whole has become amazingly more popular in the past year or two. I don’t feel like the popularity of my music has grown substantially in this time. It definitely has grown but in my opinion at more of a steady rate. However, (aggressive) dubstep definitely fits this assumption. I can only hope that as the millions of children who are in love with it grow older and refine their tastes some of the popularity will flow out to musicians like me.

As the Grammys happened, I noticed a number of fairly successful musicians posting congratulations to Skrillex, arguing that he well deserves the recognition for all his hard work and amazing production skills. I found it interesting on several levels. Success seems to congratulate other success and in general tends to ignore quality unless it too has achieved success. I feel like as a music culture we’re too stuck on the measurable levels of success instead of the intrinsic quality of the music itself. The other side of this statement that is more obvious to me is how inconsiderate it is to the massive number of musicians who have worked much harder and longer than someone like Skrillex yet have received a fraction of 1 percent of the recognition. Doing simple math I started producing when he was 8 years old, so who has worked harder?

It’s hard to say where electronic music is headed. Strictly concerning the various styles, I find it also odd that so many people stick to such rigid tempos. Dance music is defined by a relatively small set of tempos which I suppose have come from the need to be able to beatmatch tracks together during a DJ set. Clearly the rise of dubstep showed that the scene was desperate for a new and fresh tempo. I can only imagine that the future styles will come from the right timing of scene stagnation and someone capitalizing with a fresh and imitateable style. Perhaps halfstep will become the new thing.

However with the popularity of electronic music growing combined with the spread of social networking I believe that the future holds some real challenges for the music industry. In general I would summarize these as the age-old problem of quality vs quantity. While it can probably be argued that this has always been the case, it appears more than ever that the industry is not setup to recognize and grow those musicians with real natural talent. Everyone wants to be a superstar DJ but very few have the raw music skills to achieve this. As a result a large number of mediocre musicians are pushing really hard to promote themselves instead of working on their craft and growing naturally. This then forces everyone else into the promotion-heavy game if they want to stay competitive and thus away from doing the real work of learning and practicing music. Combine this with the fact that many promoters look exclusively at facebook page likes to determine whether they will book an artist or not and it’s not hard to see that we’re heading further into a business-heavy model.

Despite this, I truly believe that good quality music will always prevail. In general, everyone remembers the legend, no one remembers whoever it was that copied the legend. Someone older and wiser than me would probably tell me that the music business has always favored popularity over quality, so there’s nothing new about this direction. I’m simply attempting to draw attention to it so that those of us who agree can make more thoughtful choices about it.

Other than the new album what are some other things we can expect from Jpod in the New Year?

Besides Halfsteppin, 2012 can expect to see plenty more bootleg remixes and EPs pushing the groovy halfstep feel. I’ll probably start work on another album in the coming months after touring the new album for a while.

-Interview by  Ryan Orion

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Sola Rosa – These Words (feat. Spikey T) (JPOD remix) FREE by JPOD the beat chef hugo – 99 problems (JPOD remix) (FREE DL IN DESCRIPTION) by JPOD the beat chef grass & gospel by JPOD the beat chef