We caught up with a wonderful producer called Cam Dasher a couple of weeks ahead of their latest release ‘Sage’, we chatted about musical influences, home studios, dream festival lineups, musical competition and much more, to find out more, read on…..

We know you’re called Cam Dasher, we know you’re a non-binary producer from America, please tell me something about you that not many people know

Something about me that people might not know is that while I live in Brooklyn, I was actually born and raised in Houston, Texas, which is a huge change of pace and personality from New York. I knew as soon as I knew what New York was that I wanted to be here. I came out for school, and have been here ever since!

I hate to pigeonhole artists but in a nutshell, describe your sound…..

My style has grown so much over the course of my time as a producer and a writer. I think something that I was always trying to harness and have only recently been confident in recently is this ability to mesh Modern Pop with Experimental Classical Arrangements, Baroque music, and hardstyle electronic music. And funnily enough, I feel like the descriptor that feels most true to my sound is cinematic. I think film scoring, while considered a genre in and of itself, is so vast, and I want my music to encompass genre in a similar variable way.

Cam Dasher is an interesting name, how did it come to be?

Haha, Cam Dasher is actually my real name and not an artist pseudonym at all! I know it’s hard to believe, but Dasher is my very real very awesome last name. My full first name is Cameron, but since I was little people have always called me Cam and the name Cam Dasher just rolls off the tongue, I think.

Did you grow up in a musical home?

I would say that although neither of my parents nor my sister are in the music industry, there was definitely a particular level of musicality in my house growing up. Before my sister left for college, I remember my dad would play chords on his guitar and my sister and I would write silly songs to them. I actually have a recording of our very prestigious and very well written song “If I Had A Kevin” somewhere on my computer.

You cite Susanne Sundfør, Boys Noize, Justice, MARINA, Rina Sawayama, Kelsey Lu, Björk, Kate Bush, Lady Gaga, SOPHIE, and Charli XCX amongst your influences, please choose just one of these and tell me how they helped to shape you as an artist/producer?

My greatest musical influence, even out of all of these artists, has been and probably will always be Susanne Sundfør. I was introduced to her music by a camp counselor in like 2011 and haven’t looked back once. She has this incredible talent for synthesizing the most angelic and complex vocal melodies and arrangements I’ve ever heard in pop music with extremely aggressive and dynamic synths and drums. She is an absolute genius and wildly under-appreciated in the US. The first song I ever heard from her was “Delirious” and that song and her entire discography has fully shaped me as a writer, composer, and producer.

Do you think that you have found your sound now or are you still experimenting with ideas for new material?

Something that’s so great about being a musician is that your tastes and styles and the capabilities of production softwares and synthetic instrumentation are always evolving, so you never have to be like “yeah okay I’m done this is my sound now”. I really appreciate that and I think it’s such a special art form, especially in terms of the types of technology we have access to now as creators.

You’re from Brooklyn, I’m guessing that the competition there is pretty fierce?

As I mentioned before, I’m actually from Texas, but being from Houston, which is also a huge city, I’m used to the amount of people that are present in the industry. I don’t really ascribe to the idea of musical competition though. If there’s someone whose music I like and who I admire as an artist, I’m less concerned about them being more successful and more concerned with getting to make music with them and hyping each other up as artists. There’s a lot of room at the top, and success is so subjective.

I imagine that there are tons of bands and artists around your area at the moment, name a few that we should be checking out (apart from yourselves of course!)

Oh YES. There are so so many. My good friend Hannah Copperman who is also my most trusted mastering engineer is a brilliant producer based in NYC. She just released an EP entitled “Self-Talk” under the name The Answers in Between. Hannah is a brilliant musician with literal perfect pitch and an insane attention to detail. My friend Kate Brunotts is also working on releasing an album and has a single coming out on the 17th of June called Bleed. A couple of my friends are also part of a slacker rock group called Frog Throat who just released their debut single “Women’s Jeans”. That doesn’t even cover the half of them there are soooo so many.

Sorry to sound completely uneducated but I looked up ‘non-binary’ and it has opened up a can of worms that I need help understanding, it mentions transgender, gender identity, sexual preference, cisgender, so many terms that I for one am not 100% familiar with, please take a moment to explain what it means to you….

“Nonbinary” identity is a kind of umbrella term for different gender identities which fall outside of the spectrum of the mainstream gender binary such as gender fluid, genderqueer, agender, transmasculine, etc. I personally identify as gender neutral or agender, meaning that I have no ties to any particular gender whatsoever, and while I tend to present very feminine, my understanding of my identity is not “girl”, it’s just that I’m a person. My favorite thing about nonbinary identity is that it’s different for every single person. Every person’s experience with gender and the way they define it and approach the world as a result of it, is completely different.

If you could curate your very own festival using acts that are dead or alive, who would you have as the 3 headliners and why?

Oof okay this is a tough one. Ideally this would be a three day festival so I wouldn’t have to miss any of these acts, but I would want my Friday headliner to be SOPHIE, my Saturday headliner to be Justice reviving the entire Woman Worldwide Tour setlist, and my Sunday headliner to be Kate Bush playing one more live show for all of the literary freaks.

Where are you currently most active on the live circuit?

I am not currently playing live shows, but I’ve gigged mostly in New York, so when I do start playing again, I’ll definitely be most active here.

Your forthcoming track ’Sage’ is (as you say) an expansive journey of electronic pop music that allows the listener to be immersed both in the harsh electronic landscape as well as the somber and slightly vindictive message of heartbreak this song creates. Tell me how the track came about?

I actually started writing Sage in 2019 before I really knew what I was doing as a producer. I have been writing essentially my whole life, so I could hear the melodies and I could write the lyrics and the harmonies, but I was having a lot of trouble developing the actual track. I took a break from it for about a year and a half and after a breakup that I experienced last fall, I found the file again and I was like, hm, well, I know what I’m doing now and how to flesh this out AND the lyrical sentiments still feel very applicable, so I got to work. It took about four months to get the song completely finished because I was working on my thesis album at the same time as well as composing 2 hours worth of original music for a production of Dracula AND finishing school, but I’m very very glad it’s finally coming out.

I was going to ask how you know when a track is ‘done’ but I read that ’Sage’ took you 3 years to complete, is this the standard length of time for you to get new music out there? LOL

Definitely not. This was a rare case of an abandoned track that I found again and repurposed. My thesis album which took me about a year to complete and is a full-length album fully written, recorded, produced, arranged, and mixed alone is coming out a little later this year. I think the reason certain songs take so long for me to complete is that my project files and workspaces can get up to 300 tracks (insane), and the mixing process can sometimes take months to complete.

You recorded the track in your home studio, tell me about your setup….

So I have a loft bed in my room that I have built a little studio under. Sage was essentially made just using my laptop, an AKG C214 Condenser mic, the Scarlett 2i2 usb interface, my Audio Technica ATH-M60xs, and a midi keyboard. My biggest investments have been my plug-ins and my go-to’s are Izotope VocalSynth, Waves Brauer Motion, Serum, and Valhalla Space Modulator (which is free!).

Are you planning on releasing your music on physical formats in the future? CD’s, vinyl, maybe even a cassette tape for the hipsters amongst us?

I don’t currently have any plans to put out Sage as a physical release as it’s just a single, but I am definitely in the works of putting my album out on vinyl and cassette when it’s in the release stage!

You said that ‘Sage’ is the first of much new music coming through, do you have a release schedule for new music?

While I cannot give you an exact date for the release of my album, I can tell you it will be towards end of summer, and that Sage’s sister song will be coming out around then as well as a separate release. I also might have another secret album of music up my sleeve that I’m planning to put out around July… :P

I’ve been to New York many times but have only visited Brooklyn on a couple of occasions, next time I head over, where should I be checking out in Brooklyn?

Definitely depends on what you’re looking for! For restaurants I would say check out Roberta’s for insane pizza (specifically the Bee Sting), Nene’s Taqueria, and Pies and Thighs for fried chicken. For bars check out Dromedary and Talon. For concert venues Elsewhere Space and Knockdown Center (Queens) always have great lineups.

Although American chocolate bar (candy bars) are so different from what we get here in the UK, I did fall in love with ‘Three Musketeers’ and ‘Baby Ruth’ bars, which are your favourites?

Definitely Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Top tier candy bar.

What is the best advice anyone in the music industry has given you?

The best advice I’ve ever received is that you shouldn’t make myself palatable for people’s approval. Authenticity and honesty are the keys to being successful as a musician.

We’re coming round to yours for dinner tonight (surprise), what will you be dishing up?

Definitely some kind of homemade lemon garlic pasta or ravioli. Or maybe a fancy tofu dish...

Where is the best place to keep up to date with your musical movements?

Definitely Instagram. I’m still on the learning curve when it comes to self-promotion, but my Instagram is the most up to date spot where you can see what I’m up to, what I’m working on, hear demos early, and what I’m listening to. Also I put a bunch of fun demos, covers, and remixes on my Soundcloud in between official releases, so that’s also a great place to keep up with how my style is evolving.

Lastly, I just spent 2 days at a music festival and things got messy, I’m keen to hear your survival tips…..

Oh goodness, for festivals, hydration is key. Every time I’m at a festival I bring a camelback. It’s the path of least resistance when it comes to running out of water, so definitely that. I also like to bring power bars with me just in case the lines for food are too long.

We’d like to thank Cam for chatting to us about the new release ‘Sage’ which is due to land on 25th June. To keep up to date with Cam’s musical happenings, click on the following social sites.

Instagram

Twitter