Bronze Whale Discuss Their Debut Album, Musical Direction + More [INTERVIEW]

Since their storybook meeting in a chat room in 2011, Bronze Whale has been making a name for themselves in their own unique lane of hip-hop inspired melodic music. With their debut album The Shape Of Things, Aaron and Benny have told us they have their direction and are reaching a level of production most aligned with the artistic vision they’ve been planning all along.

We had the opportunity to sit down the Austin-based duo to discuss their album, musical direction, and writing process. Check out our exclusive interview and stream their debut album The Shape Of Things below.

Run The Trap: How did you guys meet? How did Bronze Whale form?

Bronze Whale (Aaron): We met in 2011. We were both part of this forum/chat room called Turntable.FM. Benny had a room there that he ran that got popular, and people would just jump in and play their WIPs. And while that was happening, I was building a studio. Benny was working at Apple so I asked him if I could get a discount on a computer, and he said yes. To give something back, I offered him production lessons, and just we started becoming good friends and writing stuff. Our first track was this drum and bass remix that the world has never seen.

RTT: You’ve historically had what I would call a future/melodic bass sound. What direction are you taking the project moving forward?

BW (Benny): When we started, the big trend was dubstep, but we never found a niche there. The thing we did like about dubstep was following the drums, and we still always kept it really melodic. Aaron really loved hip-hop so the beats picked up a lot quicker and it kind of sounded more like future bass. We’ve always wanted to make something more indie that sounds organic. It seems like it’s on that trajectory, as some of the stuff we have coming out after this album has more of a hip-hop feel.

BW (Aaron): We also don’t really write with a genre in mind, it more or less starts with a BPM. If you were to analyze the whole record, it’s all over the place with BPM. For example, “Patterns” is more housey, but we also would love to incorporate more drum and bass. It goes all over the place. In general, it’s safe to say our synth design will continue to evolve over time because we are always trying to have stuff that doesn’t sound like what other people are making. But honestly, as long as people are trying to classify us, that means people are trying to guess because it’s something new, so that’s good.

RTT: Let’s talk about your album. Tell me how that all started, and what you have coming up.

BW (Aaron): The Shape of Things recently came out, and past that we have another slew of singles too. We have an EP coming out, and hopefully, we will have a full-length remix album for The Shape of Things with like ten songs.

BW (Benny): We knew we wanted to do an album before we actually had it. We were finishing one or two new songs and we saw the writing on the wall. It was very different from what we were writing before. It was a sound we liked and wanted, and so we talked about it and basically decided we should start writing songs to that type of idea for a full album. For that reason, it was cohesive because we built it to be that album.

BW (Aaron): “Warm” was the first song with Benny singing on it, and that opened our mind to creating live performances. So that’s something we are going to be working on over the next few months.

BW (Benny): You better be ready to see it live!

BW (Aaron): Haha exactly. And I’ll be doing live percussion as well. We’ll have some pads triggering some things on top of everything else. We think that another reason the album has some cohesion is that we wrote them all in a relatively short period of time, and 70% of the record is Benny singing.

RTT: Anything else you want to include in there?

BW (Benny): We’re always looking to share our knowledge with more people. We are open about that kind of stuff and no one has asked us this question. With our Magic Magic Collective, I make tutorial videos for friends and show people how to do stuff. We find it really important to be accessible and be part of the community by extending what we know to the community. We built our own label so that we can control our releases. There really isn’t a place like that in Austin where you can network and have people help you with those type of things.

BW (Aaron): Magic Magic IS that label, and under that we help people with planning releases, artwork, mixing and mastering, and even just sitting down and helping them on the track itself. Kind of like a collective, people that work together on those things. There’s not enough of that. We need more people helping each other and not just being competitive.