If there’s one noticeable trend in festival EDM right now, ailment it’s a move away from the aggressive sounds of trap towards a more pleasant, summery sound. The unprecedented overnight explosion of tropical house artist Kygo and enduring success of others in the genre, such as Thomas Jack and Bakermat, have shown that the average modern day electronic fans can be as interested in grooving as raging. While jokes about it being “EDM elevator music” are common, the results speak for themselves—people are sold on simple happy sounds.
Los Angeles producer Viceroy, AKA Austen Afridi, is more than happy to ride that trend. Never to be seen without a Hawaiian shirt, he has been spinning his sunkissed nu-disco grooves for a good four years now, easily predating the nascent tropical house genre, but is now experiencing a fantastic boost in popularity. Afridi has developed an easily approachable and endlessly dancable musical style, laying down smooth basslines that give way to jubilant horns and sexy guitar riffs. In his ut therewn oft-repeated words, these are “jams, not bangers.”
Allston Pudding chatted with Afridi before his trek into the snowy East Coast this week. He talked about the development of his musical vibe, the importance of branding for artists and, of course, Hawaiian shirts.
Allston Pudding: How did you get your start in music?
Austen Afridi: I grew up playing instruments. At a young age I started with piano and a little bit of saxaphone in fourth grade, though that wasn’t really my forte. I started with guitar and base about 3 years later and then the last four years I’ve been focused on working on electronic music. I started working on Viceroy my senior year of college in the spring semester. I’ve always been passionate about music, and I’ve dabbled in a little bit of everything.
AP: What drew you to the disco vibe?
AA: Well, I’ve always liked disco, but I was never specifically into that. I was into some hip-hop and punk growing up. I think it’s more a mentality kind of thing. I was always a happy kid and I think that got me into the feel-good dance music. When I was in college and was being introduced to dance music around the beginning of sophomore year, my buddy was showing me all of this nu-disco, like Treasure Fingers, which was popular on the blogs back then. It just made sense to me and came naturally.
AP: In the past you’ve spoken about the importance of artists branding themselves. How does branding contribute to your musical output?
AA: I think that it’s very important. There’s a lot of competition out there, and people generally making the same sounds. Especially with the bigroom house guys, I can’t tell the difference between a lot of them. Whether it’s the branding that they’ve done with their name or the branding they’ve done with their music, it’s kind of the same. I just don’t see a lot of those guys lasting very long sometimes. That’s why I find it important to be very distinct. Have a 360 brand of your name, imagery and music coming together as one. That way, when anyone thinks of any of those three things, they immediately think of the rest of them. You stick out that way.
AP: “Jams, not bangers,” right?
AA: (Laughs) Yeah that’s something that flowed with me. To me, a jam that’s got some melody to it is fun and uplifting. It doesn’t have to do with tempo or how energetic it is. I think of bangers as just monotonous music, and that has really taken over the airwaves over the last couple of years. It’s the mainstream sound.
AP: Do you still enjoy listening to some of the heavier EDM out there?
AA: I think everything has a time and place. I enjoy some trap and stuff. For me, though, I find the most joy in stuff that I can listen to in different times and places. Multi-generational music that speaks to a larger audience of people. Not in the sense of a mainstream sound, but an overall vibe. That’s where my “jams not bangers” motto really comes into play.
AP: Your music has a distinct feeling of summer to it. Does it play differently to, say, people in a bitter New England winter than Californians in June?
AA: It’s interesting you say that. It’s easy to think it wouldn’t play to those kinds of people, but it does. People have bought into my brand of “summertime all the time,” and it’s not just about weather, it’s more a mentality. People will show up to shows in the middle of December in Hawaiian shirts, and I think that’s really cool!
AP: Speaking of Hawaiian shirts, could you give us a rough estimate of how many you own?
AA: I have a lot! At least 20. I’ve been working a lot with Chubbies now, and they’ve got these shirts called nutters and I’ve been rocking those recently. I’ve got an army of them, so if you ever need to borrow one, let me know!
AP: Yeah, the Chubbies news broke last week. What’s that partnership going to entail?
AA: I can’t go into a whole lot of that deal, but I can tell you that I will be helping to design a bunch of shirts and some shorts that are going to be the Viceroy line. They’re not going to have the Viceroy logo—I think that would be cheesy—but I’m going to come up with the designs. I’ll also be playing a bunch of shows at their events and working on some mixtapes for them. Besides just rocking their stuff, I just really enjoy what they stand for and their brand. I think it’s going to be a really fun partnership!
AP: One of the big buzz phrases in EDM right now is tropical house, with people like Thomas Jack and Kygo making serious festival waves. Your tracks don’t exactly fall into that genre, but do you feel a connection to the movement?
AA: It’s definitely a big buzzword these days. People really seem to be into it and I’m happy for the guys who are doing well with it. I would say my music is different, obviously. I maybe have some similarities in that it’s an upbeat style of music like mine is. I think the only thing is that the image is very similar. A lot of tropical imagery.
I think that maybe I’ll get runoff fans from them and maybe the same the other way. All it’s going to do is help. But I wouldn’t prefer to have myself in that category. I would prefer to stay on-brand with “summertime all the time.” I hope the best for those guys—some of them are really nice cats!
AP: Your Boston set is being billed as a live show. What does a Viceroy live show entail?
AA: I’m starting to build the show out with my buddy Simon, who performed saxophone on my last single “Back at the Start” with K.Flay. I’ll be bringing him along to New York and Boston this week, and then a few other different shows. I’m not really ready to become a band, which a lot of my friends like RAC and Goldroom have. It’s not a necessary thing for me yet. I like to bring something different to the table live, though, and I think having musician friends come out to improvise does that. I don’t think it works for me, having people come out at preset times and do planned out things. I like to keep my DJ sets loose, too.
I wish I had the visuals done. It’s going to be a full set run through a controller onstage. They’re not quite ready for the shows this week but I’m going to have them at the show on March 7th at the Roxy in LA. I’ll have K.Flay and Simon with me there, too.
AP: Do you have any plans for an album coming up?
AA: I was planning on doing an album, and I had a lot of songs done for it, but I realized that it was more of a forced industry thing. Despite people not really buying albums anymore, the album is considered important. I’m much more comfortable doing singles. It works with my style of music and the trends in music now, in terms of purchasing. If something changes down the road, then maybe I’ll do one, but for now I’m just focusing on the individual songs.
I’m just trying to put out a lot of original music this year and less remixes. If I do remixes they’re going to be very specific, probably just “Jet Life.” For now I’m just working on building more original music and then hitting the festival scene really hard next year.
Viceroy will be performing this Thursday, 2/26, at the Royale. For those tired of the bitter winter, this could be the perfect summery solution!