quick interview w/ grape milk and juko

-mind introducing yourself and how you guys met?

Hi, I’m Gabe. I’m 18 years old. I make electronic pop music. I put said music out on platforms as ‘JUKO’.

[eli didn't give me an intro so just pretend he said his names eli and he makes music as grape milk]

I met Eli (grape milk) in early 2019 when I stumbled across one of his earliest projects ‘Nektar’. I was lurking through his page one day, I didn’t really have any friends so I kind of just DMed on SoundCloud asking if we could talk on Discord & he said yeah. I honestly think he made a Discord that same day, though… because he didn’t know how to use it & it was pretty funny. Ever since then we’ve been making really stupid music together.

-where'd your artist name come from?

This is my favorite story to tell. So basically, I liked this comedy when I was really young titled ‘Mr. Bean’. My dad used to tease me and call me “Bean”… I didn’t really like it. He then decided to start calling me “feijao”, which is the Portuguese word for ‘bean’. Eventually, I caught on to that as well, so he started calling me ‘Fejuko’. At that point, I realized my father was unstoppable so I gave up & stuck with the name. It was my username for basically everything. Later on - I developed an obsession for “Joji”, when he used to put out lo-fi beats, & I thought the four-letter name starting with a ‘J’ was just so freaking cool for some reason. So I took out the “Fe’” So there’s that. On a side-note, I drive a MINI Cooper & so did Mr. Bean.

I was so bored and just thought of it in class. At the time, my SoundCloud username was my government name, so I was just trying out new SoundCloud names, and the name, “grape milk” just stuck to me.

-how'd you start getting into music? and is there a certain project that made you really interested in production?

There’s too much to tell! I’ll try my best not to miss anything. I’ve really always been into music -growing up, my family put me onto a lot of great tunes. My father is a guitarist & he’s recorded some music as a hobby, so a lot of that’s definitely carried over. I never really got into playing the guitar, though. I picked up keyboarding at a pretty young age. I took some lessons on-and-off, but I never really committed to them. Although, I make use of many of the things I’ve been taught in that very short amount of time - I should probably get back into it. I would write dumb melodies with really basic chords, & you can hear them in a lot of my recent music too! I’ve always preferred the piano, which combined with Daft Punk led to my love of synthesizers & electronic music. That - & the crazy amount of 80s movies, 80s rock, & 80s pop I enjoyed as a kid. I also started DJing for fun when I was 11, then I started messing around & making my own loops/edits of songs to play while I DJed in my bedroom & at family house parties. I didn’t really get super into production until my dad showed me around his setup one day & the songs he was working on. I thought it was insanely cool - we made some fun little tunes together as well. I guess he saw that I had a thing for production, so he went out of his way to buy me a MIDI controller, which came with the same DAW he used (PreSonus Studio One) - and here I am. I really owe almost everything to him, he is a great father who has always supported my love for making music. There were definitely a few projects I stumbled across that made me want to start producing - but the one I recall the most was “Canon” by OVERWERK.

Piano lessons. My piano teacher showed me GarageBand, and a few weeks later, I just stopped going to practice. All I wanted to do was produce music. I loved Armin Van Buuren and hardwell, then eventually started listening to skrillex, then virtual riot.

-what artists currently inspire you?

I’ve pretty much had the same inspiration for years. Porter Robinson, Vangelis, Daft Punk, Joji, & The Beatles just to name a few. More currently - as in about the last two years - I started listening to Dayglow which definitely convinced me to pursue a more ‘pop’ direction with my music. I’ve also gotten into Bon Iver, M83, Sweet Trip, Mac Miller, & a fuck ton of 70s rock pretty recently. Every one of these acts are really damn inspiring, & I spend way too much time watching interviews/clips of them. The ‘Get Back’ documentary with The Beatles was a delight.

Currently obsessed with Magdelina Bay, Doja Cat, The Weeknd, dltzk, and Aminé.

-what's your production process?

It’s kind of always changing depending on which album I most recently listened to, but normally I tend to start with a drum track, or some chords. I try to either write some lyrics, or pull up some old lyrics I never made into a song & see if they fit. I take some time to breathe, drink a Dr. Pepper or something, & try to come up with the song structure in my head. I spend some time working on other tracks, I return to projects after a few weeks until I finish it. It’s not the most efficient process, it could definitely use some improvement. I think the thing that hurts my music the most is that I work on specific tracks for a really long time - to the point where I kind of lose the original vision I had for them. I’ve been trying to push myself to dedicate more time to a single track, instead of jumping to other things. Then again, I’ve heard from some producers that it’s healthy to have a lot of different ideas at once. It’s all trial-and-error. I have a lot to learn.

Two methods:

-what project of yours is a personal favorite?

I think my most recent album ‘PEPPER’ is my favorite project that I’ve created. I didn’t realize this as I was making it, but coming back to it after a few months made me understand how I’ve managed to channel all my influences into one project. It’s the music I’ve been wanting to make for years.

My favorite project right now is the track “magic select” from my most recent album “swan”. I also have an unreleased demo I will cuall “make a deal” and it’s currently my favorite unreleased project.

-favorite project from each other?

My favorite project from Eli would probably be his first full-length album ‘Computer’. It’s really damn nostalgic, the production on it is incredible, & it takes me back to falling in love with his music in freshmen year. ‘Seen Before Heard’ is my second-favorite. I tend to skip around & play my favorites on that one - which are mostly the ones I’m not featured in (hahah), but it’s still a masterpiece. Have you heard “INJURY”??? It’s incredible. It’s actually insane.

My favorite project from Gabe is “only for now”. High key bop. Never gets old.

-best piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to start producing?

Listen to a lot of music. That’s at least 50% of the ‘job’. Keep an open mind. If you’re thinking about producing but you haven’t already - then you’ve probably heard this from a lot of people; just do it! Fuck around, have fun, twist some knobs & drench your shit with effects. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what you’re doing, just enjoy yourself! YouTube tutorials are going to be your best friend. Discord communities that can help you with your music, even pretentious producers are ALSO going to be your best friend. At least that’s what I experienced. The first few months are going to be the best - and the worst time of your journey into music production. You have all this creativity - & if you’re just starting out, you really have no idea what the fuck you’re doing and you’ll make the weirdest music out of your entire discography-to-come - it’s a beautiful thing to experience. I promise it’ll be worth it no matter what, because you’re going to have so much fun.

Be your top listener. Make music because it’s the kind of music you’ve always wanted to hear. The number one reason you should be making music is for yourself. If you’re not JAMMING and BOPPING to the music YOU MADE, you need a restart.

-can you tell us more about the robert and prickle project you have going on?

We’re working on a follow-up to our last EP, ‘FIELD TRIP’. It resembles our older music more than what we put out with that EP. While ‘FIELD TRIP’ talked about more serious/deeper topics to us, we’re really just having fun with R&P. It’s a few dance songs, a few rap songs where we just joke around, & lots of stupid references to anything & everything in the scene right now. I personally feel like we tried too hard to prove that we’re capable of writing emotional songs that stray away from the whole EDM thing with FIELD TRIP. I think going into R&P - we were so sick of that to the point where we just wanted to have fun again. It’s a really funny project, & it’s a perfect representation of me & Eli’s chemistry. If you listened to FIELD TRIP, there was a track on it called “THE DOCK”. It’s a really stupid interlude & not something people put too much thought into. That’s my personal favorite off the EP, though. Everything in R&P has ‘THE DOCK’ energy. Everything, in my mind, is like the perfect sequel to it. It’s so stupid.

We started the EP because it was funny, now we have to decide which tracks are still worth putting out. We’re bouncing some ideas around, sharing the braincell if you will.

-why did you guys go with the whole lawyer theme?

It kinda just happened as we were working on the project. I think me, Eli, & his girlfriend Audrey were just eating breakfast one day - I brought up the “three important rules of music copyright law”. Like - don’t rip off a melody… I actually forget the rest. I was improvising one of the songs from the EP on the guitar one day & just brought it up again in the lyrics. There was a joke about a law firm, & suddenly the whole lawyer thing was born. The name itself, Robert & Prickle, started off as an entirely different thing. We drove past the Robert Frost farm & I looked at my friend Eric (Atura) & mentioned that he looked like a Robert. So maybe we might’ve started calling him Robert that night? I don’t really remember. Anyways, Prickle was a funny word so I just threw it at the end of Robert like it was his full name. “Robert Prickle”. Then it turned into “Robert E. Prickle”. Then it turned into “Robert y Prickle” (like in Spanish). Then Robert & Prickle, as in Eli & I. It’s not that deep. We also wanted to play at the whole Underscores Fishmonger producer tag thing, so it’d be funny if we threw in some jokes about music copyright.

When Gabe and I are together, he’ll come up with the craziest skits and just keeps riffing on something. He’s a comedic genius and as soon as he set the tone one night, we went crazy and blazed through notebook sheets (figuratively) coming up with funny stories. It works like magic.

-when do you guys expect to release it?

I honestly don’t know. It was supposed to come out in January, a year after ‘FIELD TRIP’, but we decided to spend some more time working on it. We’re aiming for sometime during the Spring, but my guess would be at the end of the year. It’s one of those things where I’d be sitting down in class or something & I would just have some batshit crazy idea for the project. While the project would be completely fine if we put it out now, I’m too afraid to drop it this early because I feel like I’d miss out on one of those crazy ideas. I don’t want to look back & regret not putting something in, which happens very often whenever I think about ‘FIELD TRIP’. But we can only hold this project for so long. It’ll be out later this year.

Fuck you.

-any tracks people should be excited for?

I’m so excited to drop alllll of these songs. If things work out for us, there’s a song that has a pretty exciting feature on it. It’s someone I’ve wanted to work with for a loooong time. “BAILOUT” is incredible, it reminds me of the music me & Eli used to make. Classic four on the floor bass shit, no vocals or anything. We just have fun with sound design & the production. “SHAWTY U MY BOO THANG” is quite possibly the most beautiful song we’ve ever written, but with the whole R&P satire thing - we take the lyrics a bit too far. The thought of releasing it makes me nervous, but we desperately want that song to see the light of day.

“Bailout” is an epic bass house banger. Really hope it comes out on the final product.

-how hard has is been to balance your personal life with music? Any advice on how to deal with that?

I’ve been asked this question a few times. I feel like I give a different answer every time, because it feels like things have just been changing so much lately. I’m just gonna ramble, maybe treat this like a vent. So I just turned 18, I’ve been doing some adulting here & there but I still have very little responsibilities. I go to school, I work, & I come home & sleep. Me & Eli have talked about our frustrations, where we just feel like we don’t have a lot of time to make music anymore. For me, it’s strictly based on time & it’s less about my responsibility. I feel like Eli has an actual valid excuse to not have time, he lives alone & he has bills to pay. I still live with my parents. I’m a server at an Italian restaurant. I work 4-5 days a week, with mostly 8 hour shifts. I come home from school, go to work, go home, go to sleep. I like to spend my off days with my girlfriend, & I barely find myself going on my laptop to work on anything. My mics, my keyboard, & the rest of my setup is 40 minutes away since I split time between my parents houses. My headphones require an amp to work, so most of my production is done on AirPods nowadays. I haven’t moved anything to my current place of residence because I keep telling myself that I don’t need my gear. To be completely honest, I think I’ve been away from the whole “laptop/headphones” setup for so long - to the point where I feel like I can’t get much work done without my synths. I’m still trying to realize that literally everything I do at my home studio could be done on my laptop. I’ve been spoiled for a bit. I’m constantly thinking about that one Spider-Man scene, where Tony Stark tells Peter that if he’s ‘nothing without the suit, then he shouldn’t have it in the first place’. I haven’t learned to balance things yet! I also feel like if I do find some more time, I wouldn’t know how to make use of it. I’ve been having issues getting into the zone of making music. So it really is difficult with me. I feel like I can’t give any advice because I haven’t figured it out for myself. Although, I will say that sometimes I get a burst of excitement for a project & that would lead me to getting a little bit of work done every now & then. That adds up, eventually, & something good might come out of it. I guess that’s the closest I could get to advice - just do as much as you can & don’t stress. Live life, talk to people, touch some grass, do ya thing - the music will come eventually. Even a little bit of work counts.

I graduated last year, but I should be transparent and say that I sacrificed my grades for musical improvement. I did horrible in school. I wouldn’t have it any other way though. If I focused more on school I wouldn’t have picked up the techniques and styles I have as a musician now. Currently, I work full time at an electronics manufacturing company. When I get off work I have a chance to spend time with my loved ones and make music, so time management for me is really easy now that I’m out of school.

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