Rip Damon Talks About In Memoriam Pt 1
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Rip Damon Talks About In Memoriam Pt 1
Rip finally opens up about his debut album; In Memoriam Pt. 1, released back in July 2019. ↓
Rip Damon Talks About In Memoriam Pt 1
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Rip Damon is one of R3cords’s original “day one” artists and has currently released two albums to date. (at the point of writing this article) During this time he has remained quite elusive to the public eye, performing very few live shows annually and has had very little social media presence.
So the point of this interview, is to simply just find out what’s been happening with him and to simply just talk about his debut album. If you’ve not had a listen through it yet, it’s now available on all of the music streaming platforms out there. The image of the record is also a Spotify link to the album, so give it a click and add it to your playlist!
DMA: “Hey Rip, how’s it going?”
Rip: “Yeah good man, yourself?”
DMA: “Brilliant, actually… It’s been about two months now hasn’t it?“
Rip: “Yeah I think so, the last time I saw you was the day you got this job actually! Doing all the website stuff! How’re you liking it?”
DMA: “Well of course, I’m loving it, it’s like a dream! I can’t imagine doing anything else anymore.”
Rip: “That’s nice man, you get to do your thing! Not everyone gets to do the things that they love doing everyday. It’s awesome!”
DMA: “Yeah I’m pretty lucky, I guess.”
Rip: “Yeah you are, but don’t let ’em push you around or abuse the fact if you know what I mean.”
DMA: “I get it, don’t worry I’ve had a lot jobs before this one and this is the most stress free job ever, trust me.”
Rip: “Hah yeah I’m sure it is, so erm… What is this interview about exactly? I heard you wanted to talk about my past or something?”
DMA: “We do yea… I mean, I do! Actually I want to talk to you, about your debut album; In Memoriam Pt.1. There’s not been a write up or any actual interviews prior to this, about you or the album so!… There’s no better time or place than now I guess!”
Rip: “Hah-hmm, yeah I know what you mean. I’ve know I’ve been terrible in terms of getting myself out there, I remember around the time of the albums release… Personally, I wasn’t in a good place. I should of been! But I wasn’t, it all felt like a balancing act. On one side I’ve got my music and performing it, and on the other… “
DMA: “I heard.. you, was going through a lot of personal stuff.”
Rip: “Personal stuff?… Hmph, It’s true, but it feels like so much.. Of an understatement in all honesty.”
DMA: “Ok, well I don’t want you to dive all the way in to that just yet. I know it’s been tough for a lot of people this last couple of years, and that’s not to make light over yourself of course! Because I’m sure that’s had an effect on what you were able to do, thinking live performances and so on.”
Rip: “Oh yes, absolutely! Not that that’s really bothered me completely. I like doing live shows but that’s not really what drives me, To be honest you can hear that in my music. It’s great for chilling out to… I don’t really care about commanding a room full of people to the beat. Don’t get me wrong though, those are great times to be had… The greatest, sometimes! But it’s not me, you know! Some of the best times I’ve ever had with music, are just laying back, chilling out and just really listening to it, you know? “
DMA: “I completely agree! I love chilling out to a nice chilled beat, it’s a really welcome contrast when you want to take a break from one room to the next.”
Rip: “Hah, you’re talking about like when you’re a night club aren’t you? or a festival, with the themed tents and everything?”
DMA: “I am yes! I’m still missing all that at the minute to be honest! After lockdown lifted this year I still couldn’t get any tickets.”
Rip: “I feel that! I mean the whole thing has definitely changed how I wanted to carry on, I had a few regular nights going. Sometimes just my own original stuff, sometimes just a mix of everything, like some kind of human jukebox… And obviously I prefer people connecting to my music. But in all honesty, what all this time off really made me realize is, is that what I actually really love doing… What really makes me happy… Is the creation part, it’s exactly why I produce music full time at R3cords now! There’s nothing that makes me more excited than the idea of taking on a new music project.”
DMA: “So what you’re saying is that you’re just a producer now? you don’t want to be a performer or an entertainer?”
Rip: “Well, I never really wanted to be any of those things, I just did the live part because I felt like I had too, and it was a few extra quid in my pocket… I just worked hard doing what I loved doing, but not thinking about it, and over time things just change and you look back at what you’re doing, and you just ask yourself… Are you actually happy?”
DMA: “Wow, I actually feel like I’ve been where you’re saying right now… It’s the main reason I took this job actually.”
Rip: “I know right? I’ve never really enjoyed personal fame, you know! And yeah I get how ironic that is, but as Rip Damon the Artist… It’s more about my mind and your own being the product. If you understand that.”
DMA: “Yeah I think I do… So jumping back to you solely be a producer now, like… Does everything you produce sound like the albums you’ve released? You know, with your own signature style or flare”
Pod: “No not really, as an artist I do my own thing. It’s just me, expressing myself.”
DMA: “So when you produce for other people….”
Rip: “I get to know them, and I try to capture as much of their own essence into the music as possible. Let it just shine out! You know? It should sound like they’re there in front of you… If it sounded like my own stuff, it’d be more of a collaboration effort than anything else, and of course that’s always something I might be open to doing, because it could be quite interesting… But also I love just doing my job.”
DMA: “Ok I get that, so nowadays you mostly focus on professionally producing music?”
Rip: “Exactly yeah, I will still be releasing my own stuff as well… Down the line. The plan with my own stuff has not really changed much in all honesty. I know Biggs has been looking at ways to get more visual stuff out there, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be saying this but, the biggest issue with the label at the minute are the budget constraints.”
DMA: “I’ll check with them before I publish the interview. But he told me that EVERYTHING goes, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Rip: “Hmmm, zero marketing budget, zero… budget, in lots of things actually, but… We’re busy, pushing forward for those things at least.”
DMA: “Yeah, it’s a labor of love… At least I get paid.”
Rip: “Haha, lucky you ey!”
DMA: “We err, need to get back on track actually… So jumping back again, what was your approach to this album? And what is it about?”
Rip: “Well… My approach to this album, was the same in all my music really. I have this kind of personal philosophy that writing music should be a very personal thing, specially when it’s origin is internal. I’m not a lyricist but I write poetry, I always write a free verse for every track that I do, and sometimes even draw an image to go with it as well.”
DMA: “Are you talking about writing from the soul?”
Rip: “Erm… I guess that’s one way of putting it. I’m a lover of classical music but I don’t like writing it. I’m also a lover of most modern composers, like those in the movies. The best composers are really great at capturing emotion in their music, and I absolutely love that! The idea of leading emotion with music is something as old as music itself. But then one day I had this thought, what if I take the idea of leading emotion with music, first with the idea of creating an idea for the listener which I then guide that idea with the music.”
DMA: “errr, I know what you’re saying, but isn’t that what a song is anyway?”
Rip: “Well, yes and no. Because you can just listen to it, like it, think it’s cool or whatever. But then there’s more to it than it being just a cool track or whatever. It’s kind of difficult to say exactly what it is to me, because it is me, and I’ve never really tried to properly put it into words. It’ll be easier if I just bounce off what you ask I guess. Haha.”
DMA: “Yeah OK, so what I think you’re saying is that you’re trying to paint a picture with the music?”
Rip: “Almost yeah, because a single painted picture will always be the same, but painting a picture in the mind is very different, because it will always be different. I often meditate nowadays, it really helps me unwind and get my head straight. There’s an abundance of meditation music and guided meditations out there also. It’s the guided meditations that I could probably mostly relate my music to. But instead of holding your hand the whole way through, I seed the initial idea and then you do what you will with it, and the track plays out. Now obviously if you just found my music on Spotify and you pick a track, close your eyes and listen through. You might have a nice day dream with it, you might even feel something.. But the context isn’t all there so you’re not getting the full journey intended from the seeded idea. The seeded idea is the title of the track with its free verse and the image, all of this together should be your base point, before you listen to the track.”
DMA: “So what you…Wow, so what you’re saying is that I actually haven’t experienced your music properly yet? Because I’ll be honest with you, all I’ve done so far is just listen to it in my car! Because that’s just how I listen to music. I’ve got good subwoofers in there and everything!”
Rip: “Haha, let me just say it first, there are no rules OK! you can listen to my music however the hell you like haha, and to be honest that sounds like a cool way to do it. But you should try it at least once, just to see where your mind goes. The music, the writing and the imagery, it all comes deep from my own experience in a relatable way. I’ve never just thrown something together, it all means a lot to me, and when I construct a melody or an abstract sound, it has a purpose, it means something. It’s deeply internal and it’s tied intrinsically to an emotion when I do this.”
DMA: “You’re making me feel like I’ve been missing out on something now, haha!!”
Rip: “Well, if you do! You know! let me know if you have a little journey or something. I like hearing what people experience.”
DMA: “That’s quite interesting actually, so do people ever have similar experiences from the same ahhm, seeded idea?”
Rip: “In some cases, there have been similar experiences, yes. But they’re similar from a more metaphoric standpoint than literal. The interest I have in the experience part comes from my own personal interests in psychology. The experience is pretty much a daydream which has simply been given a contextual aesthetic, in which your subconscious then fills in the rest. “
DMA: “OK so are you a scientist as well or a psychologist or something like that?”
Rip: “No, not really. I know what I know from books, it’s all personal research and curiosity. I had a difficult childhood, I suffered from depression at very young age, I got my first job at 13 to help my mum, I loved school but I was never really there… I had to help out with my baby sister. I used to steal books from book shops because I was banned from every library. I wanted to learn everything, I wanted win the Nobel prize. I wanted to save us.”
DMA: “That’s… Really admirable… So have you ever gone on to learn and get a degree or…?”
Rip: “I’ve done all the free courses online! I’ve never had the money, and life has a way of distracting you when you could, or really should do something. And actual help from someone is something that seemed so alien to me… You know, I could rant on for ages about how long I’ve gone through most of my life, saying that I’m the only person that I can ever truly rely on. Everyone one wants a piece of you, and as soon you ascend to some place better they’ll do what they can to drag you back. Clawing and scraping… I’ve been to some dark, dark… Very dark places. And it was me, that pulled myself out of them… It was me wanting to understand. You know! Maybe if I learned about the mind, maybe I could control it better, re-wire it… Stay as far away as possible from the dark places in there. You know, and eventually I realized that there’s just so much cause and effect to everything. All this control I was obsessed with mastering, just didn’t matter anymore.“
DMA: “Are you saying you came to the conclusion that you just can’t control how you feel?”
Rip: “No, because I believe you can, to a certain degree… What I really came to the conclusion of, was the fact that all of a sudden, I was a 30 year old man with no real qualifications, a terrible job and renting a tiny moldy flat. That realization was literally how long it took for me to get my life together. There’s no fault there, because some people never do. Some had it easy and sorely sadly, some don’t even make it…”
DMA: “… So erm, is this album about your life experiences, the ups and the downs?”
Rip: “Well, I’d say it’s as much about my own experience, as much as it is about your own, or anybody else’s. I don’t even think that just an experience solely does it justice either, because in all honesty, I think a better way of explaining it is that the idea is more archetypal to the human experience. So again, It’s not necessarily about any particular unique and personal events that have happened, but there are contextual stories to the notion of each track, in effect making them archetypal metaphors.”
DMA: “OH, so it sounds like that you’re doing something with music, that’s actually in the realm of tarot almost?”
Rip: “In a way, yeah. There’s definitely a kinship there, in regards to the psychological effect that it can have. That said, it could be an alternative parallel to tarot. Although this is very much an introspective exercise of the imagination, over it being an external intuitive reading to reflect upon.”
DMA: “So if it’s an introspective thing, does that make it dangerous or risky in any way.”
Rip: “… That depends on what you mean by dangerous or risky. I mean, my journey to even arrive at this, was starting at the idea of putting some kind order to the chaos. There’s absolutely no intent on what I do being some kind of miracle elixir in any way. It’s an exercise, with the seeded idea of an archetypal metaphor. You start with this, and then your subconscious in effect then supersedes the initial idea. The intended experience is to have a contextually controlled day dream that is representative to a small degree of the human experience. It’s something that I’ve been building upon since I was 7… But that’s something I don’t want to get into right now…”
DMA: “No no! That’s fine! We’ve got something to cover on our next interview! I just want to touch again with the risks or dangers…”
Rip: “In all honesty, for anyone to say that simply thinking is a dangerous or risky thing to do…I’m sure you’d be quickly labelled as some kind of vile despot! Of course, that being said without any actual contextual motives on why that’s a good thing… But to say it practically, just don’t do it whilst driving a car, or any other kind of machine really… Just stop and take a moment! I mean that’s an obvious one, but I feel like it needs to be said. Now, in terms of your own mind? hah! I’d hate to be someone who was afraid to at the least, think on purpose! We watch films, documentaries and listen to music to alter our moods everyday, you can be guided in a way to feel anything from pure illation to being completely devastated. We tend to reflect on those moments we witness, we learn and even sometimes we emulate them. In this context I could relate a lot of music, films and tv shows to being very much like a tarot reading. It’s all laid out there in front of you, and you either relate to the story being told to you, or you don’t, heck! you might even learn something. “
“In all honesty, for anyone to say that simply thinking is a dangerous or risky thing to do…I’m sure you’d be quickly labelled as some kind of vile despot!”
After this interview, I’ve got to be honest, I had to have a little sit down to simply just begin to process what had Rip talked about. I feel like I’m going to have to do another interview or two, just on this album alone because I feel like we’ve barely even brushed the surface with it so far.
The images and accompanying free verses are planned to be available to buy as booklets once more funds have been risen.
The image peripherals however are currently available to view on Rip Damon’s Instagram now.
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