By Eric The Red
The average Dubstep song tends to evoke images of large groups of people dancing rhythmically, with bright lights flashing everywhere the eye can see. EDM DJ Banshee Boyd is out to change that perception. With a dark, almost menacing sound, Banshee is remixing and creating music that is a meld of Dubstep, classic 16-bit video games and a near horror ambiance that no other local DJ can hold a stick to.
When asked to describe his music, Banshee Boyd stated, “Dark, nasty, & fun.” You can feel this right off the bat when listening to his track “Chemical Plant Zone,” which is a remix of the classic Sonic the Hedgehog 2 level theme. Banshee took the classic 16-bit theme from the early 90’s, and made it sound like a modern, dark Dubstep original. “I kind of draw inspiration from all different genres of music. I listen to a little bit of everything and sometimes get ideas out of nowhere, like ‘Hey! I could remix that!’” is what he had to say on where he draws most of his inspiration. Being a fan of multiple genres of music, it makes sense that Boyd would be able to take a dark twist from his background in metal, and add it to a primarily positive genre such as EDM. To get some background on him, I asked where he got his stage name. “My stage name was actually given to me back when I was in a metal band. I was asked to try doing vocals. I did a scream/growl. An old band mate said, ‘Damn you scream like a Banshee.’ It just kind of stuck.” With creativity drawn from the world around him, Banshee Boyd can access just about any style and interweave his dark accent to accelerate his career to astronomical levels.
Being an electronic artist, you would think that creating and rehearsing music would be an easy feat. This is not entirely the case, as Boyd explained, “Well, my rehearsals are a bit different. As far as song writing goes, it’s me sitting in front of a computer for hours, figuring out where to put notes, creating a good beat or synth, and getting it to just make people dance. As far as getting ready to play a show, I DJ digitally so it’s me finding a bunch of songs including my own that I think people wanna hear.” With music writing taking up multiple hours to get just the basic beats, you’d think the process of writing new music would be the biggest challenge for Banshee Boyd. When asked what the biggest challenge he’s overcome to date was, Boyd said, “I would just say [getting] exposure would be the hardest one. It’s been difficult to get my name out there, but it’s been getting a bit easier lately, with Dubstep becoming more popular it has definitely helped me reach out to more people.”
With exposure being the most difficult part of his music career, I asked Banshee what kind of advice he had for anyone looking to get into making music. On this subject, he stated, “Never give up! Whatever kind of music you’re writing, always try to do what you can to improve. If it’s with practicing, research, or whatever can help you, focus on your craft. Music is a beautiful thing and you should never, ever stop… Never give up on your dreams. Whether it’s music, writing, art or whatever keeps you going. Always try harder to achieve what it is you want from the world.” Banshee Boyd will be appearing Tuesday, December 10th at the Clinic Bar and Lounge in Palm Springs. This will be his first headlining performance, with many other guest DJ’s to be announced. Be sure to catch him on Tuesday, and check out all his tracks on Soundcloud at soundcloud.com/banshee-boyd and on Facebook at facebook.com/banshee.boyd.edm.
