EDM producer Sampson Fire cites artists Zedd, Skrillex as inspirations
Since the 1990s, electronic music has evolved from the low-quality, autotuned vocals in Cher’s “Believe” to entire genres of music composed by audio technicians.
The late 2000s gave rise to a rapidly growing and expanding genre known as electronic dance music, colloquially known as EDM, that includes many subgenres, like dubstep, house, trap and glitch hop. Recently, artists like Daft Punk and Skrillex have helped bring this developing genre into the spotlight, opening the door for new, small artists to break into the mainstream music scene.
Among those up-and-coming artists is Sampson Fire, a project by second-year advertising student Wright Clarkson.
Before he began producing EDM, Clarkson had a background in standard musical instruments.
“I’ve played drums for a while,” he said, ”some guitar, and a tiny bit of piano.”
Drums were his primary instrument, and in his eight years of playing, Clarkson has taken lessons to improve his skills and formed a pop-punk band called A High Like This.
Once in high school, a friend introduced him to electronic music and GarageBand, the default Apple audio software. After using GaradeBand to learn the basics of music production, he began using a program called Logic Pro to get serious about his music.
Since starting as an EDM producer, Sampson Fire has released one single, “Avalanche,” onto SoundCloud. He is hoping to release his first album, featuring 10 new songs, in late March.
The tracks on the upcoming LP, titled “Misadventure,” represent various styles of EDM, but are focused on themes of anger and desire. “Misadventure” represents Clarkson’s developing style as an artist, which he described as “lush.”
While developing his musical aesthetic, Clarkson looked to a few of his favorite producers for inspiration: Zedd, Porter Robinson, Skrillex, Excision and Space Laces. Zedd has been particularly influential because of his concise style of music.
“His composition and the sounds he uses are very well done, very clean,” Clarkson said. “It’s very pure.”
When Sampson Fire began DJing shows in Myrtle Beach and in Columbia, he found a new source of inspiration in Zedd, Porter and Skrillex, watching their performances and aspiring to bring their hype and emotion to his own shows.
“They have so much fun with it, and they put on such a great show” Clarkson said.
Currently, Clarkson just posts his music to a SoundCloud account, but once “Misadventure” is released, Clarkson hopes to coordinate with EDM-specific blogs like dubstep.net, edm.com and White Raver Rafting to promote his music.
Clarkson is relatively new to the work, but he shares one trait with many successful composers: more ideas, almost, than he knows what to do with.
“[In my music] there’s a lot of different layers and sounds going on at once, but they all coincide well,” Clarkson said. “If I could sum up my music with one word, it would be ADHD.”