The first time I heard of Jackson Wells, better known as ‘Quackson,’ was when I stumbled upon his track ‘Breathe.’ Released in August of this year, this song caught my attention quickly for its ominous cryptic sound and a lower BPM hovering around 100. Right away, I noticed a reflection of style to a certain favored artist of mine.
Upon asking about this before our interview outside the Fred Wildlife Sanctuary, Quackson admitted excitedly that the song had been inspired by none other than Rezz, and that she had been the reason that he’d began producing music. This led on to him and a few friends banding together to create ‘WAVES Presents’, a platform for which they and other local artists could perform their music. As a producer/DJ and co-owner of the rising event company, Jackson is involved with some cool things going on in the Seattle area.
I went on to ask Quackson these questions:
RMR: How did Rezz inspire you? What was it that you liked about her music, and where did you first hear her?
Q: When I went to Shambhala last year (2016) and saw Rezz’s set, seeing her was what got me producing. I was really, really blown away! Like holy shit, people are actually doing something different now? I grew up living in Seattle my whole life. I’ve been going to EDM shows for about five or six years, but I haven’t always been satisfied with the originality aspect of what I was seeing. That experience really pushed me over the edge. I got back home from the festival, bought Ableton and a midi controller on a whim, and I fell in love.
https://soundcloud.com/quackson-1/breathe
RMR: Where did this inspiration lead you? How challenging was it trying to produce EDM music for the first time?
Q: When I got home from Shambhala, I made a commitment to myself to put forth my best effort into producing, and began dedicating all the free time I had left after work and school, towards music. I used to play instruments, but still, this was kind of a different thing. I will always say that Digital music production is the single hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It takes the cake by far. I’ve done all sorts of sports and schooling. But music is different. It’s a very scientific, but also highly creative way of doing something. It’s really mind-blowing. One thing that really helped me was back in May, I began taking music lessons from Seattle based producer Levitate. He has completely changed my perception of music and has given me skills I couldn’t have gotten any other way. No website or youtube video could ever have taught me what he has. He’s a great guy.
RMR: What kind of music did you grow up around? What was the first kind of music you really got into?
Q: Well, actually, my dad used to DJ for the record label ‘sub pop.’ He was pretty involved with the grunge scene from his day. Because of him, I was super invested in classic and punk rock at a young age, and I began playing the guitar and bass when I was nine. I took a break from it around the age of fifteen, when I found myself reaching a certain threshold. That was around the time that I started getting into rap and EDM, and also when I started longboarding, at first for fun, then professionally. I was very avid on it for about the next six years of my life. It’s only been in the last few years that music has taken over my life again. Now music is the biggest thing in my life, but I still have about fifteen plus longboards sitting in my garage, haha.
RMR: Tell me about WAVES. Who else is a part of this project and what is your mission?
Q: The company was originally started by me, Hannah Gabr, kyle Ellisen, AKA Inaudible, and Omar Kadmiri, AKA Kumarion, who I will be playing my B2B with tonight. Hannah is the general manager and works with a team of two other artists on the production elements of the show, such as the visuals and stage design. I do most of the reaching out to find interesting artists to play at our shows. Omar and Kyle do a lot of general managing as well. Ultimately, though, the project is a collective of fans and artists alike. We’ve received a lot of assistance from friends who want to help us grow and be a part of what we’re doing.
See, WAVES started as a fun way to play small shows mostly for our friends and family. My dad knows a guy who has a small bar that he let us use for free, so I and some of my like-minded friends got together and just had fun playing our music. The thing is, this isn’t really a profit-driven business. Hannah and I have easily spent thousands of dollars on this project, and all the money that we make at events goes back into the company. In the future, I would like to see us grow and host larger scale events with more artists and bigger production elements. But right now, I am very happy with what we have done. We’ve come a long way very fast, and we’re creating the opportunity for many talented local artists to get themselves out there.
RMR: Where did the name WAVES come from?
Q: Haha, well the name WAVES, that sort of stemmed from the idea of a ‘.Wav’ File, the standard music file that most artists use. Something about it stuck in our heads and we were all just sitting around listening to music one day and we thought: WAVES! It’s a pretty colloquial term, you know, it could be applied to sound waves or the wave of variety in the music and the art that we bring to our shows.
RMR: This is WAVES’ fourth event, and it has an interesting title, ‘The Unkn?wn.’ What is the concept behind this title? What do you and the artists here have in store for us tonight?
Q: The Unknown was a concept we came up with to create a theme we could base the show around, i.e. visuals and production elements. A lot of shows are centric to a wide variety of music, a lot of it being underground, we wanted to showcase a lot of tracks the audience would be unfamiliar with. Tonight is primarily bass, although Frida K is a great house DJ. We did a lot of work to really make this event as unique as possible. Our WAVES, paneled stage, all the work our visual artists have put in, we even had a custom welded aerial prop built for this, which our aerialist, Regan, will be commandeering.
Seen above is aerial artist Regan Powers performing at Waves Presents: The Unkn?wn
The title unkn?wn actually stemmed from the idea of sleep and the unknown of our unconscious psyche. There are three phases to the show; falling asleep, dreaming, and waking up. The first phase will be very ambient. The next, dreaming, will be more of a deep and dark sort of bass vibe. Lastly, the awake phase will be much more fast-paced, with anything from trap to D’n’B, to bizarre and heavy dubstep.
RMR: I have one more question for you. What would you like people to take away from this experience tonight?
Q: I want people to see what I see, and hear what I hear, and to walk away remembering what they saw. It’s very family-esque here, and I hope people take some of that away with them too. The community we have is great, as well as the originality that we bring as artists. I want the people who come here tonight to see what we’re all about; providing a truly one of a kind immersive art and music experience.
Check out the WAVES 4.0 after-movie below!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BaCfqH2h-GB/?taken-by=wavespresents
With the interview wrapped up, Quackson and I made our way inside the Fred Wildlife Refuge for the start of Waves: 4.0 – The Unkn?wn. We almost reached the door when Quackson spotted his friend and the night’s closing artist, Luckdragon.
“Hey!” Quackson yells out, “It’s my bro with a fro!”
“My duck with a fuck!” Luckdragon replies with a grin, hugging his friend.
It became only more evident as the night went on, how tight-knit and kind this group of artists and fans were. Even the people working at the venue were very nice. Quackson introduced me to a few more of the artists before returning to his work, and I bought a drink and began slipping into the groove of things around me.
What took place over the hours to come was a sort of dark and unique musical bliss that grew and transformed as the night went by. Quacksons description of the event and the phases of music that took place held up with good accuracy. The sets were unique and varied, flowing in a wave of dark ambiance which built from set to set, going through many different styles and tempos. The night started off with Mortals, followed by Ladice. Next was Frida K, who delivered a beautiful Tech House set, as promised, followed by a bass duo of AuSteele B2B James Sawyer, who began to gently prepare the audience for the final phase of the night.
What I’d really began to appreciate by this time, making me feel immersed in the show and giving it that extra touch of magic, was the visuals. Done by artists Hannah Gabr, Jake Rinn, and Anthony white, I observed an entourage effect brought on not only by the effects of the lit up paneled WAVES stage and laser setup, the aerialist hovering above the audience in graceful movement, but also the awesome psychedelic patterns that unfolded along the walls behind the stage and to it’s side. 60-foot walls covered in mapped out visuals is really hard to beat. It felt like a complete performance, done by an impressive collective of artists.
Listen to Quackson and KRILLA’s Brand new remix of ‘DRUGS!’
https://soundcloud.com/krilla_music/rezz-x-13-drugs-krilla-x-quackson-remix
What probably blew my mind and my eardrums away more than anything though, was watching Quackson and Kumarion’s back to back set. The chemistry between them as artists was very visible. They dropped a lot of Rezz, and a lot of their own original songs and the energy at that moment of the night was intense, not drawn out or over-amplified, but a perfect mix of weird cryptic, trap that was sort of entrancing at moments, but very energetic. It was my favorite part of the night for sure. Luck Dragon finished off the night with a powerful bang-up of dubstep and trap that carried its own niche of unique and energetic, heavy sound. When the show ended, everyone seemed to leave happy and content in what they’d been a part of, with no loose ends to be accounted for. I think it’s safe to say that I will definitely be returning to WAVES in the near future.
To follow WAVES upcoming event on October 20th, featuring special guest 13; click here!
Credit for the featured image goes to “Waves Presents” and “WavesPresents.com”
