Treasure Fingers [Feature Interview]

Treasure Fingers: Official | Facebook | Twitter | Beatport

A little over a week has passed since our good friend Nightfox started her Dank Radio infiltration mission with her interview with Sound Of Stereo and she's already putting in work with her next installment. To be honest with you, it's a welcome surprise and boy is she putting me to work with these deadlines [It's all good! You know how we work. 24/7 365, all day, everyday, until the end of days.] The interview that follows entails her encounter with the funky producer/dj Treasure Fingers [Fool's Gold]. Keep on reading to find out about album updates, the status of Evol Intent, and his hometown of Wewoka Oklahoma.

Hey Dank Radio!
In a recent conversation with DJ Shaun P, we discussed the pros and cons of my job. He told me that although I was extremely lucky to be able to meet the people I get to meet, he would never want my job in fear that his love of music of a certain artist would be marred if he turns out to be a dick. Luckily, I’ve been blessed in that every artist I’ve met so far (minus one, I won’t name him here but you can ask me later) have been the nicest, most humble people I’ve met, welcoming me into their rooms, backstage, and going out of their way to lend me twenty minutes of their time. Probably means little to them, but it means the world to me. My impression of an artist has yet to be marred (thank God). So here’s a recent interview with Treasure Fingers, and thanks to my friend Jack Daniels, probably the most random interview I’ve held to date. Thanks again Treasure Fingers.
Enjoy,
Nightfox

Nightfox: So I see you’re in the middle of a big tour, how are you enjoying it so far?
Treasure Fingers: It’s been good. I was actually off for three weeks so it’s good to be back again.

Nightfox: Do you find yourself finding the time to produce and work on tracks while touring?
Treasure Fingers: Not really when I’m touring. I try to but I really like working in my studio, and when I’m on the road I only have my laptop so it’s a big difference. But I like it though because when I’m on the road I don't have a lot of time to produce but I have all these ideas in my head. Then when I actually get home I can get a lot of stuff done.

Nightfox: So does that mean we can expect the album anytime soon?
Treasure Fingers: Yeah hopefully! I need to just take a break and actually finish it when I’m not doing gigs.

Lift Me by treasurefingers

Nightfox: And are you still working with Evol Intent through all this?
Treasure Fingers: Yes. We have two new singles almost done. Four tracks broken up into two separate 12" single releases, and maybe an album in the works? I don’t know, we’ve been really productive lately.

Nightfox: When it comes to producing, are there any rules or codes of ethics in your opinion? Any do’s and don'ts?
Treasure Fingers: Um, not really. I mean, I’m not a fan of just ripping stuff off, you know. If I sample someone I try to do something creative with it. I just try to be original. Besides that, no rules, I guess.

Nightfox: Describe the differences between your live set and your DJ set.
Treasure Fingers: I’ve never actually done a live Treasure Fingers set. We’ve done live Evol Intent, and that’s still less on computers and controllers and stuff, but it’s kind of programming on the fly, just doing effects and stuff like that. But if I wanted to do a live Treasure Fingers show, it would probably be with a band but I’d kind of like to stick to DJ’ing for now.

Nightfox: I see your doing Korea for New Years! Have you ever been there before?
Treasure Fingers: No! I’m super excited! Well, they put in the offer and I was really excited and then North Korea bombed them so I thought the gig was off and my agent was going to cancel it. But the promoters came back and promised it was all good and things would be safe.

Nightfox: Interesting, will there be any extra security or anything like that?
Treasure Fingers: I don’t know. I’m not too worried about it actually. I’ll go anywhere. Like, I feel like I could die here tonight as well as I could there, so I’m not really afraid of anything. I’ve always wanted to play crazy places. I don’t know if they’ll have extra security or not but it will be super fun, I’m sure.

Nightfox: What do you expect from Korea?
Treasure Fingers: I’ve played Asia a couple times, like, Taiwan, Singapore, and Jakarta, places like that and it’s always really cool but I’ve never played Korea before so it’ll be a new experience.

Nightfox: And after Korea you head to Australia. How do you like it there?
Treasure Fingers: That’s probably my second home. I would live there if it wasn’t so far from everything.

Nightfox: What do you like best about it?
Treasure Fingers: It’s just really nice. It’s got a nice climate, you know. The continent is big so it’s kind of like America, you could go to a really nice beach or you could go way out in the wilderness. It’s just a cool place with laidback people.

Nightfox: So I see you used to play in punk and hardcore bands as a teenager, and when you were younger you were into hip-hop. Why make the transition to dance music?
Treasure Fingers: Well, lately, the Treasure Fingers stuff is definitely the most dancey I’ve ever done. I did Evol Intent before that and before Evol Intent I did even weirder experimental glitch stuff so it’s just been sort of a progression. I’ve always liked and made house music but I’ve never focused on producing it heavily until recently.

Nightfox: Do you plan on keeping up with Treasure Fingers?
Treasure Fingers: Oh yeah, yeah. I’ve thought about starting a couple side projects just because I have all these ideas for new songs and they don’t fit within what I like the Treasure Fingers sound to be. You may see a new project from me soon. But, Treasure Fingers is top priority right now.

Nightfox: Care to elaborate?
Treasure Fingers: Um, I really shouldn’t (laughs). It’s really just sort of the brainstorming stages now so I’ll keep it under wraps until it’s ready to launch.

Nightfox: So what city are you from in Oklahoma?
Treasure Fingers: Wewoka. It’s ridiculously small. About 4 thousand people.

Nightfox: Oh wow. So what was your first big gig that got you out of Oklahoma?
Treasure Fingers: When I was coming up there were these big raves coming up in Oklahoma City. And they also had an underground club that went until like, ten in the morning or something. They have been playing house there since like, 1989 or something crazy. Which, I wasn’t around of course, back then but that was my influence for the whole club scene or rave scene. So I guess I was 16 when I started going out there for raves and getting into the clubs. I met Jeremy Dawson who is now in Shiny Toy Guns, and he booked me for my very first rave. After that I started playing neighboring states and it kept spreading from there.

Nightfox: Growing up did you always have a feeling you would go into music or did you have a Plan B?
Treasure Fingers: I feel truly blessed to be this successful but I always knew it would be a hobby. I actually went to school for graphic design. I have a degree in that and I worked in that until probably about four or five years ago. Then I would freelance on the side. As of the past three years, it has been all music.

Nightfox: Do you ever design your own stuff?
Treasure Fingers: Sometimes but I don’t even like to touch my own stuff. I just got burnt out. I like art directing and having someone else do it now (laughs).

Nightfox: So who are your favorite 90’s hip-hop artists?
Treasure Fingers: I was all over the LA west coast stuff as a kid. I liked Eazy E, Dre, Snoop. I liked all the San Francisco stuff too like Spice 1 and E-40. And I don’t know, there was all this weird underground gangster rap stuff I was super into when I was 12. And even now I go on last.fm sometimes and stream Spice 1 radio and they play all these amazing artists that never really made it big. It’s amazing. That was definitely the big golden era of rap for me.

Nightfox: So what’s your favorite 80’s funk artist?
Treasure Fingers: Oh man. Zapp and Roger. No question.

Nightfox: Any music makers you’re especially diggin’ right now?
Treasure Fingers: I love all the new guys coming up. Bit Funk in Chicago. Le Zebra, who’s actually from out here I think. Night Riders, from Boston.

Grum - Through The Night (Bit Funk Remix) by Bit Funk

Nightfox: What are your plans after your tour?
Treasure Fingers: I have a heavy schedule up until May I think. I’ll probably take a couple weeks off and chill then. I haven’t even thought about it really.

Nightfox: Are you going to rest at all?
Treasure Fingers: (laughs) I should but I’ll probably just go into the studio. That’s kind of relaxation for me. It would be nice to just take a month off and just go into the studio.

Nightfox: I hear a lot of complaints from artists about airlines. What is the worst airline in your opinion?
Treasure Fingers: Aw man. There’s a lot of them. I’m really not a fan of Continental. So definitely Continental.

Nightfox: Ever lose anything?
Treasure Fingers: Oh yeah. I was on a Delta flight and the panel next to my seat was broken and I had a little bag with all my important stuff like my passport and my iPod and it fell all the way under cargo into the belly of the plane. They said they couldn’t get it until they did maintenance there so I had to file report and do all this stuff. I think I was going to Canada a few days later so I had to expedite a passport and replace all my stuff. But I sent them the receipts and they paid for everything. So thumbs up to Delta. But they need to fix their planes up (laughs).

Nightfox: What do you think of the explosion of dubstep? Here in LA, it’s developed a huge underground following.
Treasure Fingers: I like a lot of it. There’s some that I can’t stand but there’s a lot of really good stuff out there. And with the Evol Intent project we do a lot of dubstep too.

Nightfox: Ever thinking about going into dubstep?
Treasure Fingers: Not as Treasure Fingers. I thought about doing some collaborations with people and just blending some funky kind of synths & talkbox vocals so there might be a collaborations with that soon, I don’t know. I’ve been talking with 12th Planet so we'll see where that goes..

Nightfox: What’s your favorite track that you released this year?
Treasure Fingers: I would say Keep Up, which just came out on Fool’s Gold, because it was the first full song released where I wrote and played all the music, no samples, and co-wrote the lyrics with a friend. We took about a week cutting the vocals and had an engineer mixing them. It’s more of a process than I’m used to. I’m used to just doing everything myself so for that one we put the most time into and I’m really proud of the outcome. Aside from that, probably It’s Love, the B side to Lift Me. That one came about because they wanted something else to release with Lift Me so I kind of had to make it under pressure. And it all just kind of came together. I wanted some female vocal samples, yet without sampling, on it so I slowed it down and sent it to Haley Small, who sang on Keep Up and gave her a rough idea [of what I wanted]. Then I pitched her vocals back up and chopped them a bit. It was kind of unexpected how well it turned out.

Keep Up feat. Haley Small by treasurefingers

Nightfox: Well, I loved it! So do you like playing bigger gigs like raves or do you prefer smaller, more intimate settings like Avalon?
Treasure Fingers: I like the big raves but I feel like it’s hard to read the crowd sometimes, so you kind of just do your thing and hope it’s going over well. Whereas Avalon or smaller clubs, you see peoples faces and really see how’s it’s going. Also with the smaller clubs, well, tonight it’s me and Burns so hopefully everyone who came out either came to see him or I or both of us. But at a big rave you don’t know who is there for you. They could have came to see Tiesto and just wandered into your tent. If you’re playing funky house and their into trance, they might just stare at you for an hour waiting for whoever is next.

Nightfox: So when you play do you read the crowd mostly and see what they like?
Treasure Fingers: Well mostly. I try to do my own thing, I never compromise as far as what music I’m going to play. I go between really synthy, kind of melodic stuff to really funky house or whatever. If I can sense they are ready for something else and or not feeling it, then I'll start switching it up a little. I'm helpless in the "pop and rap requests" type clubs though, I don't even have that sort of stuff on my laptop or CD wallet.

Nightfox: What is your favorite gig or venue so far?
Treasure Fingers: Well, Avalon has actually been amazing every time I've played here. Tonight I think someone hit me up at 11:30 or something and told me they were at capacity already, so it’s amazing to fill a venue this big. Also, Voyeur San Diego where I played last night, there’s always really good shows there.

Nightfox: Oh yeah, I have yet to make a road trip down there.
Treasure Fingers: Oh, you’ve got to go check it out. They’ve made it slightly bigger since they took down a wall. It’s still a very intimate venue and the people there are super into the music.

Nightfox: So you do you know Harvard Bass pretty well then?
Treasure Fingers: Yeah I met him a long time ago, I think before he was even doing Harvard Bass. Then I started hearing his tracks and he pretty much blew up overnight. He's awesome though. Good guy too.

Nightfox: When you’re in LA are there any places you need to visit or people you need to see?
Treasure Fingers: I try to hang out with all my friends when I’m out here and eat good food. Definitely try to hit up Roscoes and In N Out.

Nightfox: So when you wind down at the end of the day, what do you like to listen to?
Treasure Fingers: Probably my favorite band is Mono, this band from Japan that’s all instrumental. Like, 12 minute tracks, all super melodic and moody, really beautiful music.

Nightfox: Well, thank you Ashley! As a writer and a fan I want you to know that this has been an awesome experience!
Treasure Fingers: Yeah no problem! Happy I could help.


Purchase @ iTunes | Beatport
Tour Dates:
Dec 18, 2010 - Brooklyn, NY (US) @ Public Assembly - BEMF
Dec 31, 2010 - Seoul, Korea @ Club Rococo
Jan 5, 2011 - Washington, DC (US) @ U Street Music Hall
Jan 12, 2011 - Las Vegas, NV (US) @ Ghost Bar
Jan 21, 2011 - Byron Bay, (AU) @ The Great Northern
Jan 22, 2011 - Canberra, (AU) @ Trinity Bar
Jan 25, 2011 - Brisbane, (AU) @ The Bowler Bar
Jan 26, 2011 - Adelaide, (AU) @ Shore's Complex
Jan 28, 2011 - Melbourne, (AU) @ Colonial Hotel
Jan 29, 2011 - Wollongong, (AU) @ The Grand Hotel
Jan 29, 2011 - Sydney, NSW (AU) @ Civic Hotel
Jan 30, 2011 - Gold Coast, (AU) @ Titanium Bar - Dirty Sundays
Feb 5, 2011 - Perth, (AU) @ The Bakery
Feb 12, 2011 - Auckland, AUC (NZ) @ De Club
Feb 25, 2011 - Salt Lake City, UT (US) @ Salt Palace Convention Center

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