Following our review of the newly released Hologram from The Anix, we were given the opportunity to interview Brandon. He was kind enough to take the time out of his busy schedule to indulge us with answers to some questions that we polled from our audience, which you can see below.

Since joining the team at FiXT, what positive or negative changes have you seen with the development and sales of your music? 

A big area of improvement has been my Spotify monthly listener count. Before FiXT, I was around 20-25k monthly listeners, and as I write this I am currently at 115k. This was due to a few big official Spotify playlists adding my singles. This is essentially the modern day version of getting played on the radio, and has generated a good amount of new fans.

Have you visited the other artists within the label to see their creation process? If so, has this had an impact on your own style? Do you stick to your favorite instruments for creation, or are you more eclectic like Klayton?

I have only visited Klayton at his LA home, but not seen his full spaceship setup yet! I prefer an extremely minimal production set up with the least amount of distractions, options, and barricades to create as possible. I tend to stick with the same general sound in most cases, which is deliberate as I am defining a sound for myself. I know too many producers and musicians that are constantly on the hunt for new gear, new plugins, new techniques, but they can never finish a track! They get so wrapped up in trying new things, tweaking mixes, and obsessing over details that they just end up self-destructing. I was this way once, but my method of minimizing distractions has been very successful for my productivity.

You’ve been creating music by yourself for a bit now – do you prefer doing it alone or as a collaborative effort?

I have been creating music on my own since the 90’s. I started this way, then went down the road of being in bands, then came back to the sole creator role. I prefer this way as it allows me to create a true representation of what is in my head, and reflects the things I have been exposed to growing up. I move extremely fast and do not have the patience to wait for a band to weigh in on their ideas, to write their parts, or to push their influences on me. When I was writing with others, I would construct a song, then send it to them for their parts; if I did not get their parts back in 24 hours, I would either write them myself or move on to a new song. I was probably an absolute nightmare to work with for this reason, but when I was hot on something, I would go into hyper mode to get it finished as soon as humanly possible. Same goes for producers, I know what I want to sound like and do not understand how some bands can let a producer entirely dictate their entire existence. Some producers will decide your guitar tone, the type of amp you use, the way the drums sound, the amount of synth coming through in the mix, the vocal sound and style… at that point you are essentially a hired gun to record parts that have nothing to do with you! The Anix is a representation of one single person’s vision from start to finish, for better or worse.

Some bands take years to put out a new album, yet Hologram is coming out less than a year from Shadow_Movement. What does a normal work day look like for you? 

Some songs just come to be randomly, where I can hear the idea in my head, produce the parts and choose the sounds in my head, then just go into the studio and bring to life what I am hearing extremely fast, usually in a few hours. The vocals take longer as it is my least favorite part of the process, but I will start with mumbling a melody until I identify a hook, then work on finding a keyword to build the song around. I try to find an interesting title, something that could sound good as a movie title, that you could imagine being the name of a brand, or something you’d see on a shirt. If the song name checks those boxes, it usually means its worthy of being developed into a complete song.

Having absolutely loved your cover of Digital Bath, I went down a rabbit hole of finding all the other covers you have done. Have you ever considered doing an album of them exclusively? What do you take into account when deciding to cover a song?

There are a million songs I would like to cover, but I have to be extremely careful with what I choose. I generally look for a song that I could reinvent and bring something new to the table. “Digital Bath” was an exception to that rule, as this was more of a way for me to illustrate to my fans what an influence that song has had on the overall sound of The Anix. If I were to just say “Digital Bath” was a big inspiration to me, it falls flat and doesn’t mean much. But by covering it, and staying extremely close to the original, it speaks for itself and shows people how similar the song structure, tone, vocals, and sound design is to my original music. I also believe certain songs just shouldn’t be covered. I get bothered when I see Depeche Mode songs covered as there is no humanly way to recreate their songs better than the way they are in original form. Unless the person covering it is an absolute die-hard fan, it seems disrespectful for someone to take the glory for such amazing song writing.

The artwork for Hologram was all created by you. Is this another passion of yours? Are you self-taught, or did you gain experience elsewhere? 

Yes, I am self-taught in everything I do and create. I grew up wanting to be a designer, then a comic book artist, then a car designer, a shoe designer, and always played around in those fields. I have spent my entire adult life doing design work, so it is something that comes naturally to me, but the important part is that the visuals to The Anix match perfectly with the music, which can only be done if the same person is creating both. This is truly the only authentic way to connect those two elements and something I passionately stand behind.

Have you wanted to go in a completely different direction with your music, perhaps under another moniker? If so, what genre would you choose and why?

I am always on the verge of going entirely electronic.

What got you into creating music, and what has served as your muse to keep you going?

My muse is being self-aware enough to know my music can always be better. The drive to want to impress myself with my own creation one day is what keeps me going. If I can get to the point of being impressed by my own work, it will be time for me to move on and start something else. I know so many people who have an overinflated ego and view of themselves, where they think everything they do is amazing, which in turn prevents them from feeling the need to improve, preventing them from exploring and learning new ways to create. I only have an interest in creating very dark, melancholy music. You will never hear an upbeat, happy song from me if I am in full control. One rule I use in almost all of my tracks to ensure this is imagining the song as background music to me slitting my wrists on a bathroom floor. If the song creates that kind of internal devastation and destruction when I hear it back, I know it’s headed in the right direction.

With Hologram complete, are you already working on your next album? Or do you have other plans?

Not yet! I am purposely giving Hologram some breathing room, because as soon as I start the next chapter, Hologram will be dead to me and I’m not ready to bury it quite yet.

 

If you’d like to check out more music from The Anix, make sure to check out his official site as well as his FiXT page. If you’d like to see all our coverage of his music and inclusion in various collections, you may do so here.