Local producer, label boss and all around drumming bad-ass KJ Sawka was my guest on Subtronic End a few weeks ago and his set was absolute FIRE! The set was an awesome library of bass-heavy bangers, some of which are being released on his label Impossible Records.

We had some time to catch up where we talked about how he got started as a drummer and what it takes to be a successful producer. Our chat got pretty nerdy before discussing what die-hard EDM fans care about most: the return of Pendulum with a headlining spot at Ultra Music Festival where he will also take the same stage with the alien robot EDM band, Destroid. You can listen to the full interview here, or catch the highlights below!

KJ Sawka from Impossible Records, Pendulum, and Destroid interview with Zach for Subtronic.

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Here's some highlights from my chat with KJ:

ZACH: What’s your drumming history?

KJ: I started at about 11 and a half or so. The summer going into sixth grade I got a drum-set from my uncle, saved up my hard earned paper route money for it. I didn’t have any drummer magazines or videos and I didn’t see much drumming on TV so the first few years it was just me and my kit and not too many influences. Then I started listening to Lars Ulrich, Metallica, and Iron Maiden. Then I got deep into Dave Matthews Band’s Carter Beauford. So I started off with rock and then high school brought on the Jazz element. Learning Jazz was awesome because it was a real challenge. But yeah, Funk, Rock, Jazz, Metal, it was all my roots. And earlier we were talking about Crystal Method, when I heard them it totally changed my ear for drumming. It was very simple beats but I couldn’t understand how it sounded so different and so good, and that’s what I tried to recreate on the drums.

ZACH: You mean trying to achieve the effect of playing programmed sounding drums, without all the overdubbing and multi-tracking?

KJ: Yeah that’s the thing. A lot of those groups like Crystal Method and The Prodigy, all those beats are rock drum beats. But they just kind of chop them up in their samplers at the time. And you heard all the clicks and pops and everything, and you couldn’t get that stuff out. You couldn’t make a sample totally perfect back then, and it was cool. I tried to experiment, I put t-shirts on my snare drum, and pieces of paper to try to emulate that crazy compressed sound that they got. Once I got close to that sound, then the beat made more sense. I played that same rock beat and got closer to that sound.

ZACH: Sometimes a drum kit doesn’t work for a certain sound because of all that ringing.

KJ: Yeah you gotta compress it like ten times, then you gotta gate it.

ZACH: You’ve done all that with drum sampling, and developed your own sound it seems.

KJ: Yeah, tons. Growing up and learning about electronic music I realized that drums are the backbone of music as a whole, but especially in electronic music. The sound of the drums is so much different than any other style of music and I thought, "well that’s my job, I got the drums." So all my music production kind of starts with the drums and it’s fun. I think it’s a good way to go.

ZACH: Producers always agonize over drum sounds, they don’t want to use presets. How long have you worked on a single drum sound?

KJ: I worked on one kick drum, or one snare drum for several, several days. Literally one sample. I have songs right now where I’ve replaced the kick and snare sounds probably six times, and I think, "finally the song’s starting to sound good," and the only thing I changed was the snare sound. It’s pretty crazy. That’s just the producing process, some tracks come together in a half a day and some literally take years.

ZACH: What daily approach does it take for someone to be a professional producer? You probably get up early and work all day rather than just noodling around for a few hours and calling it good.

KJ: Totally. You know, I think probably 99 percent of people noodle. I call it tinkering. You sit in your studio and you tinker. They think, "damn I wish I could make a successful career out of playing music," if they could just get over that hump of not tinkering and turn that tinkering into completing and accomplishing their goals. It’s just like anything really. Whatever you do for your work we all have goals and things that we have to finish that have deadlines. So if you just think like that in the studio, then I think you’ll get your music up and ready to release at some point. The best is to give yourself a deadline to finish the tune, however done or not done it is. You’re done at this certain time and then once you release it, it is definitely done! Even my latest track I released a couple of months ago, I’m hearing all these things I’d love to change. And that’s the way it’s always going to be. Each day I learn a little more about producing and mixing, and think I could make that mix a little better.

ZACH: Let’s talk a little bit about the label, Impossible Records.

KJ: My wife, Cori, and I started the label, I think it was May of last year, with the intention of releasing my own music without any headaches and giving other people, mainly young producers, an opportunity in the crazy rat race and noise that’s out there. There are some really amazing producers out there who just can’t get a call back from labels. I was even falling victim to that and I decided that I wasn’t really fitting the mold of a lot of specific labels that I wanted my music on. So I just kind of created my own mold and started the record label. Now I’m finding other producers that have a similar sound to me, and I think that’s how a lot of labels get started. Things are going good. We’ve had four number ones this year. We’ve had a solid 2015 and we’re really excited about this new year.

ZACH: What are Pendulum and Destroid up to?

KJ: Pendulum and Destroid are playing Ultra Music Festival which is really exciting. We’re both headlining the same day, same stage.

ZACH: At least they don’t have to strike the drums...Or do they? The Destroid stage set looks like something out of Battle Star Galactica back in the day.

KJ: Oh totally man, we tried hard to emulate alien robot warfare. Basically, all the people on Earth are eventually going to die. We shot down to Earth through the bass cannon, and we’re slowly gathering all the people who wanna be elevated out of Earth. We’re all going to be catapulted back to the Motherland through the bass cannon.

ZACH: Wow, so there’s history with this. There’s interstellar travel, and you guys probably come across Gwar on occasion in other galaxies?

KJ: We are the Gwar of EDM.