elektro exclusive interview with Pierce Fulton

What’s been the peak moment of your year so far?

Well I’ve been doing a few things with the Dada Life guys so I’d say everything I’ve done with them together have been the highlight of 2013 so far. I did their New Years Dada Land show, the LA and San Fran Dada Lands and also did a remix for their track “Boing Clash Boom”. It’s a lot of fun working with them on different levels so I hope to do some more in the next few months.

What are you most excited about this summer?

Definitely the release of my next single...it features vocals from Polina and it’s just a great summer style track that I think will do some damage in clubs/festivals in the second half of the summer. I also have a few other originals that I’m trying to line up very soon; really trying to get a structured release schedule as we head into the fall.

Any new tracks/remixes in the works for fall and winter?

Actually for the first time in a while, I don’t have any remixes in the works. I just did one for Atlas Genius that I gave out for free but as of right now there’s nothing in the pipeline. I want to continue to work with indie bands for future remixes though, seems to be the best route for myself and my listeners.

A lot of your early success has been accredited to music blogs who couldn’t get enough of your music. What blogs do you read to stay up-to-date with music?

I used to know so many blogs like 4 years ago but now I feel like there are so many that it’s hard to keep up. I typically read Dancing Astronaut and I used to read Beat My Day a lot but they’ve been MIA for a little bit, hoping they get back up and running soon. You guys also have a great blog! Very current and always getting retweeted by all sorts of artists, super awesome.

But there are so many different sites, large and small, that put so much care into posts about my music and it’s really cool of these people to put their time into writing it. I’d honestly be still in Vermont making music in my bedroom if it weren’t blogs haha.

I read you moved to Brooklyn in December. How’s the Big Apple? Nightlife/music scene over there?

Well I just recently turned 21 so living in NYC now is muuuch better haha. Before I’d have friends inviting me to stuff that was 21+ and it was just such a bummer. But altogether Brooklyn is amazing. I love it every day here, so nice being so close to Manhattan but not live in the hustle and bustle and I’m also not too far from home in Vermont (like 3 or 4 hour drive).

You’ve been focusing on your music full-time…what are some of the most important things you’ve learned about the ‘biz’?

I think the one thing I’ve learned (kind of the hard way) is that you literally cannot stop. Right when I took it on full time, I kinda treated it like the hobby it was back when I was still taking classes. If you really want to make something of your music, there’s no resting, which is exciting but can be very intense. Luckily I’ve found a sense of continuity in it all and I’ve started to get things going the way I like.

Right now, a lot of music runs the risk of sounding the same—same drops, same builds, etc. You always manage to produce tracks that sound entirely unique, yet carry something that is unmistakably Pierce Fulton. How do you keep from getting stuck in ‘sound’ of the moment?

I think it boils down to just disregarding what “works” and simply making whatever you think represents you. My road hasn’t been the most consistent but I think my next few tracks will distinguish what road “Pierce Fulton” will be going down. The big problem lately is that people hear what’s top 10 on Beatport and just create the same thing in a different context. There’s no feeling of creativity, no artistic expression, and it just feels like it was copied and pasted (and sometimes it literally is). Kind of a bummer but I’m hoping this trend blows over soon.

Preparing a set for a crowd sometimes seems very much like writing a story. Do you have your go-to’s or do you start from scratch everytime? How do you go about deciding what journey you want to take the audience on?

When I started touring, like 2 years ago, I had no idea what I was doing so I would roughly organize my sets. After playing a bunch of shows this process got a bit tiresome and didn’t really feel real so I think after the first few shows of the Love & War tour with Wolfgang Gartner & Popeska, I threw the idea of organizing sets out the door. Since then I just put new tracks into a folder, decide what to open with as I’m in the car to the gig, and just wing it. Makes it much more fun because you feel the pressure of messing up and it kinda fires you up more. There’s also no better feeling than hitting a groove in a completely unplanned set...sometimes it just clicks and every track you play fits right in it’s place. Sometimes it doesn’t and that kinda sucks but you learn!

Get Weird has become a staple for music lovers of all walks of life, in terms of discovering new artists and sounds. Are you ever stumped as to what the next show is going to be? How long does it take you to prepare a podcast, from track discovery to organization?

I wouldn’t say I ever get stumped but sometimes I take my time in making a new show because the previous one hadn’t drawn as much attention. The last thing I want to do with this show is irritate people like “oh great another mix, I’m probably not gonna listen” but rather have the listeners get really excited for the next episode. It’s always so much fun finding tracks for each episode, I get a lot from my friends and usually the Anjunabeats/Anjunadeep promo; they’re just so damn great.

Any new sounds or genres stuck on your brain that you’re interested in exploring further? Artists you’ve been listening to a lot lately that you might not have been into a year ago?

I actually just reconnected with an old childhood friend who showed me this genre (or sub-genre, whatever) called Chicago Footwork. I had never heard it before but it’s kind of like a faster and much more aggressive version of Trap. It’s very raw, unpredictable, and sampled based; I think I found it interesting because of how different it was. It’s always exciting discovering a style of music that bewilders you.