The drive of ROBY
A blank space, a clean slate. An empty abyss, nothing but a mere shadow. You can’t help but wonder just what you are experiencing. Suddenly, in the corner of your eye, you see a mysterious green head fly by your field of vision. No one can explain the mystery of its shades.
For more than a year, ROBY has kept himself floating among various planes of existence while creating a series of abstract art pieces you would experience from no one else. He has developed a world of his own in such a short amount of time, you can’t help but feel amazed at what he’s achieved.
His frequent groundbreaking, head-turning releases with the ever-prolific Tabula Rasa Records have truly captured his sound.
Welcome to Azura Mitsuda. I have the pleasure to sit down with the oversized glasses-wearing, floating, lime green head, also known as the up-and-coming artist, ROBY.
Introduce yourself.
Hey, I’m ROBY. I’m a music producer, graphic designer, and your (mom’s) favorite floating green head. I’ve been producing music since 2013 and started to take it seriously in 2018 when I bought GarageBand Pro- I mean, Logic.
How would you describe yourself as a person?
Funny. And probably a bit of an ass if we become good enough friends. I’m a bit of a perfectionist and I’m passionate (I guess) about my work. Although I have this weird quirk where I lack motivation to work on stuff and when I do want to work, I just end up trying to make music endlessly until I get burned out. Because I’m super smart. Also recently discovered how uninterested I am in everything else that’s not making music or all the different things that come with packaging a track, EP, or whatever.
How would you describe your musical process?
Well I don’t know anything about theory, so I just make cool noises and chord progressions that I think sound good and eventually come up with a full track… some of the time. Other times I try granulating vocals or melodies. TL;DR It’s just a lot of trial-and-error. Try to make a loop or a sound that inspires you and the creativity usually snowballs.
A big part of your branding is a giant green head, just floating there. What inspired it?
I saw a YouTube tutorial pop up on my recommended tab about how to model your face in Blender. Looked pretty easy so I tried it out myself and it came out pretty cool. I thought it would look nice as a cover art for a future track, but eventually I realized that it would be a sick and one-of-a-kind brand image… because who else has a floating head as their Internet persona?
In only a little over a year, you have released three EP’s, featuring talented artists such as goodnight lavender, Aaron Kusnier, bh and Kelbin. How have you put out such a large library of music in such a short amount of time?
Well, in 2020 and earlier this year, I was “attending” online school. So I had all the time in the world to mess around in Ableton. One of my favorite tracks I’ve made, Veritas from the False Hope EP, was started during a Zoom class if I remember correctly. I’ve started several tracks that I really like during online school, so maybe it’s something about the environment of being around people that helps me create.
Novus 3 is your latest EP featuring, well, three tracks. The lead single from this project was Remedy with goodnight lavender, a song about longing for someone so far away. What inspired this body of work?
Well when I originally started Novus 3 in October 2020, I was intending to send it over to mau5trap. As I evolved as an artist the tracklist was morphing and a lot was changing with the project. It just wasn’t a smooth process but I learned quite a bit during its creation. And as for Remedy, maybe deep down I wanted this song to blow up because it could’ve been relatable to people during the pandemic. But that couldn’t have happened anyway, not enough 80’s drums and vocal reverse reverbs. But really, I sent over the original rock instrumental, tentatively called “Remedy”, to goodnight lavender, and I guess he took inspiration from that word and managed to write the entire song in a few minutes.
How do you believe your musical identity will connect with your personal life in the future?
Well, I’ll probably lose my hair. Not sure about the green skin yet. This is a good question, I don’t know if I’m answering it right. But I think that ever since becoming involved in the music world and this specific community/scene I’m in, I’ve become more of an accepting person. I’m not as ignorant and naive as I was when I was younger- which was bound to happen anyway since your mindset changes from when you’re, like, 15. But I feel like being in this scene made me grow up a lot faster.
What is the most difficult setback you’ve faced in your life since you started making music, and how have you worked to overcome it?
This isn’t much of a setback but it’s the best I can think of. Recently I got a job which is taking up a significant amount of time, but instead of moping about not having time to make music or to create anything, I use the time away to brainstorm and materialize what I want to create and sketch out plans for what to do when I get back home. It’s helped a lot, whereas if I don’t plan things out I just lose motivation to do anything. So there’s a tidbit of advice for you.
What would you say to someone just starting out in music production?
People always say you shouldn’t compare yourself to others, but it’s helped me a lot. Analyze what others are doing, what works and what doesn’t. I think that’s invaluable. But don’t feel let down that you think your work isn’t as good as theirs, because it took them years to hone their craft.
With the amount of music you’ve put out since you started working as ROBY, it doesn’t look like the road is stopping anytime soon. Where do you think you’re headed next?
Tough question. I don’t really know. I have album visuals materialized in my brain but I need to figure out how to make it real. And I’m working to make sure whenever I do drop an album that it gets the attention it deserves. So, I have some work to do. But as for the short-term, some more singles soon. I don’t know if I ever could stop making music.
Listen to ROBY’s latest single with Kelbin, Xplorer, available as part of Kelbin’s debut album, EFYL.
