I have to publish this with a lot of pain in my heart, pain that made me grow as a person. But also full of disappointment. I wrote everything this morning and decided to read it back later. First of all I wanna clearify, I won't stop straight away. I am finishing some stuff and taking bookings till early 2021.
So it's something I have to put out there more publicly I talked to most DJ's and promotors I worked with in the last years. But sadly I can't reach out to everyone personally. When I started with RK9 about 7 years ago I already came out of the breakcore scene. I produced nintencore, it was just something on the side for me. Next to that I was usually playing guitar in bands and doing the vocals. When I started to take upon more Drum & Bass influenced breakcore little did I know about the few successes I had and it would lead to me doing more post-audio production for film & games. It took a year or 2 to completely drift away from my roots, being in Hardcore bands. I focussed myself on some shows, organized a few events here and there (got asked back) headlined a few things, I think it was about 2016 it was so far so good. I was producing more and more hard Drum & Bass. I was never good in this social media thing, I always had a very honest opinion I was vocal about for example. So some of my bookings were taken care off by an agency which worked fine. But I did start noticing that some stuff in my life wasn't something that was supposed to happen. The reason I started working with an agency, in general, was to deal with some promotors, empty promises of booking me was a concern less to deal with they had to contact them now. Somewhere along the line when that concern was taken care of I started noticing. I lost a lot of people along the road already some to addictions, overdoses and others to suicide. I knew this wasn't the healthiest place but I could deal with it. Next, to my music career, I had a job at this point as a Linux consultant. It was early 2018 when I quit that job to focus more on research in the cybersecurity field. I got hired by Vodafone in June. That wouldn't last that long. Halfway October it was over for me, I did a pentest as a freelancer and had a full dependence on music while being signed to a label unwilling to fulfil their obligations who had in their terms a lot of claim on me professionally as DJ and tried to as a developer. When I made clear I wanted to cut ties and be paid for my services so far. False allegations and lies were made up to break the contract. This was more than the last straw for me. I have been basically harassed at work for very minors issues, even situation has led to the CEO making 30 call attempts in less than an hour to me, a time he knew I was hired by Vodafone. I made a deal early November 2018 to just got a part of my actual payment without the expenses I made back for a show London and close this book on each other. Till this day Construct Sound has refused to pay me and the CFO who made the deal has stepped down all this drama over a payment far less than € 500. And the harassment went on till February 2019. While being the most toxic thing that happened to me in music. I saw the worsed out of someone who I thought was my friend and I stopped working with an MC as well, I hate to see him get abused but he is an adult who choices for it. I do realize this wasn't the only toxic thing. The amount of suicide and substance abuse around me wasn't normal. All the DJ's I know at least most of them had their own responsibilities next to producing/DJing while being able to live on it, I realized why. So I started to look for my next job. By the last week of December 2018, my contract was signed. I did my headlining set at 35C3 for a full room it went perfect. The next months writing DnB or even breakcore was extremely hard but since June I have a permanent contract at work. For me personally, this finally meant closure in July, a little for my birthday. I was sure I didn't need to have DJ bookings I could enjoy what was left. And I did.
The period before my closure was painfull, I grew but of course it as it goes what those things I may have not been the niced person to some people. I would say I am sorry to some people just had it coming. I had threatening text messages and stalking from people who couldn't even hurt a fly, it was irritating. They were trying to get under my skin. But during this period I started writing music again, not drum & bass. It was the music I loved, I listened between sets, between producing. I was writing again with a guitar and a friend, I was writing lyrics. I could say this was one of the biggest bits of help for me closing the book. I started a hardcore band with a friend we planned to do this for 2 years. Writing songs went quite easily both dealing with our old music partners him with his old band and me with my old MC and old label. Closure could be a great inspiration. We both wrote one out of the five songs we have about some form of closure. This felt a lot better of a way to deal with shit. Into writing the songs I got an old friend along. We worked on it together when it came to finalizing the so and I am quite satisfied. As I was writing this some agency send me an email for a conversation. Reading this all back now I just have it very clear for myself. I am leaving a world behind me, for good reasons and as a person, I can't grow there anymore.
I hope you will find peace with all what has happened and you'll be able to find positivity and happiness in whatever comes next.
Thanks, I did find my peace and I have a lot of positive feedback on what I produced with my new band so far. Even just someone who heard it over the phone memorized the melody and was pretty much, I would expected something like that on the radio. Other feedback I had it was really post-hardcore, not an issue since it is that. :) I also decided to make some personal changes and feel that people are supportive towards me.
Hi. Do you have some more information about that OpenDJ thing ? I couldn't find anything. Thanks