El Train
I’m excited to share this brand new interview with El Train, a producer/DJ and artist based in Manchester, UK.
I’ve been studying his music for the past few days and I love how his production is influenced by different genres like hip-hop, r&b, soul, electronic, and jazz. The mixture of all these influences create a unique and beautiful experience.
His last album And Then We Woke Up features amazing talents such as KALLITECHNIS, Jaz Lund, Kaisha, Byulah, Jackson Mathod and many more. Listening to this record just makes me feel good and happy, and that is all I need :)
And Then We Woke Up is now available worldwide :)
Introduce yourself - what's your story?
I’m Luke and I produce and DJ under the alias El Train. I’m born and raised in Brighton in the UK but am now based in Manchester. I like to say that I make music with soul which takes influence from Hip Hop, R&B, Electronic music, Jazz and so much more.
What did you grow up listening to?
Growing up my parents were into a lot of soul music and motown, so that’s some of my earliest memories of hearing music around my house. My mum loves Marvin Gaye and the music of that era, there was also a lot of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis and other artists of that like. Once I started developing my own taste, I listened to a whole range of different genres from Indie music, to Hip Hop, to pop but I think my favourite genre was probably UK Grime. There was a TV channel in the UK called Channel U where anybody could send in their own music videos, I remember watching that for hours on end!
Growing up, who were some of your favourite producers? And why?
100% the Neptunes, hearing the first NERD album was the reason I became interested in music production. I became obsessed with that album and from there I found out that they produced a lot of Justin Timberlake’s ‘Justified’ and alongside it they released a making of documentary (which someone had uploaded to a little known video sharing site called Youtube.) At the time of watching it, I didn’t really know what production was, but afterwards I was obsessed with finding out as much as I could!
When did you start making music? What was the biggest challenge when you first started?
So I first started learning to play the guitar at about 14, just the basics and learning some of my favourite songs. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I decided to start writing/recording some of my own songs. Having gone deep down the rabbit whole of production I discovered a program called Sony Acid Pro which allowed me to record myself playing guitar, singing and add some really awful sounding drums on top!
At what point did you know you were good at what you were doing?
Honestly to this day I still don’t think I’m ‘good’ or as good as I’d like to be. To paraphrase a Jacob Collier quote, my musical abilities don’t match up to the ideas that I have in my head and it’s about narrowing the gap between what’s in your head and what you’re actually able to do. I’d love to be able to get to the point where I love my own music as much as I love the music of some of my favourite artists.
What gave you the confidence to be an artist and release your original music?
I think I built up my confidence releasing music by putting out works in progress on Soundcloud. It was and is such an amazing community that allows you to upload music instantly, leave comments and show appreciation to artists, make connections and so much more. I think the sense of community is something that gets completely lost on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
What biggest lessons have you learnt since the beginning of your career?
Don’t try and make music that you think people want to hear, make music that you genuinely love.
And Then We Woke Up is your new album - what's the inspiration behind this record? When did you start working on it?
And Then We Woke Up is an album born out of lockdown and this crazy two years that we’ve all been experiencing. I started it at the beginning of last year and the central theme is the idea that these last two years have sort of been a hibernation period (especially for people in the music industry) where we’ve had to slow down, but we are now coming back to life with everything slowly opening up again.
Could you describe the songwriting/production for this album?
Due to lockdowns and everything else, 99% of the album was made remotely. I’d been working on a lot of ideas and probably had about 4 or 5 songs that fit together well when I decided I wanted to make a full length project. I really wanted to utilize collaborations to take the album to the next level. All of the featured artists are people I love and have worked with over the last couple of years and there are also other musicians/producers who were able to bring something to the table that I couldn’t do myself.
What did you feel when working on "Feeling Blue"? What's your favorite thing about this song?
I’d had the instrumental for ‘Feeling Blue’ for quite a while and I knew at some point I wanted to add horns to the track. I sent a rough version (without horns) to Byulah and I’m guessing the title of the beat which was also ‘Feeling Blue’ inspired the lyrics for the song. When she sent her demo back I knew instantly that we were on to something and we actually used the demo vocals for the final track because of how raw and emotional they sounded. I then reached out to Jackson Mathod who I’d previously heard on a couple of tracks with FIKA and he did his thing.
What are you looking for in artists when collaborating with them?
I listened to so much new music partly because of my radio show and also finding new music when I’m DJing. I’m a huge fan of the tone of an artist's voice more so their lyrics, so I think that’s what draws me in initially. But also I think instrumental choice is important, I think you can tell a lot about an artist by the type of music they are choosing.
As an artist, what is the hardest part? And what is the best part?
For me I think the hardest part of being a musician is using social media. There is a constant need for new content for an artist in 2021 and it’s probably the part of it that I enjoy the least.
The best part is being able to wake up every day and being able to do what you love. Making music for a living is like being a child who gets to play with his favourite toys every day.
What are your thoughts on today's music industry? If you could change one thing, what would it be?
I think on a whole the industry is in a good place. It’s possible to make a living as an artist completely independently, not having to rely on anybody but yourself. In years gone by, you’d have to pay huge fees for studio time, you can now record everything yourself at home. You’d have to send your music off to labels for a release, now you can distribute it all yourself really easily. Obviously there are things that could be better such as the low royalties that companies pay artists, but I think eventually that will improve.
Thinking about what one thing I’d change, again I’d have to go back to what I said above about social media. There is a huge pressure to be visible and to show people what’s going on behind the scenes, if I could remove that from my day to day I would.
What advice would you give to artists?
If you’re 100% sure this is what you want to do, then give it your all and don’t give up. There’s gonna be a lot of long nights and a lot of times where you start to question whether it’s all worth it, but if you pour everything you have into it, eventually you’ll get to where you want to be!
In your opinion, what would make the world a better place?
I think the single biggest thing that would make the world a better place is if all politicians put the interest of the people they represent before their own personal interests! If we had more politicians that thought it was important to sort out things like homelessness, climate change, inequality and less who are there to grow their own bank accounts then we might be on the right track.
What message do you want to deliver to the world?
This is a hard one! I’d say one mantra I’ve tried to live by in the past few years is; don’t keep saying you’re going to do something, just do it! And that’s the best I’ve got haha!
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