Shagabond

By Tiffany Lam and Jeffrey Yau. From bedroom disco slow trot to x-rated Galaxy hops shimmer, young producer Shagabond has been making serious waves this summer, gaining respect for his creativity and style from a number of artists at home and abroad. We sat down with Nick, mastermind behind Shagabond, after his Tattoo show with UK duo Bondax here in Toronto and chatted music, influences, Bondax, university and more.

Q: What prompted you to make originals first as opposed to bootlegs initially?
A: When I first started music I was super influenced by ethereal R&B stuff like The Weeknd, Zodiac, D’Angelo, people like that – that’s kind of what I want to do. I wanna do behind the scenes action instead of being like a forefront artist, but over time I found it was difficult to find people that I respected and wanted to have on my tracks so I decided just to make songs instead of making just background beats and over time it was just an evolution. I found a type of sound that I liked and it kind of just took off from there. A lot of DJs try and get into the scene through the remix game but I don’t see myself as just somebody who wants to jump into the game doing remixes… I just wanna make something that I personally wanna listen to, something that I think is good enough to be put out in public.

Q: Tell me about your involvement in the Exhume Music Collective.
A: For sure. One day I got an email from a local guy (Toronto) called Adam Bosley – I’m from Waterloo. Basically he said that he was starting this label/collective, Exhume Music, and he wanted to manage me and he wanted me to do be on it. At the time I didn’t have a steady SoundCloud following or anything going on so I was interested. We ended up meeting at a local Chapters and we had a good conversation – I could tell he was the kind of person I wanted to surround myself with just because he told me a bit about his background in music and that he liked artists like Mount Kimbie and not just artists that were pushing SoundCloud music but like “real stuff” that I genuinely like to listen to all the time. I was like, “this is the guy. He’s going to push me and I’m going to push him”, and that was it.

Q: So you mention “real stuff”, can you share a little about your influences?
A: A couple years back I was really into what The Weeknd was doing early on with the mixtapes (House of Balloons, Thursday, Echoes of Silence), that ethereal kind of style. Over time I started looking more and more into instrumental styles of production and came across (and everybody always says this in every interview) Brainfeeder. Brainfeeder puts you on an almost whole new way of thinking of like what music is, and what music can be. I started listening to a lot of Flying Lotus, Bonobo, Lapalux, etc. as soon I was getting into the SoundCloud realm of things. Then obviously Bondax, Darius… Even in Toronto there’s so many good producers like Hamlet, NIGHTIZM, The 25th Hour, Birthday Boy – that whole crew. There’s huge talent in Toronto and I’m blessed to be a part of the scene right now.

Q: On that note, do you think you embrace that part of the Canadian/Toronto scene culture? Exhume is listed as based in Toronto but it also says it incorporates music from all over the world.
A: Sure I hope so! To be honest, it amazes me every time I play a show, like I’m just here to play music. I’ll overhear people in the hallway like “oh yo Shagabond’s set is up next” and in my mind I’m just like “how do you know about me?!” It just feels weird that people know an alias of me without knowing anything about me, who I am, or an alias of me. They just know what I’m presenting to them on SoundCloud so it’s kind of phenomenal to have people backing you so I hope I’m making some sort of impact.

Q: How did the whole Bondax thing come about? You mentioned earlier something about sending them a demo…?
A: Yeah! Okay, so this is around the time I had first switched from using Logic Pro as my main DAW to Ableton Live and I had a summer where I was just making music everyday all the time and I finally found out ways to do things the way I wanted to make them sound; it was like a huge transitional phase. I made this song called Coral Soup (it was like a one night thing). It was just the weirdest thing; I was in my room drinking a Pear Martini and I was feeling pretty nice, and I had machine open and my keyboard and I loaded up my drums, and so that was it. I sent it to Soulection, Bondax, basically everyone and two weeks later they (Bondax) responded and they were like “we love this track!” So they put it on their compilation album – which I was floored to be on – and then in October (2014), we played here and I was in this room with them while Pomo was playing upstairs and we were having this serious, deep conversation. I asked them (Bondax) why they picked my song since they probably got thousands of emails… and they told me this story about how they were in a cab together in London and their friends were asking them if they got a lot of emails about music. Bondax was like “yeah, but basically all of it is shit, just kids playing around doing nothing” and so what happened was that my song just happened to be the first email so they were just like “check this out, I bet it is rubbish” so they played it… and loved it! They contacted me a few hours after but yeah, it was just the craziest coincidence and since then it’s just changed my life… That one moment that they decided to check out my SoundCloud page.

Q: You mentioned too that you first found out through social media?
A: Yeah! They actually posted my track on their Facebook the next day and I didn’t even know. I have this SoundCloud friend called Rmyssn – he messaged me on Facebook and was like “did you just see this? They posted it on their Facebook page!” I was coming home from school when I saw and I almost passed out in my kitchen… I was freaking out and my mom thought I had a heart attack. People started checking it out and listening and I became a junkie just non-stop checking my Facebook and SoundCloud pages to see if people were listening to stuff. That was the spark and since then it’s given me the chance to upload stuff and people will actually listen to it without waiting months and months at a time for it to pick-up.

shagabond jelly

Q: That’s crazy insane. Tell me about Galaxy Hop and what that means to you.
A: This is also a funny story. We were watching our The Superbowl and there was this commercial for ‘New Galaxy Hops Beer’ and I was like “woooaaah that sounds sick I’m totally taking this”, if the beer company sues me one day I’ll drop it and change it to like cosmic hop maybe!

Q: Your Twitter handle used to be ThePurpleKid. What was the story behind that?
A: I was going through a really awkward phase in my life… yeah let’s just say that southern hip hop was a massive influence so I was listening to a lot of that at the time. If you guys know Southern hip hop at all, it’s about drinking lean and purple sprite and I was just like “okay yo so I’m dat purple kid holla at me yo” and it was just kind of a thing that stuck. But yeah I finally changed it back to @Shagabond so go ahead and follow me already if you haven’t!

Q: Besides all the Bondax stuff, what’s been your favourite memory so far?
A: I played a show at Montreal at this club called Apartment 200 with this guy Da-P – he’s actually the only Canadian Soulection artist and coincidentally he’s actually in town tonight – and so I was sitting there about to play… This is 2am, club is packed everybody is dancing and I just had this moment where I almost started to cry where I was like “fuck I always wanted to do this I can’t believe this is actually happening.” It’s pretty difficult to understand everything happening because it wasn’t long ago that I was just sitting in my room wondering why I hadn’t blown up yet or pondering thoughts about how I had to do this. But I mean it’s all luck; you can have all the talent in the world but never blow up… it’s all a coincidence that everything works out.

Q: Who would you say is your favourite artist/producer at the moment?
A: Tennyson – they blew me away live. The Code is by far the best for aesthetics and polished sound – I was actually watching their vinyl debut video today and I was trying to come up with a quote that matched what I was seeing and it was something like, “at the pinnacle of complexity is the relevance of simplicity.” You realize just how important it is to be clean, polished. Nobody has that! Everybody on SoundCloud is just trying to be as complicated as they can and show off, but it’s the people who are simple and have the vision of where they wanna go that can make it happen.

Q: A lot of the times becoming an artist is about branding. Do you have one thing that you think is “your brand” right now?
A: For people who know a little about music, the eighth notes I guess – almost every track I do has an eighth note synth in the background. Every synth patch is self-designed, I don’t use any presets so I guess that’s another trademark because nobody is going to sound like you if you make them yourself.

Q: Your sound’s been described as mature but you’re only 18. How long ago did you start producing and how did you get into it?
A: Basically I was in grade 8/9 and my brother came out of nowhere with his friend and they were like “we’re gonna be producers!” So my mom bought him a mini-keyboard. It didn’t really work out for him and I was in a band at this time so I started messing with the keyboard and Garage Band as a tool for live expression. I found out I could make full songs with loops and all that, and at the time I was into alternative rock. And then I just started to get into deep house and dance music when I was in Grad 9 (14). The EDM wave was just starting up, Avicii had just come out and all those guys and I thought to myself “oh man it’d be so cool if I could just do that” and yeah, I just started trying to make EDM music which to be honest I’m not a big fan of it as it’s gotten kinda mediocre. At the time though, I was super into it and I was just getting more and more into electronic music and the path just leads to another path, and another, and then you’re just deep into sub-genres before you find something you really love and wanna be a part of.

Q: What are you most excited for this coming year?
A: EP release! I’m aiming for the fall, but you can never be sure. I’ll have this entire summer to work with so that’ll be good. There are some sick collabs in the making but I really can’t tell you who is going to be on the tape. I’m collaborating with an artist that I’ve been friends with for a long time and he’s doing all the artwork for it, so that’ll be sweet.

Q: You’re starting university! How’s that going to work with your schedule?
A: I’m skeptical but since I was a kid, it’s always been implanted into my mind, but I mean, I’m here now and I’m in… But getting into university was one of the most stressful things. I’ll probably have to go easy on the course load so I can focus on the music. It’ll definitely be interesting because I don’t think a lot of people are accustomed to the scene or any of the music that I do so it’ll be weird to find people that are like-minded. I’ll be studying cognitive science at U of T. - IntoTheCrowdMag

Haute - U Should Know (Shagabond Remix)
Shagabond took this original on a slow walk through a serene park and came out with a new best friend. The smoothness of this version got the nod of approval from taste-making YouTube channel Majestic Casual, where it's racked up almost 200,000 plays in less than a month. - BlogTO

For those of you who need an anthem for your upper lip, 18-year-old Toronto producer Shagabond has decided to team up with groove specialist Nomo for the track “Fu Manchu." Departing from the slow burning analog sounds of the original track, Shagabond bumps the single up a touch with his usual warm, airy synths while working in the soothing, pleasant vocals of Nomo. All of this sets the tone for those perfect summer vibes, moods, and goals that are sure to make this artist one to watch for the rest of the year.​

"Nomo is actually a good friend of mine outside of music,” Shagabond explains. “We met last year through family and coincidentally, we both happened to be independent artists. I was looking for a vocalist and he was looking for beats, so the collaboration happened pretty naturally." - Noisey

"I was drinking a martini... don't ask, I don't know why," laughs Nicholas Arvanitis while shaking his head. The Waterloo, Ontario producer, known as Shagabond, is a natural storyteller. "I was drinking this martini and decided to turn on my computer. I had this idea to make a series of eighth notes, that stabbing synth sound. From then on, it's been my wave," he declares. "I guess the credit goes to drinking martinis."

Between his sophisticated beverage preferences and armoire of self-made productions, the underage bracket Arvanitis resides in is a bit shocking. But as Shagabond, 18-year-old Arvanitis has been churning out an unwound style of beats-based electronic that's of a craft well beyond his current nascent years. That particular martini-driven Ableton session brought forth his breakthrough track "Coral Soup" and consequently a spot on Bondax's compilation album Bondax and Friends in 2014.


A wide, boyish grin consumes his face at Bondax's mention. "They followed me on SoundCloud and that was a heart attack moment for me," he says. "Then, a friend of mine posted on Facebook saying, 'Yo Nick, check this out.' Bondax had posted 'Coral Soup' on their Facebook. I basically had a second heart attack in my kitchen." No time for second thoughts, Arvantis signed "Coral Soup" to the compilation at their request. He landed a few shows with the Lancaster duo soon after. "I didn't want to leave when I met them because they had so much to tell me," he says. "I'm just blessed to have met them and crossed paths with them."

Arvanitis grew up in Waterloo, a suburb city a few hours from Toronto. With less than musically inclined parents, he says it was his guitar teacher that nurtured his interest in music production. "I remember the first The Weeknd mixtape coming out," he says, "I had one of those 'Wow, I could do that' moments." Once he had a firm grip on Ableton, the output came naturally. Minimal drum patterns, down-tempo lullabies, ethereal R&B and hip-hop vocals are all a part of his musical conscience as Shagabond.

"For a while, I thought about what music is and why people are drawn to it," he says. "When it comes down to it, I think that there's only two real types of music: music for thinking and music for dancing or movement. I'd like to think I fit into the former."


Shagabond's "U Should Know" by Haute remix, premiered today, is reflective of his philosophy. Similar to prior releases like "Fu Manchu," the song floats within the ambit of elegant simplicity. "With SoundCloud these days, I feel like it's a constant competition for complexity. It's about who can make the craziest track. Music isn't just about that, to me," says the astute 18-year-old. "Sometimes you need to know when you should bring the heat and when you should take the back seat."

Growing up in the era of SoundCloud is not all it's cracked up to be, either. Arvanitis says the pressure to live up to the glory of "Coral Soup" is high and it often leaves him stuck in limbo while producing. "I'm constantly questioning myself. Everyone knows me for this down-tempo stuff," he says, "but that makes showcasing my versatility hard. I don't know how it's going to work with the audience that I've worked so hard to build."

"I remember in the beginning, watching the number of plays go up. It was great. It was all about the little successes, like, 'Yes! Someone commented! Amazing!'" he says. "I've stopped now, it's can be too much of a game." Not that he has much to be wary of, at the time of writing this, his SoundCloud boasts of 8.5K followers and 60K plus plays on "Coral Soup" alone.



Shagabond at the NXNE Bloc Party in Toronto. Photo courtesy of Partywithsylvian.

Arvanitisalso recognizes that growing up away from the Canadian music meccas of Toronto and Montreal has been a positive factor in forming his approach on music and the industry. "Growing up in Waterloo allowed me to be alone and figure out what I was into," he says. "Places like Montreal have so much influence on a lot of people. After a while, if you're here too long, you don't even know what you like anymore."

Though just over a year into his musical pursuit, Arvanitis knows what he likes and obviously, what he wants. Don't you wish you had this much self-actualization at 18?

"I know that I'm not going to take off tomorrow. It's going to be a long road and it's going to be a hard road," he says, acknowledging Shagabond as embryonic. "But I'm more excited for that than opting to make some one-off hard beat of-the-moment that everyone eats up."

Here's hoping he doesn't unhook from that martini filled IV any time soon.

Shagabond will perform alongside Hoodboi at The Hoxton on September 4, more information can be found here. - THUMP

At the young age of eighteen, Canadian producer Nicholas Arvantis, aka Shagabond, has already built a steady following in the UK. Earning the praise of Bondax, Shagabond’s recent offering “Coral Soup” was featured on their latest compilation album, Bondax and Friends, alongside Karma Kid and STWO.
Shagabond’s latest release “Yao” is a danceable rework of Chris Brown‘s “Yo (Excuse Me Miss)”. Using self-designed synths, the young producer creates a warm intro that compliments Brown’s saturated vocals. As the track progresses, punchy drum kicks and a simple bass line make for a laid back, future bounce vibe.
Give “Yao” a listen on Soundcloud, and check out Shagabond on social media below. - Earmilk

Shagabond is a teenage producer from near Toronto in Canada. He made this song when he was only 17, and he's definitely got a lot of growing to do and a lot more music to make, but if his beats are sounding like this now, its very exciting to think what they'll sound like when he's 21!

"Coral Soup" is one of his best beats so far, simultaneously ethereal and groovy, a hard balance to achieve but he gets it just right on this one. We had the pleasure of performing with him and Pomo in Toronto recently in October, and he played a really cool set, and turned out to be a super nice guy, excited to hear what he makes in the future. - Complex

Where are you from?

S: I'm from a city called Waterloo about an hour away from Downtown Toronto. It's a pretty forward thinking city in terms of technology. Blackberry started here so that brought a lot of intelligent people to the city. In terms of music, it's a pretty divided place. Most people are into crazy EDM tracks and country music, so the club scene isn't very interesting. Toronto is where it's at right now for music.

Tell us a bit about your relationship with Exhume Music - how did you meet?

S: Exhume contacted me by e-mail in like April and I got together with them at a local Chapters not long after. They seemed like really cool people and I felt like we were like minded so I decided to sign with them for management purposes. I loved the fact that they we're near by, unlike some past collectives that approached me from the UK. I'm really glad I signed because I wouldn't be doing this feature right now if I hadn't. Both Adam and Micaella are really down to Earth and I'm glad I got to know them. Exhume has a website coming soon, but make sure to hit up the YouTube Chanel if you wanna hear some freshness.



Tell us about the musical scene in Toronto?

S: The music scene in Toronto is pretty crazy, it's almost as if everyone you meet has some sort of connection to someone famous. The Hip-Hop scene in Toronto is definitely about to pop with guys like Jazz Cartier, Drew Howard and most of the OVO prospects being Toronto based. In the electronic scene "Harrison" is the next big thing. He's a really cool guy, I hit him up over SoundCloud and we ended up meeting right before he opened up for Cashmere Cat at a venue called The Hoxton. Also my friend "The Theorist" is absolutely killing it, he has this awesome mix of classical piano and ethereal RNB. Make sure to check these guys out.

You were in Montreal for '' POP MONTREAL '’ and you played at Luwan in Chinatown on the same night - how was your first experience in Montreal?

S: Montreal was such an awesome experience. I wish I could have stayed longer but being in high school kinda restricts me from doing that. I really enjoyed playing at Le Cagibi for POP, but I honestly had more fun vibin' out with the all in crew at the Luwan. Probably the hardest set I've ever played. While I was there, I also got to meet a long time Soundcloud contact and Local Producer/Dj Shash'U at Blizzarts. All around such a great experience.



Can we expect an EP for 2015?

S: I've been thinking about making an EP for a while, but I feel like slowly releasing songs one by one is almost a more professional way of doing things. I want to put out a large body of work, but the way people listen to music on SoundCloud makes it kind of difficult to get your point across unless you have a really large following. On SoundCloud, most new listeners usually won't even listen to a whole track. Since you can see the waveform people will usually just skip through it. People are more likely to check out songs if there released slowly instead of all at once anyway. I had a talk with Bondax before their show in Toronto about releasing music and they had also explained that slower is better. I'm definitely going to take their advice, but maybe one day I'll just feel like putting one together. - All In Eyewear

Sounds like: Sweater Beats, Karma Kid, Unda, b00n
What's so good?
Shagabond is 17 years old, producing out of Canada, and hopefully still in high school. His "Coral Soup," like other tracks on his SoundCloud is simply beautiful, bright, and bubbly. It's astonishing to see young producers having such a firm understanding in creating electronic music.

I, as well as numerous others, was referred to "Coral Soup" by none other than Bondax, the wiz kid duo. The pair have a great eye for unheard producers, and their Faceboook page has been a constant library for great new talent.

This consistency in good music, posted by Bondax, holds true for "Coral Soup." Picture yourself on a beach in the Bahamas with a hip-hop beat and saturated bass jamming in the background -- that's this track. - Indieshuffle

The high life is no cure for a broken heart. That's the thematic thrust of "Kodaks," the glossy new single from Shagabond with entreaties from L.A. vocalist Noah. Miss your head on my chest/ Crumblin' and I wonder' if you been waiting on the first text, Noah sings. He's trapped in a state of inaction and resolve to reunite that nicely fuels the vocals that are half foreplay and half blubbering. Rather than mirroring the mournful singing, Shagabond's tropical production pulses and twinkles.
Shagabond told The FADER over email how he and Noah developed the song. "After [Noah sang] a few ideas off his iPhone, I felt most strongly about the retrospective love ballad he wrote which ended up being the chorus for the song. It wasn't until after Noah went back to L.A that I realized the song needed something more custom. I created a whole new beat that helped make his voice the most prominent aspect of the song, instead of an overshadowed instrument like many producer-focused collaborations. I wanted something that gave us both a chance to show off what we can do as individuals."
Listen to "Kodaks" below. Shagabond's new EP The Metamorphoses of Lonesome Charlie is coming soon. - Fader