INTERVIEW - December, 2018
ROMderful
FastForward Interviews Rapper ROMderful
WRITERS/REPORTERS: Lily Baldwin, Kylar Flynn, Kyle Austin, Brandon Lopez, Simone Harper, Angie Gonzalez, Sabine Lloyd, Jacqui Martin, Lauren McKechnie, Claire McKechnie, Samantha Michaels, Josh Santos, Anna Silverman, Campbell Slavin, C.C. Clark and Lilli Wanninger (FROM: Community School, Drew, Redwood High, Marin Academy, San Rafael High, St. Ignatius Preparatory, Tamalpais High and University High Schools)
P ICTURE YOURSELF reclining on a cushy brown leather sofa in the forty foot “spring room” of the McIntosh townhouse in Soho. Eclectic wall hangings and exposed brick add ambiance. A video plays in the foreground through McIntosh speakers, pounding out incredible sound while showcasing a track of experimental musicians.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get more interesting, in strolls a famous rapper: ROMderful. He’s colorful, soulful, and happy, and he wants to share his story with you. Spoiler: it involves pineapples, video games, and good vibes.
“Everyone calls me Rom,” he says. “One day I actually said wonderful wrong. And I was like 'oh.' Pretty much that’s how it happened.”
We were all wondering how did this self-taught Londoner emerge with such a unique sound? His music style is far from your average, predictable pop single. Self-described “weird” chords and instrumentation form the foundation of his beats, and he draws inspiration from every musical genre you can name, from K-Pop to Metal to Gospel. A large part of his success is his adaptability. Rom can play seven different instruments and incorporates all of them in his music. Balancing sound depends on the end goal for a song, and his production involves complex music synchronization.
His process involves more than just strumming the right chords on his bass or getting the vocals down. To mix your beats like Rom does, you’ll have to familiarize yourself with both Logic and FL Studio, two different digital audio workstations (DAWs). These interfaces are complex, with pattern-based music sequencing that allows for arrangements, recordings, edits, compositions, mixes and more. As the music industry has become increasingly more digitized, anyone can download the same programs used by the big names in production.
Mastering digital media often comes after an artist gets a big co-sign, granting them access to million-dollar studios and equipment. In the case of ROMderful, this mastery began with “a half-broken Mac and some USB speakers but no bass.” In the style of a true creative, Rom came upon his talent and life-long passion by accident, making his first beat when he was ten years old. Like every other ten-year-old boy, Xbox was his first love, and it incentivized him to mess around with a school software program that he thought could be used to make video games. A guitarist from childhood, Rom already had a good musical ear, allowing him to incorporate new melodies and chords into the software and building drums and other instruments around it. What started out as lots of “clicking buttons and making noise” turned into taking popular radio songs and then replicating them in “weird, unexpected sequences” to make them his own.
A formative aspect of ROMderful’s early career was the online music platform Soundcloud. Because of the variety of sounds and inspirations that are woven together within the music platform, artists are always building off of each other. This collaborative quality allowed Rom to push the envelope further until his music wasn’t exactly “radio-friendly.” Through Soundcloud and MySpace, Rom was able to create a network of musicians who were also creating alternative music styles.
The nature of the music industry is that listeners are always searching for the next big hit. However, Rom thinks if music starts off as abnormal or unpredictable, it becomes the same industry-friendly music with time, as everyone begins to appreciate its unique qualities. His beats aren’t cookie-cutter and would be difficult to categorize, and that’s exactly the way he prefers it. ROMderful’s work is based on a broad range of beats and influences. He cites Pharrell’s lyrics and Timbaland’s music production as providing inspiration, but he has also “dabbled” in old-school R&B. Although “heartbreak” R&B works its way into some of his beats, Romderful has set goals for his music (and for himself) that push a different type of content. Asked to describe his musical expression, Rom mentioned he doesn’t create sad music, and this sets him apart in his industry. Rap music is often used as an outlet for many artists to express frustration about the current state of the world, dropping lyrics about violence and drugs that sell to a very specific audience. But mimicking the dialogue that’s already out there isn’t what art is about.
“You can make music about weird stuff being happy—playing with your cat, being colorful, not dressing like everybody else in super-expensive brands. It’s okay to portray a different image,” Rom says.
The way musicians brand and sell what they create is through this image that Rom referenced. His one-of-a-kind fashion sense parallels the uniqueness of his music; he showed up to our interview in a black PS4 long sleeve T-shirt under a one-strap, gray overall, Supreme Nike sneakers and an IKEA fanny-pack strapped around his neck . A man of character and bright colors, his world-wide fans all identify with his authentic image.
“Whatever version of me you see on the internet, I want that to be the same person in real life, because a lot of people don't portray the same image,” Rom explains. “So clothing, music, visually, the way I act and interact with people—it's all the same experience.”
A particularly memorable moment for Rom was crowd-surfing while on tour in South Korea. He felt moved by how his music had gotten him to that point, where people were willing to carry him through the crowd, everyone feeding off energy that his music created. This energy has taken him far, and Rom has goals for where it will take him in the future as a global artist. His newest music video in collaboration with Sony is in the works, as well as his new album, Press Alt to Continue. He also hopes to bridge the gap between his music and his love for gaming. Music is his work, and gaming has been his hobby ever since he first stumbled upon FL Studio at age ten. Big things are in the works for Rom in all forms of digital media production, showcasing his versatility as an artist. It all has to come together-the style, the personality, and the music-to make ROMderful who he is: an artist in every sense. Rom attributes his success to his individuality, and hopes that his fans will recognize the genius in their own.