RB Exclusive Interview: Midnight Tyrannosaurus — The Dubstep Dinosaur with a Ferocious Sound

Florida-bred producer Jason Figlioli has put a whole new twist on bass music. With his rapid rhythms and extremely heavy undertones, he has created an unexplainable electric sound. In the week leading up to Phoenix Lights, I had a chance to talk with Figlioli, better known as the ferocious Midnight Tyrannosaurus, about his name, his sound, and what the future holds for the dubstep dinosaur. If you aren’t familiar with him, you should be–his grimy bass is going to be anything but extinct in the future.

Your DJ name is as rambunctious as your sound. Where did the name Midnight Tyrannosaurus originate?

Well, a long time ago I was at a friend’s house with about 11 other close friends and they convinced me to try mushrooms. Long story short after a long while searching random shit on google images I found a T. Rex wearing a top hat and a monocle, then randomly blurted, “That’s a Midnight Tyrannosaurus right there!” Then proceeded to explain how midnight was obviously the classiest time of the day and only classy individuals wear top hats and monocles so CLEARLY it was a Midnight Tyrannosaurus. That was the first and last time I tried mushrooms lol.

Do you think you’ll remain faithful to your original style in the future, or can we expect an evolution of the Midnight Tyrannosaurus sound?

There’s been an evolution of my original style over the years that I definitely plan on sticking to. I’m trying to show the dubstep community that maintaining an identifiable sound is super important. If you make something that sounds truly unique and fitting to what you want to describe you, stick to it and you’ll grow a following of people who support that sound. That’s what being an artist is all about if you ask me. What’s the point in sounding like everyone else?

Thinking about the future, what can fans look forward to in the next six months in terms of new music and performances?

Lots of variety! Starting this year I’m going to be putting more thought into making each set a proper experience. For the last 6 years I’ve been looking at live shows as an opportunity to go as balls to the wall as I can, but now I’m looking at it a little differently. I’m still going to try to put as much energy as I can into each set, but I want to implement super brief periods of deep tunes or maybe even some DnB/halftime stuff because there’s been productions of mine that I’ve been super happy with and always wanted to hear live but never had the opportunity to. Over the years I’ve seen fans here and there ask me to play my more obscure music live (“King of the Deep”, “Omnic Harmony” etc.) so I think it’s time to address that and get a little weirder with it!

Phoenix Lights will be your Arizona festival debut! What can we expect from your set?

Definitely a TON of new music! I’ve been super hard at work since the Wifeasaurus and I made the big move to the house we’re currently in! It took a lot of time to get everything sorted out and unpacked so I hadn’t been able to make music for the better half of two months! So needless to say I’ve been living in the studio for the last few weeks. But other than that I’ll definitely be touching on a little of what I explained in the previous question to get a feel for it!

Phoenix Lights is based on the mass UFO sighting that happened in 1997. As a parting word, what’s your take on aliens?

Well, it’d obviously be silly to say we’re the only beings in this massive universe; there’ve been a million and one conspiracy theories out there over the years. But the one I’m sticking to is whoever’s out there has been here a bunch before and either A.) looks identical to humans or B.) has the technology to make them look like humans. It’s impossible for them to go so many thousands of years not being properly identified without some kind of technology allowing them to seamlessly blend in! But this type of stuff doesn’t keep me up at night. Surely a time will come when they’ll reveal their existence to the world, and I’ll be right there on my couch watching it go down with a J in my hand.

You won’t want to miss all of Midnight Tyrannosaurus’ new and obscure tracks during his set at Phoenix Lights this year. Hurry and get your tickets here!

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