RB Exclusive Interview: Getter Breaks Down Radical Dude and ‘Not Faking It’ As We Anxiously Await His Phoenix Debut

Ultra Miami was quite a time to be alive. One reason is the obvious: It’s Ultra. Another reason is because if you happened to be at the UMF Radio Stage hosted by OWSLA at 8 pm on Saturday, March 19th, then that means that you got to take part in what might possibly be the best set at Ultra Music Festival, Getter.

Getter merchandise littered Bayfront Park on Saturday, with a trippy burger or logo-emblazoned t-shirts every where you looked. The producer took Miami by storm, not only during his own set in which he played tracks off of his latest EP, showcased some brand new music, surprised us with appearances by DJ Snake and Nick Coletti, and even threw out some free T’s, but also with his B2B2B2B with Valentino Khan, Snails, and Team EZY at the Owsla All Stars set, and at the Buygore pool party alongside label head, Borgore!

With Getter headlining his first ever appearance in Arizona at Dirty Disco in May, I though, what better time to have a chat with the 22 year old LA based producer. During Miami Music Week, immediately preceding his Ultra set, I sat down with Tanner Petulla to discuss becoming the internet’s latest pop culture icon, successful self-branding, and to have him break down his new EP, Radical Dude, track by track to get a better understanding of the creative process behind his masterful OWSLA release.

So, how’s the time away from Nick [Coletti] been?

“He’s actually here. We did a bunch of vines about us being separated because we’re actually doing like a Vine channel takeover for Ultra. So we had to like cry, but now we get to do a bunch of gay stuff like kiss on a yacht.”

Oh, hell yeah.

“Yeah, it’s fun. It’s funny.”

As of recent you’ve become somewhat of a pop culture icon as of late with Suh Dude and everything else relating to that. How do you use that to enhance your musical brand?

“At first it was kind of like, ‘what the fuck do I do with this?’ I was just like, ‘okay, that happened on accident,’ but it kind of worked because now I forced the music upon it. So, everyone who followed my Vine, I would get on there and post all my music, and they would be like, ‘oh, he’s a DJ too?!’ So it worked out, and it’s definitely helped a lot!”

And you incorporate all of this into your sets too, like the other night you dropped Damn Daniel.

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve done that for a while. Edits are just so much better, like you can play the song out like you normally would, but like I have the Spongebob theme in my intro. It’s just funny for the crowd because it gives them a little bit more than just wubz, you know?”

Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started, your interest in Dubstep, finding success, and becoming one of OWSLA’s hardest hitting members?

“Yeah, thanks! I wasn’t aware of that, but thanks. *laughs* Yeah, I started when I was 16 and I was just fucking around. Then I got with Firepower and Datsik pushed me and pushed me. He was actually the reason I got on OWSLA, because I had all of this different music that didn’t fit the Firepower brand. Firepower was my first home, but they are not about exclusives, like keeping people there, they’re more like a ‘hey, start here.’ So they pushed me toward OWSLA, then Sonny and all the crew were stoked on my music. When I started to get the brand going with my manager, it kind of turned into more of a takeover thing, rather than a ‘hey let’s be goofy’ type of thing. Now it’s just a part of everything. But it’s cool because I’m not faking it. All the weird shit I do is me every day. Nick and I have been saying ‘Suh Dude’ for years, like since I first met him. So it’s cool that I can do normal shit and people freak out.”

How did the two of you become buddies?

“Dude, I was following him on Vine and Twitter because he’s fucking hilarious and then he randomly direct messaged me one day and was like, ‘I like your wubz, I’m in LA, let’s hangout.’ Then we hungout for like a day and he slept over and then another day and we literally just became best friends. Then it got to the point where he was like, ‘I think I’m gonna move here,’ and I was like, ‘okay, that’s your room.’ Now we’re just best friends.”

So, now to Radical Dude. I want to break it down a bit. It’s heavy but it’s also got some lighter tracks on it. How important do you believe it is to have this sort of diversity on an EP?

“I think it’s good, because with a lot of my older stuff, I felt like I was releasing the same shit over and over again. I was like, ‘why isn’t this working?’ I was still making other shit on the side under my side project Planet Neutral, which is just now Getter. We were talking about the EP and Radical Dude and Sonny had told me that track was really good and asked if I wanted to put it on the EP. I told him that I kind of wanted to keep it separate. He told me that keeping the shit separate kind of deludes the attention. He said if you put it all together, it all gets the same attention. So that’s gonna be the new theme, because I make so much music, so many different kinds.”

You start off the EP with “Back,” which is a bit of a slower song comparatively.

“I was actually in the studio, the day I made ‘Blood’ was the day I made this song, me and Adair started it. We started ‘Back,’ I did the majority of it but he threw in his two cents, then I went on tour so I ended up just finishing it. I was like, ‘hey dude, I just took it over.’ And he was cool with it, because it was kind of like he just added sprinkles on top. But it was weird dude, I had just got a new dab pen and I first started with the low-in and then it just got weird. It was actually originally a Method Man sample saying, ‘I’m back with the mother-fucking grimy style,’ but I couldn’t clear it so I just ended up recording my own voice.”

Getter – Rip N Dip (Official Music Video)

Then next on the EP you have “Rip N Dip,” which in previous interviews you have compared to “Headsplitter” and you even have music videos that follow one another.

“I like to tell stories with videos because no one does that anymore. So all of my softer stuff will have music videos that tell different stories, but ‘Rip N Dip’ and ‘Headsplitter’, they both kind of go together. ‘Rip N Dip’ was actually kind of a throw away song that I showed to Datsik, and he was like, ‘what the fuck, this is so sick!’ It kind of just turned into something cool.”

How did your collaboration “666!” with Ghastly come about?

“We actually had a studio appointment that I forgot about. I think it was at like 3 at my studio and I was super hammered the night before so I slept in until like 12. I normally like to get to the studio like hours before, so I went to the studio and he was like, ‘hey man, on my way.’ So I was like, ‘fuck!’ I had just gotten ‘VIP’ from Skrillex and Must Die, so I kind of mimicked the drums, obviously I changed it up because I’m not going to rip off them, and then I made the bassline and he came in and was like, ‘yo, what the fuck?’ I finished the first drop and then he came in and did the second drop and we finished the track in like 8 hours.”

The next two tracks on the EP are “Forget It” with Tree and “In the Cuts” with Sneak. They are both pretty different from each other.

“Both of them are actually childhood friends. I grew up with Tree and Sneak. Tree got me into DJing. He used to do stuff with Aphex Twin’s label, he’s really singy-songy and we work really well together. Then Sneak I grew up with in High School and he’s always been killing it, so I was like, ‘hey, let’s work together.'”

That’s really cool that you get to make music with your childhood friends, and it makes it even better that their sounds are so different.

“Yeah, and each of their first releases are on OWSLA! That’s so sick for them.”

Did you intentionally put those songs back to back to give it sort of a contrasting effect?

“Yeah, in my opinion ‘In the Cuts’ is kind of like the craziest one in it. It’s closer to my older stuff in that it’s kind of sinister, it’s kind of a ghoulish song. But it’s kind of the same concept of just mashing everything together. If I do the calmest radio-ish song, followed by the craziest song, it kind of just rips you out of it.”

Then finally, “Blood,” which is my personal favorite track on the EP, has that second drop, which is also in my opinion the best drop on the EP, and you save it for last. What makes this track the perfect closer for Radical Dude?

“I mean, I close my sets with it too. It’s cool because there are so many chances to breathe and there are so many chances to jump in the song, so that’s the part of the set where I tell everyone to take out their lighters, you know? But that song actually started out, me and Adair made it, and it was originally an Alison Wonderland remix. My manager got the stems to ‘You Don’t Know’, and we finished it and sent it to her and she was like, ‘this is so good, but we just finished remix submissions two days ago.’ But she was cool with letting us keep Georgia [Ku] on it and she killed it. It’s just when two brains collide it’s fucking great.”

Now we’ve got you in Phoenix for Dirty Disco in May, first show in Phoenix and you are headlining. Your music is crazy popular out in Arizona, so what can us Phoenicians expect from a Getter set?

“Are you guys called Phoenicians? That’s sick *laughs* You guys can expect a lot of different shit. I used to do two kinds of music, now I do like eight kinds. I’ll do anything from dubstep to trap to Smash Mouth to Daft Punk to Spongebob. It’s good fun. There’s never going to be a dull moment.”

Can we get any words of advice for aspiring producers out there struggling to find a way in the industry?

“Worry about the music first, because I know a lot of people, including myself, who are like, ‘yeah, I want to start! Here’s a logo.’ You just end up paying attention to the wrong thing. If you try to copy someone else, you’re always going to be second best. Mimic shit, I always like to mimic structures, but find your own sound. Go on YouTube, search some shit.

And branding, the biggest thing about branding that I’ve learned is that there are easy brands and there are hard brands, but the hard brands stay. Easy brands are like the trap guys, I love the trap guys, but they wear the same things and say the same shit, and it’s easy, you can get away with doing that. But, I feel that if you really want to last and you really want to make an impact, find what you like. Like my friend, I can’t really say his name because we’re working on all of that, but he’s like, ‘well I’m a nerd and I’m quiet and I like video games.’ So his music has like video game samples and his logo is like a headset.

You just have to put what you’re interested in, it can be anything, it could be a fucking bumblebee, you know what I mean? It could be a banana, or a marshmallow, like Marshmello right? He loves marshmallows. People just want something to follow in addition to the music. Find a good brand and don’t copy anyone.”

What is the final word from Getter?

“Umm, cream pie.”

Perfect.

“Fuck yeah. I should’ve said cum shot.”

Based on what I saw from Getter’s set in Miami and based on this chill, humor-filled conversation that we had with the rising star of a producer, I can guarantee that there is no where else you are going to want to be but Dirty Disco at Rawhide Rodeo Arena on May 21st, 2016. Whether its laughs, head-banging, grooving, great music, surprises, or merch you are looking for, all of you answers are right here with Getter.

Headlining alongside Getter is Wasted Penguinz, Brian Kearney, Freedom Fighters, Dirty Audio, Metrik, and special guest Herobust!

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