Jake Benner, a German music producer and DJ, is the guy behind TONYC. He creates various types of EDM and Electronic Music, including House, Trap, Drum & Bass, and everything in between, with BPMs ranging from 90 to 180 BPM. TONYC's main influences include Linkin Park (particularly their album 'Meteora') Skrillex, Camo & Krooked, Pendulum, David Guetta, Deadmau5, and many more. 'Something Real' is about the meaning of existence, about our never-ending human quest for authenticity, for something real. TONYC is a sensitive individual and deals a lot with existential questions like "What makes us human?" and "Why are we here?
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Kamil) Hey TONYC, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What have you been up to over the past year in this big old mess?
Hey Kamil, thanks for having me. You know, the pandemic made quite an impact. Like for most other artists gigs got cancelled, and it was quite a long dry run without partys and concerts allowed in Germany. I was happy when clubs and venues could open again this autumn, but sadly it didn’t last for long and since December clubs are closed again. Apart from the mess Covid-19 causes, I finished my Bachelor Degree in business informatics and started my Master degree in general informatics. Musically speaking I produced “Sun Is Shinin’” last summer, my first release with me singing. That was pretty interesting to do, especially because I was not used to work with completely raw vocal tracks.
Your latest song is 'Something Real'. Can you tell us more about the making of it and if there were any unusual things happening during the process?
Yeah. There was especially one unnecessary thing that cost me quite a lot of time. I actually redid the drop melody several times because I felt like the melody I composed in the beginning needed more variation. In the end I decided that more variation was just too much and worked against the intended cyberpunk feeling of the song, so I ended up at the first melody I did in the beginning, wasting more time than I’d like to admin, ahaha.
What do you dislike about the art world?
One thing might be the general problem that it’s too much about commercialization and profit maximization. Another problem is stealing. There is a lot of stealing happening, and that’s not only a problem in the music world. Fashion designers will tell you. Maybe you’ve heard of the Chinese company SHEIN. This company is a cancer, stealing not only from top tier designers, but extensively from unknown Designers around the world daily.
What is one message you would give to your fans?
Be nice and respectful to everyone, unless they give you reason not to.
How do you feel the Internet has impacted the music business?
Greatly of course! It impacted the whole media and entertainment industry enormously. This is a very big topic you could hold an interview about alone, so I'll try to keep it short. From my perspective I think the internet opened a lot of new opportunities for music interested people. When I started around 2012/2013 there was already plenty of information waiting for me about all the aspects of music, music theory, music production, mixing, mastering and so on. Basically anyone, who really wants to learn about this stuff, can learn it, without majoring music, music production or something like that in college. On a downside, if you want to call it that, I think it’s easy to get overwhelmed and maybe a bit demotivated at the look of basically this “flood” of new and new artists from everywhere around the world. You might get the feeling of “Maybe there is already enough good music out there. Enough musicians. Should I really bother to invest so much work into this?”. And this is of course not limited to music but to every art form. I think the key to this “problem” is to just do what makes you happy. I do music because I love music. I love listening to it, I love playing my favorite music at clubs and partys and I fucking love creating new music. The feeling you get after you notice “yo this shit is actually getting somewhere” hahaha. I just do it because it’s fun and I love to see what my hands are capable of doing. It’s basically for myself. If other people like it, of course that’s awesome and makes this an even better experience, but I think I would also do music if I was the only one on this planet hahaha. So yeah, back to the topic, generally speaking I think there is a lot of pros and maybe some cons but this is definitely a very interesting time to live in and I’m glad we all do.
What is the best advice you’ve been given?
Trust your gut. Studies found that on average gut decisions have a higher hit rate than decisions made by critical thinking. This is a really interesting topic; your gut feeling is not some “magical” skill but actually based on existing knowledge and information.
What is your dream project?
Probably like an official remix of a track by one of my idols, or a collab or any kind of work with one of the big guys I admire I guess, ahaha.
Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Right now, probably either Skrillex or Camo & Krooked but there are many more on that list.
How would you describe the music that you typically create?
I usually try to tell a story or capture a mood and make the listener feel it. My music can be as different as the emotions people can feel.
What are your plans for next year?
Gotta make more music, do the hustle, hit the gym even more, read more and hopefully play at more partys than last year. Let’s hope Corona doesn’t fuck with us as bad as it used to