John Robbins AKA RUN DMT is an American born DJ who has a love affair with music that runs deep. Based out of Texas, he has released 2 albums, several EPs, wrote an official song for the Mortal Kombat Soundtrack, and had his music featured on commercials for Titanfall and ESPN over the last six years. John has also played a multitude of events and festivals such as EDC, Camp Bisco, Coachella, Wakarusa, and so many more. RUN DMT also has a running weekly podcast called Kill Your Ego. I was able to sit down with this intuitive guy during the Pass the Good music festival back in September, check it out!
Stream RUN DMT’s Kill Your Ego Radio on SoundCloud:
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What led to your involvement with Pass the Good Festival, and do you feel that artists should do more to give back?
Well to answer your first question, this will be my fourth year doing Pass The Good. I just randomly got booked on the very first one and I’ve been friends with Stewart ever since. I’ve always done it every year, except for one, where there was something else going on. As far as giving back, I’m definitely big on that. I have a whole other project that we all don’t sell music for anything that doesn’t go straight to charity or things of that nature. I like being involved in that particular aspect of that.
You officially launched Kill Your Ego in 2015, can you let our readers know what the goal behind this collective is?
When we first started, it was kind of an ambiguous thing where we liked this concept of “Kill Your Ego.”. We did not know what it meant or what the final incarnation would be. The idea ended up becoming a podcast and music network specialized around electronic music. Ultimately the goal behind it was to be an independent source of support of artists by other artists as well as an artist-curated platform to release music to fans. It all started with The Kill Your Ego Podcast, which is our flagship program. It provides two DJ sets from two artists who are killing the game right now. It’s a one-stop shop for exclusive music.
What is your favorite part of running a podcast series?
I love podcasts. It’s all I listen to much anymore. It’s mostly talk stuff, and we are trying to get more into that talking conversational type of podcast, but I really just love sharing music with people. I feel like podcasting is where radio is heading. It’s where free media is heading, as far as people streaming and sourcing stuff. We’ve seen that in the comedy industry. I just really like putting stuff out there, and watching people get into it. That’s the best part of it ultimately.
RUN DMT and Kill Your Ego both allude to the psychedelic world. Can you share your thoughts on the importance of psychedelics?
Oh yeah absolutely, aside from the therapeutic benefits now just officially discovered. Now that psychedelia is starting to become… I wouldn’t say more mainstream… researchers are now getting the ability to test it and really see the benefits of it. I’m not a ketamine guy but I’m fascinated by the therapies that are going on with ketamine right now to cure bipolar and depression and other things of that nature. I always, in a round about way, holster the psychedelic side of art and creation, because I feel like it represents growth and evolution for us a people. I have a whole other project called “PPLPRSN” that is deeply rooted in psychedelic sound and the real sonic version of what the RUN DMT name stands for, ironically.
What are some of the misconceptions the general public may have about them?
Well that they’re dangerous, that psychedelics cause people to do things that are crazy, which in certain cases that is true. Psychedelics demand respect, it’s a powerful substance and its gonna unlock things about yourself that you may or may not know. Its user based and completely subjective, and so a person that has their demons, like we all do, they can manifest themselves through a psychedelic experience because you are opening up doors in your brain that you don’t usually use or slam shut. I think different psychedelics accomplish different things, because you have things like mushrooms, DMT and LSD. Where when we are talking LSD and mushrooms from the Earth, those to me are earthbound psychedelics. So the experience you’re gonna have on things like mushrooms and LSD are going to be entirely different from something like say DMT, which is more of like the chemical essence of life. As we know substances are not all created equal. As we know anyone who has taken them before knows that not every time you do them is gonna be different.
You recently mentioned on Facebook that you overcame a serious case of writer’s block, does that mean we can expect some new music from you soon?
Yeah, I got some awesome new stuff on the way. I’ve been really struggling with this because I’ve been going around and playing too much for me not to give myself enough time to write any music over the last year or so. I’ve just been in this stagnant place with that I guess, trying to decide whether call it a day or not, until I realized I’m not done with this project yet. I’ve been on the fence about being done with this project and retiring it and going on to other projects and things of that nature. Ultimately I figured you can either fizzle away or you can really give it your all, and I feel like I haven’t been able in my career yet to really give it my all. Everything I’ve done has been almost there but not quite exactly the way I wanted it. I will be playing some of my new stuff tonight. A couple of them are stuff that have never been heard before yet, they might sound like shit right now because they are in the process of being worked on but I think they’ll sound good.
Not to long ago you launched the Bass Report as a show highlighting new and unreleased dubstep and bass music tracks. Do you feel that dubstep is making a comeback in the scene?
Yeah well you know, I think dubstep is taking this weird evolution right now. I wouldn’t say it’s making a comeback because I don’t think that it ever really went away. I think what happened in 2010 or 2011 in the hey-day of Skrillex and those guys, we just saw a surge of dubstep just being put in our faces, like commercials and this that and the other. That as soon as the fad faded away, as what trends tend to do, we looked at is as “oh shit well that dubstep trend is over,” but in reality it just went back underground where it really belongs. Now what you’re getting is die-hard fans that never got sick of dubstep, and when it stopped getting put in their faces all that did was make them want more. Meanwhile these producers that are coming up now, such as Subtronics or Dubloadz, you know those guys, they’re raised on a different set of musical standards than guys like me. I’m in my 30’s you know, I didn’t listen to electronic music growing up I listened to Green Day. The first real experiences involved Aphex Twin and Sasha. I didn’t hear that till I was in 8th Grade, when still I didn’t know what the fuck I was listening too. I was just like “What the hell is this?”, because I was a metal guy. I fit in so well with that metal vibe, I don’t know what it was, I guess it was the sheer angst behind it. That was really where I started diving into it.
And honestly I hate to admit it, but the fucking movie Groove. It wasn’t because of the movie and the lifestyle portrayed, but it was because of John Digweed, he is the man. For like five minutes he’s on the screen and the music he plays was like mind-blowing for me. The song was Heaven Scent, off of Bedrock, i heard and i decided, “I gotta be a DJ, this song makes me wanna be a DJ! Look at these fuckers dancing around to this music.” This is awesome because I’ve been in bands and that works out. Trying to get four or five people to collaborate on something is hard near to impossible. But, to me it didn’t register to me yet that it was a culture, to me it was just music at that point. It wasn’t until Digweed and Sasha’s stuff came into my life that I realized that rave was culture. It was a whole other scene of people who were seemingly like the new hippies that were trying to go out and love each other to be one and listen to music and party. Not have there be any stigmas attached to that, and I thought that was a really cool thing because I had never fit in anywhere ya know? I was an athlete, that was also in band, that was a loner. So my whole life has been me kinda jumping from friend group to friend group, and then the music came around and I got into drum and bass and stuff like that. Drum and bass scene was like family and they still are. Those are the closest friends I still have are those from my Drum and Bass family.
My hope is that anyone that gets involved in this industry gets that same sort of beautiful feeling from it that you get a whole other support group. That’s why I like the whole Basshead vibe too, they get shit on for being the Juggalos of the rave scene. I honestly love Juggalos, some of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my whole life, and they party like a motherfucker! To play Gathering of the Juggalos is one of my top five bucketlists before I die, I’m not even joking. That seems like the most fun thing in the world to do and the lineups are just stacked. It’s like you go there and it’s like Ice Cube b2b Ice T. It’s cubed T, that didn’t really happen but that’s the kinda shit that goes down there. I love that their so community based. Every community has its hypocritical moments but that’s what makes a community a community.
As a producer, where do you see bass music heading in the future?
Oh my god I’m so excited to find out. I hope it goes to breakbeats to be honest with you. I love breaks and I think that there’s a lot to be done with breaks that people won’t fuck with right now. And then drum n bass I always always always am hoping that drum and bass will become popular so that I can just do that, and not play any other kind of music. Well not really, but fucking drum n bass would be the ideal thing. I think that it’s gonna get weirder. I think what we’re gonna see is more and more new styles popping up that are really just collaborations between other genres. Like trap mixed with this and that. It seems there is an infinite amount of ways to do electronic music and then it all boils down to doing it in a slightly different way than anyone’s ever done before.
Do you think that some artists in the Electronic Music Industry take themselves too seriously?
You know, it’s the ones that are really successful don’t, that’s what I noticed. The ones that are truly like living successfully you know. Not like crushing, getting crushed under the weight of their fame, because there are some very famous people right now that I can think of that I would imagine it’s gotta be a tough road. Not being able to go to dinner in your own town without being hassled by people. But then there’s other people like Dillon Francis for example who rides that shit like a professional surfer riding a wave. It’s just him being him you know, always. He’s my career crush, like if I could do the career, copy and paste. He’s the guy where if you’re gonna do it, do it like he does it. Just be true to yourself, be true to everything that you do, just has to shine with you which will lead ultimately to your success. That’s why I think that those people who are really successful like him, that they don’t take themselves too seriously. They don’t need to. It’s hard to take yourself seriously when you’re just being yourself.
Do you have a favorite recipe that you can share with our readers?
I do, well it’s complicated, it’s a curry recipe. I could probably do an easier one, I actually really do like that question because I do cook a lot. I’m trying to give you an off the top of my head type of recipe because there are techniques. What I do is a Vindaloo but instead of just doing chicken graze in a sauce for a long period of time, I do Julia Childs beef bourguignon recipe with the beef short ribs, and I’ll braze those for like three and a half hours so they’ll just like fall off and falling apart. Then you add that to the curry sauce and add that to rice at the last minute. Rice, sauce, and meat then mix it around in a bowl and it’s the best, but it’s so complex. It’s the brazing that I can’t remember because it’s been so long since I have done it, but if we are talking like a short, short thing. Straight up, I would say, can I email you a recipe? It’s better than me trying to say it because I got like a lot of stuff going on.
Out of all the current shows that are out now, do you have a favorite must watch? and why do you feel it is a must see show?
That’s an awesome question, it’s almost like I have to be like, “Okay well what genre of television are we talking about?”
See, like for instance my favorite American Horror Story, I absolutely love that one and Game of Thrones.
So let me ask you okay, American Horror Story, are you like a later season fan or an early season fan?
I’m a little bit all over the place. For me, I absolutely love Murder House. You cannot go wrong with Murder House. I didn’t really like Asylum.
I liked Asylum because of how creepy it was, but apparently what I read was that guy, there’s two guys behind the show. One guy is this insanely talented fashion designer and the other guy is like a horror director. And as more seasons progress, the fashion guy has gotten more and more say. Like last season for instance, you could tell that was his season. He’s like a flamboyant type of person. He designed the whole hotel and everything. Absolutely gorgeous! Not very scary though.
Lady Gaga didn’t do that bad of a job.
I thought she did amazing. She was the only thing in the show that I liked, meanwhile did you see that picture of all the men in the show and how they all look-alike? They all look almost identical to each other. As far as shows that I’m absolutely like you gotta watch it. Lady Dynamite is like my favorite show right now. If you are an Arrested Development fan, if you are into that show, it’s the same guy that did Arrested Development. And it’s Maria Bamford, I don’t know if you’re familiar with her, she’s a stand up comedian. She’s batshit crazy, but she is like the best human being out there. She’s so awesome, I love her comedy. And so the show is this perfect mixture of her story, sort of autobiographical story about her dealing with being bipolar and how that wrecked her career and how she had to go recuperate. It’s so funny and hilarious. There’s these little jokes that just make me laugh. I definitely recommend that show, that’s the funny show I would recommend.
Are you a Game of Thrones kind of person?
Love Game of Thrones! Can’t wait for the new season, but that’s kind of more of like a popcorn pleasure. It’s great, I think it’s well done. When you dump that much money into a show, it can’t not be good.
I’m mad that Vinyls isn’t coming back. I mean I get why it’s not coming back, but I thought that was a really good premise that they were going with. I was getting interested in the whole DJ culture being added in the mix and then it just got canceled. They got the green light for a second season and then they just were like never mind.
Kristian, the guy who plays Hodor, is doing his Rave of Thrones Tour again too.
Yeah we missed the Rave of Thrones. I’m hearing that it is just selling like hotcakes. That guy played his cards so right, who would’ve thought that he would have been one of the kids that would have done that kind of move. Arya Stark being a DJ, she’s a drum and bass head in real life. She’s always posting pictures about going to Fabric. If you go to her instagram there’s at least three pictures that I’m aware of where she’s referencing drum and bass music, that’s cool. It’s good that the youth are into it at all.
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