Following the release of “MONSOON,” genre-blurring bass artist FLY popped by to dive deep into his latest single, upcoming EP plans, friendship with Saka, and musical inspirations.
Since his arrival on the scene, FLY has made quite a commotion with his enthralling bass soundscapes with immense range. The Los Angeles-based producer has meticulously crafted a sonic realm that is distinctly his own. His Deja Vu EP kicked off a run of successful releases, including “Pulse” with LYNY and “Jinx.” Alongside official releases, FLY has built his arsenal of tracks with outrageous hip-hop flips on SoundCloud.
As he continues his rise as one of bass music’s brightest, FLY is celebrating career milestones, including surpassing 100,000 monthly Spotify listeners. Performances at Sound Haven, Zombie Apocalypse, Elements, and Project GLOW reflect the surging interest surrounding the talent. With the release of his single, “MONSOON,” this felt like the perfect time to catch up with the boisterous creative.
In this extended interview, FLY gives insight into the world surrounding “MONSOON,” his sonic lane, and what he’s looking forward to as he continues to grow with his project. Continue reading for an exclusive look inside the mastermind’s growing universe.
Stream FLY – “MONSOON” on Spotify
Hey FLY, thanks for chatting with us today. Your latest release, “MONSOON,” was a sought-after ID that made its way into sets by many peers. How does it feel having this release out for the world to enjoy?
It feels great. It’s one of those things where I think when you’re writing different songs, things don’t always become super clear in terms of when you’re gonna release them in the moment. So you’ll write that and five other songs and be thinking, “What’s gonna come out first?” It’s nice when a song almost has a life of its own in terms of how it presents itself. When I first wrote that song, I didn’t necessarily plan for it to be all of this. And then it sort of developed.
I think it’s funny as a producer, you might write three or four songs, and you think this is the strongest one, and then you realize that concept doesn’t even make sense because to one person that’s the strongest one, and to the next person it’s not. And so sometimes there is no clear song to go forward. But with “MONSOON,” it presented that way, and the energy around it was moving on its own. So it’s nice when that happens.
Along with the track, you released a conceptual music video that immerses fans in the monsoon. Where did the concept for this video stem from?
When “MONSOON” started to take form as more than just a song, we thought about how we wanted to create a visual world around it. So, with the aesthetic of the album artwork, we wanted the video and all the promotion to match. For everything related to the song, we wanted to create a specific world you could recognize: color grading, the fashion elements, etc. Kinda like when movies or other entertainment can create a world.
Let’s say something as iconic as a Matrix trilogy. All the fashion and everything you see in each movie and each promotion has a flavor and color grade that makes it unique. So we wanted that to show up in both the visuals and the music itself. There’s an EP dropping that continues that narrative. For the next song, “Oracle,” dropping next month, we have a continuation of the music video’s concept and theme. So that’s not necessarily an ending with “MONSOON” either.
The accompanying music video was filmed in a custom-built rain room. What was it like shooting your first music video in such a unique environment?
It was really cool. The concept came from creating that initial aesthetic and what it felt like, and then figuring out how “MONSOON” fit within it. During the initial photo shoot for the album cover, we played with how jewelry, accessories, and clothing can help create a character. We had this idea that for “MONSOON,” having the character be wet makes sense considering the theme of the song and everything.
So we thought, “What if we do a photo shoot or a video shoot while being wet and while it’s raining? And how do we do that, and how do we film outside?” Then the concept of an indoor rain situation kinda came about as someone mentioned there’s a warehouse that does that. They normally do car commercials or model photo shoots, but I thought it’d be cool to do that in a music video environment.
We actually brought in a whole team and this really talented director; he goes by Space. He had a bunch of really cool ideas for the concepts and for taking this sort of video beyond just aesthetics and giving it a narrative. He did a really good job working with me to create that story with what I had in mind, while also bringing his own independent thoughts, which was really cool. When you’re creating a narrative in a world, it’s nice to have someone who’s also a storyteller to give their take, hear the ideas I had, and help translate them into a three-minute video.
Obviously, nowadays with short-form content, most of what you’re seeing is 8 to 20 seconds, which is honestly great, and that’s what we have time for now, in a way. But we thought it was cool to go back to longer-form content for YouTube, which is very different because you have so much more time to create a story, but you also have to engage the viewer longer. So it’s a very different process, but it was really rewarding, for sure.
Your sound is a distinct blend of experimental bass, dubstep, trap, and hip-hop. Why are you genre-defying?
I think it stems from when I got into the scene. It was just before COVID, in 2018, and I think around that time there was this movement of genreless artists who were shining, having their moment, and inspiring other people. It was sort of the post-era of Cashmere Cat, Lido, even TroyBoi. These artists have a distinct sound, but they don’t fit into a category of dubstep or hip-hop, and I think they showed that not only can that work, but that’s actually celebrated by people, and they like to hear something that you can’t put a label on necessarily. So I’ve always been in that genreless in-between zone.
I remember there was a write-up for a flip that I made. They had all these awesome things to say about it, but they just came back with a question in the email thread and said, “Well, what would you call this?” I gave them a funny pseudo-genre — I think I said halftime future garage, but that doesn’t mean anything to anybody. If you say that to somebody, they’re like, “What?”
But you know, some of my songs definitely fit more into a trap vibe. I think the average person would hear it and say, “Oh, I think that’s trap music.” I definitely have songs that are more 140 dubstep-inspired, but I always go back to that original when I was getting into music. I like when it’s a mouthful trying to explain what it is, because you don’t necessarily fit into one thing. That said, I also love artists who really hone in on one lane. That’s why it’s beautiful to have all of it, you know? ‘Cause if everyone was multi-genre constantly, it’s exhausting.
I presume that because you dabble in multiple genres, you have a lot of different musical inspirations, probably within electronic music and beyond?
Totally. A majority of my inspiration was non-electronic until I was about 19. So when you think about that crucial time, 11 to 19 years old, when you’re just developing all these tastes, it’s more Radiohead, Alice in Chains, and Pink Floyd. I had an era where I was really into music from the ’70s, ’80s, and early ’90s. Then, after moving to California and getting into electronic music, I listened to a lot of those artists, plus Sam Gellaitry and Giraffage, during that 2012-2015 SoundCloud era. And then just hip-hop. I always loved trap music and hip-hop — that’s what I listened to on the daily.
What’s really nice is that because I don’t listen to electronic music very frequently, when I do listen to it, it’s normally really intentional — at a festival, a set, at someone’s house when they’re showing me something. There’s this magic to it because, when I was younger, I listened to more band music or hip-hop, and then I would go to a festival, and it was this incredible immersion in a new world of stuff I hadn’t been listening to every day. And then I went through periods of listening to more electronic music, too.
So while you’re a solo artist, you’ve frequently paired up with Saka for various projects. How did your relationship come about, and how has it evolved over the years?
That’s funny, actually. We’ve known each other since before either of us released any music. We went to college together, and I was in the grade above him. I had just had one year of festival immersion before him. He came in exactly the same way I did, which was without that much understanding of the scene or concepts of more underground genres. Then I went through one year of the gambit and sort of got a little idea of what to do; then he came in, and I sort of showed him.
I remember the first time we met, he was talking about Porter Robinson and all these inspirations in electronic music, and then I showed him the underground scene a little bit, and he ran with that. But that was well before we were even writing too much music. Years later, I got him into production, and he learned faster than anyone we knew. A bunch of us had been producing for a few years, and he was DJing a bit, and then he started producing. Everyone, without fail, could tell he was learning faster than the average person, which is cool.
But still, we didn’t really work together for years. We intentionally did our own thing for a while, because we probably started releasing stuff in 2022 or 2023, but had been writing music with each other and around each other since 2018. So that’s basically five years of putting out stuff and developing as artists, and we’re still very new and trying not to tether ourselves to each other too early. People kept saying, “Oh, what about the FLY/Saka thing?” And I was like, “Trust me, it will happen.” But there were years of waiting.
Then I think we finally wrote one or two things and decided to start, but there was no intention of this sort of back-to-back run either. It just organically unfolded from a couple of these songs catching on a little bit. So it is funny that, you know, we have this long relationship outside of music too that makes it easier for us to work together.
You and Saka have been doing b2bs for a while now. What have you learned from sharing the stage with someone else that you might not have experienced otherwise as a solo artist?
I think back-to-backs are really interesting because every single artist has their own little nuances, and it’s funny ’cause DJing is conceptually simple in ways. You’re like, “How could it really be that different?” But it’s the nuanced stuff: how much time you leave between mixes, what songs you want to play at the beginning, how you want to ramp up. All these nuanced kinds of taste things that normally, even if you guys can mix well together, there are sort of incompatibilities in certain things.
Back-to-backs are interesting because I don’t always love them. I like them for sure. They really have the potential to be amazing. There’s just something about when I’m on my own; it’s very controlled, and I kinda know exactly what’s gonna happen, and the show comes off a certain way. With Eric [Saka], while I think we know each other well enough, there is still a level of uncertainty. We don’t plan the sets necessarily, so we’re always freestyling, which on a big stage I’d like it to be a little bit more thought out. So doing a back-to-back can be risky, I guess, in my head.
But with him, I can tell him certain things, and we just work through it. There are obviously moments; we’re human. There are times when one of us will mess up a mix for someone else, and we’ll have to work through it on the stage. But that’s the beauty of it, and that’s the beauty of freestyling too, and just doing it on the fly. Sometimes you strike gold, and other times you don’t. And these are small, nuanced things that most people wouldn’t even really notice or care about. But to us, we’re very particular.
Fall festivals are on the horizon, and you’ve got some massive performances lined up. Do you ever get the time to experience the festivals from a fan’s perspective?
Yeah, sometimes for sure. I think it all depends. Sometimes life just happens, and you have to head out. It’s really circumstantial. I do want to stay sometimes and get to see festivals. I used to stay a lot ’cause I really wanted to understand the culture and festival scene on a deeper level from the artist’s perspective and not just be too isolated in my own set. It’s getting harder and harder to stay for random reasons. And I think also, as I get older, there’s seeing family and going to weddings, and things pile up. But I love being able to stay. I know there are a few festivals, like Shambhala, where I really try to go for multiple days and experience the vibes for sure.
I think it’s funny ’cause when I was coming up a few years ago, I would see artists be in and out. In my head, I’m like, “Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder, do they just not wanna be around, or what is it?” As I get older and start doing certain tours and events, I start to realize there are just times where it’s kinda out of your control. So I appreciate that a little more now. Maybe as a younger artist, you get there earlier, and you have more time. There’s just less commitment, and it’s easier to do those things, so it can seem like a no-brainer, but it’s complicated.
There are rumblings of an EP on the horizon. Can you give any insight into the project?
So it’s the follow-up to the single. We’ve got a bunch of more songs coming out, and a single very soon. As I mentioned earlier, it’s called “Oracle,” and a bunch of really cool content with that. I’m excited about working with Space again. So this whole project is gonna feel very continuous, and there’s a bit of an arc we can follow.
I think what’s cool about the project is that we’re gonna have a consistent world, but the songs also live in their own space. They’re all connected sonically, but each presents a different flavor of bass music. I think this is an EP with heavier dancefloor stuff. I also have a downtempo EP that I’m finishing right now with more melodic, chiller music. So that’s a very different approach to a project than this, and I like having those kinda going on simultaneously so my brain can be in different places.
As you continue to grow with your project, what excites you about the future?
This world-building stuff we’re talking about. When you’re first starting out, it’s hard to know what your world is, and I think you figure out your sound first, naturally. Then, once you figure out your sound, you want a world that fits and complements it, because music is so much more than just listening. I’m so intrigued when I see an album cover or a music video where the artist can express a little bit of aesthetics. I find that really interesting as a listener and as a viewer. I get a little bit of a visual when I’m listening to it, and I can kinda create a memory and a space around it.
I think being able to do that for my own music is really cool. With electronic music, that’s not always on the forefront compared to some genres. So when you are able to do it, I think it hits home, and people recognize that this is something that bands and pop singers and successful artists do, and definitely a lot of electronic artists too. So the main thing is creating that world-building. It feels really authentic, and it’s a cool way to express more than just the music.
It’s such an open playing field with this stuff. There’s no just one way to do it. It’s cool when you ask what I’m most excited about; I think it really is feeling like you’re creating your own stride, your own path. We’re doing all these shows with other artists, and collabs, and back-to-backs, yet what really defines an artist is who they are individually, and balancing that is really cool.
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