Project Description
Interview
with
DECK OF HEARTS
Interviewer – Dave Bruce
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Deck of Hearts is a music project developed by Brandon Reid and Draven Potoi. The boys release their debut Ep “Late Night Thoughts” today and gave AMNplify some intel on their story.
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Have you always wanted to be a musician? When did you start writing music?
Bran – I always wanted to do something in a creative industry, originally I was interested in filmmaking, but starting music as an extracurricular activity in school, I just kind of fell in love with it and became passionate about making music instead.
Draven – I didn’t always want to be a musician. I started off wanting to do software and game development, but when we started doing music stuff in high school, that’s when my love for music began to really grow, my passion kind of developed alongside our abilities and sound throughout our teenage years.
Which music did you grow up listening to? How has it influenced your current style?
We have listened to so many different genres and artists and they’ve all shaped our music in some way. When we were younger, we were more into rock and metal, artists like Linkin Park and Hollywood Undead shaped our style a lot, as time went on we got really into EDM, listening to Skrillex and Knife Party on repeat and then we moved genre to genre, hip-hop, indie alternative, pop, lo-fi and picked up elements from each always adding it to our collection of sounds.
How would you describe your sound?
I wouldn’t say we’re locked down to one sound, but for this EP in particular, we’ve tried to limit ourselves to a late-night, melancholic, spacial EDM/pop sound to capture the theme that we’re going for.
Your new EP has just been released! Describe its origin and evolution.
This idea for this EP was formed in autumn 2018, it was late at night, the weather wasn’t cold yet but cooling down. We were both feeling those sad vibes that you get from time to time and decided to make the EP’s theme: late-night overthinking. A lot of the songs are centred around negative emotions caused from your own inner conflicts. With our schedules, the best time to write and record was always late at night, so it worked. In one of our earlier sessions, we were outside listening to the crickets and said “this atmosphere captures the EP’s vibe completely”. We set up two microphones in the yard and ended up using that audio in the background of the closing track, ‘This Distance’.
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What are the signature pieces on the EP, and what is your favourite track, and why?
Bran – My favourite track would have to be ‘Almost’, also a lot of my friends have said it’s their favourite, it was co-written with our good friend, Carina. She’s a super talented songwriter and performer. It started off as a rough demo she recorded back in 2016 and I found it in my Apple Music library and just had an idea of where we could take it. I messaged her and she was excited to turn it into a full song. It’s also the most different track on ‘Late Night Thoughts’, musically and narratively. Whilst all the other tracks are dealing with inner conflict, ‘Almost’ is reaching out to lend a hand to someone else who has this inner battle.
Draven – I’m torn between ‘Far Away’ and ‘This Distance’, because looking back on the lyrics, they come from a real place and a situation that happened in the past. Some of the stories we tell are fictional, but both of these come from a very real and vulnerable place. ‘This Distance’ feels like the core song that encapsulates the EP, the vocoder that plays throughout is made from just one voice and my last line is a question, “Have you said all that you wanna say?” Which is a question I asked myself as we finished this song, which was the last song we wrote for ‘Late Night Thoughts’.
Do you have any more new music in the works?
Hell yeah, we do, we’ve got plenty of demos and tracks in the works. We have a VIP remix of one of the tracks from Late Night Thoughts coming March 27. We’re also aiming to have a new song every month following if we can meet our own deadlines haha. We’re hoping for more collaborations in the future, including more with Carina. If anyone is interested in reaching out, they can reach us through our Facebook or Instagram pages.
Do you have any shows or gigs coming up?
In the future, we want to start doing some live stuff, but at the moment we haven’t got anything other than studio releases planned.
If you could perform with any music artist, Alive or Dead, who would you choose? And why?
It would have been an absolute honour to perform with Chester Bennington from Linkin Park, our sound completely originated from them and we think that influence really shines through in our track, ‘Break for Me’
What are your longer-term aspirations?
We’d love to have our own home studio and collaborate with many artists. Hopefully get radio play and continue to improve our art.
Finally, a few questions for some quick answers –
FAVOURITE:
Album –
Bran: Impossible to choose an all-time favourite album, but recently I’ve been listening to ‘World War Joy’ by The Chainsmokers a lot;
Draven: Lately I’ve been listening to ‘Sleeptalk’ by Dayseeker
Artist –
Bran: Linkin Park, hands down;
Draven: Silent Planet
Movie –
Bran: Spirited Away;
Draven: The Spongebob Squarepants Movie
Place to visit –
Bran: Any Disney theme park;
Draven: My grandparents’ house, because that’s where my piano is haha
Food –
Bran: Probably dumplings;
Draven: Anything that my mum cooks
Drink –
Bran: Bubble tea;
Draven: Watermelon smoothies
Person in History –
Bran: Whoever invented hoodies, they seem like they were very forward thinking.
Draven: Whoever invented the 2004 Subaru Impreza, I love that car a lot.
Tattoos; Do you have any? Want? –
Bran: I don’t have any and I’d like to but the problem is I’ve never liked anything enough to have it on me permanently haha;
Draven: If I ever got tattoos, it would be 4:13, because it’s a bible verse I hold to heart, the logos of three bands I love, as well as the energy sword from Halo because it’s my favourite game.
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Check out DECK OF HEARTS below
AppleMusic Facebook Spotify
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Debut EP LATE NIGHT THOUGHTS Out Today!
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CLICK HERE
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