Slynk is an australian with a lot of funk

Evan Chandler was born in Brisbane, Australia but now he is living in Vancouver, BC. Since being in Canada he has been making people dance to the Glitch Hop Funky sound all over festivals and venues across the world. We recently spoke to him and ask him and asked him a few questions before he hits the east coast with Featurecast.

What made you move from Australia to British Columbia?

A few reasons. I think my music is really well received here in Canada and my manager, Tomas, lives here so it felt like a good move to make career-wise. But aside from that, I just felt like it was time for a move. I’d been living in Brisbane, Australia for my entire life and I wanted to see what it would be like to live in a different country. I did a little bit of snowboarding in Australia (yes we have like 1 mountain haha) and I really enjoyed it. I also really enjoy rock climbing. With Vancouver being so close to Whistler and Squamish (world class snowboarding and rock climbing) it seems like a good home base. It’s got a big airport so I can zip over to Europe or wherever without having to do too many connecting flights. I’ve got loads of friends that live local too like The Funk Hunters, Wood n Soo and SkiiTour. I don’t think living in Vancouver could sound any more appealing!

How do you describe your style for those that have never heard your music?

The easy answer is Glitch Hop. The hard answer is funky sample based music with a hiphop influence designed for to dance to with big basslines. I released a couple of records on Ghetto Funk Records a while back and so a lot of people identify my music as Ghetto Funk style as well. But basically I make anything that’s funky. Drum and Bass, Glitch Hop, Ghetto Funk, House, Hiphop, Disco, Boogie. Music that makes you smile and dance!

What are your main influences to your funky tracks?

Industrial death metal. Just kidding. Funk and disco music from the 70s of course! I listen to Wefunk Radio (http://www.wefunkradio.com) religiously. It’s a Montreal based collage radio station that’s being going for over 20 years. I learned a lot about funk, hiphop, disco and every other related sub genre of music from Professor Groove and DJ Static who run the show. I’m also very influenced by A Skillz. I remember listening to his bootlegs and remixes way back and I really loved his style. If you don’t know his music, what have you been doing with your life?

What are your favorite tracks at this moment?

Ugh, really? This is such a hard question. There is this unreleased track by Mr. Stabalina that I really love. That doesn’t really help you haha! But he’s a young guy just starting out in the scene and I think he’s going to be big. “DJ Quik – I Useta Know Her” was my ringtone for months. It’s such a wicked track but I changed my ringtone to “Vulfpeck – Sky Mall” the other day. I can’t get enough of that tune. Umm what else.. I found this track on Soundcloud, “Billbord – Shapes”, and it’s insane man. I did a mashup of it with the Uptown Funk acapella that I’ve been playing around this summer. Ok one more or else I’ll be here all day. “TAK – Drop The Washboard” is my secret weapon lately. It’s like this video game disco track with this really grind-em-up bassline.

How do feel the electronic music in Canada compare to Australia?

Way better. Australia has it’s cool pockets of good music but for the most part it’s pretty commercialized. Canadians are actually passionate about music and seek out their favorite jams rather than just swallowing the commercial garbage. Respect Canada!

Tell us about your new album “Front Yard Futon”.

It’s my first album so I didn’t really anticipate how long it would take to get everything ready to release it. I had the entire album finished in about 4 months but then had to go back in and master all the tracks, get the artwork done, film a video clip, shop around and order up some t-shirts and do a bunch of interviews. It actually took forever to get it to the point where I was ready to release it. I’m really happy it’s all finished and released now. I did it, woo!

I didn’t really think I was ready to write an album but my good friend Mr. Bill was pushing me to do it. I eventually decided to give it a shot and we wrote the first song for my album together. We called it “I Got Dis”. After that song things really started to snow ball into completion. I didn’t have a concept for the album in the beginning other than to try and allow myself to be truly creative and try and remove myself from the thought that what I might be writing in this moment might not be something that my fans will expect or enjoy. I tried to be selfish about it and explore weird ideas that I had purely for the fun of it. I wanted the listeners to experience the happiness I felt while writing the album through the music.

The overall theme of the album eventually presented itself to me. Friends. They’re very important to me, especially living in another country away from my family. Last summer we held a little yard sale out in our front yard and our friends were just dropping by unannounced to check out what we were selling. We set up the turntables in the front yard and cracked a couple of beers and it was a perfect afternoon in the sun, reminiscent of the days before cell phones when people would just roll up to your place and hang out. I feel like this album captures that vibe in a way. The collaborations on the album manifested themselves organically. There was no contracts or manager correspondence. It was just friends hanging out, writing music and having a good time.

Any Future Projects?

I’ve been touring a lot this summer. I think I played about 6 or 7 festivals so there hasn’t been much time. But I’ve got a track pretty much finished with Dash from The Root Sellers and a remix of a Second Hand Audio track featuring Psycho Les from The Beatnuts almost finished. Cheshire and I have teamed up again for another collab following the success of our first track together “Snatchin’ It Back”. That one is almost done. And I’ve almost finished a collab with Father Funk. I’ve been filming myself working on the track in real and uploading the videos to my Youtube channel in an effort to teach and inspire others to write music in Ableton too! This month I’ll be working on a remix for Royal Blood and at the same time making another tutorial series out of it and I have a sample pack for Futureloops still in the pipeline. It’s getting closer and closer to completed. So yeah, lots on the go, very little time!

Looking forward to heading out east again and playing my funky music for you beautiful people!

If you like Slynk here are some links:

http://www.slynk.net
https://www.facebook.com/evanslynk
Tweets by evanslynk

http://www.youtube.com/user/slynkdnb