By: Tony Price
Damar Davis is a DJ, producer and recording artist based in Los Angeles. Through his label Salon Recordings, he has cultivated a scene and sound that are filling a void in dance music on America’s west coast. A virtuosic drummer and manipulator of machines, within his productions you can hear the influence of J Dilla’s fractured funk, the cybernetic swing of Theo Parrish and the glossy sheen of prime time G-Funk. The Salon sound is at once corporeal and machine-like, familiar and hyper-futuristic. I spoke to him in December 2021 about the relationship between drumming and programming drum machines, the state of dance music in Los Angeles, his relationship to physical media and much more.
TP: What’s going on? You’ve just released a new EP a few weeks ago.
DD: Yeah, I released “Duende” a couple weeks ago. Before that I was just playing shows like every weekend, I was running the gauntlet. It was kind of intense. So I’m kind of happy things have slowed down. I’m hyped that things are slow now, or slower.
TP: I don’t think I asked you this when we hung out in L.A., but would you consider your ‘main instrument’ to be drums? I’ve seen you play some nasty drums.
DD: (Laughs) Yeah, I grew up playing drums in church, you know, typically Gospel chops musician. Not typical, but like, that’s my background. Everyone in my family plays some sort of instrument.
TP: Do you still play often?
DD: The drums? Nah, man. I wish. I was actually talking to my girl about it the other day and I miss touring, man, I miss being in a band and like, I dunno, putting my energy in and seeing a sea full of people and just playing, you know, going for it.
TP: A completely different life.
DD: Yeah, yeah.
TP: Do you feel the rush you get from playing drums on stage is different from playing a record to a room full of people as a DJ?
DD: Yeah, especially as a drummer, there’s like this automatic adrenaline that you get, even if you’re playing a slow song, you know. If you watch someone that has a backing track and a guitar singing right after watching a full band, even if the songs they’re playing are super high-energy, it’s just not going to match.
TP: When you’re making electronic music, do you approach programming drums in the same way, being a drummer, that you play drums with a band or is it more of an experimental approach? On the record you put out earlier this summer, there are some 808 high-hat patterns which are just wild. Listening to it, I was curious as to how you approached that.
DD: I approach it exactly like if I’m playing the drums. I write the part to it, like if it’s a verse or if it’s a chorus, then those are the parts for the song. Most of the time I don’t really click drums in; a lot of people click some drums into their DAW. I normally play all my drums out, either like on some sort of pad or on the keyboard, like I’m playing all those drums.
TP: Last time I spoke to you, you had recently moved out of a rehearsal space or studio space and set up at home. Are you still in that mode, where you’re working in your home studio, or have you moved into a different space?
DD: I’m still at home. I have a studio room, if you want to call it a studio room, where I work out of. But it’s getting to the point where it’s just like, alright, I need to be back in a space where I can track real drums, and have friends come and play on the record. I’m just kind of like, ugh.
TP: I feel the same way. I went back to Toronto for most of this year, but I came back to New York, a cool spot in Chinatown, but my room is really tiny, and I realize that I really need to get a space that I can work out of, for the same reasons that you’re explaining. Being able to do stuff with other people is important.
DD: 100%.
TP: So what’s your home studio situation like? Are you the kind of guy that sets a schedule for yourself or do you wait for inspiration to hit and then just walk in to the studio and see what happens?
DD: So, normally I’d say before, in the beginning of the year, I would wake up, work out, take my dog for a run, and then after I take a shower, like, immediately into songwriting. But, now, I feel like, I dunno, I’ve reached this point where everything kind of sounds the same, and everything looks the same, from a consumer standpoint. I pick up my phone and everything on Instagram looks exactly the same. And then I listen to what other DJs are playing and everything kind of sounds the same, too. So as of right now, I don’t have a routine ‘cause everything sounds so shitty to me. Myself included. I’m so tired of hearing the same shit.
TP: I know exactly what you’re saying. It’s hard. I find myself buying synths when I hit that wall, trying to spark some sort of inspiration. But it often doesn’t help, you just end up sitting there trying to figure out how to program the thing, thinking to yourself that this isn’t really helping my problem, is it? (Laughs)
DD: Buying new gear is never the answer.
Damar Davis - “Gym” from the Haus LP
TP: No, it isn’t! It’s always the problem, actually. What’s your relationship like with gear? Do you like using hardware gear or do you find like it kind of gets in the way?
DD: I mean I feel like with the majority of the hard gear that I do own, I use it and write with all the time, but with everything being accessible on the internet, it’s kind of hard to spend a lot of money on a Juno when you can just buy a plug-in.
TP: The plug-ins at this point are sounding amazing.
DD: Right.
TP: What’s up with Salon? When did you start Salon?
DD: I started it at the end of 2019, but it started out as just a party, and then it formed its way into a record label, by necessity, because my experience with other record labels. So, the story behind it is pretty much just to put out music that I like from my friends, first and foremost, and then to pretty much – I feel like there was this empty space in L.A., as far as music was concerned, and like the style of music. No disrespect to any of these people, but I feel like a lot of the artists in L.A. that were playing house or electronic music sounded a lot like, Ben U.F.O., or like Shlomo, you know. I kind of was like, there’s no one really representing the stuff that I like. My immediate group of friends, we are all into more soulful, J. Dilla, house-y, Theo Parrish-type stuff. So since no one else was doing it, I was like, well, I might as well start that.
TP: Do you think that the fact that Salon started off as a party first has helped to cultivate an offline, real-world community in a way that starting a label online wouldn’t be able to? Has a community come together though that?
DD: For sure. I mean, there’s so many people that just keep coming, there’s no other sound like this in L.A., no one else is doing this, you get that whole gauntlet of emotions. I mean, like I said, I feel like, even with house music in New York, or house music in Oakland or wherever, no one is really doing a West Coast soulful sound of house music, other than us. It’s kind of like what Dre did with the Death Row sound.
TP: I can definitely see that kind of parallel for sure.
DD: It’s not like we’re trying to emulate that or wear this hat, it’s kind of what we keep getting as far as a response to what we’re doing. It was kind of like an idea that grew legs and started running on its own. I’ve been trying to grab it by the harness and try to steer it as much as possible, but it’s kind of been running on its own, going crazy.
Damar Davis - “LA” from the Duende EP, out now through Salon Recordings
TP: What would you say is the most frustrating thing about running a record label in 2021? Is it the promotion side that is the most agonizing? What about streaming? Do you like streaming, from a consumer standpoint? What about from an artist and label standpoint?
DD: Alright, so, it’s so crazy because, as you know since you have your own label, there’s so many different hats you have to wear as a label. And then dealing with different graphic designers, and then dealing with the consumer that’s like, I’m only gonna buy records, you’re not a real record label unless you put out records, and then there’s also the basic consumer that will just come to our parties that’s just gonna stream our music on Spotify or on iTunes because it’s easily accessible. So, I don’t knock streaming; I wish we could get more money from the streaming side of things, but at the same time, I feel like it is what it is and music is going its own way as much as possible. In that regard, I just try to push Bandcamp as much as I can. Then on the other side, as a label, even small diners have their own clothing, so you might as well have t-shirts, hoodies, hats, stickers, whatever you can.
TP: What about from a consumer standpoint, do you like it?
DD: I do, man. I use Spotify – I don’t wanna sound like a jock, but I use Spotify mainly for when I’m working out. But if I’m looking for music, I’m listening to mixes.
TP: When it comes to music and finding new mixes, for me, personally, NTS has always been the beacon of hope. Do you listen to NTS radio?
DD: 100%. My first experience with playing on online radio was on NTS. The longer my stint goes, the more I realize there’s so many NTS, they’re just the one that has the crown right now. Everybody has an online radio show on a different platform.
TP: What role do you think vinyl plays in the world of dance music at this time? Is it the same as any other kind of consumer area in music, where people treat vinyl like they treat t-shirts and posters as just something to buy and own rather than something that has a specific use value to it?
DD: I’m just going to be real, I know people that buy records not to listen to them, they buy them just to have a record collection, and they’re music snobs, you know. But as far as buying records, I don’t feel like a lot of people buy records like they used to. I feel like mainly DJs buy records, but other than that, you’re not getting a bunch of people going crazy over records, unless it’s people who are in the scene, buying that record because they plan on playing that record, or because they’ve been supporting that artist since day one, or if you’re in, like, Europe. That’s really it. And then if you’re a hip-hop beat producer that’s kind of O.G., you’re buying records too, but other than that, they’re not buying records.
TP: Do you buy records?
DD: Yeah, for sure. Not all the time, but not as much as I should.
TP: Do you ever DJ with vinyl?
DD: Every once in a while, on my radio show, but not live. I did that Vinyl Factory thing and that’s the last thing that I did with actual records.
TP: Do you collect any other physical media? Do you collect magazines or books or anything like that?
DD: No, man, it’s super weird. As a kid, my whole family was kind of athletic, so it was like, “you have to play sports.” That was the thing. Either you play basketball, or you play football. So, I was outside a lot of the time, so I never really got a chance to do collecting, other than shoes. Like, shoes and some types of clothing, I would, but not as much any more. Hardly ever.
TP: How do you store and maintain your digital files? Do you really make an effort to back up sessions, for instance, when you’re making music? do you use Cloud storage? How do you navigate that?
DD: Funny that you ask that. So, yesterday, since I told you I haven’t really been making music, I was like, alright, I’m gonna go back to the old way that I used to do things, and I literally go through all my sounds that I have, whether it’s like, loops, chords, basslines, one-shots, and I make folders for everything, and then after I make folders for them, I put them on a hard drive, that way everything is backed up, and then I go from there. I’m kind of a nerd about that.
TP: So when you can’t really find inspiration to create a song, you get down to work and organize things.
DD: For sure, because you’ll come across a sound, or you’ll come across a vocal loop and you’re like, oh, this is cool, I’m gonna use it. It sparks ideas. It’s just like being clean. If you cleaned your room as a kid, you’d be like, oh, there’s that shirt! Or, there’s that toy!
TP: (Laughs) Yeah, for sure, I’m that way to this day. I can’t even sit down at a computer and do work unless everything is cleaned up and lined up visually, so I definitely know what you mean. Did you work in a studio for one of the records that you put out this year? Do I remember seeing that online?
DD: Yeah yeah yeah, so Future Sound and Frogtown.
TP: Nice. Did you produce in there, or just mix? How did you incorporate going into the studio into your work flow?
DD: It was mainly just mixing. My friend Jon Jon has a studio in Frogtown and I just went over there to mix the record down, and he has really good gear, analog and digital, and I needed to be in a space where it would sound like it was, really in the club. So it was really helpful to just take it there, ‘cause I can’t really like bump bump music like that in my spot.
Damar Davis - “GF” from the Bronze EP, available now through Maximum Exposure Inc.
TP: There is a ‘Salon sound’, I really do think that, in the same way that there is this ‘Apron Records sound’, and it is quite futuristic. Do you have any interest in making things sound old or analog, or is that not something that passes through your mind while mixing? Your stuff doesn’t sound retro or throwback at all. I feel like a lot of people, and I’m guilty of this, really fetishize old sounds. Do you ever do that?
DD: Nah man, I like things that sound super fresh. I don’t even want to say it’s a competitive thing, but I feel like the number one thing that would make a Salon sound is that I am really aware that our direct competition is, like, mainstream media, so even if we do make dance music, there’s like, a Kaytranada that’s making dance music that’s gonna get played on the radio, and they’re not using older sounding stuff, they’re using brand new gear and all new sounds that makes everything sound super fresh. So as far as a consumer is concerned, they don’t wanna hear older stuff. That’s for people that are buying records. And no disrespect to anybody, that’s just the way my brain thinks.
TP: For sure, and I think that sometimes it just takes someone with a vision, like you, to create this world that becomes something like Salon. So what do you have going on in the next year? Do you have any specific plans for what you want to do with music in Salon or are you just going to try and go with the flow and see what happens?
DD: There’s definitely a roadmap. You’re gonna see Salon in other states, We’re gonna do other things in other places, not just L.A. You’re gonna get more merch and stuff like that from us, just because we are super aware of fashion and the times. What else? Obviously, just music, great mixes, equal opportunity for female DJs as well. It’s a big thing that we’re really big on, so all that stuff, man.
TP: Do you run everything with Salon on your own or do you do it with someone else?
DD: It’s really all just me.
”Duende” is out now through Salon Recordings