Clams casino producer

Back in 2011, Michael Volpe was a physical therapy student interning at a hospital in New Jersey while making rap beats in his spare time – literally in his mum’s basement. Five years later and he’s got production credits for A$AP Rocky, Vince Staples, and FKA twigs under his belt and taken his live show around the world. “I said, ‘Listen, I’m going to take it as far as I can,’” he explains backstage at Turin’s future-facing Club To Club festival, having just played a set of his own hazy-but-heavy boom-bap productions to the receptive Italian crowd, “‘I see an opportunity – let me see how far I can take it. If it doesn’t work out by the fall or something then I’ll look for a physical therapy job.’”

Volpe started his career by sending music out online to rappers like Lil B, Main Attrakionz, and Soulja Boy – the former two were little-known outside of California’s Bay Area at the time, while the latter had taken to experimenting with often wildly different styles following the early viral success of his song “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” a few years earlier. Eventually Volpe collected a handful of these beats together on his first Instrumental Mixtape – released under the name Clams Casino – which demonstrated his remarkable and unique aesthetic. By putting the tracks together in one place, Volpe showcased a lo-fi and muzzy style, part-way between hip hop and ambient music. It was full of misty textures, often sampled from YouTube videos, and ghostly voices sourced from artists as unlikely as Imogen Heap and Björk. His style was much-imitated but never bettered in the subsequent years, and he earned praise not only from rap fans but also from indie and electronic music quarters, with experimental label Tri Angle Records tapping him for a follow-up EP.

Today, music is Volpe’s full-time preoccupation, and it’s led him to work with artists from both the hip hop and R&B world like Schoolboy Q and The Weeknd as well as more unexpected artists like Blood Orange. He’s also started to accept – albeit tentatively – his role not simply as a ‘rap producer’ but as an artist in his own right with his debut album 32 Levels. Released earlier this year, the album shows how far Volpe’s music has come within a relatively short period of time, and brings together some of his closest collaborators like Lil B, A$AP Rocky, Vince Staples as well as newer faces like Kelela and Future Islands’ Samuel T. Herring. We caught up with him at Club To Club to talk adjusting to a touring lifestyle, becoming a solo artist, and what he’s learned from the everyone he’d worked with.

Is this your first European tour?

Clams Casino: Yeah. Most of the cities I’ve been to this year are places I’ve never been before. It’s the first time I’ve done it – it’s just been so fast, like back-to-back. It’s a little surreal.

Did it take a long time for you to work out how to translate your music into a live format?

Clams Casino: Yeah, I didn’t wanna do it for a long time. I like to make music, and most of the time I make music pretty much in private – that’s how I kind of did things. I got comfortable with it, so to bring it to a live context, playing it for people and being a performer or even an artist, is not something I really thought of.

You recently worked with AJ Tracey and he performed with you when you came to London. What’s your relationship with grime like?

Clams Casino: I don’t know too much about it. I know a few things. I didn’t know too much about the UK hip hop scene – I knew about people like S.A.S., he used to rap with the Diplomats back in the day – but as far as UK stuff, I just started to get into it pretty recently. The first time I came to the UK was about 2012, so it’s not something that I was aware of until a couple of years ago. I started checking it out a little bit more and then just met up with them. (AJ Tracey)’s just dope. We’ve been working on some stuff – I was able to bring him out for the first London show, it was fun.

“Some people don’t even know that I produce for hip hop artists, they only know me for doing instrumental electronic music” – Clams Casino

Back when you were first emerging, you always talked about how you considered yourself a producer, working with rappers behind the scenes, rather than an artist in your own right. Making an album, have you embraced that a bit more?

Clams Casino: To me, this album – it may change in future with whatever I do next – but this album is still me being a producer.

But it’s still your name it – it’s Clams Casino, not ‘produced by Clams Casino’.

Clams Casino: Like I said, it’s blurry. I see myself one way, some fans see it another way. Some people don’t even know that I produce for hip hop artists, they only know me for doing instrumental electronic music. I feel with this album I’m still just behind the scenes, you know? It’s my name on it, but I still feel like I’m showcasing the people that I work with, having them do their own thing but with me holding down everything overall as a producer, tying all the loose ends together. It sounds like an artist album, but to me it doesn’t feel like that.

So what made you decide to make a solo album then?

Clams Casino: It really started from working with artists on their projects, having songs that I thought were amazing and the artist thought were amazing, but for some reason they just never fit anywhere. Maybe it’s because anything that I do has its own kind of lane, a strong identity where it doesn’t fit anywhere else. The only way I could bring it all together is if I did my own (album) and brought people into my world rather than me trying to get into theirs. I just got tired of that, and a little frustrated: ‘Okay, I have all this music we’re making, everybody loves it, but why isn’t it coming out?’ It has a home if I make the home for it.

You worked with Keyboard Kid 206 on the album. Have you worked any other producers, rather than just vocalists or rappers?

Clams Casino: There’s other people I co-produced stuff on the album with, Keyboard was just one (of them). That came about when I was in the studio with Lil B. Keyboard happened to be in LA for one night – I saw him on Twitter saying he was doing a show – and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m in the studio right now with Lil B, you need to come here now.’ The stars aligned; nobody knew any of it was happening. Lil B was in town for three nights, Keyboard was in town for one night. We just had fun, made a beat and that was it. It was just real natural.

Had you co-produced with anyone before?

Clams Casino: (This was) definitely not the first time. It’s something that inspires me. I like to have somebody to bounce ideas off of. There are other producers on the album like MP Williams, he’s a dude from New York that I met and who inspired me. He co-produced ‘Ghost in a Kiss’ and did a little bit of digital production on ‘A Breath Away’, Kelela’s song. So I’d reached out to him when I got stuck on stuff, like ‘I’m having trouble with this, I know there’s something that I’m trying to get to and I can’t get there.’ Sometimes I need help like that.

“(FKA) twigs’s music opened up my mind to a lot of stuff. I’m not even sure how to explain it” – Clams Casino

It’s interesting that you managed to bring other people into your world but still retain your identity, given you’ve got such a distinctive sonic aesthetic. It often seems like a tough balance to strike.

Clams Casino: Yeah, but it was a very collaborative project. I wanted people to have an outlet for the things they can’t do on their own projects. They’re doing their artist thing, I do my own thing, and we meet in the middle and create something that neither of us could have done on our own. I wanted to be pushed by them, otherwise I’d just be at home making beats on my own and they’d probably sound the same as they used to. That’s why I really wanted to get into the collaborative spirit.

You’re often described in the music press as a rap producer, but you’ve also worked with artists like Blood Orange and FKA twigs on their projects too. Did those experiences inform anything you did with your own album?

Clams Casino: Yeah, I mean twigs’s music opened up my mind to a lot of stuff. I’m not even sure how to explain it. Being able to work with them and see how they work, I picked up a lot. When you go into the studio with someone, sometimes it doesn’t click – it doesn’t mean that I’m not good or they’re not good, sometimes it just doesn’t work – but no matter what, I’ll take something from that experience and learn (from it). Both Dev (Blood Orange) and twigs are super talented artists that I have a lot of respect for, and I picked up a lot from just watching them. Those are very good examples of artists with their own vision, that are going fully for it and know what they’re doing. I took cues from that, watching them do their own thing and having mine come to life as well.

You don’t put out music that often. Are you a perfectionist?

Clams Casino: If it’s forced, it doesn’t get very far. If I’m not having fun doing it then it’s not going to happen. I’ve made music my whole life and started producing beats when I was in high school and I did it (by) not thinking about it. If it ever feels like work – and it can sometimes – that’s when I know that maybe I need to back off for a second. The amount of time it takes me to make something that I really love and want to put out into the world is the amount of time it takes. I don’t make beats that I love every day – I can’t make five beats in a day that I want everybody in the world to hear it – so when I know that it’s really good and I want to put it out, I know. If I want to put something out every month, a new mixtape two, three, four times a year, it would be very forced. It wouldn’t be good music.

Was it hard making the jump from being a bedroom producer to working with other artists in the studio, where they might have their whole crew hanging out watching everything you’re doing?

Clams Casino: That was the hardest thing for me to get used to. Even now, I’ll listen to something for weeks by myself, and the second second I press play on it (with someone else) it sounds completely different. You hear it through somebody else’s ears. It’s a long process to get used to.

“When I was at school I was making beats and taking my music 100% seriously the whole time. Any time that I wasn’t in school or doing homework, I was making music and sending it out on Myspace” – Clams Casino

How long did it take you to overcome that feeling?

Clams Casino: Oh, a few years. I still don’t know if I’m fully adjusted to it. I’d say two or three years minimum. I still feel awkward playing these beats in front of people, you know?

When you first came up you were a physical therapy student fresh out of education. I was wondering how you went from thinking you’d be doing that sort of a career to doing music now?

Clams Casino: That didn’t take that long – maybe half a year to a year – because when I was at school I was making beats and taking my music 100% seriously the whole time. Any time that I wasn’t in school or doing homework, I was making music and sending it out on Myspace. (When) I put out my first instrumental mixtape in March 2011, I was still finishing school – I was in an internship at a hospital and I graduated about two months after that. But during that time from March, the day that I put it out, to the time that I graduated in May and June that year, a lot of stuff had happened. And I said, ‘Listen, I’m going to take it as far as I can. I see an opportunity – let me see how far I can take it. If it doesn’t work out by the fall or something then I’ll look for a physical therapy job.’ I didn’t have to start looking for a physical therapy job. It was basically at the same time.

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