Growing up alongside the Mexican border, the son of of a black father and a Japanese mother, senior journalism major Nik Bates draws from his life experience and overall surroundings to make music that is just as diverse as he is. He said the fusion of the two different cultures have largely influenced his path in life.
He considers himself a bedroom producer and can often be found surfing the net for samples of music from just about any genre to create some fly beats.
He recalls high school as having an eclectic mix of people, which have inspired him to write songs about diversity, while embracing just about anything when he writes.
“I want to put as much of myself in my music, I don’t have to preach anything” said Bates, who has interests ranging from Mötley Crüe to Magic Johnson and Yu-Gi-Oh,
He said he one day hopes to share the stage with what he calls “reasonable idols,” like Asher Roth, Chuck Inglish and Mac Miller.
He said he is looking forward to releasing new music, aiming for a June 30th release; a day that also happens to be his birthday.
Q. Tell me a bit about your love or passion for music.
Nik Bates: Most of it comes from my parents. We always had classic rock radio or classical music so in the car I would hear Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Mötley Crüe, Aerosmith, KISS — that is what I grew up with. On the other side, my mom would take me to symphonies … we would see Yo-Yo Ma …. stuff like that. It wasn’t until eighth grade when I started to take the bus to school [that I] got into rapping.
Q. How exactly was that transition from everything you were used to?
NB: Well, part of it had to do with me watching “8 Mile” for the first time. Riding the bus and [just listening to rap on the radio] … before that, my parents did listen to Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, basically the big names.
Q. So what do you look for when you make or sample music?
NB: As far as sampling right now, I’m looking for slow jazz songs, slow psychedelic rock songs, just so I can speed them up. I like the way it sounds going from slow to speeding it up. As far as lyrics … I try to include all of my interests. So I’ll rap about things like wrestling, Pokémon, skating, skate videos I used to watch and games I’ve played. Basically, anything I grew up with I’m trying to put in my music.
Q. Yeah, don’t you have a song that’s just about the ‘90s?
NB: Oh yeah, it’s called “Super Soakers,” in reference to those [Super Soakers] commercials. That was my first time trying to channel that spirit. I had lines about Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Mario kart, and wrestling, of course. I always throw Nick Cannon punch lines all over the place, because he is from San Diego too, and my name is Nik so those are pretty easy to write.
Q. You listen to a lot of music — tell me a bit about your hard drive.
NB: Up until 10th grade I was mostly on classic rock and some hip-hop. [Two of my friends] kind of inspired me to open up my tastes. So around 11th grade, I started digging into indie rock, folk, electronic [music]. I got into Justice and Crystal Castles, stuff like that. For a couple years I was into that stuff, but then I started to get into anything I possibly could. So I was listening to Mongolian throat music, which is like folk Mongolian music made of instruments from horse bones and hair. Let me see what else … drone music, ambient music, lots of stoner metal, probably my favorite right now … This week I’ve been trying to get into more synthpop. So artists like Tune-Yards, Baths, Foxes , Chvrches. From Chvrches that’s kind of how I branched out to everything else.
Q. What’s the last thing you downloaded?
NB: I think it was the Baths album Cerulean [2010]. Yeah, because I just listen to Obsidian [2013].
Q. How did you like that one?
NB: I liked it a lot, so I’m curious to listen to Cerulean.
Q. So, where can people find your music?
NB: I have all my finished projects on bandcamp. A lot of it is old but I’ll be putting up some new songs on [Soundcloud]. On bandcamp you will find four mixed tapes, I think they all have 16 songs each. One is from 2011 and it’s the first one I ever made. In that one I was definitely still trying to find my style … I honestly tried to copy Kid Cudi and Tyler, The Creator. I tried to make a spacey dark mixed tape. Looking back at it, it doesn’t sound very cool … My third [release] is called “Goodbye San Diego,” that one I show to people and am not ashamed of. It was basically me trying to collect my thoughts of leaving San Diego having grown up there before moving down here to Long Beach. It’s all over classic hip-hip instrumentals, so it has an old school ‘90s sound. That’s probably why I like it. My last release was called “This Is Gonna Be Nasty,” I was trying to do more electronic music … it was good practice.
Q. Is that all the music you have ever released?
NB: No, I started in eighth grade so most of what I would write about was like, ‘I’m going to kill you and break your bones until it breaks out your skin,’ like really stupid stuff. A lot of it was battle rap lines. I probably made around 30 songs [that year], then I stopped once I started high school. [In junior year] when I met Andres he got me back into writing. I lost count but I have 125 plus songs since 11th grade, only about 50 have ever been released. A lot of them are me practicing over instrumentals. Also I just made my 300th beat a couple days ago.
Q. Say what?
NB: I’m trying to get my 10,000 hours in. There is this theory that you have to practice something for 10,000 hours before you really get good at it. I think I got a good 3,000 hours in, maybe.
Check out Nik Bates’s music on nikbates.bandcamp.com and soundcloud.com/nikbates.