Earlier this week, we let the world know that Artur Waś, who's part of the speed skating team that's competing in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, also produces drum & bass as Voima. We thought the story was cool, partly because many of us at DAD are drum & bass fans, but I have to admit: I wasn't ready for all of the love that this tidbit of information got. Made me think that my dream of drum & bass rising back into prominence over the electronic music scene as a whole could possibly come true. It's also just ill to see a producer of a genre that starts out around 160/170 BPM competing in a speed competition. The parallels are excellent.
In any case, Kamil (aka the tipster that hit me up about Artur's story) put me in contact with Artur. I got a chance to chat with him about his speed-skating origins, his drum & bass origins, and everything in between.
Thanks for taking the time out to chat with DAD. First off, how does it feel to be in Sochi, representing for your country?
It feels amazing! I waited so long for this and now it’s happening. I'm really happy to be here, the atmosphere is great, people are friendly and the venues are awesome. It’s also a pretty interesting location to host Winter Games. Down by the coastal village where all the ice sports are located, you have palm trees and it’s 15 degrees Celsius (around 60 degrees F) on average everyday! Not your typical Winter Games :)
How long have you been skating at a professional level?
I got into speed skating 17 years ago when I was 11-years-old. In 2006, when I was 19, I went to my first Olympic Games that were held in Torino, Italy. After that I moved to the USA to train in Milwaukee, WI, but my life sort of drifted away from sport. I had too many plans for my life and couldn’t focus on any of them. At the end of that period I caught myself broke, depressed and without any direction in life, drinking beer at 10AM in a dark basement. I did meet a lot of amazing people that helped and inspired me to dream big. I guess you could call it a “purpose redefining” time in my life, because after missing out on the Vancouver 2010 Games it became clear to me what I want to do in life and what I need to do to get there. In 2011 I joined a Speed Skating Academy program in Inzell, Germany where I got a chance to work with Jeremy Wotherspoon, current 500m World Record holder and Jan Bos, multiple World Championships medal winner. Both Olympic medalists and huge idols of mine from the early years of my skating. I’d say that those last three years are when I started real training and skating at a professional level.
Was going to the Olympics a dream of yours?
I think, that anyone that participates in an Olympic sport dreams about going to the Olympic Games. You train in a four year cycle in mind with an Olympic qualification or an Olympic medal as a goal at the end of that cycle. For most non-athletes the Olympic Games are just something that happens every few years, then they forget it exists until the next one. My mind is already set on Pyeongchang 2018, and I’ll be building the next four years based on what I want to do there. It’ll be there in my head pushing me every time I’ll feel like bitching out in training :)
How does it feel to get out there and compete at this level? Was this a new kind of pressure?
Having skated in the Games before and participating in World Cups and World Championships for many years already, it wasn’t really an entirely new experience. Every time you race you get nervous but it’s just a body reaction. Without this adrenaline you wouldn’t be able to perform at your best. This is the most important competition for an athlete, so the pressure was higher. It’s up to you though, how you process and use this energy. Depending on your mental preparation it can be either uplifting or paralyzing :) I think I’ve done a good job…
And when Im not skating… https://t.co/YCm0mk1tex pic.twitter.com/eHF4eXgleL
— Artur Waś (@ArturWas) September 25, 2013
You’re known to one portion of the world as an Olympic speed skater - but we found out that you’re also getting your feet wet in the drum & bass scene. Talk to us about how your work as Voima came to be.
I was into making music pretty much from the same time I started skating… At the age of 12 my cousin introduced me to my first music making software. I got really hooked and at the same time as all my friends were playing video games I was heavily into experimenting with sound. I remember I had a demo version of the software that didn’t allow me to save or export any sound, so I had to finish whatever I worked on that same day I started and record it to a cassette. Then I’d hang around with a Walkman, using those sounds to boost my imagination and visualize myself doing awesome things. All for fun. And it is pretty much the same thing for me today. A relaxing and zoning out activity that takes me away into a whole different world, where I forget myself, forget about my problems and practice concentration and being in the zone.
In April 2013 I decided to start making musical goals for myself as well. I wanted to create drum & bass tracks that others would notice and enjoy. There is a Polish drum & bass forum where people can post their tracks and receive feedback from other producers. Being naturally competitive, I wanted to become noticed and respected within that community. Something clicked and within one month I stepped up to a totally different level. My first track, "Supernatural Forces" (which I'm currently re-mastering) got lots of positive feedback and two tracks later first label offers started appearing. My girlfriend is from Estonia and I really like Estonian language and the similar sounding Finnish. “Võimas” means powerful in Estonian, I really liked that word but turned out the Finish word for “power” - “voima," fits even better for an alias. To me both, sprinting on skates and neurofunk drum & bass music are characterized as “powerful” and it’s definitely a key word in my life.
You tag most of your material as “neurofunk,” which makes us immediately think of legends like Ed Rush & Optical and Konflict and many more. Who were some of your favorite dnb producers?
I got into drum & bass music around 1999 so Ed Rush & Optical, Konflict, and Usual Suspects were exactly the people that influenced me the most. I then started to dream about becoming a DJ. By the time I could afford a proper DJ set up and buying records, the scene in Poland was driven by more jump-up’ish and dancefloor-oriented dnb, so I collected all kinds of tunes, hoping to get a chance of playing at a real party. Around the year of 2007, after hearing Phace’s Psycho album and the stuff Noisia was releasing at that time, I totally redefined my identity as a dnb fan. Neurofunk had such a powerful groove that, with it’s talking mids, rhythmic stabs and heavy subs, it almost felt as an individual form of consciousness communicating with the human species :) To me, there can’t be a more intense experience in music than a feeling of being in touch with something supernatural. It’s a thrill.
What drove you to start producing?
I think, with the imagination I developed as a child I also developed this creativity, that the moment I was introduced to music software, was totally out of control. I became quickly bored with things like video games and had an urge of being a creator and receiver at the same time, rather than just a receiver of various forms of creativity. I always did it for myself, without the external pressure and that’s why it always gave me great deal of feeling liberated. I hope it never changes to an expectation loaded thing. That’d be very sad and not really fun anymore :)
It was nice to see that one of your first releases dropped the same day as one of your Olympic competitions. Are you thinking at all about your drum & bass work while at these competitions?
Not really… I was so focused on my races I totally forgot that my first-ever release dropped on the same day. I got quickly reminded because articles started to pop up on the web, about my connection to the drum & bass world. Looks like I'm becoming more known for my music rather than my athletic performances, which is pretty funny and I’d never think that it would happen. I'm having a lot of fun!
We also saw that you have a new single set to drop in March. What are some of your goals as a dnb producer?
I’d like to use my experiences with drum & bass and combine them into tracks that would move others like the tracks that move me. I’d like to be a part of the growing process of this movement , creating quality grooves that spread and expand the community. Neurofunk is getting more and more popular and I’d hate to hear garbage tunes with the “neurofunk” label appearing on the market, like what happened with other very popular genres, that turned awesome music into a marketing hit… From a less philosophical point of view, I’d like to be noticed by and release tunes on labels that I think are the leaders in quality drum & bass.
If you had to pick one (skating or producing music), which would you choose?
Right now, hands down skating would be the thing I’d choose. I’ve developed a lot as an athlete over the last three years and I am very close to becoming the skater that I want to be, whereas music production is something I'm just getting started with and I know the drum & bass world would do just fine if I decided to give it a break :) My body won’t let me perform at a high level forever, producing tunes, even though sometimes hard on my back, is less demanding physically. I could always restart producing whenever I want.
And finally, do androids dance?
Hell yeah! In the most smooth, fluid and organic way you could imagine…
