Core Story

“Hey, so can you think of any other names?” “KOHL sounds good man, to be honest with you, just go for it.” On the day I visited the cozy little home of Kohl Aufdencamp, he decided to plan to make a SoundCloud page with me, as he needed assistance setting it up and jotting down different names, which was incredibly convenient for the project as well. Some brainstorming produced some unique names. Subwaufer sounded cool, Koohla sounded chill, and Kohl the Camper just sounded too ironic for his name, but at the end of this little 30 minute brainstorming session, we compromised on the name KOHL (in capital letters) since it looked cool with the capital letters and it’s his name too! Before launching his page, Kohl was just producing EDM (Electronic Dance Music) for fun, finding cool different sounds and learning the flow and organization of a song in his producing program, and before he was even producing all his different tracks and creating different beats, Kohl was just at home, laying on his bed, bored out of his mind, with only music to accompany him on a brisk winter day. He said he needed something to do. “Well, I just had the random thought of, ‘Well why not make some music of my own, you know?’ and it just went from there, and I’m totally glad it did.” The process of mixing music and the unlimited amount of pieces of music he can make is what makes music producing so appealing to him, Kohl says. But what makes the allure of producing even deeper to Kohl is the prospects of the producing business. “There are people that went from nothing to a millionaire, and to think about being able to do that just by expressing myself in a song is pretty sick.” The average music producer that isn’t too well renowned per se makes a hefty $55,000 per year, which isn’t horrid or laughable at all, but the top producers in the industry such as Calvin Harris, Tiesto, and Swedish House Mafia have all made upwards of $10+ million in performances and record sales last year with Calvin Harris topping the board with $46 million accumulated last year, an astronomically large sum of money that’ll certainly fill a nice wallet. That kind of money produces hunger in many young producers and DJ’s, Kohl being that, another guy that has the hunger to make it in the industry like his forecomers. “I think if I can make tracks that sound good and sound me, I can really make it far,” he says. “I get to make tons of money doing something I like to do AND I can be famous someday too, haha.” After all, many stars come from humble beginnings, yes? Thought the potential for Kohl’s dream is extremely bright, the expenses such as production equipment, promotions, possibly producing space and other additional hindrances that may come in the way of the dream can stop Kohl from letting him climb to the spotlight. For instance a Roland MIDI Keyboard/Controller for creating virtual notes can cost $300+ , Studio monitors, another fancy term for Super-precise speakers, from Yamaha can cost $300 a pair of monitors, individual virtual instruments to create unique beats can come in packages of $10 to a hundred for certain packages. Certainly, the average Joe doesn’t have this kind of huge money to invest on a random day. This is a main obstacle for Aufdencamp, who is like every other high schooler without thousands of dollars to spend at free will (except maybe Charlie) and as such, would be rather hesitant to spend such money. Another difficulty in trying to get started in the industry is the amount of promotion that must be conducted and the difficulty of self-promoting. “It’s hard in a place where a ton of people like me want to get in there too, you know, I’m not the only guy that has to fight for attention.” Kohl puts it precisely, and he is right, when many other people are trying to market themselves as ‘unique’ or ‘the next big thing’ to labels, radio, and even just around the block to make people familiar with him. “I haven’t started yet, because, I haven’t really planned that out yet to be honest,” Kohl says, then laughs as he realizes how unplanned he is for the music industry. I then asked him at that moment, “So you really don’t know what you’re going to do to get your name out there?” Kohl pauses for a second, then returns with, “Well I guess SoundCloud’s a start right?” If one goes deeper into promotion, they must consider how to develop their ‘brand’, how to gather as much contacts as possible, and how to grow your fanbase, and all these questions are what Kohl feels he needs to address if he ever goes into producing. Other than the producing standpoint, Kohl feels that everyone’s different music tastes aid in helping them go down different paths and decisions in life. His influence from the EDM scene has made him lean toward wanting to produce and DJ. Other influences of the EDM scene include big rave-like music festivals and concerts of famous Producers/DJ’s, producing songs yourself and the infamous ‘moly’ craze during concerts. The drug problem is not only at EDM concerts, Miley Cyrus even asked where ‘Molly’ was at one of her recent concerts this year, and many other concerts are fostering the use of this drug to enhance their partying experience during a concert. I asked Kohl during my visit on his view on ‘molly.’ “Yeah, I know people who do it at parties, of course, I’m not naming names, but yeah I know some of the stuff that gets into those pills, and some of the stuff isn’t good, at all.” Touted for being extremely pure, containing only MDMA in powders and pills, many of the dealers can’t afford putting 100% MDMA in their moly pills/powders, looking to put additives such as caffeine, bath salts, and even methamphetamine as fillers for the drug, according to an article by Slate, a blog site. They went further into their study by purchasing some molly from a local and ‘reputable’ New York dealer, promoting his molly as “the best money could buy.” After purchasing it, they dissected the pill and found fillers such as bath salts, meth, and an unidentified opiate in the pill. Clearly ‘molly’ ain’t so innocent or clean anymore. I told Kohl about the extra ingredients I knew at the time and he suddenly had a more worried face. “Wow, there’s meth in there? Yeah people’s gonna have to rethink about doing that stuff.” What’s the cause of the rise of this drug that seems so irrelevant to music and Kohl? Well, music helped it gain popularity. Again. Popular in the 80s, then just plainly called MDMA, molly like stated before, is a staple drug of today’s music scene. If you haven’t heard, “Pop a molly I’m sweatin” yet, you need to listen to some music, because practically everyone knowsthose lyrics, if they don't know what song it is. That phrase being one of the most prominent promoters of MDMA, it is increasingly evident that music affects lifestyle choices of many teens today. It’s not just MDMA that’s a problem, no. There’s weed, cocaine, alcohol and a lot more illicit drugs that are mentioned in today’s songs. According to Dan Aune, a sophomore in Keene State who believes that her peers are in danger because of music’s dire influence, “It’s detrimental not only to the state of modern music, but to the youth that look up to these people too.” After talking with Kohl about life paths and such he said he's glad he is producing and staying on the good path. Maybe one day he'll get to iTunes...