Exposed Vocals just sat down with Mark Ross from Brain of Krang for an exclusive interview

Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?

I grew up in Kennebunkport, Maine.  A tourist town, thanks to President #41, George HW Bush. My mother and her sisters all grew up north of here, singing in the church choir and it always seemed to be around me.  I would jam out to Michael Jackson or anything that was playing while hanging out as a kid.  I started to get into drums and percussion when I got a bit older.  We didn’t have a ton of money so I played on a Remo practice pad and eventually got a snare drum.  I set up lampshades for symbols, pots and pans for toms, and stomped the floor for a bass drum.  After my parents saw I was serious, we started building a real kit one piece at a time.   That’s how it all started.  I just couldn’t get enough.

Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?

Basically, follow your passion.  Get as good as you can at what you do.  Make friends with people who are already doing it and run things by them.  See what they think.  Ask questions.  Figure out what they did or how they produce their tracks.  After that, you just have to go for it.  Don’t hesitate to lay down what feels right.  To a certain point, you want to learn through mimicking others, learning by ear, but there is a fine line when you need to decide to do your own thing.  I still battle the urge to make something that sounds like one of those who inspired me.  That’s the type of music I like so I want to make it just like that.  That’s great and all but do you really want to live your life just copying what those who came before you already did?

Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?

Oh hell yes.  Who hasn’t made a mistake?  Just push through it.  Honestly, some of these mistakes we make, is what make our tracks unique.  I think of myself as a perfectionist and many times when I’m in the studio, I have to prevent myself from hitting the quantize button or re-recording something to make it “perfect”.  It’s the imperfections that make the music human and relatable.  It’s what sets us apart from the computers we rely so heavily on for production.

Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?

We don’t typically tour with the artists picking up our beats.  I can’t say that’s a bad thing either.  Touring is a serious commitment.  I commend all of the artists that grind like that.  That’s the real deal.  We’ve played shows etc. but no tours.

Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?

Working on Maschine Studio 2 and the Komplete Kontrol keyboard right now.  A Macbook Pro, Sapphire Focusrite, a couple Numark tables and Yamaha HS8 studio monitors.  I’m looking at introducing a Maschine Jam into the mix but the Abelton Push 2 is taunting me.  I think it might be the next piece to the puzzle.

Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?

Social media is the #1 way I’m connecting with artists these days.  I recently worked with Pimp FU out of New Jersey and made one called “Ghetto Boys”.  Another with an up and coming artist out of Minnesota, a huge talent named Kihndyn Peters.  But the best way is in person.  Believe it or not, my girl made a connection with the mother of a local Maine artist, Spose.  She gave her a CD of my beats and Spose picked one up and put some fire down on it with his crew for the We Smoked It All 2 Album.  It’s called, “I Get Lifted”.  I met Cam Groves, one of Spose’s associates, through the same channel.  We did a track together called, “This Is Who I Am”.  Personal connections will always beat out social media.  Sometimes it happens by chance but if you can put yourself in those circles it can help a lot. When I was younger, I spent some time in Hartford, CT and my boy J-O would always bring me to local spots in the city where cats were recording.  My production at that point was awful but he always had me bring my beats to the studio and had his boys listen to it.  I learned a lot from that.  I got immediate feedback.  Real feedback from guys who were legit.  They didn’t hold back.  And that’s what you need to hear if you’re trying to get better.  You can’t get that on social media.

Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?

MF Doom.  Because the guy is an absolute GENIUS.

Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?

Working on a couple new tracks with Kihndyn Peters, AKA Create, AKA Captain Yah, AKA YaYah!, AKA King Yayah the StuckLord.  The kid is just murdering things.  His flow us unreal.  He just made a Talib Kweli Diss track that is stupid good.  You’re just going to have to find out for yourselves.  Look him up on SoundCloud or anywhere else.  Find it and enjoy.

Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?

Listening to music.

Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in the next year or so?

More beats from Brain of Krang!  Stay locked in on our SoundCloud page, Twitter, Facebook…. Anywhere you can get your hands on some BOK beats.

Exposed Vocals: Any Shout-outs?

I pretty much shouted everyone out already.  But to my girl Kayla, my baby daughter Ella, my whole fam, and my associates up here in Maine including my co-producer, J. King and my boy Tony Slaps who is going to blow your mind with his first EP coming out soon.  The MN connection is killing it right now too.  Shoutout to the StuckLord.   And to our fans.  The Brainiacs out there are just unreal supporters.  I can’t thank you enough!!!!!!