Tal Rochman began poking the edges of the electronic music underground at the tender age of 15 from his home in Israel as the artist Sex Whales. Overcoming Tourettes Syndrome, his songs and collaborations have gathered well over 500 million plays all while defining his unique sounds, touring the United States, Canada, Europe and even China.
Today Tal Rochman matures into the artist Whales. Unbound by genres and as prolific and armed with rapid fire releases, Tal looks to make a lasting impact and be an inspiration for many generations of electronic music to come. Read the interview below!
Hi Whales! How are you doing?
Hello! I’m doing great! Just finished releasing my new EP “From The Depths” and Chime collaboration “Game Break” on Disciple Records. Really glad to put some music out. Nothing I love more than giving my audience what they want.
Take us back to the beginning, how did you found your passion into producing electronic music?
Honestly, I always had music around me. Since I was a child I’d sneak into the computer and play every mp3 file I could find, I’d sit and watch the music waveform plays for hours. When I was 7 I really wanted to pick up an instrumental to learn, so I decided to join a Darbuka (middle eastern instrument) class we had at school. I practiced learning Darbuka music 3 days a week and I really got into it. My parents eventually bought me my own darbuka and the rest was history. I used to grind hard on that thing, hard enough that I started to compete in school concerts they’d have in my city, and eventually even competed nationally. After a year of me competing I started developing my tourette’s syndrome symptoms and the tics, this really made me struggle through everything until one day I couldn’t touch the instrument anymore.
As soon as I realized I can’t play live instruments I started to search a solution online to “how can I make music” is what I searched. Quickly I found out about music production and asked in an online forum I was at (before facebook, instagram, etc) if anyone knew a good program to make “Trance” (that’s how I thought electronic music was called back in the day). Eventually someone suggested I get FL Studio, I still have a screenshot till this day of me asking the forum that question. That post was from 2008 is actually still up online.
You released an EP called “From The Depths” through Disciple Round Table. Could you share the creative process behind about this EP?
Honestly, this EP was made while I was on tour and jumping between one show to another. From The Depths was heavily inspired by the energy the crowd gave at the shows and I just wanted to go as hard as I can while staying unique. At some point I really started to lose myself in heavy dubstep during the process, since my roots are melodic stuff I decided to make Krill The Game. The track Krill the Game which is talking about the struggle I have wanting to satisfy the crowd and labels while still wanting to do more and expand genres, etc. So yeah. That’s the journey I had in the beginning of the year haha
How did you end up into the collaboration with Code: Pandorum?
Me and Code have been friends for 7 years, he even remixed 2 songs of mine back in 2014, and have work together since. One day we ended up talking and I sent him a nice drop but it was missing an intro. That exact same day I had to do a Brain MRI because I had some health conflicts going on and had a chance of a brain tumor, I was very nervous and all I wanted to do is run to the software. I used this emotion to creat an intro for “The Kraken” straight before I headed to the hospital. Fun fact: both first drop demo and intro were made while I was 80% deaf. I’m so glad we could finish this one, release it, I got to tour and play this one while being healthy and ok.
What is your favorite song from the EP?
Probably The Kraken, it’s just very energetic and unique.
Who do you hope to work with in the future, if you could name top 3 producers/artists to work with and why?
I would love to work with anyone I find awesome and creative. I’m absolutely in love with small independent artists because they give me the feels of freedom. Always humble and just want to have fun. I’d love to work with Excision, Modestep and finish my collab with Borgore. They all been big players in the scene when I entered it and I want to check it off on my to do list I had when I was 12. 😉
This quarantine period has been hard for music industry so now it’s time to support and support, any interesting new producers you would recommend to follow?
OH YES. SEED, Teko, Papa Khan, Kozmoz, JOOL, BeutNoise, Voltra, Guillotine, Zetta, BVSSIC, Nemesy, Ace Aura and many many many more.
Any advise for up & coming producers?
Enjoy it. Like, seriously. Nothing will be worth it if you won’t enjoy your way up there. Enjoy the feeling of rising up and building yourself. Never stop learning. Never stop dreaming. As cliche as it is, If I was able to make it, you can too.
Would you like to share something with the followers of Let the Bass Get You?
You all are awesome and if you’re just now joining my journey, or learned a new thing about me, let’s all have some fun and enjoy some great music. Thank you to LTBGY staff for the great interview!
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