Q&A: How to Build the Future of Sound with Strooly

Producer, DJ, and co-owner of Future-Everything, Strooly.

Strooly—producer, DJ, and co-owner of Future-Everything—is like really creative. Read the Q&A from our interview available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

ZACK ORSBORN:

So I am joined by Micah McGee, AKA Strooly. Micah, you are the co-owner of Future-Everything. You also produce and DJ. And I've been to one of your DJ shows and you did your job—you got me dancing.

STROOLY:

Which one did you go to?

ZO:

It was at the Central Station Hotel, which is just like a beautiful place to be. I feel so fancy every time I go there.

So, what got you started in music? Just generally.

S:

Well, my family's pretty musical. My grandfather played guitar in a jazz band, and I grew up in my grandmother's house a lot.

I was there most of the time. So being really little and seeing him play guitar, and they had a piano and an electric piano in the house, which was really fun to play on when I was really little. So that was kind of the gateway. Like my earliest memory ever, probably four years old, just sitting at the piano and hitting all the black keys, just, you know, loving all the harmonies in that and doing that for hours and then playing on the electric piano with all the rhythms and everything and speeding it up and slowing it down was just really fun to do.

So yeah, that's kind of was the entry point. Got into playing piano really young just because that kind of was where I started, but eventually moved into playing guitar, took lessons a couple times. But really just kind of wanted to learn songs. I couldn't really stick with the theory and reading, you know. I learn by ear.

I have, kind of, a really good pitch.

ZO:

Jealous.

S:

So I'm able to pick up on melody and harmony and kind of mimic it, which is great, but pretty limiting. But that's kind of how I learn and how I play. So, I did that kind of for a few different instruments. I jumped from guitar to drums and then jumped into bigger stringed instruments like, stand up bass and cello when I was in middle school and did drumline a little bit and just kind of dabbled in a bunch of things.

Was in bands when I was in middle school and high school, just kind of playing guitar and jamming with friends. But really wasn't able to do that when I went to college. And naturally, just electronic production became the way for me to still engage in music in a really small space, with what I had.

So that's kind of how I got into producing electronic music.

ZO:

So it sounds like you were into experimentation. What about experimentation gets you creative? What draws you to experimenting?

S:

I think just, I have such kind of varied interests and style and inspiration that, you know, I think just being able to—especially with electronic music and kind of being able to define the soundscape and define a lot of the style and direction and reference a bunch of different things from pop to metal has really been appealing to me. I don't know. I also had, aside from just having musical family members, I did have artistic family members growing up, like traditional painters and illustrators and screen printers and growing up around all of them and watching them in this very kind of DIY mentality, I think just kind of subconsciously influenced a lot of the way I create and a lot of the way that I work.

So that I'm sure that has something to do with it.

ZO:

And that's interesting because you were surrounded by artists growing up, and now you're the co-owner of Future-Everything, which is an artist label. Talk about that. Like how did that get started? What was the process of that?

S:

Yeah, it started in about 2010. I moved to Memphis.

I was part of a collective of other DJs and producers that launched a record label called Voodoo Village, and that was kind of my first hand experience into the back end of running a label and artist management and things like engineering and kind of elevating products to kind of a final package. I was surrounded by some amazing producers and artists in that process.

And, it was just really inspiring to get to do that. And when I moved to Nashville for a couple of years in 2011, to pursue music full time, I was around a bunch of artists that had really great ideas, but didn't really have all the pieces to kind of package it up and kind of market themselves or promote themselves.

I was part of a small management group when I was there. But it kind of turned pretty quickly into me working for that company and like helping brand and promote the other artists. So I saw a real need and kind of this ability to kind of help elevate a lot of these concepts into final products and given that I had this kind of background in recording and engineering to a degree in production at the time.

But I was probably stronger at the time in design, and I didn't really know it was marketing. I was doing a lot of it for myself, but just being able to kind of scale an idea, create kind of a design identity and system, and apply that to kind of grow an audience. I felt like there was a real need to do that from the artist angle.

I felt like I was oftentimes kind of in situations where I was maybe serving someone else's needs that weren't maybe in the best interest of me as an artist. So really wanted to kind of apply all the interest and skills that I had, but do it in a really genuine way for artists that I genuinely loved and believed in.

So yeah, my passion in the label is to just kind of help create a body of work that I'm genuinely proud of, kind of like a living museum, for the friends and people that I've made along the way. So yeah, that's kind of what the label is. It's me and my partner, Anthony Carter, who I owe everything to him for the success of the label.

You know, he drives the kind of quality and consistency behind the scenes. But him and I are a great pair. We both are designers by trade, have a very similar kind of background in music. We both kind of came from, you know, traditional guitar and being in bands and jamming with friends. And I kind of pulled him into the electronic world.

We were in a pretty cool, like, two piece live band when I first moved here. But, you know, through the process kind of pulled him into the world of electronic music. So yeah, we just kind of have been evolving and spiraling and figuring out our way and started in a really kind of different place than where we are now.

So it's just been a really great journey to do that.

ZO:

The lineup you all have on Future-Everything is stacked—like there's international artists, there's local Memphians from all backgrounds. How would you describe a Future-Everything artist? How does one fit the bill?

S:

Yeah, I've always explained and it's so hard to nail this down.

I really just kind of rely on my personal taste. But I'm really kind of listening for someone that is clearly embedding some sort of narrative or emotion underneath what they're doing. They're not really just kind of cranking out and going through motions and lining up, you know, kicks and loops and just making everything standard, which is there's nothing wrong in that.

And there's a lot of great work in that realm. I'm just kind of looking for—I'm always trying to kind of find that thing that makes it unique, that I feel like embodies some sort of character or emotion underlying the work. So, yeah, something that I think just evokes a strong kind of mental image when you listen to it are kind of the characteristics that I'm looking for.

ZO:

I like that—mental image. If you were to describe like a mental image of your music, what do you hope to portray through your music? What kind of mental image would you want to give?

S:

Oh man, it's so hard. It changes.

I try to capture this kind of feeling of nostalgia and comfort. But it also kind of touches on, you know, some of the—I think issues of things that I deal with as a person, just anxiety and depression and, you know, just trying to touch on maybe a person that is struggling with those things.

But there is that kind of underlying hope in that rhythm of kind of driving through and pushing through, and consistency, which is kind of something I really appreciate about electronic music is this kind of contrast between these really emotional textures with this kind of really driving beat behind everything. So yeah, I don't know. I like to explore different vibes and because I am a DJ, I have different settings that I'm playing in.

So that informs a lot of the work that I write. So sometimes I'm making more chill lounge-y kind of deep house stuff. If I know that I'm going to be in that setting, or if I do a lot of gigs in that setting, it'll influence that kind of work. Where the contrast of that, especially lately I've been playing a lot more kind of faster kind of 140 and faster, this kind of trance-y and kind of, you know, faster hard house and stuff like that.

So, it just kind of depends on how I think I might get to explore that in a live setting, might kind of drive what I want to kind of work on in the studio.

ZO:

I love that. When you have an idea for a song—is it a kind of a blank slate, or are you a sampler?

Do you create your own rhythms? When you're opening your computer, how do you start? How do you layer your songs?

S:

To circle back on my love for kind of experimentation. The first ten years probably that I produced electronic music from like college, just downloading Ableton and playing, I spent a long time really trying to master that software. And I think I just kind of hit a point where I was doing kind of the same things, approaching things very similarly. And I felt like my music just kind of hit a wall. And interestingly during the pandemic, I kind of just wanted to step back and get really into hardware again, get really into playing instruments again.

I had this four track tape recorder that I've had since I was like 12. It was in my parents' closet. So I took that back up, cleaned it all up, integrated that into my studio set up, bought some analog synthesizers, bought a couple drum machines, and just really started playing with these things. Learning how to connect them together, learning how to use one thing to influence another thing.

Tape especially just seems to be, you know, touching on that kind of idea of nostalgia. It's a medium that just allows creativity to happen in a really fun and kind of, just surprising way. It's really simple, you know, you have very simple parameters, but within that box you can just do a lot with texture and emotion for these things.

So, sometimes I'll just turn the gear on a lot of times and I'll just kind of, without any idea, just start to make sound. And I'll know pretty quickly when I hear and feel something that's going to pull me in a direction that's trying to, like, say something to me, or that's trying to pull a certain feeling or emotion, it'll inform the speed, and the other things that will respond to that.

So I very rarely sit down with an idea already going, unless I'm like in the shower and I have a beat already in my head, you know, and then I'll start with drums and kind of lay that down. But a lot of times it's me either—if I'm totally like, have no idea what to do, I'll get really experimental and I'll just kind of put on a record, sample a record to tape and then really play with the speed of that thing and listen to it through different pitch and through different texture by the process that I’m using.

And then that will kind of guide me in a direction, or I'll just sit in front of a synth, with like a nice pad patch and just kind of make sounds, you know, and just listen and record things. And if I don't end up writing a song, that's fine. I'll go back and resample and use those pieces later.

Just to kind of keep me fresh, keep me experimenting, and just trying to have fun.

ZO:

When you're in your work flow, are you a fast worker or do you really kind of like comb through the work? Does it take you a long time to do songs?

S:

It used to. I think having the analog gear, getting back to where I started with music, just kind of triggered something in me. I think the ten years of kind of learning the software embedded this idea of how to compose music. I was just kind of missing the unique sound design or the unique process that I kind of brought into it.

So now kind of marrying those two things, I typically work pretty quickly now. You know, it depends. I'm kind of out of my flow right now because I just go through this—I think a lot of artists do, you know—this kind of seasonal flow. But when I'm in it, I'm writing from start to finish, typically 2 to 3 hours on a track.

And that's to get me to like the 80% point. You know, I need a break. I need to come back. And engineering, a lot of it happens in the writing process, but it does kind of become this final polishing step, you know? But I can get things pretty close, and I may sit on them for months, but I'll get them to a point where they won't change too much.

And I'll get there within the first, like, hour or so.

ZO:

Yeah. What's been one of your favorite projects you've worked on? Like, kind of a body of work.

S:

I mean, really, every year we do a big compilation. This past year was our seventh one that we've done. And to me, that's like the celebration of everything that we do as artists and as a label.

That's where we get to kind of activate as many of our artists globally that we work with. I get to work with a lot of local artists. It's kind of the opportunity I use to collab with a lot of people, which is really fun. So I'll try to do, you know, 1 or 2 collabs typically. I didn't get one this year, but in the past I'll do, you know, 1 or 2 collabs and a solo track on the comp, and those are really fun.

They just take so much work. So when they're done, they're just like, it's such a celebration to put out like 20 plus tracks from people all over just to like, organize and get all that together is a feat. But then like finishing it and packaging it and releasing is just always so good. So that.

ZO:

So doing all these big things on top of having a full time job, you're also a father. How do you balance all these creative outlets? How do you keep yourself consistent and afloat?

S:

Oh yeah. It's hard. I try to really have a schedule. I'm really fortunate to have a job that's flexible with really my personal needs for my family and kind of make sure that I'm around when my daughter is home from school, you know?

So I'll typically go in—I get started super early. So I start my days at like 5:30 or 6. And that way I can spend the mornings with my daughter, get her kind of situated and get her everything that she needs, get her off to school. Three days a week, I go into the office and I'll work—early afternoon, come home, finish up.

So by the time that she's getting home from school, I'm able to be present and hang out with her. Take care of a lot of stuff around the house. And then I schedule in at least once a week: Anthony and I will get together and do label stuff. So that's kind of our admin time where we work on engineering, we work on design, event stuff, merch, whatever we got to do for the label, we'll do that at least once a week together.

I do a lot of stuff, solo. So today I did a lot of work this afternoon on promoting our upcoming release. We have a single from Atia. So I was doing a bunch of promo for her release. Just where I can find time to do my own stuff, you know, to do my own production.

And a lot of times lately, that's been weekend mornings, you know, like Saturday, Sunday. I'm still in that kind of weekday flow of getting up early, so it's hard, but I wish I could go out more, but I typically don't go out much unless I'm performing. So that way on the weekends, I can really get up, get my daughter going, spend about 2 or 3 hours in the studio, and then jump back in the dad mode until, you know, nighttime.

If I still got energy, I'll jump back into a session. But, it's harder to do these days.

Like kind of at the end of the day, I'm, like, gassing out. So I try to do as much as I can early.

ZO:

Does your daughter like your music?

S:

Oh, she loves it. Yeah. She's like my number one fan. Probably like most of my Apple Music plays are from her.

ZO:

How do you kind of show her a creative life, or do you teach her about creativity? Is she a creative person?

S:

Yeah, she's so creative. It's awesome. Her big thing is to kind of watch creatives. So we have her a YouTube kids channel set up, and she'll watch all these makers and she'll sit there and kind of, like, craft along with them, and she'll turn anything into something.

You know, there was a time where she was going through and turning all of our trash into dolls and stuff. It's just so funny. But yeah, she when she was younger, she'd hang out with me a lot more, in the studio, like when I was writing. So I put out an album a few years ago called Better Life.

And you can hear on a lot of those tracks—you can't hear her—but there's, like, her playing with toys and things. Like you can hear on one of the tracks—it's called All Her Stuff because it's made sampling all of her toys. She had this metal rattle, and she had like that old school telephone toy that like, rolls and the eyes flicker and it makes this super weird noise and sampled all that stuff into a song.

I want her to come along with this so that one day—this is kind of like an archive and a timeline of her life too, kind of incorporating her into some of this stuff. So, my ambient project that I put out last year, One Day at a Time, she was in a lot of that.

So there's a song called Little Fairies where she's like, literally just like her and her friends, like playing at the zoo, like hitting all those wind chimes and stuff. And I just recorded it and then put it on tape and slowed it way down and just made it this, like, super beautiful thing. That’s so sweet. So yeah, I'm just trying to find ways to bring her along.

But it's funny, she's like, learned what my drum machine sounds like. Like what the 909 sounds like. So she'll hear another song and she’ll be like, is that your song? Like, no, it's just the machine I use. So she's, like, picking up on that stuff early.

ZO:

So she's obviously a big inspiration. What else do you consume to inspire yourself?

S:

Oh, yeah, I like to watch movies. You know, I'm not like a huge movie buff, but just mixed media stuff. Just always looking all over. I have music playing a lot of times. Just if I'm working or, since I am DJing. My biggest benefit of DJing is that I'm constantly digging and looking for things to kind of supplement my own music in my sets.

So by doing that naturally kind of keeps me inspired and hearing things that sound good with my stuff, or where I might have gaps where I might need to explore areas that I'm not currently. So, you know, there's been times where I've gone back and forth where I just want to spend all my time producing. But I've learned that a healthy balance of those two things keeps—it's a really good feedback loop.

You know, it's a really good kind of cycle for not only testing out the things that I'm making in a real setting, but also making sure I'm current and I'm aware of what's going on, and I'm kind of constantly testing and listening to my stuff against other things and getting to see how it looks and feels in a real room.

So, that is really inspiring, looking and seeing that in real time.

ZO:

Do you get nervous when you're about to do a DJ set, or are you past that? The nerves?

S:

Oh, I'm always nervous. Yeah. I'm just a nervous person. Which is probably why I started DJing. It's funny, like, I think people have always misinterpreted my energy a little bit because I am such a nervous and anxious person.

Typically, like, if I'm not in a small setting or around people I'm really comfortable with, I'm typically pretty quiet.

ZO:

Me too.

S:

And people just misinterpret that as you being like a jerk or something

ZO:

Like, no, I like literally am overthinking everything I'm saying.

S:

Trying not to pass out.

ZO:

I’m shutting down. Don’t take it personally.

S:

So I think it's not actively—I didn't do this on purpose, but I think it's a realization of like wanting to be understood, wanting to be able to be comfortable and have a great time with a lot of people and not kind of be shut in.

So, DJing is just this kind of weird, controlled way to get to do that. But I still definitely get nervous. I mean, I've had, like, panic attacks, you know, during sets and stuff.

ZO:

How did you work through that?

S:

I'm still working through it.

It's interesting. I just have to kind of learn what triggers and what doesn't.

And sometimes these things just happen for no reason. But definitely I've gotten better. It's weird. It's not like, a consistent thing. It just kind of happens out of nowhere. I feel like just the time I put in and the practice and the experience I have now, I have to just kind of check myself and relax.

But always, if it's something that I haven't done before, you know, I'm going to get super nervous about. I'm trying to play more out of town and stuff, and a lot of times I'm traveling on my own and that always makes me nervous.

ZO:

What makes you want to go out and go to other towns and expand as Strooly?

S:

I know it's necessary for growth and just life experience. Like I want to push myself and get out and meet new people. And, you know, I feel like I'm grinding so hard locally that there's just one tiny inner layer to this equation. So, I love getting out.

I love getting into cities where we are already working with other artists. That's amazing because I get to kind of connect those dots, and then kind of build this web that we're working on. And, yeah, a lot of times it's just kind of a personal challenge just to kind of get over these, like reservations or these kind of things that I feel like I can't do, you know?

ZO:

Yeah, I really relate to that because this project is really a way for me to get over my fear of, like, being on camera. And talking with people like on a one-on-one basis. I still have a lot of work to do, you know, I'm still—I still stutter a little bit, but you know, I think I think it'll lead to something big and help me ease that fear.

So I can be just a little less anxious.

S:

Yeah. It helps with practice. You know, I think it's just you're forcing yourself to get more comfortable in things you're not comfortable with. And it's needed. You know, it's great to be able to have these conversations and get a kind of personal insight into people that you don't really get to connect with outside of, like—especially for me, I'm in a club setting most of the time.

Like, I can't really connect with people even when I see them. And a lot of times people see me more than I realize that I see them, you know? And so, I think this is amazing. It's great to be able to kind of share this stuff. And I appreciate you doing this. You know, it's great.

ZO:

I appreciate it. I want to ask more about production. So I'm like a budding—I'm trying to learn more about music production. If you could give advice to someone getting into music production, what would you tell them?

S:

It's good to know a DAW. It's good to find a DAW and stick with it, I think. Don't get too distracted and overwhelmed with all the options.

I think that's, like, the biggest fault of a new producer or any creative. No matter what the medium is like. You get into painting and you want to use every color and you want to just go crazy. I think just good advice for anyone doing any creative work is to set some limitations and kind of box yourself, you know, create your rules.

Tell yourself I'm only going to use 4 or 6 tracks. You know, I'm only going to use this many instruments or I'm only going to make it two minutes long or whatever those kind of limitations are. Once you know the space you're playing in, it allows your mind to kind of really think more clearly on the things that are not defined.

And that's what's going to make you unique. I think that's what I struggled with the most over that ten year period, was just trying to master all the bells and whistles of Ableton. I was influenced by seeing people online doing unique things, and I want to try it. Or people talk about new plug ins or whatever and getting all this stuff, and it wasn't really until I took all of that stuff away that I was really able to start finishing things, you know?

So, that's what I would say, just kind of come up with a way to restrict yourself. And I think having hardware helps. I think having some sort of something you can touch and get immediate feedback that's not going to bug out like a computer will. You can do anything with Ableton and a Midi controller, but there's going to be weird things sometimes that don't make sense to you, and you're going to be frustrated of why this doesn't work and why this isn't connected.

And where's the sound? Buy a piece of gear that works every time you turn it on the way it's supposed to—just not dealing with that frustration is going to help creatively a ton. I think.

ZO:

I love that. And your name is Strooly. Is that part of a persona or it's just a name you thought was cool?

What was the creation of Strooly?

S:

I don't think it's a persona, except for maybe it is a way to—kind of what you talked about—like, give me a little more confidence in a world that I'm not super always comfortable in. It's a super stupid, silly word and name. I was really just looking for something that wasn't claimed.

That was easy to know how to spell if you heard it. And it really started—really, really started—as, like, an inside joke between me and my high school best friend where we would just hang out and act really stupid and just, like, make jokes and words and just like, we're cracking up for no reason.

And I think I was just one night saying, like, truly outrageous. And then it morphed into strooly outrageous. And so then Strooly was just like a word that I heard. And then when I first started DJing and some people may remember that, like, it was Your Strooly, that was like my name, like when I was first starting, then I was like, that's just not needed, you know. Just like killed the first half. Kept Strooly. And the rest is history.

ZO:

I love that. This is one of my favorite questions to ask artists, but what is your dream project? If you had all the resources in the world?

S:

You know, it's funny and I don't want to say this because I heard this on your first interview, but I feel like every artist that does multimedia like wants to do some sort of full film. I love film. I love videography and photography. It feels like a medium that I haven't been able to really explore because of budget.

Like, I just can't buy these nice things. So I try to do the best with what I have. I feel like I have a really strong eye for composition. So I know that I would really enjoy doing that more, and I hope that I can get more into that as I get older if I can acquire something that is worth playing with.

But I feel like that would be a culmination of kind of everything that I love. Just traditional background art with audio and the ability to just tie it all together would be really fun. I don't know. Part of me—I went to college for architecture— non-music related, I think eventually being able to do some sort of design build project would be really fun.

I did a design build residential project in school, which was great. But I dream a lot about, you know, just some kind of small, tiny home cabin or something. Some studio space, multi-purpose.

ZO:

You could do a Future-Everything headquarters.

S:

Yeah, like a retreat cabin or something. You know, something like that would be amazing. Either that or just, like, public performance space. Like in school, I did a lot of work that was like these more multi-use type arts spaces. So to be able to do something like that would be amazing. Now that I think about it, probably the biggest dream, would be owning and operating some sort of club or venue.

ZO:

What would you name it?

S:

Oh, my God, I don't know.

I'm not that far yet, you know? But just having some sort of dedicated small, dark space for underground music that is the least commercial thing possible would be great.

ZO:

That sounds like heaven. I really appreciate you coming on the show. You're a huge inspiration to me. I love your music. I love what you're doing with Future-Everything.

It's just like aesthetically, musically, how you connect everything together—it hits the sweet spot. So I appreciate you coming on. I’ve learned so much just from talking to you—selfishly, I wanted to, like, pick your brain and now how you work because I think you're such a fascinating person.

S:

Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you.

Where to Strooly

Instagram: @strooly