Exclusive Interview: Between the Beats with Borgore
Asaf Borgore performing at Shaky Beats 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by Xerxes Tzolis.
Shaky Beats Music Festival at Central Park in Atlanta, Georgia just concluded its third amazing year and it was an absolute whirlwind from start to finish. The festival line up was stacked with big names in EDM from top to bottom. One name off that line up that is topping the charts and breaking all boundaries in dubstep is Borgore. Borgore threw down a wicked set filled with hits like “CoCo Puffs”, “Nympho”, and “Daddy” during his set at Shaky Beats and had the head bangers squad out in full effect. Kade from Concert Hopper had the opportunity to sit down and chat with the King of disrupting the EDM scene, Asaf Borgore. Asaf is an avid gamer, classically trained musician and a world renowned composer. He even just blew everyone away and released a Jazz album on May 9th called “Adventures in Time”. Kade had the pleasure of talking to Asaf about his journey in 2018 so far and what he has in store for the future.
Kade: Borgore just finished a wicked set at Shaky Beats 2018, Borgore how are you? Are you enjoying your time here at Shaky Beats in Atlanta?
Asaf: I tried my best. I love my stay here in Atlanta. My best friend lives here in Atlanta. I also love the culture, really good food, really good music, and really good people. Southern hospitality. Hell yeah! Atlanta is great!
Kade: You can’t beat southern hospitality!
Asaf: You really can’t.
Asaf Borgore performing at Shaky Beats Music Festival on May 12, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by Xerxes Tzolis.
Kade: You’ve had a pretty busy 2018 so far. You kicked off by releasing a series of collaborations for about a five week period, you’re diving deep into the festival circuit and you’ve even got a new Jazz album called “Adventures in Time”. Do you possibly have anything else planned, or do you just let your creativity flow as it comes to you?
Asaf: I finish a lot of things and then we just release them. There’s no really...there’s no agenda. It’s more of…I wake up in the morning and whatever I come up with, I come up with. But…there is a lot of things coming. There’s a lot of things ready and they will be released over the next couple months.
Kade: Nice, so with the Jazz Album, how do you plan to implement this into your infamous gore-step style or is this going to be something all its own?
Borgore's album art for the Jazz record "Adventures in Time".
Asaf: So, I always said it was always implemented. People just didn’t...y’know I left clues, and people didn’t pick up on it and it’s a shame. My first album had some of my favorite things in ‘Cry Me a River’, in “Afro Blue” my next album had ‘Body and Soul’... Those are all really big Jazz standards. I play saxophone on some of my records and people didn’t even know I played saxophone. It’s hidden. It was always there. So, how am I going to implement it? It’s already implemented. But the future, if people think I am going to start playing Jazz at my shows, that’s crazy. There’s no way for me to just play straight jazz at my shows. Maybe before doors open or after the doors close and when I am trying to kick people home. But during my set, it wouldn’t be the same level of energy. Also, I don’t know... Personally I cannot dance to 5/4 or 7/8 time signatures. I will be very surprised if someone can. I mean besides maybe The Nutcracker or uh, Stravinsky… he has really weird time signatures. I don’t know who else did really crazy time signatures with dancing, so I would just really be surprised.
Kade: So speaking about new music, your new collaboration with AFK titled “Jimmy’s Rage” is an absolute banger. I know you’re an avid gamer and I am just wondering is that actually you and your friends playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in the official video?
Asaf: This is literally a sample of Jimmy getting really mad over getting killed.
Kade: That’s what I was just about to ask, can you give full disclosure on who it was getting their ass kicked? Was it Jimmy?
Asaf: Listen, he is unbeatable, he is incredible. But when he gets killed, he doesn’t take it easy. He’s the type of person to yell, throw the headphones and just..
Kade: Rage quit?
Asaf: Yeah just disappear for a couple of days.
Kade: From Coco Puffs to Jimmy’s Rage, you’ve definitely released some creative music videos this year, how do you think your style of music videos is going to translate with the Jazz album out?
Asaf: From Day one my management never really interfered with what I’ve wanted to do. They’re more like ‘Okay so this is what you want to do so let’s do it’. Which was important to me when I picked my management. I think that my whole team is just like down for whatever. When I came up with it.. I didn’t even ask them, I just recorded a Jazz album and I was like ‘ Yo there’s a Jazz album and I have to release it’. It took us about a year to release it, just because we didn’t know how to. Obviously it’s not like there’s a lot of people doing it so we could learn the right way. We just decided to just do it. What is the creativity for the Jazz Album? I did a live show and we recorded it with four cameras and a bunch of sound recorders. I think most important to me with the Jazz Album is for years I was releasing music and some people were talking trash about my music. Which is completely fine y’know. We are in a democratic time and anyone can say whatever they want. What was important to me was releasing the Jazz Album as a statement. Like listen, if I was a painter, I know how to paint a really nice portrait, therefore if I want to go to a museum and put a toilet in the middle of the museum, this is my art. This is what I like. So I think it’s cool. If I want to release a dubstep record, I don’t care what you say. I like it y’know. The Jazz album is a statement. Listen, I’ve got my shit together. I’m classically trained, I know what I am doing. If I am doing something, it is 100% under control. I know what I am doing. Then when I came out with the Jazz Album, there was a bunch of people still saying its ghost produced, he’s not really playing it , it’s samples, whatever! People really don’t want to give me..don’t want to release the slack, just like admit that he knows what he is doing. So we did the live show and recorded it with cameras and there’s no way that I faked it. You can see me play the piano. It’s not just a statement, it’s really where I am in life. I enjoy playing Jazz more than anything else right now. It’s not saying that this is what I am going to do for the rest of my life, I will stay doing “Jimmy’s Rage” and “Coco Puffs” and dubstep and big room and house and whatever I feel like. But it’s definitely another layer, it’s about time people are aware of.
Kade: So how did the Jazz release show go over the other day?
Asaf: It was two nights ago. For me personally it went really well. I cannot speak for the people who were there, if they liked it or not. I just know that by my standards, nothing is 100%, no one is perfect, nothing is perfect... But out of ten it was a nine. In the rehearsals it was a seven, I was kind of scared. We had two days to make that shit happen. The people that I played the Jazz show with were not the people I recorded the album with. I was really scared because they are really complex songs. We had two days to put it together. During the show we somehow over did ourselves.
Kade: That’s awesome. Thank you so much Asaf.
Asaf: No, thank you.
Check out Borgore's brand new Jazz Album titled "Adventures In Time" where Asaf puts his classically trained skills to work on the piano. Also, catch him throwing down some of his brand new collaborations with AFK , Axel Boy, Benda and more during his extensive festival tour throughout the year. Something tells me Asaf has more tricks up his sleeve that we will see before the year is over.
Concert Hopper would like to thank Asaf, his management team and the Shaky Beats Production team for allowing us to be onsite for the festival and have a moment to sit down with Borgore.
