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Electronic Experimentation

Australian DJ Zeke Beats brings his experimental sounds to The Capitol and Oregon Eclipse Festival

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hen it comes to the electronic and bass music scene, Zeke Beats continues to rise in the ranks, creating beats using digital and hardware synthesizers—his preferred method of artistry. He creates sounds, chops them up and uses them in a beat. Always experimenting, Zeke believes the best things come from good accidents.

The Australian-born beat master got into electronic music at a young age. Influenced by his three older brothers, Zeke started listening to trance, bass beats and artists such as The Prodigy at age 10. At 13, his school purchased turntables and he started experimenting, thus beginning his affinity for DJing and music production.

"I've been producing music for about 5-6 years now," he says. "I felt like I had reached the top of my game on my DJing side of things. I just felt like to take it to the next step I should start producing music. I sort of just did it, with a lot of experimentation. I also had a lot of guidance and advice from a guy named Eprom. He helped me up my skill level very quickly. I'm very thankful for that," the artist now reflects.

In addition to performing at The Capitol on Saturday, Zeke's North American tour finds him traveling to the Ochoco National Forest for the Oregon Eclipse Festival at Big Summit Prairie. The festival, gathering together a variety of musical artists, definitely has an electronic bent, which means Zeke will get the chance to meet some of his supporters.

"The thing I'm looking forward to the most is meeting fans, Zeke says. "It's just a really good feeling to do that," "To finally see people who follow me online and put an actual physical being to an online user name."

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hether you plan to catch him in the club setting of The Capitol or at a festival setting such as the Oregon Eclipse, the show will be similar. While other artists may alter their sets for a festival or club show, Zeke says he treats the two venues the same.

"It's going to be a mixture of turntableism-type routines, which means it involves scratching and certain tricks and then also drumming on the machine, which I use. It allows me to drum out drum patterns live and so on," Zeke says. "My setup for both festivals and club sets are the same, and generally I like to play a lot of original music as well as music I enjoy listening to that my homies make."

Coming from the Land Down Under, Zeke likes coming to the United States. Because of the large population here, he can play more experimental beats while also opting to go more commercial at times.

"It's such an amazing feeling to be at the stage now where I'm going international, across the seas and having people all the way across the other side of the world listening to my music and coming out to the shows," Zeke says. "It's just an unreal feeling of gratitude. I'm really humbled by that."