Featured Artist: Deastro (with Interview!)

Deastro is a busy act. Randolph Chabot is the man behind the project, an electronica producer out of Sterling Heights, Michigan. He's been releasing music under a number of guises, putting out his first album when he was 12. Deastro looks to be his big chance though. Chabot started the act after moving back to Detroit from Chicago and finding himself inspired by what he found in the city. Deastro's early recorded work attracting the attention of local critics, and Chabot soon found himself signed to Ghostly International. His debut LP on the label, Moondagger, arrives on June 23. Just recently though, Chabot released an EP online titled Grower for free online. The flood of music, not to mention the indie electronica's amazing quality, has done much to draw new fans to Deastro.

Listen to Deastro on: Future Perfect Radio, New Music, Featured Artists, A Chance to Cure, Dance Rock, Great Lakes Soundtrack

Interview:

(Interview with Randolph Chabot of Deastro)

Future Perfect Radio: I've read that you first started making albums when you were 12 years old. How did you first get into music?

Randolph Chabot: My uncle bought me a guitar when I was like seven and taught me basic chords and before that I sang in choir since I was in the first grade, or something like that. My mom tells me that I was always singing and I still am. Everywhere I go I am always humming.

FPR: Your LP Moondagger arrives on June 23. What was the recording process like for that album?

Chabot: It was really fast, we laid it down in 4 days along with two B-sides that aren't released yet. We were expecting to just make an EP and a few weeks before we started recording our label asked us if we could make a full length. So we did. I was still writing lyrics up to 5 minutes before I had to lay down vocals. The studio we recorded in was (I say was because it is no more it went out of business; Billy Corgan bought the Helios board from them, I guess he has 3 now or something like that) located in the historic Capitol Park Building. The space had this eerie nostalgia about it that made us feel like we were creating something with antiquity, even though people say we make music from the future.

FPR: Everyone is now very familiar with your free EP Grower. Should we expect a similar feel in Moondagger?

Chabot: Yeah, a lot of it is pretty similar I wrote "Pyramid Builders" off of Moondagger the same time that I was starting to work on a lot of the songs from Grower.

FPR: I've seen that you drew influence for the Grower EP from human experiences in Detroit. Does Moondagger have a similar root?

Chabot: Yes, although Grower has more direct influences then Moondagger does, because I moved to Detroit right after we finished recording Moondagger. I really like how Carl Sandburg made the everyday bigger, that is the way I right music too. Me and my friend Matt were talking the other night about our obsession with Legos as kids and how our neighborhood here in Detroit resonates with that part of us. This interest in the microcosm of human relationships and our continued state of wonder and discovery that makes us want to take it apart and rebuild it so we can hopefully understand better.

FPR: Favorite bands of the moment?

Chabot: So many good bands right now, Ariel Pink, Women, Benny Stoofy (local band), Prussia (local Detroit band as well), Animal Collective, Mahjongg, Gang Gang Dance, M83, Deerhunter, Dirty Projectors, Skeletons, Lucky Dragons, High Places, Grizzly Bear, Dan Deacon, Wilderness, Wavves, Holy Shit, John Maus, Steve Reich, Nico Muhly, Grouper, Icy Demons, White Rainbow. I love how much music is being made these days! Cheer!!!