Today we’d like to introduce you to Kerby Diaz
Hi Kerby, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Pretty much a majority of the producers from my generation have a very similar story, all linking back to a guy named Skrillex. It was the same story for me. In 7th grade a friend of mine showed me a song from a genre I had never heard of before. The sounds coming from his phone were so new and unique. I had to find out what and who that was. The song that started it all for me was a song by Skrillex called Bangarang. It had such a profound impact on my life, I don’t think I’d be where I am today without that song.
Throughout middle school and high school, I was absolutely obsessed with EDM. I would religiously have my earbuds playing at its maximum volume every chance I had. Back then, I never wanted to hear anything else except for dubstep, bass house, glitch hop and basically any kind of heavy bass electronic music. Other genres were cool, but I absolutely dreaded mainstream music at the time. It wasn’t until my senior year of High School (2016-17) that I began to see Skrillex collaborate on projects with mainstream artists that I too began to accept and listen to what was popular at the time. Skrillex had a strong influence on how my music taste developed. It was towards the end of the school year where I got my hands on a copy of FL Studio and began writing music (if it was even considered music to be honest haha, it was really bad back then). I would often just try to copy other songs I was listening to at the time, lots of tunes from Panda Eyes, Virtual Riot and other melodic artists. My family would tease me a lot since they knew I was just copying music from my idols. I think this practice of copying each element in a song actually helped me out. Slowly I was finding patterns and techniques on all kinds of stuff like song structure, post processing, mixing, and just overall song writing.
Fast forward to college, I started taking lessons with my now good friend and mentor iFeature. From him I learned to rely on my own experiences and discoveries when it came to music production. I started to slowly develop my sound to what it is today. I had lots of achievements from the year 2022-2024. I played my first underground community hosted music festival called Social Desert. Got to release on a few labels (big labels and underground labels) such as Barong Family, Riddim Network, Reinelex Records, Runes (fka. The Bass Space) BVSSCVLT and Athos. Got to play shows all over California and played my first out of state show in Utah which was also my first sold out show! My music was supported and played out at major festivals/shows by huge artist such as ATLiens, Adventure Club, and Riot Ten to name a few. I distinctly remember watching videos of ATLiens dropping my biggest song yet at The Thunderdome: Presented by Excision, EDC Las Vegas, and Lost Lands.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I wish it was a smooth road, there’s always obstacles in the way. With social media having a chokehold on the entertainment industry, it’s not enough to just put out great music. Producers now have to be content creators, social media influencers, animators/drawers, our own managers, booking agent, and be able to switch to a different role in an instant. In my case, I’m terrible at drawing and making cover art so it’s incredibly difficult to put a visual representation to my own music. I know what it looks like in my head but translating that to something tangible is near impossible for me. Content creating is also very hard to keep up with, new memes go viral and if you want a chance to get your music out there you have to be quick/be the first to make a song out of that meme. In the DJ realm it’s even harder, you have to make sure your brand is cohesive and hope that it’s a good fit for shows. It’s not impossible, if you have a team that believes in you then it gets easier over time. I’ve been lucky enough to meet the right people at the right time which has led me to where I am right now.
My biggest struggle is my writing style. When starting a new idea/track I don’t really go in with a plan. To me this is a double edged sword because I may write something that doesn’t make sense/sounds bad OR I slowly create lots of “happy accidents” that end up turning into a great idea. I’m the kind of person who has to finish or at least develop an idea in a single writing session. I find it to be a lot more fun this way, it’s almost as if my own brain surprises me with the random sounds that end up turning into music. Unfortunately, this style of writing is absolutely terrible for collaborations with other artists. They end up waiting for a long time before I get a spark of inspiration to finally work on what they send me.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am an independent Dubstep Producer/DJ. I mainly make Dubstep, but it consists of numerous subgenres such as Riddim, Color Bass, and Brostep. I also make other types of genres such as Bass House, Drum n Bass, Midtempo, and UK Garage.
From time to time I release on major and underground labels. I love to collaborate with like-minded collectives and support the community which has supported the KERU project over the years.
As of now I am mostly known for a NSFW track I made titled “Hentai Riddim” which was a label co-release between Riddim Network and The Bass Space. It gained massive support among big acts in the EDM scene and has been played out in major festivals/clubs all over the world. The track was trending on social media after a post from ATLiens blew up on Instagram which showed them making cute anime poses right before the main section of the song occurred.
I’m most proud of the accomplishments I had this year 2024. My track “Hentai Riddim” currently sits at 580,000+ streams on Spotify and SoundCloud alone, I have released on labels I dreamt about releasing on in middle school, played my first out of state show in Utah and sold it out, and hosted a remix competition for Hentai Riddim which had well over 50 entries from various artists.
I think what sets me apart from other artists in the dubstep industry is my wackiness in creativity. I’m a fan of spontaneity in music and have lots of different twists and turns in one single track which keeps the listener stay engaged and in suspense waiting for the next spontaneous moment in my songs.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
It’s very hard to tell where the EDM scene will go in 5-10 years since EDM itself is fairly new. The dubstep scene changes almost every year. Dubstep three years ago is completely different from what is being made now. All I can really say on the matter is that I am excited to see what happens next and no matter what happens… IM ALL FOR IT!!
Pricing:
- Production Lessons – $40 for One hour
- Production Lessons – $130 for Four hours
- Ghost Production – Negotiable based on needs
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keru.music/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KERUtunes
- Twitter: https://x.com/Keru_Official
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kerumusic
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kerutunes
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5NeqiIyGMioyGMzKRWECFX
