Decades of Bass: Our Conversation with Liquid Stranger and Champagne Drip
Liquid Stranger - Photo by @ohdagyophoto
BY ANASTASIIA & STEPHEN RIDDLE
What happens when you sit down with two EDM legends who’ve been friends for over a decade? You get thought-provoking messages, entertaining piggyback answers, and an all around positive interview.
We got to talk to Liquid Stranger and Champagne Drip ahead of their “WAKAAN Presents REVOLUTION Tour” stop in Atlanta on May 2 at the Coca-Cola Roxy.
Liquid Stranger is known for his fluid, transcending sound that takes his listeners on a mind-melting journey. The pioneer of the genre, he sticks to his humble roots, preaching grinding over talent. His extensive experience as a music producer has helped him found Wakaan, his diverse record label, and sign talented artists like Champagne Drip.
Champagne Drip is not the first music endeavor by Sam Pool. Previously, known as the SPL project, Sam produced drum and bass. His first brush with EDM was in the 90s, after which he “became obsessed.” His need for evolution and exploration eventually led to him experimenting with heavier bass and dubstep music that created Champagne Drip.
Liquid Stranger - Photo by @shutter.klick
Photo by Champagne Drip
Atlanta EDM: We want to know how you guys got into producing and what steered you towards electronic music?
Liquid Stranger: Yeah, it's a good question. Both of us have been in the electronic music sphere pretty much since its inception. So personally I got into the raves in 89. I was 13. But even before then, I was listening to the precursor that led into EDM, bands like Kraftwerk, and Devo. And you wouldn't really call it electronic dance music, but it's like music that was exclusively made with electronic hardware. That's when I realized, oh dang, I can do this all by myself. I don't even need a band. I can play all the different parts. And that was very empowering for me. That's what kind of started my dream of maybe one day making my own music.
Champagne Drip: It was kind of a similar path for me too. I didn't really start going to raves until 2000, but I got into electronic music in the '90s. I really liked Nine Inch Nails and some of the industrial rock. They were using samplers and synthesizers. But also my sister had some friends who were super deep into music and they kept bringing CDs by the house. And I remember hearing Aphex Twin and all sorts of weird things that I didn't even necessarily like right off the bat because I didn't fully grasp it. But eventually it just kind of stuck and I became pretty obsessed. I remember just surfing the internet on my parents' computer and I found some cracked software and it was some of the earliest that could kind of emulate what synthesizers and electronic instruments do. And I immediately became obsessed and it was just really accessible at that point. So I dug heavily into just making music on my parents' computer and got pretty addicted to it. I've always loved music. It's always just been one of the most important things to me. As long as I can remember. I was just always around music and I just loved playing around on the piano and everything. And I also loved technology. So I grew up just playing with computers. So the moment that those things intersected for me, it was kind of just life changing. And here I am still doing that.
Liquid Stranger: For me music is an emotional language. So for me it also had a very utilitarian function of keeping me sane growing up because I was kind of always a little bit an outsider with special interests, and back then electronic music was not popular and was not considered even real music. So even that was a weird interest that a lot of people in my small fishing village in Sweden where I grew up didn't share. So that was my own little meditation or a little talk with yourself or with spirit to strengthen my resolve and connection to everything. So music is very important to me. And as a metaphysical power...
Champagne Drip: It's cathartic too. I was like an angsty teenager, and music was a way for me to heal. I loved angry music and all kinds of music, but it's just an outlet.
Liquid Stranger: But it's a responsible way of taking pent up things, and let's put it somewhere. You can put it into a song, and a lot of love songs are written from a place of despair. It's like, oh fuck, I lost someone I loved, or I'm fucking hurting. But then when you filter it through the equipment and other people hear it, it has a healing effect where other people can relate to it and find purpose and it's like, oh my God, I got to put on this song to feel better. So that's a beautiful thing. Music is so clean and it permeates race and age and it doesn't care about those things, which feels very liberating to me. It's universal.
Atlanta EDM: I agree a 100%
Liquid Stranger: Not much, but it's honest work.
Champagne Drip - Photo by @makomediaofficial
Atlanta EDM: My life would not be where it is if it wasn't for music. For sure. In what ways have you seen bass music evolve over the years, that you appreciate, and did you ever expect it to become as popular as it has?
Champagne Drip: I did not expect at all for things to be here. And it's really interesting. I'd say it's all positive too. My first kind of brush with bass music was with drum and bass. I think it was in '97, I discovered the record label called Metalheadz, and it was a record label founded by Goldie, who's still pretty well known in the drum and bass world. I didn't fully understand it at first, but it eventually took over my life. And my first music project before Champagne Drip was all drum and bass, all my first releases, and it was a very underground thing. It was always the side room at the rave. You'd have a rave with house and techno and trance in the main room, and then they'd always have the jungle room where jungle and drum and bass would be playing in this dark little cramped room.
Liquid Stranger: It used to be like that.
Champagne Drip: Yeah. And all the misfits would be in the jungle room. Then drum and bass started catching on, and then the room for the misfits at the drum and bass party was the dubstep room.
Liquid Stranger: And that's where I was.
Champagne Drip: And that was fun and I loved it because I was getting kind of bored with drum and bass because I was doing it 24/7. So dubstep was a way to take the same kind of techniques, tools, love for heavy subbase and rhythms, but do something fresh with it. But I never expected it to explode to the point of mass appeal that it has, which has allowed it to splinter off and have a huge platform.
Liquid Stranger: I'm very grateful that I came into the scene before it became so popular and lucrative and such a social media-driven thing. I think I came into it just with a pure passion and I think I still try to stick to those guns. I think it's really important to be passionate about the actual art and the creation and it's not very glamorous and it's not very social. And it's very little about fame and I'm super grateful because now more people can enjoy and get exposure to something I truly believe is awesome. But the other side of it, the superficial glamorous stuff, I'm not so much about, to be honest, it's less interesting. But the rave scene also became extremely inclusive. So it became a refuge for the people who didn't really fit in or were marginalized. Everyone that came in just felt united.
Photo by Liquid Stranger
Atlanta EDM: It sounds like a family. Was Wakaan something you always intended to start or something that happened organically as you grew?
Liquid Stranger: Well, you can only get what you have, so in the beginning I was just a musician trying to make songs, but as soon as I started getting a little recognition, an idea started crystallizing itself. Wakaan was always meant for the underdog kind of people who didn't already have the shine and the right connections and the perfect sound that was already mainstream. And this year is Wakaan's 10th anniversary. But before that, there wasn't really freeform-based music, but I think we've been able to put that on the map.
Champagne Drip: It's almost like you brought it back to being freeform.
Liquid Stranger: It started with free form. And I don't want to claim that at all. That's not where I was coming from.
Champagne Drip: No, but that's valuable. That's awesome. And I feel like that's part of why you reached out to me. It's like, especially after I started Champagne Drip. And you were like, "I noticed you were playing my music when a lot of DJs weren't," and we had actually been friends since before Wakaan, so then you were like, "Do you want to be a part of this thing I'm doing?" And I was like, “Actually, it makes so much sense.”
Photo by Liquid Stranger
Atlanta EDM: Were there any lessons you learned through martial arts that helped you more in your music career than you expected?
Liquid Stranger: Greatly. And I'd advise everyone who's a parent to put your kids in martial arts because it's not really about the world being a battlefield and being able to kick someone's ass. It gives you a sense of discipline and purpose, calming emotion, and body awareness but primarily, what I think people should talk about more is it that helps with memory.
Atlanta EDM: But you can also kick ass, right?
Liquid Stranger: I mean, I'm 46 years old, so please leave me alone! But you also learn to know your place, learn discipline, listen to your leader. If you're going to become a strong leader, you need to know how to follow, you need to know how to listen. I think it's just about growing up and being a good person with good morals.
Atlanta EDM: How has becoming part of the Wakaan family helped you evolve since your early days and the SPL project?
Champagne Drip: It's been huge. It's a platform. So in a world with so much going on and so many saturated points of connection, it helps a lot to have a platform. So I feel like people discover things through things that they know. But also Martin and I go back, what, 15 years maybe? And he was just like this cool guy. We would play shows together, and I always enjoyed talking to him. He was so nice. He was just focused on music and being a good person, Wakaan feels like friendship. First thing actually, I feel like it started as a friendship. We already had a foundation, and it was just kind of easy to be like, okay, I feel safe here. I feel like my hard work is safe here and communication's on point. And I just think those things are important when you're working with people to have trust.
Champagne Drip - Photo by @makomediaofficial
Liquid Stranger: It can be kind of a lonely road and you spend a lot of time by yourself sitting in front of the computer screens and second-guessing yourself, and it's about pooling resources and finding some companionship along the way. You're stronger together with other people.
Champagne Drip: When you find good people too, who are bringing something to the world, you have to keep 'em close. This guy inspires me all the time. In ways to live better and just be a more honest person
Liquid Stranger: And vice versa. So therefore it almost becomes a conduit that just keeps feeding itself after a while, which is so awesome.
Atlanta EDM: All right, we kind of want to talk a little bit about your production process. Can you guys give us a quick rundown on how collaborating on a track works for you too?
Liquid Stranger: I mostly sit and look pretty, and then Sam does all the hard work. It's always different though. So I'd say most of the time I am a maximum effort type of guy who would write 10 different ideas, and I would come in super prepared, and sometimes I write a lot of a song. In this case, Sam had the idea, and actually did a lot of legwork on this song.
Champagne Drip: This is also our fifth attempt too. We've been cooking up music, some of which we've even played out.
Liquid Stranger: Yeah, we actually have four other collabs, but this is the first one we want to release.
Champagne Drip: Yeah, I mean I feel like you don't make good art without being super critical of it. So we were just like, it wasn't up to snuff what we were doing, but finally we landed a fish. So yeah, the process is intentionally different all the time.
Liquid Stranger: Sam is also arguably a better sound engineer, and you're fucking amazing at dialing in sounds. I'm an idea person. I usually have a very easy time coming up with a theme.
Champagne Drip: Also you have different ears than I do, so you're hearing things that I'm missing. So in the end we can both kind of polish it, and I think it benefits from having both of us on it. From a technical level too. He says that I've got this engineering finesse, but so does this guy. It's just different. We have kind of different approaches, and I wouldn't say one's better than the other, but when they're combined it's like we're both kind of filling in gaps.
Liquid Stranger: Yeah, yeah. Worked out awesome. We're stoked about this song. It's called "Melt."
Photo by Liquid Stranger
Atlanta EDM: If y'all could choose any Atlanta rapper ever to do a track with, who would it be?
Liquid Stranger: Killer Mike. Gucci Mane, Future, Lil Yachty, there're so many, but Killer Mike is who I would go with.
Champagne Drip: What about Young Jeezy?
Atlanta EDM: Those are my top!
Liquid Stranger: Yeah, Outkast too.
Atlanta EDM: Alright, so do you guys have any messages for your Atlanta-based fans?
Liquid Stranger: Come to the show. Let's have fun. Let's do this.
Champagne Drip: Yeah. I fucking love your city, and it's always a blast. I'm excited to come with this guy and yeah, going to be good.
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friday, may 2, 2025
liquid stranger & champagne drip at the coca-cola roxy