It was a gloomy afternoon in Somerset, Wisconsin during the third day of Summer Set Music Festival 2015. Before the rain came, I took shelter under a tent near The Big Top Stage – where I met up with Midwest native Vaski. I've had the pleasure of meeting Alex (Vaski) on several occasions on the nights of his shows. Every time we've talked, he's been in great spirits and full of confidence about his sets. This time around he took a few moments to talk about his projects and his move to Los Angeles as Mother Nature began a ten minute downpour outside the tent.
The Big Top Stage was a huge four-peak tent equipped with multi-colored uplighting on each peak. Vaski gave his thoughts on the stage he would soon be performing on “I like it (The Big Top)! Especially now with the rain, we'll be covered”. He recalled seeing Flosstradamus here three years ago.
“That was fucking crazy! Like the most lit ever,” he said.
It wasn't too difficult to attend this festival as an attendee back then for this former Minnesota native. Not so recently he decided to move out to Los Angeles to further pursue his career. I asked him how the move has been treating him.
“Its going great,” he said. “It's very different over there, but that's good. That's what I needed. All of the collaborations I've done recently would not have happened if I wasn't there. With Lazer Love I actually went to KSHMR's house like four times to help write the song.”
With his new journey well underway, Vaski told me what he's been working on since the move.
“I have a track I just finished with 12th Planet that I'll actually be playing tonight,” he said. “We're still trying to dial in a name for it, but it's written and super sick!”. He also hinted at some other collaborations currently in the works, which he said he would announce once they were finished. Another project he told me about is an EP that is currently in the works. “It's going to take inspiration from my old music and my new music and put it all together.” He described the EP as taking the vocal samples that he did with Weightless and 2051, then incorporating newer sounding bass lines.
The moment Vaski mentioned Weightless, I recalled the beautifully produced Music Video. He described his approach to working on videos. “I work with a video director and we talk about concepts. I tell him what I feel about the song and what it means to me. The video is more of their (directors) project and vision based off of what I made from the song. I like to have that because it's an artistic take on it (Weightless) that wouldn't exist otherwise.”
Our conversation ended at the same time the rain had stopped, perfect timing. However, later in the day, a 45 minute rain delay had cut into Vaski's set time. He still had time to drop a bunch of new music and get a large-sized crowd to come back and witness the set in all of it's glory.
Thanks to Vaski for taking the time to talk with me during Day 3 of Summer Set Music Festival. Minnesota fans can catch Vaski during his next visit home when he plays First Ave in Minneapolis this December.
