1. From the depths of the underground to now being one of the most highly sought-after artist groups, what has changed overall between that timeframe?
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The nature of the shows we’re playing is much different. Ternion started almost as a rejection from the spaces we all occupied before, mainstage EDM centered venues with bad soundsystems and scenes that weren’t as mature as we’d liked. We were all playing Riddim and heavier brostep type music and it was getting tiring being in that culture. The first couple years of Ternion we were playing a lot smaller shows in atypical venues, but usually with great sound, lots of custom hand built systems or small high end brand systems. Lately though our sound has taken off in popularity and a lot of the same old issues are coming up, some of the spaces we sought to get away from are interested in us as we “get bigger”, and the crowds are less in sync and on the same wavelength. Fighting against those pressures while still growing is a difficult task, we need growth to sustain a living, but growth under the current industry model means doing a lot of stuff we aren’t aligned with. Our hope is to take our resources from growing and put them into throwing our own parties or working with promoters we trust to do things in a way that’s aligned with our vision. To use a term borrowed from political theory, we’re trying to build an alternate power structure.
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2. Being on the road as an artist comes with its challenges, I can only imagine multiplying that by three now. What are some of the ups and downs you guys have learned to overcome by being a trio in the electronic scene?
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The biggest challenge with being a trio is we split everything 3 ways. It’s a great strength because we can delegate tasks, share workload, etc. But we are still only one act, filling one timeslot in the night, getting the draw of a single act, and getting paid accordingly, which means each of us as an individual gets 1/3rd of the pay a typical act at our size w/ typical pay gets. It doesn’t end up being 1/3rd the work either, the 3 of us all work full time doing this, so the delegated work just means we can do more work at the end of the day. This all basically means that we have to be very frugal and do a lot of things DIY even though the perception is that we’re very successful. Touring costs also eat a lot into this, sending all 3 members of the group to a show means triple the flight costs and additional room/bed costs. We typically send 2 for this reason as a middle ground, but even just with 2 we are doing 80+ shows a year (necessary to pay the bills), and for the two of us mostly on the road (me and Aric), there isn’t much time left at home for studio work, recovery (sleep debt management), and personal life. It’s a tough thing to juggle.
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3. What are three things that bring joy to your life when looking to escape from the music world at times and why.
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My escape from the music world has mostly been getting outside into nature without my phone on and just sitting in pure silence. Loud music, social media, socializing in person, traveling, flying, constantly talking to strangers, getting bad sleep, racking my brain for ideas in the studio, endless meetings and planning, etc are all exhausting forces, and for me what’s needed is silent time with no stimulation to recover from all of it. I also spend a good amount of time at the climbing gym and doing yoga and saunaing. Occasionally I get together with friends to play games as well, pretty simple stuff for me really.
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