Get to Know – Crash Comet (UK)
Crash Comet is the alias of Drum & Bass Producer and DJ Daniel Patterson from London, UK. He came to the spotlight in early 2019 by winning a remix contest from Hospital Records and Fader Pro. The legendary producer Danny Byrd himself chose Crash Comet’s track as the winner and it was shared by Hospital Records on their social accounts. In 2019, he released the ‘Wondering EP’ on Dutch Liquid D&B label, Differential Recordings.
In December 2021, he released another EP on Differential, titled “Fragments of Time” . I was lucky enough to receive it on promo, and tracks from it have featured in almost every stream of mine since.
I spoke with Crash Comet and got some insight into him and his approach to production. His answers were as interesting as his music. Be sure to scroll to the end to find out where to listen to and buy his music, and where to find him on the web. Now, dive in!
Making music is an incredibly personal art form. What are some of the experiences in your life that helped define who you are as an artist and what you want to do with your music?
Wow, what an amazing question! Where to start really? I started playing a musical instrument when I was around 7 years old, so I have been around music for a long time. I still remember lugging my saxophone to school with a trolly because I was too weak to carry it hahaha! Probably one of the biggest moments in my musical journey was when I came across Avicii’s music. I saw a clip of him playing a track at Ultra Music Festival and I don’t think I had connected with any song like that before. The melody was so eloquent and the connection he had with the crowd was mesmerising. I just saw the smile on his face and right then and there I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
What have you found most helpful for you in reaching a place where you feel confident in your sound?
I think finding your own sound is something that you can’t force. You just need to surround yourself with lots of different music and inspiration will find you. Sending tracks to good labels and working closely with them has helped me a lot. Labels like, High Tea Music, Liquicity and Differential are hypercritical with music production, which helps dramatically with improving one’s musical and technical knowledge. For me personally, once I won the Danny Byrd remix contest it gave me a huge boost of self-confidence, having one of your idols choose your remix as the best and tell you that they loved your music is something I’ll never forget.
I really enjoyed the fact that you are the vocalist on two of the tracks on the EP. How do you approach writing lyrics for your tracks and what factors in when deciding to do vocals yourself or to use another vocalist?
Thank you so much! I’m glad you like the tracks with my vocals!
Actually, the first track that had my own vocals was “Save Me”. I got a really good response from that tune so it gave me more confidence to sing again on this EP. I’m actually singing on all of the tracks, doing backing vocals on Focus and Back in Time. Because I wrote the lyrics for all the songs it felt only natural to sing as well. I’ve been working on developing my own vocal style, but I’m pretty happy with the way the tracks turned out. I’ve already started writing another track with my vocals, so it’s definitely something I plan on doing more frequently in the future.
As a last note, I have been playing the EP on my streams since I got the promos and the more I play them, the more I love them. They are beautifully crafted, but more than that, I really feel something listening to them. From the promo information, they seem to be related to your own experiences over the last year. If you would like to share any more about the tracks or the feelings you were trying to convey, I would love to share that with our readers.
Thank you so much! I’m so glad you’re connecting with the tracks. Yeah, the EP is incredibly personal to me. I started making an EP in 2019 but unfortunately had to scrap it because it wasn’t getting great feedback from labels. Luckily one of the tracks ended up on Liquicity so it wasn’t all a loss but in general, it was quite a disheartening experience. After that, I started making a new EP in 2020 starting with Focus and the last track I wrote was “Almost Time”. The tracks took a while to make because I was really focusing on developing my sound as well as keeping the EP consistent.
Fragments of Time is about moving on in life, there are stories in the lyrics about dysfunctional relationships, letting go of loved ones and not dwelling on the past. Not all the stories are about me personally but, I wrote this EP to be one consistent story, about my journey from India to the UK, about moving onwards in my career and about reflecting on my past, present and future.
Check out the Fragments of Time EP on Spotify.
If you like what you hear, head over to the Differential Beatport to purchase.
Keep an eye out for more Crash Comet releases on Liquicity, Differential, and High Tea Music, and keep up to date on his projects through his socials:
https://www.instagram.com/crashcomet/
https://www.facebook.com/CrashComet/
https://www.soundcloud.com/crashcomet/
Many thanks to the incredible Reid Speed for her help in coming up with interesting questions to ask.
