Entertainment
Loudpvck is Dedicated to Making Boundary-Pushing Beats
Electronic music has definitely been the driving aural force for the 2010s–its massive resurgence in popularity has given an entire generation a reason to dance. The sounds of trap, mainsream dubstep and reclaimed, modernized club music are being brought out of the small dance hall and into the giant arena by DJs like Loudpvck and their contemporaries. The two dudes who make up the Loudpvck duo, Kenny Beats and Ryan Marks, recently opened up to CULTURE about making it big, keeping it lighthearted, and their favorite strains.
How did you all get started making music?
Ryan Marks: We’ve both been playing instruments the better part of our lives. We started out with a more classical, jazz, rock background. We both went to Berkeley College of Music in Boston to pursue songwriting, producing and playing our instruments. We were also very interested in beat making and production, and there weren’t many other kids there doing that at the time, especially not at our school.
Kenny Beats: It was exciting when we first met because we could show each other different music and titles. It all kind of just spiraled together into Loudpvck after we became friends.
What role does cannabis play in your creative or personal lives?
Beats: Cannabis is how me and Ryan met. Our friendship was formed over cannabis, and our interest and obsession has grown over the years. We met outside our local weed dealer’s house in college. We started talking music, and we’ve been best friends ever since that day. We started getting high, fucking around, we never planned to be a duo; we just started making songs. We were super high when we made them, and we never really knew this would turn into us having our own strain, playing in cannabis cups, and being so heavily involved in the industry.
Marks: I can’t really fall asleep without smoking weed, and I also smoke it all day every day. We like smoking weed, getting high; it’s something you can do simultaneously while making music. If we were statisticians we wouldn’t be getting that high (laughs).
Beats: And we don’t get in the studio and get high—we start to make music and then we take a break and smoke weed and keep going. It keeps the work flow at the best possible rate.
What role does cannabis play in your music or public image?
Beats: Our songs might have to do with partying, getting lit, which can be a weed term—but it’s not necessarily a theme or focus in the music. It is more like the online presence and who we are.
We have a strain of wax, and right now we have Loudpvck OG, which was us trying a bunch of OGs and picking the ones we liked. The Lemon OG ended up winning a bunch of awards, and we picked that one, took the name, made it Loudpvc OG, and we are stoked to be able to promote someone’s product that way.
How do you all feel about legalization so far? How is it being handled, and what do you think could be done differently?
Marks: I think it is great—I think weed should definitely be legal; I don’t believe in prohibition of anything, any drug. Tax revenues have gone through the roof; we can rehabilitate people who actually have problems with drugs, and we don’t have to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars on people who are arrested for drugs. I think it is naturally happening at a state by state rate at first, and it is happening at an extremely fast rate now, like a tidal wave. I would compare it to the marriage equality movement; once the country’s sentiments changed about it, it almost immediately became a federally passed law.
What exciting things do you all have coming up in terms of plans for releases or mixes?
Beats: We have a mix in the work right now, a single with 12th Planet, a split with Major Lazer, a few things in the mix with Nightmare, Soy Sauce—they are all going to be one-off singles.
