[ ]

RAC is primarily known for remixes

(200+). Check them out here. It
started with an ambitious goal to
change the way things were remixed.
Taking the focus away from danceabil-
ity and attempting different and in-
teresting arrangements. Some notable
examples include: U2, Lady Ga Ga, Bob
Marley, Ella Fitzgerald, Kings Of
Leon, Katy Perry, The Shins, Bloc
Party, Chromeo, Lana Del Rey, Two
Door Cinema Club and many many more.
Recently, Andr released two singles
off an upcoming album coming out on
Cherrytree / Interscope Records. "Let
Go" features Kele (Bloc Party) and
MNDR. "Hollywood" features Penguin
Prison.
WHAT?
Remix
Artist
Collective
rac
RAC USED TO STAND FOR "REMIX ARTIST COLLECTIVE".
THAT NAME DOESN'T MAKE MUCH SENSE ANYMORE.
WHO CARES?
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andre anjos
AGE: 27 HOMETOWN: Porto, Portugal
CURRENT LOCATION: I actually just got back to Portland,
which is where I live. I'm a little bit out of it but
back home in rainy Portland. I was born in Portugal and
spent most of my life thereI just moved here for col-
lege and I've kind of been here ever since. I got married
and all that.
WHAT'S A COLLEGE KID TO DO? It was about 2007. I was at
college and I had no idea what I was gonna do, like many
people. I was kind of a studio nerdI really liked
recordingand I kind of saw this opportunity where not
many people were doing remixes for indie bands. I ended
up spending almost six months emailing everybody, call-
ing all these managers, and they were probably getting
annoyed, because I didn't really have anything to my
name. I was just some kid. I don't really know [what my
pitch was]. [laughs] I actually should look that up at
some point. I had a couple of bootleg remixes that I'd
done of M.I.A. and Madonna, and I think I used that to
kind of show what I could do. But I was practically beg-
ging for it, I imagine.
A MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST: [I play] a little bit of every-
thing, but I will say definitely I'm a guitar player. I
grew up playing Nirvana and Weezer and stuff like that;
I was into metal bands for a while when I was young
[laughs]. I think the very first song [I learned to play]
was "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. I think that
was the first guitar song. Or it was "Come As You Are."
PICKING A SONG TO REMIX: It's kind of different now than
it was in the beginning. Right now we're kind of in a
position where people just ask us to remix a lot of
stuff. At this point, most of it is just sifting through
that and seeing what we like, or what makes sense. But
in the beginning it was a lot more working with any band
and trying to get the name out there as much as pos-
sible. I have to like [the song]. That's like the ulti-
mate test. [laughs] Musically, it's just if we like or
not; there's not really that much thought put into it.
It's where our taste lies I guess.
DOES REMIXING RUIN A GOOD SONG? [laughs] I try not to
think about that. For example, one of our bigger remixes
was for Edward Sharpe; they have this song called
"Home," and a lot of people are very attached to that
original version. You worry about it a little bit but I try
to block it out; I'm just doing what feels right. For the
most part we haven't had too much of a backlash. [laughs]
I kind of see [remixing] as putting a different perspec-
tive on a song. The stuff that we remix, it's really song-
oriented. It probably started with somebody with a guitar
in a room and they wrote the song and then, it's changing
up the arrangement, but keeping true to the original song.
RELEASING AN ORIGINAL SINGLE: It just kind of got to a
point where, with remixes I feel like we kind of hit a
little bit of a wall. Not that that is a bad thing, but it
forces you to get out and rethink things, maybe try some
new stuff, and that's sort of where the idea came up. I
feel like the remixes, there's a lot of original work in
it under somebody else's vocal or something like that. It's
not really perceived that way, of course, but that was a
little bit of the reasoning why we wanted [to record] a
single.
DANCING SHOES: It's actually kind of funny because I really
don't [like to dance]. I really like the music. I don't
know if the fact that I don't really like to dance is the
reason why I DJ. I like to be around that music, but it's
just something I like listening to, and playing in front
of people is also incredibly fun. Getting an immediate
reaction you just don't get from posting tracks on the
Internet.
THE ALBUM: I started out writing it thinking it was going
to be a dance album, something we could DJ with. It kind
of turned out to be much more of aI wanna call it a pop
album, but I wouldn't call it a top-40 pop album or any-
thing. I feel like I really tried my best to write pop
songs in their purest form and use the kind of arrange-
ments that I've been doing with remixing; trying to apply
the sound that we have, whatever it is, to pop-rock basi-
cally.
ABOUT:
BY EMMA BROWN
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