My Friend, Savedher.
Bum Diary spent a night speaking with LA-based producer Savedher about his process, Dean Blunt’s elusivity and producer longevity.
WORDS BY Christopher Buchanan
IMAGES BY Benjamin Uribe
Rest and relaxation is an undeniable luxury for anyone in the journalistic profession. Unfortunately, even in the rare instance that a journo can put down the pen even for a brief time, the world keeps spinning and fascination persists. It is almost as if you’re watching a glamorous get-together between the operational journalists and subjects of utmost interest from the bushes without a spot on the guest-list. Sometimes, this spawns contempt, other times jealousy, and on rarer occasions, a vindictive sense of motivation. What sense does it make to take a break if your unfulfilled, resolute desire to produce brings you more stress than working in the first place?
So there I was, westbound on the 60 toward Los Angeles during an excruciatingly hot desert day in my red import. It was only a Hyundai, but of foreign origin nonetheless. It was only five days after I resolved to take a two-week break from writing, but the original day’s plan of leisure had already been fully lost on Ben and I. 24 year-old producer Savedher — or Rob, as he’s known to us — had invited Ben to shoot some promotional material for merchandise Rob would be selling to fund his musical Los Angeles living. Ben had the bright idea to do a profile on him, and of course, even in my exhaustion, I agreed.
Come to think of it, to say I was only exhausted from the summer is an understatement; the last two months were spent stroking financiers below the belt loops at a finance magazine that did little to challenge anything too shady or too green… Not a single kick was there to be found. But this piece was different. Not only did it re-excite my neurons into firing off since I had gotten home — deadbrained — but it would grant me the opportunity to break a social barrier that I had long wanted to scale.
I met Savedher for the first time in March of this year. He, Ben and Lefty — another producer friend of ours — came to my university apartment when I was only still on an acquainted level with the latter two. I heard rumblings about this SavedHer character many-a-time before; an enigmatic fixture in the Los Angeles producing scene. Without knowing as much as his real name, I found myself eager to gauge his vibrations.
When all the music junkies arrived, I wasn’t surprised to see Savedher clad in all black with some jeans that could’ve set off alarms of a flood warning. His thick mustache looked almost fake, manicured perfectly over his top lip and poindexter glasses that made him look safe, but shady. He was a quiet fellow, only chiming in to laugh at whatever bullshit antic Lefty and I were engaging in. I diagnosed him as one of those quiet, artistic minds — similar to Ben — who only felt he needed to speak when it contributed to something larger, avoiding word-vomit to fill empty spaces.
After this brief meeting, Rob was hard to come by. He was a working man on top of all the producing work he already did, so our paths hadn’t crossed often. That is, until that day I shot off from the 60 and merged onto the 405 northbound to a Sherman Oaks apartment he shared with two other artists, Cricket and Zesh.
I considered Rob a friend, which complicated my good-faith journalistic pursuit from the get-go. The Great Book of Ethics disavowed any sort of biases, but I very much liked Savedher already. Instead of going in gung-ho and getting straight to the questions, I figured I’d experiment with a roundabout method of secretive recordings and casual questions that would lead me into the interview without that ugly, professional suit-talk that nearly every profiler suffers from. I was bending the rules one way and then straightening them out by bending the opposite way — secretly recording a friend to profile them — the structure was once again sound, albeit more brittle.
The Sherman Oaks apartment housed an eclectic group of musicians. Roku city was on the television and a turntable took up so much space on the kitchen table that I couldn’t imagine anyone ever eating there. Strange that the living room serves as such an inspiration to someone like me but could seem like a prison to others. It felt like something much more riveting was happening beyond the walls of this home that each of its residents stubbornly pursued. Comfort mattered little.
As a way to catch up without sounding like a square, I asked what —if anything — had been troubling him recently
“All I need is money, man.” Savedher told us. I understood that well enough. “Once we get this merch drop, I should be good though.”
After acting like jackasses outside of an In-N-Out where Zesh worked security for an hour or two, we opted to go to Mulholland Dr. by my own recommendation. It was a meditative place that always excited the more profound parts of my thinking. Without telling Savedher I was recording, I casually started my interrogation on this very subject.
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Is it stuff like this view that gets you going? For me, with writing, whenever I’m sitting on a beautiful view like this, that's what gets me inspired. What do you think it is for you?
Savedher: Sitting in my room doing nothing, it forces me into it… Lefty interrupts “The dichotomy of it all”... Yeah… the dichotomy of it all. *laughs*
When did you start making music?
Savedher: I had FL (Fruity Loops) since I was like 16, I made some shit. And I was like, ‘I don't know how to do this actually’. No, I've been making music. I've played guitar and drums since I was like 10.
The producers got into a rant about the luck of being in the “Mecca” of beatmaking, Los Angeles.
Savedher: I think about that all the time, dude. think about that all the time, dude. I feel like damn, I'm not where I'm supposed to be, but I know someone would kill to be where I'm right now.
Do you actually feel like you're not where you're supposed to be?
Savedher: No, I'm supposed to be exactly where I'm at. There's not a path that I should have taken otherwise, because it didn't happen. But I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, and just with music in general.
I don't really want to be like a regular producer. I'm more of an artist. Even my recent project was more on the artsy side. I understand why. Sometimes it clicks with people, sometimes it completely doesn't. I just feel like sometimes I'm just so ahead and it just doesn't click sometimes.
What about the people who do take it in? What is that relationship like?
Savedher: With people who actually take it in, I feel like that's completely different, because they get it. But with a larger audience, the B side that I dropped is very easy to listen to because It's just trap shit, and the original very artsy and just completely different. That's just one of my favorite projects I've done.
Do you think there’s a difference between being a producer and being an artist? Where do you think the barrier is?
Savedher: I tend to do what I want, instead of hoping rappers would like it. I don't make music for rappers, I make music for me and people like it. That's why it's funny. Sometimes when like a big rapper hits me up for beats, I know (they’re) not gonna fuck with my shit that I genuinely like. It's usually the shit that I'm just making to make.
Do you think there's artists of other genres that would fit the producing you’re doing better?
Savedher: Not really. I feel like I'm paving my own way. I mean, there are inspirations of just how I would like to be perceived. I've been into a lot of Dean Blunt.
I feel like the way that he's been making music for the past 15 years and the way he doesn't give a fuck, you don't really know that much about him… I kind of just respect that a lot, feel like that's really cool just to be perceived that way. Doing your own, making your own way.
Everything now though is like a social media thing. You kind of have to have an online presence for people to perceive you seriously. Do you think you can go the Dean Blunt route still?
Savedher: I don't like people knowing things about me, that's how it's always been really… I feel like my music speaks for me, so I don't really have to speak on anything. I can listen back to any songs and realize what point I was in my life for that day specifically.
Is there a sense of competitiveness being a part of such a large and lively music scene in Los Angeles?
Savedher: I am very naturally a competitive person. So I feel like all my peers are like people I am in competition with. Not on some hater shit, but I fuck with them so heavy, the music's so good. It's just like friendly competition shit.
Do you feel like you’re at a solid footing with your music as a whole?
Savedher: I feel like with each project, I make music for me. I don't really make it for anyone else, so it's just kind of pinpointing what's going on and how I feel all the time, and sometimes it could just sound the same, or sometimes it doesn't. But I feel like with this project that I am working on, I am trying to go completely left field.
In that case, what would you say the biggest challenge is for you when creating?
Savedher: I feel like I’m just trying to completely one up myself. I feel like now, there's not a lot of longevity. I feel like people are just making shit, just to make it.
It really depends on the person who's listening, because some people genuinely fuck with my old shit, just the beat tapes. Some people fuck with my new shit, and it's just very different, I’m always trying to try do something that I'm proud of at the end of the day.
Because you’re always doing something new, do you think that can section off an audience that you built from your old work?
Savedher: I feel like the people who fuck with my music heavy and like, get me in my production, they will like whatever I make because it's just me. But I do get DM’s and shit all the time saying ‘yo, your old shits crazy’ blah, blah, blah. That's cool and all, but I'm on some completely other shit
You’re 24 now and started when you were 17, is there any additional pressure since making money from an income from production work is your reality?
Savedher: There is definitely some pressure that I put on myself. I feel like that pressure is good, because always wanting to one up yourself will make you stick to it. But you have to have the strength to keep doing it, because honestly, this shits annoying. Music is annoying, dealing with rappers, all this shit is annoying.
Not getting credited or getting added to the splits happens a lot, yeah.
What does it feel like finishing a project now? Are you nervous, scared, proud?
Savedher: I'm gonna be honest, I feel like shit. A year's worth of work is out now and I feel like actual shit. I get pleasure out of it, for sure, but I'm just like, damn. Job's not finished.
I worked on this shit for almost a year and keep hearing it over and over and over so much that I don't want to hear it anymore. Yeah, I can't listen to my music sometimes. But within those five months that I take breaks, I do listen to my own music like damn, I was in my bag.
What would you say troubles you most of these days, and how would you like to fix it?
Savedher: It's really just money. I'm just trying to get some bread. I mean, I don't do this shit for money, because if you want to make money, you got to go do some shit else. That's really what it is. You don't make money in music. You lose money. The amount of money I put into projects is a lot of fucking money. I don't make money at all. But I do care about the art and just how I want to put shit out creatively for me.
It's always for myself, because it's really for me.
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After our interview, Savedher told me I was only one of two people who he let interview him. Like he said, he’s a private man. You can see it on his face, and that’s what made it feel so special when he told me.
Perhaps that same self motivation Savedher feels to continue making music despite the financial obstacles he’s facing is the same reason I got my lazy ass up to do this profile in the first place. Neither of us get tangible rewards out of our respective work, but have a steep intrinsic motivation to create something reflective of the beauty that exists in the very struggle to put it out in the world. Art for the sake of self, more than anything.
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