Stream BooWho's Debut EP 'The Socially Awkward Ghost' (+ Interview)

Emerging enigmatic EDM artist BooWho makes future bass in the vein of Slushii and Marshmellow – think big bass synths and hectic hooks to wear out dancing shoes to. He recently dropped his debut EP in the form of the awesomely titled The Socially Awkward Ghost, so UTR sat down with the Auckland-based producer/DJ to find out about his ghostly goings about, collaborations with old friends and his game plan – off and on the consoles. Check out his EP below and scroll down to read the interview…

UTR: So, for those who don’t know, who is BooWho and what kind of tunes do you make?

I'm your friendly neighbourhood ghost who makes music you can dance to. I'm more in the whole EDM scene with a Future Bass niche at the moment but I'm working on developing new and dope sounding music.

Is your ghost character a nod to the pesky ghoul from the Mario series of video games?

Haha well, as a gamer, there's ghosts in everything really. Pacman, Mario and Zelda off of the top of my head. I just liked the whole vibe of a friendly looking cartoon ghost that makes music, as opposed to calling myself DJ DJPerson or something weird. I guess in the back of my head I did take inspiration from some video games, except I'm a good ghost.

Your imagery game is well strong. What are your philosophies on marketing in the modern meme generation?

Well, the first step is really to be marketable. How could you market "DJ DJPerson y'know? Like it just doesn't fly (hah pun) as well as having a recognisable brand and a catchy name. You just got to pick what you want to be, stick with it and stay relevant (whether that be band wagoning on the current trending memes or joining in on Twitter conversations etc). Make friends, not connections, and don't treat your project as a project, treat it as another part of you.

You were recently involved in the Our House festival. Tell us about your experiences there?

Oh boy, yeah, I was lucky enough to manage to score some backstage passes and a meet and greet package with Jauz, Snails and Slushii in April this year. Seeing how these guys partied and lived almost everyday of their lives to the max really opened my eyes to grinding even harder than I was. I think it was when I snuck sidestage (my pass didn't allow that lol) and watched a bit of Slushii's set was when I decided I would way prefer to be in front of the crowd than a part of it. Slushii being a new artist and new to international fame was the most humble dude ever to chat to. Managed to give him a couple of USB's of my (then unmastered) EP which he took pretty gladly.

'Dim Lights', a stand-out track from your hot-off-the-press debut EP, featured Wellington-based singer Josie Moon. How did that come about?

This was a kinda weird one on my part, I was scrolling through my newsfeed on Facebook and saw that one of my old friends at my high school had commented on this girl's EP. It turned out I was in her music class back then. So I had a listen on Soundcloud and really dug one of the tracks and chucked her a message on Soundcloud if I could remix it, she was keen so I got started. It wasn't for like a month or two that she realised we knew each other. It was really kind of a chance collaboration and we ended up deciding to release the track as an original featuring her vocals, as I reeeeally changed up the track.

What’s next for BooWho? When can we see you dropping fly tunes in the flesh (or ectoplasm, as it were)?

World domination. Or just to get some shows, release some bangin' singles (I have so many in the works), finish off some collabs, do some more remixes, seriously I have a lot lined up. Funny you should mention that, one of the tracks will actually be called Ectoplasm.