Meet Tobacco Rat, the solo project of WA producer and composer Jake Steele. Tobacco Rat delves deep into darker, grittier, subterranean styles of electronic music. In the rat sack is a varied mix of electronic, bass, future beats, techno and hip hop styles; which Tobacco Rat expertly meshes together, resulting in wild, heavy beats with warped, bass-led grooves. We spoke to Jake about the Tobacco Rat project, as well as his love for all things music!

Futuremag Music: What’s your relationship been with music, what are some influential music moments for you?

Tobacco Rat: From as far as I can remember, I have always been surrounded by music. Growing up with brothers and sisters and my dad who's a blues musician so I feel like the passion has always been there, but the electronic vibes started when I first heard acts like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers. I like to think I have been influenced by all music throughout my life from the early days of the family's listening tastes, so I can listen to anything from classical music like J.S. Bach to extreme death metal like Cradle of Filth.

Futuremag Music: How’d you enter the electronic music scene?

Tobacco Rat: I started messing around with random beats in Fruity Loops right around the end of high school which was late 2000!  A few years ago now... But then jumped onto Ableton around 2005 and I haven't looked back since. My main moniker was ‘Yarhkob’ for years which was everything from chilled hip hop to extreme experimental drum and bass. I created Tobacco Rat a few years ago to really focus and lock down a specific style of energetic bass music, but now even that is beginning to evolve all over the place!

I would say it all started trying to mix Aphex Twin and Nine Inch Nails together.  I love dark music but also have a passion for good melodies, so everything from Rammstein and The Prodigy to Aretha Franklin and Roy Orbison.

Futuremag Music: What's your creative process when making a track? What are some tips you’d give to other producers out there?

Tobacco Rat: I'd say most of the time I just wing it. I'll either start messing with some drums or scrap metal samples and get a beat going, or tweak a synth and get some chords or weird melody happening. From there I just roll with it until there are a few different sections or variations, and then start to build a rough arrangement. Once you have the structure down you can start adding in the little tweaks and FX / fills and filters at the end of bars / sections. 

I've done a few unofficial remixes here and there but haven't really used many of their samples in my tracks. I really should. I think it's definitely coming in the future. I'm going to sample my sister for a track on my upcoming release. 

Futuremag Music: What's your dream event? 

Tobacco Rat: Some sort of electronic based festival with a few heavy/rock bands in there too.  Probably RATM, NIN, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, DJ Shadow, G Jones, Eprom, Empire Of The Sun, Rammstein, RJD2, Ryoji Ikeda, Noisia, Flying Lotus, Dalek, Death Grips, Amon Tobin. etc...