Strong Maurice - South Australia’s Own Beat Maker Won’t Be Boxed In (006)

The sixth guest on The Rec Show hails from the land down under all the way from Adelaide South Australia and goes by the monicker Strong Maurice. This sound wizard is not only amazing with his music using the 🐨Koala sampler but also creates amazing videos for Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. He also creates sample packs for beat challenges for beat makers to use in their own production...Credit Given of course 😉 Enjoy!

Episode 006 of The Rec Show Available Now! Today’s sound wizard goes by @strongmaurice Enjoy! ✌🏾🖤

Featured Music: We Can Go Back
Everything Social: @strongmaurice
Website: https://t.co/UxBkOT0IRP

The Sound Wizards Blog: https://t.co/YTBYEcDYdp pic.twitter.com/Qn4NZ7j31O

— The Rec Show (@TheRecShow) February 28, 2021

Question #1: For those that don’t know who you are, please introduce yourself, what your name means and where your from.

Strong Maurice was an accident. From a misheard song lyric that I took on as a sort of alter ego. I’ve always loved superhero/villain personas, comics, movies etc also a huge fan of hip hop alter-ego/nicknames all the wu tang guys like ODB had dirt mcgirt, osirus, big baby Jesus all that. I love that shit. I had heaps of names like this but went with Strong Maurice because this character sounded badass. I love how with art you can take on a sort of persona, symbolic of the person you wish you were or aspects that you want to be, but art is truer than life sometimes. And I’m from a small town on the river. Been part of some sort of musical pur- suits all my life on and off but resurfaced in this form in 2018 after bit of a hiatus.

Loop from Merlin Szy from IG I dunno if he’s on Twitter - quick break from processing all those foley sounds for my new pack - road testing a few on this beat- how’s it sounding? pic.twitter.com/Zr9WzUCu7F

— Strong Maurice #LOHYPE (@strongmaurice) January 17, 2021

Question #2: What are your first memories of your musical journey, musical influences and how did you get into beat making?

I remember as a kid one of my older brothers had a Casio rapman one of those little keyboards, I was so fascinated with all the sounds you could make I’d play on that thing for hours, a sort of precursor to a few decades later scrolling presets! I always loved making sounds and listening to music. Grew up listening to a lot of blues, rock and soul music from my day and a lot of 90s hip hop from my older brother so there’s a lot of that stuff that comes thru. I got into beatmaking initially when a bunch of bands I was in didn’t work out and I wanted to keep making music with a lot of parts so I just played them all myself. Recorded on the 4 track then got into looping on cool edit pro. This stuff was pretty cool I used a lot of nature sounds and percussions with all sorts of guitars. Sounded like shit probably, completely no mixing but was fun. I proceeded to experiment with all kinds of genres but landed on sample based hip hop when I got the original maschine back in 2010. Did that for a few years but kinda had a break when my laptop became too slow to use and didn’t have the money to get a new setup until 2018. I wish koala sampler was around back then!

Question #3: What’s the story behind you being an instrumentalist? How were you ex- posed to different instruments and what instruments?

I played piano as a kid but wasn’t until I picked up guitar as a teenager I became obsessed practicing for hours a day until my fingers were sore. I slept with the guitar next to me so I could wake up and play. I was obsessed with the blues and American music history pretty much only listened to blues for a few years was pretty good on the bottleneck slide. But I’m pretty rusty on that nowadays I spend more time making beats. I’ve got a pretty sweet col- lection of percussion instruments from around the world. I’d like have a massive room full of drums and guitars and organs n all that someday. I just love anything that makes noise - especially unusual instruments.

Question #4: What is the beat scene like in Adelaide, South Australia and how do you connect with your local beat making community?

I’m not involved in the local beat scene I’m 100% just operating from private in my home studio. I can say Adelaide is big on music and arts so I’d say there are plenty of beat makers going round but I prefer just to interact with people on the internet it’s easier to find people who are into the same shit as you and I’d rather do it like that tbh.

Question #5: Tell us about Koala Cardio Sessions? What did you think of the Koala Vs SP404 battle and its beat cultural impacts.

So basically, I create most of my koala sampler beats on the move. That’s why I love koala, you have a mini studio with you wherever you go. Koala cardio sessions I’m making beats on the bike. I can’t just sit there for 10-20 mins sweating like a dickhead on the bike just
waiting for the time to go 😂 but if I’m making beats I’ll sit there til my phone goes flat I can easy do an hour or more of cycling. I love it. The koala vs SP404 battle, I loved that so much. It’s awesome to see a $4 app go up against a more expensive sampler. The battle was tough I don’t think I could have picked a lot of em. But all round I think it was in good fun and just proves you can make good beats in a lot of different ways. We’re all out here trying to do the same thing I don’t think most of us care what device you use. The koala sampler should open up beatmaking to a lot more people tho it’s great to see it gaining popularity

🐨 with @leemlizzy Butter Kit 8 for the #butterflipchallenge
BK9 just dropped- gonna cop that immediately and cook up 👨‍🍳

S/O 🐨 gang @tvkii @lo_tekbeats @SseennzzBeats @LightFootBeats @AYOSAMPLE @RichGarvey @karav3lo @tellymclean @TatzumaK @Naka6rah @antarchitecture +2many💪 pic.twitter.com/OFQ5dr7Rbr

— Strong Maurice #LOHYPE (@strongmaurice) February 18, 2021

Question #6: Your releasing a new project titled “We Can Go Back...what is the meaning behind the name?

There’s a deep meaning for me with this one. 2 sides: the nostalgia and longing for a so called better time - I think that’s a common theme at the moment. But the other side is my personal story. I kinda lost myself a few times trying to force myself to be something that I wasn’t, which broke me down in a bad way. And to me saying I can go back to being myself again is a big comfort. I know you can’t reverse time or go back to a prior state of being but music can have that effect. When you listen to a song and it takes you back to a place in time and space, at least for the duration of that song, that’s pretty cool.

Koala cardio sessions I’ve been slacking 🐨🫀🚵‍♂️ let’s goooo pic.twitter.com/bQ6PMWXudm

— Strong Maurice #LOHYPE (@strongmaurice) February 10, 2021

Question #7: Who are your beat maker superheroes and why?

Flying Lotus of course (the swing, the sound design, the use of unorthodox sounds) One song that blows mind since 2010 was ‘do the astral plane’ I’d listen to that 1000 times and hear something new every time. Flume of course- the crazy synths, off kilter beats, use of dif- ferent genres. Younger guys like Monte booker, montell2099 using heaps of found sound/field recordings. It’s like musical ASMR shit it’s so nice on the ears. I like anyone who pushes sound design and gets really weird - SOPHIE was amazing. This is a hard question actually. really my musical influences come from anything I hear, I have a hard time saying who- I’m more of a sponge I’ll take in influence from everything. And I don’t so much remember where I heard it. All the beatmakers on Twitter and IG are more inspirational to me than anything - the sample rumble gang, the koala beatmakers, there’s some crazy just regular folks making really inspiring stuff.

Question #8: What advice would you give to the younger you when you first started out making beats and how can the internets find you?

Another another good question! My main advice would be focus on the keys. Get good on the piano and everything else is gonna be based off that. And don’t be too critical or doubt yourself too much. It’s all acquired skills. Just keep learning and growing. Growth mindset.

That’s my main belief in life. As long as you’re learning and improving in some way then you’re doing alright. And keep helping others as much as you can. It comes back.

The internets may find me on IG/twitter @strongmaurice and hit the link in my bio to find my music on all streaming services, and FREE samples on my site “Lohype Loops”.

Album out now 🎉🎉🎉🎉https://t.co/r4V9INsEjA pic.twitter.com/sDuVOlwzIW

— Strong Maurice #LOHYPE (@strongmaurice) February 27, 2021