YouTube is morbid place at best – candidly captivating through its user-friendly interface, this is a procrastinator’s paradise and the common birthplace of virality.
27-year-old James Hinton aka The Range turns the video sharing site into his lyrical platform of expression, sampling musical arrangements from unknown artists, showcasing their raw, unbridled talents within his newfound creations. Having dabbled in YouTube’s underbelly, in 2013 with Nonfiction. The Range set his sights toward a deeper thread this time with Potential pairing it with a narrative exploration of the stories behind his YouTube sampling for the Superimpose documentary.
Hinton’s ability to source the clips that YouTube doesn’t want you to see has him venturing deep down that interweb wormhole in search of a captivating story or melodic arrangement to pull on those emotional heart strings. Blending cuts of frenetic percussion with velvety R&B groove, with piano-key twinklings, and chilling vocal distortions, Hinton manages to utilize this saturated musical platform to deliver something unique.
Potential moves across a variety of genres, with poetic precision, sonically delivering a unfeigned journey through YouTube’s many hopefuls, this is set to make The Range a household name amongst music lovers. As the dust settled from his epic release, We caught up with James to discuss getting lost in the “YouTube hole”, his creative process, and the people who feature throughout this heartfelt record.
Sniffers:
First up, your new album, “Potential,” sonically, what did you want to explore with this compared to your earlier releases?
The Range:
Obviously, this whole concept was very much driven by the idea of using the very raw, undiscovered, YouTube vocals and sonically try and let that drive the album. I tried to explore a lot of the counterpoint ideas I had in nonfiction that I think were a little unfleshed out, and working on the juxtaposition of what’s essentially a practical composition against some of the more modern, electronic, percussion and merge those worlds together. It’s a current obsession of mine, and I’m kind of honing in on that.
The lyrics used in “Regular” – “Right now, I don’t have a backup plan if I don’t make it.” With so much honesty in his voice, how does this resonate for you?
Yeah, it hit me pretty hard. At the time, this could have been through the summer of 2014 when I found this sample. I was on tour and was feeling the pain that you sometimes feel, of loneliness on the road. It was really hitting home to me. In this sample he’s so earnest and even in the Youtube videos, it’s clear that he means what he says, a hundred percent. What I like is there’s a weird optimism in it. Once you accept that truth in life and you abandon all other backup plans, there’s a freedom in that, that you’re on your path come hell or high water with no safety net.
When you’re making a track, do you typically come across a clip that inspires you, or do you find things to slot in afterwards?
I found on this record to be right around 50-50. It definitely comes from the percussion background, so that will often drive decisions with some of the Youtube’s, especially with the production process. What drove that for me was the idea of targeting and trying to find things that I was looking for specifically, whether it was a mood or a type of vocal or lyrical arrangement. Then of course, once you’re in that kind of Youtube space where you’re just clicking on videos, you’ll find stuff randomly that’s just super inspiring. “Regular,” the song we talked about before is just a great example where I was looking at a sound first. The album is very close to 50-50. I think it’s like five with one and six with the other.
There’s an element or an idea of ‘Making it’ that resonates in your sampling. What lead to your exploration of ‘fame’ within your music?
I was interested in the idea of being discovered on Youtube and it’s such a big part of my process that I was curious to what extent I could investigate it. I wanted to identify the idea as to why people choose to make it; I think there’s an assumption that people make a video, especially if you do a cover that you want to be discovered, and therefore you want to be famous. I was finding that in fact, a lot of the times unless you have enough views that it wasn’t true at all. I find that really inspiring because that’s how I think about music as well. It’s an end unto itself. There’s no need for you to go out and become famous and to justify why you do music. I think a lot of the people on the album confirm that for me. It’s always been something I’m interested in investigating.
You used the same sampling process for “Nonfiction.” Why did you feel it was important to highlight your curation process this time around, and what changed in the time between the two records?
Yeah, “Nonfiction” was more so aimed at the musical side where I was trying to put two and two together. It was just a natural thing. It’s not just about these lyrics getting time into my music; they’re all actually real people, with real stories. “Metal Swing” is a great example of that. This track is super emotional for me, but I knew nothing about the kid who sung it. It was important that I, in particular with the documentary, got to understand the story behind these people. I didn’t know where half of my music I had found personal was coming from and wanted to make sure this time around I got some content where I could investigate that and harness its potential.
How was meeting the sampled Youtuber’s for the first time, and what’s your take on why these hopefuls haven’t found success yet?
Hopefully, I’m speaking appropriately for them. It was very exciting to meet each other. It was a little bit of an inverse kind of catfish where you’re both confirming that you were the people we said we were, all the getting in touch was entirely online until after the record had come out. It was very, very cool to finally talk to one another. I think also getting to know their stories really varied. Some people certainly had a level of pragmatism that carried across, you know, Austin S, he has a family, and Kai, who’s on “Florida,” is studying to be a teacher, and she’s in her second year of school. It would be very unrealistic of her to do parts of what you need to do in music. It’s just a very time-intensive thing. Also, with Damian, who’s a corrections officer, there’s just a level of stress, and he can’t take enough time off to do what needs to be done a lot of the time.
It’s interesting to me because so much of that, we’re familiar with that story in both parts of the countries, and I’m sure you agree, but it was inspiring for me to uncouple anything to do with talent, I find them to be some of the most talented people I’ve met. It’s just that life’s intervened in some way, and that doesn’t allow them to do the three other things you need to do in music. I always forget how much touring there is and the time that you need to be out and talking to people, that’s part of doing music. I think that was the thread that I found was the difference… I’m convinced that with enough time and enough energy putting things out that they’d be a very similar position to me.
I came from a small town, and you would see people wanting to do music and not making it. I always assumed it was something to do with them, but I’m convinced now it was just not an appropriate time for them, particularly if you have a family or responsibilities that come first. There’re only twenty-four hours in a day, but it was definitely a fascinating process for me.
Where there any dramas in getting clearance from the YouTubers featured in your work?
Not really. I ran into an opinion that it would be, though, but if anything, it was just a communication thing of trying to get people to understand, like I mentioned before – just confirming who I said I was and that it wasn’t some sort of scam. The song, “Copper Wire,” was a really funny chat where he’s like, “Are you joking? Is this real?” As soon as he got over that, I think he was super excited. All the vocals were very close to being finished before I showed it to them. It was nice for them all to see a song that was fully mixed and the idea was totally fleshed out. I think that helped by getting people to understand my creative process.
With the documentary, when did you come to the decision that you wanted to film all these interactions, or was that a natural thought process?
It’s one thing to go up to someone and ask to put them into your video. It’s another thing to have people interested in sharing their lives into a documentary, and I think that’s what captivated me. Again, like we were talking about before, the genesis of it was that I was just curious. I was looking into all these songs hundreds of times. I didn’t know the people. They were incredible collaborators in my work, and I just didn’t know who they were, and I thought the documentary would be an interesting idea, even for my own curiosity of understanding where they’re coming from. It was really an addendum to the record. It’s important to me that people understand this is a two-part thing. The record informs the documentary which then informs the record. It makes the process complete to me.
How do you plan to convey your latest work into a live set – Have you looked into the possibility of having some of the Youtuber’s join you onstage or go on tour?
Yeah. There’s definitely excitement there when possible, but I think as we were talking about before, there’s still a level of pragmatism. I could never, in good conscience, have them ending their lives to come out on tour with me. We’re trying to do things like do guest appearances when we’re in the same city when possible. Right now, the thing that I’m most excited about is I built in sort of a projection apparatus that lets me project the faces of the people in each song when their song happens, but you can still see through and see that I’m behind it. It’s a nice, compelling, element and completes the process. I think the majority of the show would be that, but I’ll be very excited to showcase people when possible.
Lastly, what’s next for The Range?
I think in a lot of ways, the Youtube process is exciting. I often think from album to album, things become clear to me, things that I’m curious about making. I’m getting into the idea of a couple of things this summer. The idea of Youtube and that process evolving a little bit. Throwing around the idea of maybe having some of the vocals interact with other vocals as well, sampling vocals and then using them less like a feature and more as a pallet and that kind of thing, as well as working with some of the people that I met on the record. I’ve also started looking through Twitter as there’s a lot of people posting poetry and short form lyrics, so I’m wondering if there might be an analog form of what I do with Youtube… But you’ll just have to wait until the next record to see.
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