PicturePlane | Interview

Raw Q & A with PicturePlane | Pat Propst

Alternative electronic artist Travis Egedy, better known as Pictureplane, is a pillar of the underground music scene, having been active since the early 2000s and is still regularly making music, playing shows, and DJing events all over. Recognized by industry heavy-hitters like Grimes and Yung Lean, Egedy’s influence is heard in electronic music everywhere, having fans anywhere from Norway to New Zealand. I had the chance to sit down and talk with Egedy as he tagged along with Small Black’s for their Summer 2024 tour, a band he’s been close to since their inception in 2009. The following is the conversation we had, where Egedy touches on all manner of subjects, from his time in other countries, his current visual and musical projects, and his origins and influences:

You were a part of the DIY scene in Denver for a time and lived in Rhinoceropolis. Can you tell me more about that? What are some of your fondest memories in that space?

I grew up in New Mexico, but then I moved to Denver after high school to go to art school up there, and during my time in school, I started living at this warehouse there called Rhinoceropolis, and that’s really where I basically got the start of my music as Pictureplane. Living in a place like that, our bedrooms were all built by hand, we were throwing shows in there constantly, booking touring bands… that place [was] also extremely cheap at the time, my rent was like three hundred dollars to live in there. Yeah, I was fully immersed in music and art 24/7 living there. It’s really what allowed me to spend a lot of time making music but also getting good at performing and meeting other like-minded people and musicians from all over the country.

You’re a visual artist as well as a producer and DJ. You even had an exhibition recently, “THE DISEASE OF ASTONISHMENT.” How was that experience for you? 

The name, “THE DISEASE OF ASTONISHMENT,” actually comes from the Salem Witch Trials… That was a clinical term at the time for someone that was suffering from this hysteria, of what they would consider witchcraft. They’d say they had the ‘disease of astonishment.’ I just thought that term was so bizarre and so cool… It has this really kind of dark, sinister undertone… They were sentencing these people to death for having the disease of astonishment.

I studied painting in college, so I’ve always done visual art alongside music. I’m really trying to focus a lot more on my visual art lately because I really enjoy it. The paintings are these kinds of abstract collages [where] I’ve taken photographs of torn street advertisements from my travels. They’re digitally printed onto canvas and then I’m painting on top of the digital collage, and then covering them with a crazy, glossy resin. They look really really cool in person.

It was inspired by your travels and what you saw on the street?

I was doing an art residency in Buenos Aires, Argentina a couple years ago, and the streets were just covered with all these wild – I’ve always loved text and advertising and street art and posters, but specifically the level of street posters everywhere, they were just covering everything. Most of them were torn and different layers, just all stacked on top of each other. I started taking a lot of photos of torn advertising, and getting inspired by that and working them into these new paintings.

Your art book, “Together We Make The Dream Real”, it’s a really excellent concept, having looked through it myself and I just wanted to know if we’re likely to see anything like that again in the future since you’ve been doing more music, now with your exhibition, if you’re planning on doing anything like that again? 

That book is really unique because it’s basically, like, ten years of stuff. It’s all taken from journals… When I’d be traveling I’d be drawing or sketching, or I’d write my song lyrics in them, or just write whatever in there. I just had a whole bunch of [journals.] When I was writing there, I never thought that they were really for anyone to even see. Some of the stuff was really cool, and during COVID, I was just going through them and I was like, ‘I’m gonna just turn this into a book.’ so I scanned everything and turned it into a book. I don’t think there will ever be another one like that because it’s many, many years of my history all condensed into this one into this one book.

Between the two most recent albums, the sound of Dopamine is noticeably different from Degenerate. If anything, what prompted that change of tone between the projects?  

I think Degenerate was kind of, like, an angry album. I was lamenting the loss of a few good friends of mine who had passed away, I was lamenting the loss of all these DIY spaces getting shut down, including Rhinoceropolis after the Ghost Ship fire. It was just a really heavy time during the making of that record. All these sh*tty things were happening around the country and that’s where that name, Degenerate, comes from.

After Rhinoceropolis got shut down and Ghost Ship happened, there were these people on the internet who were basically fascist a**h*les celebrating these places getting shut down, or even calling the fire department or police, trying to get them shut down and calling the people who lived in there ‘degenerates.’ That’s also the term Hitler used to describe weird, progressive artists or people on the fringes of society. So it’s meant to kind of flip that and turn it into a positive thing. Yes, I am a ‘degenerate,’ if that’s who you choose to view me as. That’s what I am. I’ll wear it as a badge of honor.

Would you be willing to break down some of the equipment or methods you use to make your music?  

Basically how I make songs– I’ll just be playing around on a synth, recording myself… I’ll have a drum loop going, and I start playing some riffs. I do a lot of it by hand… I’m just recording myself playing, then I’ll go into FL Studio and I start building out loops from synth riffs that I’m playing. It’s really organic, kind of. But a lot of it is all just my hand on different synths that I have. I have a few different ones that I use. I just got this Dave Smith OB-6 synth that I’ve been wanting for years. It sounds really, really cool– thick, buttery, nasty sounds. 

Do you have any specific equipment that you’re looking to get?

Not really, necessarily. I’m actually learning a bit more about using really sick plugins and stuff. Most people, that’s what they use. I’m more hardware-based, but I’m getting more into digital stuff like that. I’m not like a crazy gear nerd. I just kind of use whatever is in front of me.  

Do you have a favorite gig or anything you’ve done as a DJ that stands out in your memory?” 

I’ve been really lucky to have been all over the world performing– all different kinds of shows. Like Japan, Mexico, Norway, and New Zealand. I feel blessed to have even been able to travel. In a way, I appreciate every single show. Obviously some are way more fun than others… It's hard to pick just one. I have certain places I love playing more than others, places like Mexico City. I had some really incredible shows in Russia. I would go there every year for many years and I had this big Russian fanbase. I was really well received over there. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back there because of the politics over there now, and so I feel lucky that I got to experience that because no bands are going to Russia anytime soon.

One more thing about the music. How’s the SCYTHE side project treating you? What are you doing with that right now?  

It’s something I enjoy making a lot. I was thinking of actually changing the name SCYTHE because when I came up with that name I didn’t quite realize that there’s literally so many bands called scythe on the internet. All different weird metal bands– so even my Spotify page, there’s different scythe bands that have been linked into my Spotify page now, it’s all, like, messed up. I’d like to make a sick album of that music, so I might rebrand it, but I’m working on that right now. I might even be working with this rapper named Father. He would be doing vocals over my dungeon synth music, which would be really fire. I think that’s happening right now. I sent him a bunch of music and I’m curious to see what he sends back. 

The last thing, do you have any message you want to give to your fans, any words of encouragement, knowledge, information, anything you’d like to say at all?  

Just keep making stuff. And follow your passion. The world’s so insane right now and I think the best thing we can all do is just try to create beautiful things that make the world a better place. It sounds simple, but the power of art and creation goes a long way.