DOMi & JD BECK: Songwriting, Collaborations, & WHO ASKED?

INTERVIEW

Nicky Waters

7/29/20263 min read

DOMi & JD BECK are a prodigious jazz duo signed to Blue Note Records in partnership with Anderson .Paak's label, APESHIT. They have collaborated with a wide range of hip-hop and jazz legends, from Herbie Hancock and Thundercat to Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg. Their compositions are marked by complex harmonies and ever-changing rhythms. Their virtuosic chops and chaotic flair create a unique pocket in the modern jazz world. Their sophomore album "WHO ASKED?" will be released next week.

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WATERS: We are at the Montreal Jazz Festival with DOMi and JD Beck and my first question for you guys is about “NOT TiGHT.” So the song that I personally love off of it is "MOON". And I was wondering, how did you guys come up with it? What was the composition like? Where did it start?

JD BECK: It started with the outro. We used those chords under, it was literally like a trap beat.

DOMi: Yeah, it was a trap beat.

JD BECK: We just played it for friends for fun. And then when we had the record together, we were like, "Oh, we want something else for the record." And then we got in contact with Herbie, and we were like, "Oh, this would be insane for him to solo on." And then we just built the song for that.

DOMi: You just asked us to write a song, and so we were like, "Let's do that one."

WATERS: Where did you make the trap? It was like FL, Ableton?

DOMi: It was Logic back in the day, like 2018 Logic.

WATERS: Oh man, okay.

DOMi: But then we switched to Ableton.

WATERS: I'm an Ableton user too, I'm a huge fan of Ableton.

JD BECK: It's all the same.

DOMi: It’s all the same, we did a test. We got in Luna, we got in Pro Tools, we got in Ableton. It sounds the same.

JD BECK: Whatever stock plugins you like, that's the only change, I think.

WATERS: So let's talk about rhythms. Can you describe the rhythm that the both of you share? Maybe not literally, but like that sixth sense that you guys have for each other in your playing.

JD BECK: We just write stuff and then we play it. I don't know.

DOMi: I would say it's mostly more in four than people think. It's just the subdivisions are what lose people, I guess. But like a lot of the charts are in four. More than what people think.

WATERS: Even with all the metric modulation happening?

DOMi: Yeah, it's a lot of metric modulation, but it usually stays in 4, 6, 8, and then we just, you know, fuck with the rhythm within it.

WATERS: I wanted to talk about composing in general. How do you guys begin writing whenever you're trying to start a track?

JD BECK: We write in Sibelius. Yeah, no instruments. We just notate. Yeah, literally everything.

DOMi: Yeah, both of us, we sit in front of a computer and we just write in Sibelius.

WATERS: Is this because of your Berklee training, or—

DOMi: Hell no. At Berklee, you don't do that. Don't pay $80,000 a year to go there.

WATERS: I'll ask about the new record, WHO ASKED?. So you just said that Zach Hill is involved in the record. I was wondering, what's the direction like? What's the collaborators?

JD BECK: There're none.

WATERS: No collaborators.

JD BECK: It’s just us.

DOMi: We sing on every song, and Zach helped us sound design all the bass, all the keys, and I played vibraphone, harp, and celesta, and so—

JD BECK: And we recorded an orchestra one player at a time. Yeah, like individually.

DOMi: That sucked ‘cause that took 110 hours.

JD BECK: We wrote the whole record orchestrally first, so the whole thing was like orchestral arrangements, and then we turned it into songs.

WATERS: So do you guys sample each one and then—

DOMi: No, no, they really recorded! Yeah, we got classical players from LA.

WATERS: Amazing,

DOMi: One at a time, we record and then just hope it works.

WATERS: Okay, I'm super excited for the record. Domi and JD Beck at Montreal Jazz Festival. Thanks so much.

DOMi: Thank you so much, dude.