Marching to His Own Beat
- Madyson McGill
- Sep 17, 2017
- 3 min read
MUNCIE, Ind. -- Rat a tat tat, a modern twist on a blast from the past. 90’s style percussion layered on top of 60’s and 70’s funk music, and Memphis rap vocals. Decades of music evolution produced into the 21st century. A creative style that can only be described as Phonk, and it plays a key role in Ball State junior Von Storm’s extracurricular activities.
“I make some really weird ass music.” Von says with a laugh. “It’s really weird but I feel like that gives me a lot of room for creativity.”
Von has 1500 followers on Soundcloud under the username VONATHON, where he produces Phonk tracks weekly. He says he’s most proud of his most recent track “Enchantress,” which has a futuristic, chill track. It’s a lightyear away from the traditional pop played on the radio. However, Von says his most notable remix is “September” by Earth Wind and Fire, which has over 25,000 plays, and almost 1,000 likes.
On Soundcloud the remix is titled “Do U Remember.” Friend and fan Serena Hendershot says, “I remember before he made that track, that he became super obsessed with that song and listened to it on repeat. Then, he finally decided he was going to sample it just for the fun of it.”
“There have been certain periods where I find it difficult to find new music that I’m super into so I’ll make whatever I’m most interested in at that point.” Von says.
He says music has been an integral part of his life, he’s always listening to music. Producing music gives him the opportunity to find people who listen to the same music, and opens doors to collaborations and grow in his craft.
“When I realize that people are super into the same type of music I’m into it motivates me to just keep making more music, and try harder to get more people listening because, if 1,500 people can like this type of music, then why can’t hundreds of thousands?”
Von says right now he produces music as a hobby, and he plans to continue beyond college. But, if it will be the same type of music? Who knows. It all depends on his evolution as a creator.
Right now, he tries not to limit himself as a creator. “In general I make music for me, and I make music that I think sounds good.” He’s constantly putting music out there and growing as a creator.
Another way he grows is by creating music videos. He’s currently a telecommunications major with a concentration at in video production, and has a long standing collaboration with Keyze AriZona.
Von says they met in high school. Keyze AriZona was his school local rapper and he reached out to Von to create a music video. Von says working with him was interesting. He calls him impulsive, saying that when Von was driving to shoot the first music video he called him and asked him to create a music video for a different song. Von has to scrap his ideas and think of something completely different. The videos now have thousands of views on YouTube.
When asked about making music videos for his own tracks he says he hasn’t done one yet, but it would be a fun challenge. He says he’s not a vocalist, which is what a lot of videos focus around.
He says for Phonk music people, “will take clips from old cartoons or shows from like the 90s and just compile them to go along with the music, which kind of makes sense for the genre, because it’s very heavily sample based so making a video for it that is heavily sample based makes a lot of sense for it” However, he would like the challenge that.
Phonk is super gritty. “I feel like people when they make that type of music they focus on making something that sounds good and doesn’t really mean anything, and when they make an album or EP they just put a bunch of songs together that they think sound good and it’s not really cohesive.”
In the future Von would like to create an album that is cohesive “you can’t listen to a song on its own. It’s meant to be listened to as an album, and make some sort of film to go along with that, and that would be the soundtrack to the entire film.”
Whatever the future holds for Von, his music will be there.
Top 5 VONATHON tracks:
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