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With the recent release of the album ‘Affection to Infection’, and with his tune ‘Here To Stay’ going straight to number one, as well as numerous other success, such as being top of the Beatport download charts 24 weeks in a row with ‘Addict’, ‘Tentative’, ‘Ghost’ and more recently ‘Morti Viventi’. Possibly the one of the best success story and most emotional story ever heard, at only 16, he’s already experienced things most people would never experience in their entire lives. From North-West London, the upcoming producer and DJ, RVM (pronounced Rhythm) explains to Sub Conscious how much of a challenge it is to get out there, as well as a gripping story that is worthy of an Oscar.  

How did it all start off?

I hate this question (laughs), I don’t know exactly, it was just everything coming together, I was always interested in music, but it showed more towards my mid-teens, trying to make mashups on Windows Movie Maker and hour long sets using iTunes’ ‘start and finish time’ features, (laughs), yea I was quite deprived of the expensive programs. But I think what really got me into it was when a friend handed me FL Studio demo version on a USB in August of 2010, which at the time I thought was amazing, until I found out I couldn’t re-open files I’d saved. In the end I got the full version and attempted to refinish them, but they were the worst standard of music I’ve ever heard, so I just gave up and started a whole load of new projects using newer packs and plug-ins I’d got over the last six months. Then yeah, I suppose with a few friends it just got me motivated to, almost, churn out as many songs as I could and over time, as you’d expect people grew more and more interested and the support from friends was huge. When I had my first play on the radio, I found out around 100 people were listening, floods of Facebook Chat sounds came through my speakers and yeah, I just suppose it all elevated from there.

Your first radio appearance was just 6 months after you properly began making music, how did you feel about it all?

Yeah, I was at my ex’s house as we had gone to get stuff for a party I was DJing at the following weekend, and I got a text from a sort of promoter, well, he downloaded my tune from my SoundCloud and uploaded it onto his YouTube channel, telling me to check the link he had put on my Facebook wall, so I logged onto her computer and listened for about 15 minutes to ‘wickedspinsradio.com’, thinking it was all some sort of joke, but then I heard the radio DJ, who sounded about 4 years old saying ‘Big up Rhythm’, in my head I thought “oh dear, this is embarrassing if anyone’s listening”, it turned out the promoter had used my tune as an instrumental and yea, it weren’t too bad but I thought it could’ve gone a lot better.

Let me guess, someone trying to get into the grime scene?

Haha, yeah, typical!

You mentioned DJing an event the weekend after, was this your first event?

No, I did a friend’s 18^th earlier in the year, a month after I got my first mixer, I was originally planning on just pre-making a set and playing it on audacity, good thing I didn’t, turns out the files corrupted and that would’ve been more embarrassing than the radio situation. Fortunately I would like to think I improved and after many months of not DJ’ing anything, I organised a party to raise money for my World Challenge funds which I was doing the following summer. I shared the night with a friend, friend’s dad who got stroppy and wanted to DJ the whole night because he thought I was going to break his equipment, even though I was using my own. As you can probably tell through my tone of voice I was not happy! In the end I dropped ‘Addict’ with Flux Pavilion’s Bass Cannon, and lead on to an early version of ‘Here To Stay’, and the DJ turned out to be an amazing guy. The speakers he provided were worth over £2500, and I’m pretty sure the sub he had made a few people’s eyes bleed. Basically is was f**king mental.

So in the end a successful night?

Yea it wasn’t too bad!

If you could choose one person in the entire music industry to work with, who would it be? and why?

Rebecca Black, easy question! (laughs) Erm,  I really can’t put my finger on one person but on the production side of things I’d have to go with Rob Swire, he’s been my idol since about 15 years old, between him and Liam Howlett, they really encouraged me to get into the scene and producing. I’d like to do collaborations with Skrillex and deadmau5, who seem to have pushed the scene over in the US, who have amazing crowds! If I wanted to have vocals on a tune, I’d want to have either Christina Grimmie, been watching her on YouTube for years, one of the most heavenly voices I’ve ever heard, or for male vocal someone with a distinct voice, such as Mali, Liam Bailey or any Jamaican vocalists! Every song needs to be as unique as possible from the last you produced and different vocalists can make all the difference.

Interesting choice, I see you’re a fan of deadmau5 and Skrillex, leading me onto my next question, if a big established artist, who you grew up listening to and got you into the scene, asked you to tour with them for around two months, what would your reaction be?

Go to the pub, every day, except Friday and Saturday, where I’ll throw a party and have some upcoming local acts in the scene to give them a chance to get themselves out there, therefore everyone’s a winner! I’ll probably make sure I have everything I need, and probably become nocturnal and suffer from insomnia until the tour comes around.