Hailing from North Virginia, Pearl White is a veteran producer who has gained a following thanks to his eerie, moody beats. Although his discography runs very deep, perhaps his most popular beat is featured on Bones’ track “Protein.” I recently had a chat with him about his musical influences, struggles, newer side project, and why he’s ready to move away from music made on a computer.
UU: Your first song posted on SoundCloud dates back three years. Is this when you started making music?
Pearl White: Well later this year it’ll date four years. I started in the middle of 2014, however the first song on my SoundCloud isn’t my first upload. I uploaded two songs prior to “broken,” of which the second song was used for the song “Protein” by Bones.
It also makes me curious, because your first two releases “Broken” and “Need You” have a chill trap vibe to them. As I went through your SoundCloud page for a refresher, the beats became darker and moodier. What sparked the change in sound and style?
Well as I stated earlier, those songs were one of the first few songs I’ve ever convinced myself to make and release. I was still trying to figure out what kind of sound I was trying to achieve, you can call that early sound partially infantile. As time went on, my influences in the scene grew and the darker and more complicated my life got, my music seemed to follow in the same footsteps resulting in the moodier sound you hear now.
Can you tell me a bit about your musical influences? Whether it’s music you enjoy or direct influences on your work.
I was influenced around 3rd grade by Black Sabbath’s Paranoid album. That was the only stuff I heard besides what was on the radio at the time. Fast forward till the last 6 years I got really influenced by grindcore, stuff like Magrudergrind and Napalm Death. I was also heavily influenced by a plethora of black metal, death metal, doom, and drone metal along with the many subgenres that come after. Besides the metal stuff, I was influenced by numerous witch house, and “cloud trap” like Yung Gud, Yung Sherman, and Whitearmor. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be making the music I’d be making now.
You mentioned earlier that your sound changed based on both influences and how complicated your life became. What was going on in your life at that time that is reflected in the darker music you released?
Around the time I started to change my sound, I was in late sophomore year of high school. My parents started to get really strict about performance in school. As someone who’s had ADHD as early as I could remember, it was rather hard trying to keep my parents pleased. Poor grades started to affect my self esteem, on top of being insecure about my appearance, being overweight etc. It all led to me being really depressed for long, long periods of time. I’d isolate myself and stay home all day, making music or listening to it. I guess that’s why my music started to gravitate towards that dark sound. It hasn’t really gotten any better, if anything it’s gotten worse hence why my music has gotten even darker since 2014, and will grow into other projects to fully unchain my problems. Which is why I started Under the Pale Light of the Moon.
That sounds like a rough period and a lot of pressure to deal. I did notice the link in your SoundCloud bio to Under the Pale Light of the Moon. Can you tell me more about the project?
So I started the project around 11 months ago. At the time I was going through a whole lot of really bad shit mental health wise. I also spent a lot of time writing poetry, I then happened to write a passage that ended with “standing under the pale light of moon,” and the name stuck with me. At the time I was also listening to a lot of harsh noise and really angry and punishing music. Essentially I created the project so I can project all the hatred and anger I could fucking muster. I have big plans for that project, when I can finally stabilize my life and get enough money, I plan to turn that project into a one person black/drone/ doom metal band. I just really wanted to find another medium to project the most powerful, angry and most emotional music I could make without Reese bass and VSTs [Virtual Studio Technology], you know?
https://soundcloud.com/palelightofmoon/sets/underthepalelightofmoon
Listening to your side project, it does sound more in line with some of the influences you mentioned. You talked about making music Reese bass and VSTs – does this mean you want move to playing music with actual instruments?
Oh I’ve always wanted to play music with actual instruments. The only reason I haven’t done that is because of the situation I’m in – I’d rather not get into it. However there’s something really genuine about the idea of playing really depressing power chords or really thick, heavy droning Sunn O))) type guitar riffs. Blasting drums with bits of merzbow inspired harsh noise while giving out strangled screams or really vexed and long growls. To me that feels more personal and engulfing than sitting at a laptop and pushing buttons for a couple of hours.
You seem passionate about the side project. Is this the evolution of Pearl White? From the Reese bass and VSTs on a computer to angry, noisey metal?
Very much so. I’ve always always wanted to make that kind of music, way before I even started producing. However I want to keep those things separate entities for the sake of wanting to keep both mediums around me for whenever I feel like making separate kinds of music. I don’t want to lose the buzz that I earned from “pearl white,” but I also don’t want to fully rely on metal for my musical endeavors because sometimes I just really enjoy just making pretty and emotional soft sounding melodies or witch house inspired anthems that won’t appeal to some people who are deeply into the metal scene.
With that being said, I hope to hear new music from both your projects in the future. Thank you for taking the time to talk music and give us a glimpse into your history as well as what you have planned for the future. Is there anything you’d like to say at the end of this interview?
Thank you so much, I appreciate the opportunity. The only thing that comes to mind is check out my collective “TITAN”s 3rd installment of tapes called 003 featuring yours truly, on the 17th. Much love.
If you can listen to Pearl White’s music down below, or check out his project Under the Pale Light of the Moon here.