Planetary Group took some time to get to know Pick Patek…
Planetary Group: Tell us about your latest release. How did you come to create it?
Pick: Yung Wacho sent me a starter for a song, like a bare bones beat with a light structure. I took the beat, I chopped it up a little bit, added some more drums and a bass, then maybe a synth or something. It was really as simple as that: sampling what he had sent me and reimagining it.
I actually had recorded the hook in a normal voice when the beat was faster. And when I slowed down the beat, I accidentally slowed down the vocals and pitched both down. But it just ended up sounding cool, so I didn’t touch it. And I wanted it to kind of sound like it was like a vocal sample.
PG: Share a bit about your musical journey, from when you first started making music until now.
Pick: I started making music back in fifth grade. I had Garageband on my mom’s Mac, so I started recording on that. I’ve been making songs my whole life, but it was in the last three/ four years that I’ve really started to take this seriously. I went to college in Pittsburgh and then I moved to Long Beach, just south of LA, to pursue music full time.
PG: Let’s talk about the music that you love. Pick one album for each category below & tell us a bit about it!
- An album you grew up listening to:
Pick: Yeezus by Kanye West. I remember they gave out Yeezus for free on Google Play. And I had just made a Google Play account, so I got the whole album for free and it was the only music I had at the time. So I just listened to it on repeat and ever since then, it was in constant rotation growing up.
- An album that inspires you as an artist (I’m sure there are many, but pick one of your choosing):
Pick: It’s gotta be TESTING by A$AP Rocky.
Love it or hate it, you definitely gotta recognize… it’s very out there. It’s super, super creative. He definitely wasn’t afraid to try new things. And even if sonically I’m not taking inspiration from it, I think it was a great thing to put out and has inspired me a lot to experiment myself.
- The album you currently have on repeat:
Pick: I would have to say 2 Alivë by Yeat. It’s just a different type of music… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just different, it catches my ear different. It’s exactly what I need right now.
PG: What do you want people to take away from your music?
Pick: I want people to take away whatever they feel like. I’ve gotten some really inspiring messages where people are relating to my music in ways that I didn’t even consider when I wrote it. So I can’t say for sure what I want you to take away from listening to my music, but what I put into my music is my most authentic self. I’m very candid – the good and the bad, I really try to put all that in my music. So if you can relate to that anyway, I think you’re gonna take away something great.
What’s next up for you?
Pick: I think what’s next up for me is a whole lot more music, a whole lot more videos, maybe some shows. I’m definitely not stopping anytime soon. A lot more to come.
