Roseville. A town near Detroit, Michigan that went through some rough times, and has been completely re-invented since it first came to be. This story fascinated artist/producer Sammy White after finding out that his father was from this area of Michigan, sparking him to take on the alias “Roseville” when releasing EDM music.
“I always did music stuff, I grew up playing in concert bands, but I was never listening to music on my headphones and wanted to listen to classical music; I wanted something that fit me more. I stumbled upon electronic music and one album that really sparked my interest was Skrillex’s “Scary Monster’s and Nice Sprites”; I heard that and thought it was really crazy. So after that I started looking into what this whole genre was and I thought ‘I wanna make this, they’re doing it all on a laptop, that’s awesome’. I downloaded some software and watched Youtube Tutorials and just kept at it.”
Sammy’s no stranger to hard work, quickly making connections with acclaimed producers from his hometown of Chicago such as Louis the Child and Whethan who helped him learn the ropes and perfect his craft as much as possible
“I started on FL Studio just cause I didn’t know anything about it and for the first couple of years I was producing, that’s what I was using. I started working with the Louis The Child guys and they all work in Ableton and they said ‘yo, we can help you with your music and the tricks of the trade, but you’ve gotta be on Ableton because that’s how we know the different tricks and ways to make your stuff sound better’, so I crossed over and it was the best decision. It’s a great software, I’m a big fan”
Sammy strives to perfect his sound with every track he puts out, making sure that fans know that they’re listening to a Roseville track
“Skrillex is one of the big reasons I got into electronic music, but it’s not necessarily the same genre I produce. I just listen to a bunch of stuff and then I pick away at pieces that I like on certain things. Someone wrote up about one of my songs recently and said ‘he very clearly has the Chicago electronic sound like Whethan and Louis the Child’ and I was like alright I didn’t know that’s how you’d describe it but sure I’ll take it. So if you look at it from that angle I guess you could say that Louis the Child and Whethan and all the Chicago guys are influencing my sound which would make sense because those are the guys I’m usually around.”
Despite being constantly around EDM producers and the electronic scene in general, Sammy has admitted that he has a soft spot for alternative and pop-punk music
“I’ve been dreaming of a pop-punk revival for years now, I’ve been craving it. I’m talking back when you would turn on the radio and every single song on top 20 radio was pop-punk and it was in every single movie, that whole vibe.”
“From what I’ve been seeing, a lot of electronic music has become grungier and there’s more distortion and definitely has more of an edge to it rather than a couple of years ago when everything was really light and happy and poppy and fun. It’s still fun and still cool but a lot of people are putting an edge to it which I think is starting to come from that punk influence. Definitely a lot of cross-genre mixing, everything’s starting to cross-over weirdly. The way I think about it, EDM doesn’t make sense as a genre name. That’s the only genre out there that is called how it is based on the way it is made, because it’s made electronically. If you think about that, anything can be electronic music, that can be applicable to all genres because a lot of music these days is made electronically, not just EDM.”
This interest sparked his newest release, a re-do of “Misery Business” by Paramore, which has racked up over 8,000 streams on SoundCloud
“I made the whole song without any vocals, and I could have either have gone and gotten someone to record vocals and had it be original; I thought the song was cool but I didn’t know if I wanted to label it as my first original. It was a fun one so I just wanted to kind of get it out there. I looked up songs in the same key, tried out 30 different singers, and Paramore ended up working the best so I was like “dope, alright let’s go with that one”
I first heard of Roseville in November when I went to student-run concert, Bandersnatch and was immediately hooked by his laid-back nature as a performer and how confident he seemed to be in front of such a large crowd of his peers
“For me, live performances are fun because I get to play what I wanna play. Me and my friends always joke that the biggest fights we get into is about who gets the aux cord because we all wanna play our own music; when I’m out there performing, I’ve got the ultimate aux cord and I can play out these giant-ass speakers so that’s really fun. I’m not a big flashy-showy person who likes to go out there and be like “what’s up guys!!” all big and stuff like that and that’s something I need to work on because you gotta be able to put on a show; performing is fun but it can get nerve-wracking sometimes. During Bandersnatch, I swear I blacked out during the set, I wasn’t paying attention I was just kinda in my zone and after the set, someone was showing me pictures and I was like ‘oh shit, there are a decent amount of people in the crowd’. If I looked out and saw that I may have been like ‘uuuuhhhh what’s going on here’ but it’s a lot of fun because I get to play what I want to play and I get to play my music. I played one of my new songs that I hadn’t released yet at the set and it sounded really nice on the speaker system”
Live performances are almost a surreal moment for White, seeing as it was something that has been a thought in his mind since his high school days and early years as a producer
“Bandersnatch was my biggest show, I’ve played the Westcott Theater a handful of times, and I’ve done Chicago but I can’t remember where. Me and one other kid in my town started making electronic stuff around the same time, and we’d always be making songs and be like ‘damn, I wish we could hear this on a live speaker system’. Of course all our music back then was crap and it would’ve sounded terrible but it’s kinda cool now actually being able to play myself out of a giant speaker system and just bump”
In terms of his favorite song, Sammy couldn’t make up his mind
“I like them all for different reasons. I really like the Odesza one because I have a good memory associated with making that song; I got the keys to the Louis the Child studio for the weekend so I was in there for 48 hours straight working on songs. That was just a lot of fun being able to do that, it was a fun writing experience. I really like the new Paramore one because technicality wise, it’s one of the better mixes I’ve done, it’s a lot cleaner than some of my older stuff, the sounds fit nicer together so I’m really happy with how that one came out. The Cody Lovaas “Bodies” remix was a cool one because I got support from the artist and that was while I was out in LA so it was really fun to be out there and writing. And then the first one I released, I like that one because it’s my lil baby, it was the first one I wrote, that’s what got it all started.”
Hard work has paid off with Sammy’s remixes have gaining over 200k plays on SoundCloud, with that number climbing week by week
“I definitely think it helps that Louis the Child and Whethan have showed support and liked and re-posted, so that definitely helped a little bit with the play count. I’m very happy with the numbers. I remember when I was younger I’d freak out if I broke 100 plays and then I freaked out when I got 1,000 plays and then when it goes to 10,000 on SoundCloud it goes to 10k and I remember being like ‘yo I won a letter in my play count, that’s the next goal’ and I look back now and I have over 100,000. It’s very awesome to see it progress like that.”
What makes people want to listen to Roseville?
“I think it’s fun, it’s easy to listen to, I’m not hitting you with these crazy dub-step wubs. A lot of people will text me and be like “ay I’m playing your song at a pre-game right now!’ so it definitely fits well in a college scene with people who want to have fun and it helps throwing on familiar vocals, that was a good way for me to get started. By throwing on familiar vocals and then having my name there so they’d start to remember “oh Roseville remix’s are quality” and then I can start to slowly put out original stuff since they trust my remixes they should trust my original stuff as quality content too.”
“All the stuff that I have out right now is strictly electronic, but I’ve been messing around more and more with live instruments and recording stuff. My roommate, Isaac plays guitar so I’ve had him strum out some stuff for me, play some chords, lay out some top lines, whatever it may be. I’ll plug in a little keyboard into my laptop and I’ll play that. Not to say that that’s virtuoso stuff but it’s a little more live than if I were to click it into a computer. But everything right now is all electronic and hopefully that’ll change soon.”
“I’ve got one song that I’m waiting to get vocals on, I’ve got 4 original songs that I’m waiting on vocals for, I’ve got a handful of remixes that will probably never get released, and then I’ve got some weird stuff that I’m never gonna release and I just make because I’m bored.”
With all of his current success, we have no doubt that Roseville will be a household name in no time. However, when it comes to the future, Sammy doesn’t have anything planned and is willing to go wherever life takes him once he’s finished school
“The way I look at it is, I love making music, I love working in management. The plan is to work in management post-grad, all the while continuing to work in music. If it ends up getting pushed back as a hobby, so be it, but in a perfect world I could just make music and that’s what I would do but I also really like the management side of things so I’m just gonna keep doing both. Some people might be like “if you’re not giving your 100% into one thing, you’re gonna fail’ but I like them both too much to just decide on one, so we’ll see, I don’t know. Whatever happens, happens with either one of them.”
Listen to Sammy’s SoundCloud here!