Featured Artist Friday: KaBASS

In this week’s Friday spotlight we take a look at Central Illinois EDM producer Brady Gudgel. The 24-year old Gudgel has been producing music for the past four years under the artist name KaBASS, and began to DJ back in 2011. KaBASS is a member of the Ghouls Crew and goes through GOETIA to book his shows.

Since becoming an EDM producer four years ago, KaBASS has played at least twenty shows a year. Most of his performances to date have been in Illinois, but he has also played a number of shows in St. Louis, Missouri.

“I've always been an absolute fanatic over electronic music,” said KaBASS. “It started when I was a young child with listening to Moby and Daft Punk everyday. When I was a teenager I discovered Drum and Bass and that was the defining point of where my love for bass music started to blossom. Once I heard dubstep for the first time in 2011, I knew there was no going back. Something inside of me lit up like an explosion and I have had a passion for finding and creating the most diverse bass music my ears can handle.”

Over the course of his career, KaBASS has had the fortune of playing his music alongside national acts such as Shlump, Jantsen, Danny Grooves, Big Chocolate, and Thelem. The Springfield native has also played on B2B sets with former Featured Artists EKiM and PVPABEAR.

With every track he creates, KaBASS strives to tell a story of his life in the moment that he is creating each specific track. KaBASS begins creating every track with a basic idea of what emotions he wants his music to incite in those listening to his music.

Once he has decided on how he wants his listener to feel, he begins actually writing the track by designing the correct drum and synth sounds from scratch. KaBASS can spend multiple hours perfecting a single sound until it sounds perfect to him. At the end of it all, the Springfield native strives make a perfect track that allows his listeners to have a deep thought process while they enjoy his music.

“The entire bass community influences my writing process,” said KaBASS. “Because it's about being free and doing what you love. As long as I love what I'm doing, that's all the motivation I need to write. It's my sense of freedom in this world. The artists who influence my sound design are NastyNasty, Ganja White Night, DJ Shadow, and Truth.”

KaBASS’ music can be found on his SoundCloud profile and his Bandcamp website, which can be accessed by following the embedded playlist at the top of the article. Currently, KaBass is working to release a pair of singles before the end of the year with ThazDope Records and Old Ghost Records. He will also be coming out with a live mixtape of loops and samples in March of 2018. The title of that project is intended to be “Boots & Cats Vol. II."

“My sound is very diverse,” said KaBASS. “Usually it's dark and atmospheric. I am a multi-genre artist of dubstep. So I can and will create deep dubstep, heavy dubstep, riddim, and anything in between. My productions are very different from my style of DJing. I'm working my way into combining the best of both worlds.”

The Springfield native will be performing in four shows over the next couple of months. His next show is next Friday, December 8th at the Rail II in Peoria, IL where he will be apart of the “ThazDope Takeover.” Other artists that will be performing at the event are ThazDope artists Moniker, JuJu Beats, Psydell, and Danny Grooves.

He will also have a second show that weekend on Sunday, December 10th in St. Louis, Missouri. KaBASS will be performing at Cusumano’s Pizza where he will be apart of their event “Swampy Sunday.”

The last performance of 2017 for KaBASS will be December 29th in Crystal Lake, Illinois at the Four Seasons Banquet facility. KaBASS will be a main performer for Hailstorm, an event being held to celebrate the his friend's birthday. Following his December 29th performance, KaBASS will kick off the new year on January 14th in St. Louis to perform a second "Swampy Sunday" at Cusumano’s pizza.

“Some of my goals as an artist are to travel the world with my own signature sound and become one of the top producers in the underground scene,” said KaBASS. “I want to change lives of people with my music while influencing other artists to think outside the mold and create music they enjoy. Eventually, I want to just simply be a top supporter within the underground. Whether it will be from music, graphics, lighting, and/or simply website design. I'm in it for the long run.”

Next week’s Friday spotlight will be Chicago Rapper Dre Wil. Dre Wil will have two Whiskey Point Sessions videos that will be released in two weeks. Be sure to check out our most recent releases of Whiskey Point Sessions with OUTDrejas over on our YouTube Channel and our Facebook page.