In small town New Jersey, Brinton Ewart quite literally started learning how to play a guitar without a guitar at just thirteen years old.  That kid grew up to produce for artists like Kid Cudi, Jhene Aiko, Kelvyn Colt, and Machine Gun Kelly, going by the name of Woodro Skillson.

In this interview, that rise is told by Arkateqq: the artist and songwriter that came from the mind of Woodro Skillson and the roots of Brinton Ewart.  He shares how his success making music for others is influencing what he hopes to achieve through his original music.

Let’s go back to the beginning: Pilesgrove, New Jersey and Woodstown High.  In hindsight, do you believe your experience growing up in a small, farm town setting significantly impacted your decision to pursue a music career? What aspect of music-making were you drawn to most initially and why?

    I feel like there was always some kind of pull in that direction. In the beginning, the prior tenants of my childhood home left a very cheap Yamaha keyboard behind and that was my first introduction into key sounds and drum pads. I remember having fun with it, but I didn’t see it within any larger context then.  I played sports mostly during my free time, and I enjoyed listening to a range of music, but I didn’t consider that I would ever create music.  However, I was inspired by two of my friends who were teaching themselves guitar, so when I was 13, I was gifted a beginner guitar from my parents. I was actually watching videotapes of guitar chord shapes before I even had a guitar, but I knew my fingers needed to adjust over time, so I began the process of learning chord shapes and scales.  I became obsessed with it; I would practice for 3 hours a day then. Because I lived in a more remote area, it was a healthy habit to invest time into. We didn’t have a lively social scene nearby, and playing music kept me from being bored. Learning the acoustic guitar was really the catalyst for getting into the production aspect, because soon after that I was overdubbing my keyboard tracks and guitar recordings onto cassette tapes via karaoke machine.  I kept the tapes, but they would probably break if I played them now!

Do you credit any moment(s) and/or person(s) for planting the seeds that encouraged your interest in music engineering/production?

    I was particularly pushed by Kahlil Gunther, who at the time was the choir director and music teacher in my high school. He is a very talented pianist and was the first person to introduce me into PC- based DAW systems. In this case, he taught me how to use Cakewalk Sonar, and would let me stay after school to try and figure out how it worked. I made a 9-track CD over the course of the class, which I really tweaked over time as I was making mistakes and learning.  Being able to record vocals and guitar easily in a classroom, as well as digitally sample and arrange, really showed me the landscape of modern music production.  It was the first time that I felt like the process of making a quality recording didn’t need to be difficult. 

You’ve mentioned before that when you attended Five Towns College in Long Island, you spent a lot of time networking among your peers which proved to be vital to your career growth. What advice can you offer to the next generation of creatives looking to improve their networking skills in the digital age?

    I can say that being amongst so many creative people at Five Towns really inspired me to be more team-oriented. It was also very motivational, because there were talented musicians, singers, performers, as well as audio engineers who attended and were hungry to learn. It was a time of rapid growth, and I worked on campus as well as in the school’s recording studios. I met amazing people there, and I am still close with several.  I tried to be involved with school in many different types of ways. My friends and I started large-scale dodgeball games there. We played open mics, we listened to everyone’s music that we could, and we would tweak tracks in the studio in our free time. As an RA, I was responsible for being a leader, hosting events on-campus and encouraging the younger students, who sometimes were dealing with difficult emotional or health-related issues. In the studios, I worked as a mentor, and I had to understand more of the subject in order to coach it to other people. Being involved in more activities helped me to learn faster about respecting others, how to function as a team, as well as knowing how I can best interact within a team.

In 2009, the year Kid Cudi’s “Day N’ Nite” took over, you were signed to Dot Da Genius’s HeadBanga Muzik Group after landing an audition. Can you talk about how that came about and what you believe set you apart from the other producers?

    My friend Riliwan knew Dot and suggested that I audition, since Dot was looking for more collaborators for HeadBanga following the success of ‘Day N’ Nite’.  I remember there were a lot of people in the room that day, and I had come in with a bunch of beats I made on Reason.  I don’t really remember too much about the other beats that were played, but I knew that mine sounded different because I played them closer to the end of the meeting. The sounds and the type of bounces I used in my tracks were not very similar to the other producers’ work, and they were just weird enough that I was able to land that opportunity. I believe that Dot saw I could be versatile as a co-producer and know where to ‘fill in gaps’ on certain productions. I was thankful to get that call. 

What was the biggest adjustment for you and your sonic style when you became ½ of HeadBanga Muzik?

    There was definitely a time when the guitar had to take a back seat to the computer. During the time after I was signed with HeadBanga, I studied synth sounds, drum sounds, engineering and mixing much more intently. I had studied guitar heavily prior to that, but I was not as advanced as I am now at ‘shaping the idea’. YouTube became an essential part of learning new techniques to expand my instrumentals, and I would look at the structure and sound of past hits to gauge roughly what a great song sounds like when completed. Dot shared a lot of knowledge with me regarding strategies for building drums. For a long time, we were actually working in the studio on different aux cables and just syncing manually together to create through the same speakers, so we would have the session split on our two computers until everything needed to be consolidated for mixing. It was a good way to create spontaneously, but you couldn’t stop the loop! During this time, I also began working with more vocalists and songwriters, which really grew my process of translating an artist’s or musician’s idea quickly into a session. I started to understand how to present the full song to a listener and how to translate ‘feeling’ more. Sometimes we would use the guitars, and sometimes it wasn’t structurally necessary in the arrangement. Each mix we did was tailored in the way that suited the vocals or ‘the message’.

You’re also an artist, releasing your own material as Arkateqq that really leans into a LoFi-Rock sound. With a successful history making music for others in the Pop, Dance, Hip-Hop and RnB genres, would you describe Arkateqq as a sonic liberation?

    Arkateqq is, for me, the ongoing experiment of finding my sonic (and actual) voice. Prior to learning all about production and engineering, I was writing songs.  At the time, most of them were on an acoustic guitar, but I still enjoyed that process and being able to add more ‘substance’ to the instrumental layer.  In fact, some of my music that has been used by other artists was originally something that I wanted to write to or record over. Working across different genres, I’m self-aware enough to know that I won’t be the best songwriter or singer in many cases, and I’m more than willing to have someone else come in and write something powerful to my music. I love when that happens, and I love when collaborations turn out better than I could have imagined. I admire someone like Pharrell in that he can bring a vocal theme to his music, and will quite literally sing the song, if need be. Arkateqq is kind of my own little N.E.R.D. in that regard, because I’m challenging myself outside the boundaries of a lot of sounds I’ve used before, and outside of sounds that are tied to current trends.  Going forward, I’ll be writing and recording vocals more than ever with Arkateqq as that vessel. Whether the music and words I write are released in a more traditional capacity, or if they are performed by other artists, my effort is to present a fresh and honest viewpoint.  In that way, it’s very liberating. 

How do you want people to feel when they hear your music? Does that purpose differ between Woodro Skillson and Arkateqq?

    The biggest difference is that the Woodro material can mostly fall into classic formats, featuring another artist as a performer, whereas the material for Arkateqq will be much more inclusive of my own lyrics and melody ideas, guitars, and any type of strange noises I can find.  I believe we are entering a time where artists can find their way to a listener faster, and there are just way more places for a song to be heard or placed now.  For me, the focus into the future is going to be on the specific quality of sound of the recording, or the ‘character’. I also think that’s an important key in landing synch placements, nailing that ‘character’ of sound, and translating the emotion. The emotion could really be any specific one, as long as it makes sense with the music (and/or visual). As I continue writing my own songs, I’m placing specific emphasis on character and emotion. 

Do you have anything in store for 2022?

    This has been a big year for writing, I’m really excited for the songs being put together now. I’m playing more electric guitar again, but also at the same time working on a lot of production. Expect more guitar-related content soon! I’ll be making more videos surrounding guitar playing and maybe some more technical aspects of my sound. There are some other things in the works but it might be too early to speak on yet; I’m enjoying this period of exercising my imagination.

 
Thank you to Missing Link and Kaitlyn for the interview! Also, for all NYC or LA-area artists, book me at Brewery Recording Studio if you want to discuss working on your own music together!

Arkateqq was one of the first Missing Link Music clients I worked with when I started here in 2019, so it feels very fitting and special that he be my last Creative Control interview.  To listen to his playlist, click Here for Spotify and Here for Tidal.

Photo of Arkateqq taken by Shirley Yu.