Based out of Richmond, Virginia, Jame Moorfield has done a fitting job as an emerging purveyor of deep and tech house, gracing labels such as MadTech, Rawsome, FXtion, Underground Audio and more with his club ready sound.
Approaching the end of 2018, Moorfield is preparing for a string of gigs in his native state of Virginia, as well as a release with the Good Buddies crew. We caught up with the American house talent to chat about what he has in the planner among other things.
Jame Moorfield, it’s great to speak with you again, how have you been?
Hey Kyle, I’ve been well! Thanks for having me.
Your recent outing with Say Less, talk us through the EP?
Yea, The Fusion EP came out last month and it’s the second EP I’ve released with Say Less. It’s three tracks that I hoped would land somewhere between functional club tools and something you could listen to in your car or at a party. Warm chords, and vocals, but still with a larger low end. The EP also includes an amazing remix by Onur Ozman.
And how did you come to release it with those guys?
Everyone at Say Less has been super kind and incredibly receptive to everything I sent over previously, so after my first EP came out, I knew I wanted to keep working with them. I can’t exactly remember how many tracks I sent over, but I really wanted to get the title track signed and see how it would do. We got the other two tracks squared away and Say Less was able to lock in a couple really nice premieres for it.
Turns out the title track is less popular than the other two, but I’m still stoked. They invited me up to play at their monthly event at the end of October, and that was amazing. It was the first time I’d played in Philly and everyone was so kind. Shouts out Slacksss for holding it down with me that night!
You also self-released an EP, how come that one didn’t find its way onto any labels?
Yea, I self-released The Gaze EP a few weeks back on Bandcamp. I’ve been trying to broaden the types of house I make and hopefully not get pigeon-holed into one particular sub-genre. The Gaze and The Rise, which I self-released as well, are a bit more deep than the stuff I’ve had signed with labels and after sending them off to a couple places and not getting any response I decided I’d just put ‘em out myself.
I think it can be hard for labels to sign tracks from an artist when their back catalog is heavy with one particular sub-genre, and that artists past releases don’t exactly match up. That might have been part of the reason, but also maybe they just weren’t that good haha.
I enjoyed writing them, but really tried to push myself and learn new things about theory and chord progressions along the way. I’m still very much developing that, so I may continue to self-release stuff from time to time until I feel like the sound is better crafted. At the end of the day, I just like to write house, and I’d rather get the music out one way or another rather than it waste away on my hard drive.
And how about future productions, will we see more music from you before the year is out?
I’ve got a track coming out on the second Good Buddies compilation and that should be out at the end of November. Besides that, maybe a couple of free downloads! I’ve been trying to keep my release schedule a bit more low-key recently. Just been writing a lot, stacking tracks and waiting until I found a proper home for everything.
What about 2019?
For 2019, I’m hoping to re-connect with some labels I’ve worked with in the past and see if I can get some more EPs signed with them. I’ll probably do a couple of self-released EP’s along the way too. I’d also really like to focus on gigs for 2019. I’m ready to get out of my bedroom after this past year haha.
You’re playing a few gigs in your home city of Richmond in the coming weeks, are you excited?
Super excited for those. The closest gig will be a Museum District show, which is a separate project of mine with my partner Anneliese. She’s an incredible singer and that project came about after I couldn’t get a vocal sample cleared and was searching for someone to record live vocals with. She recorded some stuff on a couple rough tracks of mine and then we thought “why don’t we just do this for real and write some stuff together“.
We do our gigs the same way, so she’ll be singing live for most of that night. I feel like Richmond is slowly starting to blossom with it’s scene and the Museum District shows we’ve done in the past have had great responses, so we’re both stoked to get back out and play.
Thanks for taking the time out to chat, before we go, give us one piece of advice you wish you had got when you first started out in music?
That’s a tough one. I could name so many haha. There’s always the ones like, ‘be original’, ‘develop your sound or your brand’, ‘network with people at gigs/online’, which are massively important and I don’t think I’ve come close to mastering any of them, but one piece of advice I wish I had earlier would be to not take things too seriously.
I’ve always been a huge stress-freak, so I’m constantly worrying, and over-analyzing everything, and I think a lot of other people in our industry struggle with the same things. Stress and anxiety are a serious issue within the music industry as a whole, and I think that some of the business of this industry can really start to wear on your passion and health overtime. It’s incredibly important to care about your craft, but we’re all in this because we like to make, play, and listen to music. It should be enjoyable from whatever angle you’re coming at it from.