We spoke to Nate VanDeusen, a New York-based Tropical House producer who released his stunning single ‘Summer Dreams’ on September 13th via Nate VanDeusen Music. With over 125 million streams and counting across platforms, and ‘Summer Dreams’ already at 45,000 streams on Spotify, Nate has carved a distinguished path for himself. He also boasts praise from notable publications like Mixmag, as well as support from BBC Radio Wales, and influential YouTube channels Tropical House Records and WaveMusic. In the interview, we chat to Nate about his musical roots, how he’s managed to stay motivated over the course of his career and he gives some insight into his creative processes.
Stream ‘Summer Dreams’ while reading the interview below:
1. Tell us about you, how long have you been making music? What inspired you to start?
First off, thanks for having me! My name is Nate VanDeusen and I am a singer/songwriter/producer/little-of-everything from New York.
I have been making music for the past 20 years in some form. From composing sci-fi film soundtracks, to singing vocals for hire, to producing music on my several solo projects, I have been making all sorts of different music along the way. Most recently I have been focusing on writing and producing my chill, tropical house music such as this one, ‘Summer Dreams’.
As a kid, my Dad would pull out his old, all-metal dobro guitar from time to time and play classics by Led Zeppelin, The Doors, or another 70’s band. Once I decided to pick up and learn guitar myself, it wasn’t long before I started writing my own songs. I found an old cassette recorder in my parents attic that I started recording the ideas I would come up with. Shortly after that, I started using Garageband and Logic Pro from there. In the early days of making music everything was new to me so I would jump from genre to genre, appreciating the different instruments and styles that they each brought. Eventually, electronic music was where I felt most inspired because of the endless possibilities that broad genre brought. I love that synths, samples, plugins, and computers allow for an infinite amount of different sounds that someone can use to compose a song with.
2. The music industry is super competitive these days, was there a moment in your life that you wanted to give up on music? How did you manage to stay focused and achieve what you want?
Oh yeahhh, countless times haha. I have learned to live by the saying “do what you love and success will follow”. In this era of streaming, it is very easy to become fixated on numbers, streams, followers, etc. that can lead to a lot of disappointment and pessimism about the whole music industry. What has always kept me moving forward is simply continuing to make music. It is what I love to do, and most of my favorite music that I have created was made when I wasn’t worrying about streams or likes. As a musician, I continue to make the music that I love and hope that others will connect with it in some way.
3. How would you describe your creative processes? Who writes the lyrics to the songs? Are the music and lyrics written in conjunction, or separately?
I try to split my release between solo songs and collaborations, so when I am creating solo music I do write my own lyrics in conjunction with writing the music. It almost always starts with picking up my acoustic guitar and strumming some chords and singing whatever comes to my mind. From there I refine the core idea of the song into something that I eventually love or decide it is better to work on again at a later time with fresh ears and mind. On the other hand, if I am collaborating with another artist then the process changes up a bit to suit the situation. As a producer, I think it is important to be adaptable to whatever the song needs to become the best song it can be.
4. Where did the inspiration come from?
Inspiration to make new music can be as simple as hearing a new interesting sound in a song that makes me want to try and replicate something as interesting, to something as complex as the way I feel about my entire life and trying to capture the excitement I have for the future or the feeling of nostalgia for the past. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely times that I have writer’s block and can’t come up with anything interesting for days or weeks but other times it seems like I find inspiration in almost anything, it’s funny how creativity can spark anywhere.
5. What’s next for you?
Quite a bit! I have been writing new music nonstop. Whether it is my own solo music, collaborating with other artists, or working on a movie soundtrack, I have been keeping very busy making new music. For now, I have a new song scheduled every two weeks for the next year, so if you are looking for new music you know where to find it!