We were lucky to catch up with Chris Taylor recently and have shared our conversation below.
Chris, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I’ve always been fascinated with music production. In High-School, I used take hip-hop acapellas and instrumentals and mix different ones together. I would burn them on CD’s and pass them out for free to my friends. I think the one defining album for me was ‘Cross’ by Justice. That was the album that made me want to take music production seriously.
Chris, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Destryur is Chris Taylor originally hailing from Tampa, FL and New York City. As a kid he had an interest in music production starting with creating hip hop mix CD’s in high-school and giving them to friends for free. Daft Punk’s Homework and Justice’s Cross turned him onto electronic music and made him want to produce. He started making trap style/dubstep music around 2011 and discovering synthwave (Mitch Murder and Perturbator) changed his musical direction. He started spinning at Sam Valentine’s Nightwav dance parties and set himself apart from his Darksynth peers with music infinitely more danceable but just as menacing. Each of his releases are a self-contained world of madness and kitsch. Sleazy city underbellies to hillside horrors. Destryur wears his Troma influences proudly and pulls inspiration from films, re-interpreting the stories into songs using mostly digital instruments with the occasional hardware synthesizers Moog SubPhatty and Jupiter 8.
Destryur’s debut album Panic slashed its way into the world in 2019, peaking at #1 on Bandcamp’s Electronic albums and #17 on the iTunes Russia charts. In 2020, Destryur teamed up with STRNGR to release Night at the Grindhouse on NRW Records, which solidified his foothold in the Darksynth scene. Destryur has also been featured on the documentary soundtracks ‘In Search of Darkness’ Parts 2 and 3. His music has garnered over 3 million streams across Spotify and Apple Music.
Destryur has played alongside some of the best electronic artists, including Perturbator, GosT, Magic Sword, Combichrist, Brothel and Omar Doom’s STRAIGHT RAZOR.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
One of my main goals is to produce music for a film or TV show. Another is to keep making music that I want to hear.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Most of the music I’ve produced over the years has been made on my couch, or on my bed. I used to believe that if you had a studio, that would lead to better music. I had a studio for a couple of years and never really had the time to sit down and make music in it. For me, the couch and a decent pair of headphones work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Destryur.com
- Instagram: @destryur
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/destryur
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCd2D08hyEncZDbbzvrdgLNA
- Other: https://bandcamp.com/destryur
Image Credits
@linkreturns on Instagram @seyward on Instagram @carlosmsilvaphoto on Instagram