Every once in a while, something magical happens in Nashville. Something breaks free from the city’s predictable event scene and delivers an experience that feels genuinely immersive, inspiring, and unforgettable. This past Thursday at Analog at Hutton Hotel, The Phoenix Rising Psychedelic Speakeasy was exactly that. Curated by Edward Crowe, manager of Yelawolf, alongside a close-knit crew of creative collaborators, the evening brought together music, art, education, and (as advertised) psychedelics.
Among those setting the mood was acclaimed artist producer DJ Nutritious.
With a sun-soaked blend of deep house and infectious grooves, Nutritious has been making international waves of late, fresh off the success of his Solarmaxxing EP that recently hit #1 in rotation on SiriusXM Chill. Now, Nutritious gears up to release a new Nu-House remix of the project’s fan-favorite title track on November 20th.
With nearly a million streams, global chart recognition, and a sound that invites listeners to reconnect with the natural world, DJ Nutritious is creating something that goes beyond the dance floor. We had the chance to chat with him before the event.
How did this event come about?
- DJ Nutritious: Meeting Edward Crowe has been really special. His vision for bringing psychedelic education, culture, and experiences to Nashville is meaningful and very inspiring. I know it’s something he’s wanted to do for a while, so I was honored to be asked to be part of it.
- It was really Edward asking me to come and participate. As we started talking more about the show and thinking about what would make for a really nice experience in a speakeasy environment, we arrived at this idea of soundtracking the night. That’s something I think about anytime I’m doing a performance, but this is a really different and special opportunity, because it’s not a dense party environment. It’s cool to have this mellow, deeply meditative and introspective atmosphere, where people can learn about psychedelics and experience some really cool music.
How do you approach each event when deciding what atmosphere you want to create?
- It’s a mix of both. Sometimes I go into events and really have no idea what to expect, because the space is new to me or I haven’t been there before or the organizers just say, ‘We like what you do. Do your thing.’ I think a lot about the environment, but not just the physical space. I think about the moment in time when the event is occurring and where in the world it’s happening. If it’s in a certain city, I think about the familiar, standout elements of musical culture there that I can weave into the set. When I have the opportunity to do some preplanning with the organizers, I’ll definitely speak with them and get an idea of what they’re going for. But most of the time, it’s doing my own thinking and research around the event, trying to figure out what I can do to make it special.
So, you’ll weave some country into this one?
- Yeah, for sure.
When you’re preparing a set, do you have everything planned out?
- Never pre-planned. I bring a lot of raw ingredients. The pre-planning is ideas and concepts for ingredients, and then making sure I have a good cache of those to pull from. But from there, every decision is made in the moment, onstage.
I bet that adds to the spiritual or psychedelic element for you. You’re creating this living, breathing moment.
- I would agree with that 100%.
- You play music, right? Think about a good performance in a band. You can rehearse songs and get them dialed in to the point where you’re remembering your lines, your parts, and all of that. But a really good performance is when you’re letting go of a little bit of that control in the moment and channeling the energy and the vibe. I definitely do that with deejaying in a big way.
Do you see the turntable as its own instrument? How does your background as a drummer influence your deejaying?
- It was actually a substitute for the drums; it was easier to store and practice without making a lot of noise. When I discovered that element, I was already experimenting with making mixes on different types of equipment. Turntables became this happy medium. I was at a moment in my life where I didn’t have a place to store a drum set, but I could still work with rhythms and beats in a more compact setup.
- I wouldn’t say I play them quite like drums; I see them as a hybrid of a multitude of instruments, but really, they’re like nothing else. With turntables, you can manipulate tone and sound by slowing down or speeding up a record. With the mixing board and EQ, you’re shaping sound in another way. It’s this mix of synthesis… playing some sort of analog instrument and mixing and engineering.
There’s a lot of engineering that goes into it.
- Absolutely. Every room is different and you’ve got to fit the sound to the space. Dialing in EQ and phase and all of that to make sure it sounds good is a big part of it, too.
- It’s actually a lot of fun. That’s how I started tinkering with this type of stuff to begin with. One of my favorite pieces of equipment in my early setup, before turntables, was a four-track cassette recorder with pitch control. You could speed up and slow down the cassette, run it through effects, and turn what might be a familiar song into all these different tones. You could even make it unrecognizable and create completely new music out of it.
- That’s a big part of my production process, too — resampling. You take a sound, record it, affect it, do something to it, reverse it, record that as a sample, and then do something else to that. Eventually, you wind up somewhere with this ideally beautiful sound that you can make the centerpiece of a song or use as a bed to write a song over. It’s all sound design, essentially. I’ve found that to be the most fun part of the process.
I’m such a food and wellness junkie — those are such important parts of my life. How do music and food intersect for you?
- Good question. I started tuning in and realizing the power of food, diet, and lifestyle as vehicles for transformation. Not just healing, but optimization and incredible things.
- When people say ‘you are what you eat’, I think about how I grew up during a period — especially in New York — when it wasn’t commonplace for people to understand the effects of food on their physiology, their minds, their mental health, and everything else. When I started discovering that and making changes, I began understanding what I think of as the energetic properties of food and how everything you consume has downstream effects.
- That grew into a real obsession with understanding how those ideas connect to just about everything else: music, sound, light, environments, and all of that. Once I was able to grasp it for myself, I wanted to help more people understand it and tune into it. So, I studied at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in New York. I loved it. It was so much fun.
- On the other side of that, I had some education that helped me substantiate what I was learning. The goal at that point was ‘how can I help the world’? I know that sounds high in the sky, but I think it’s obvious to most people that the world needs some healing and change. I felt very strongly that this could be my small part in doing that. That’s evolved over time as I’ve gotten involved in more projects and more things. But it was really food, fasting, and cleansing at first. Then, it became understanding sourcing, how food is grown, how that affects the food itself, and the downstream effects on the people and beings who consume it. I just want to help more people understand the power of that.
If you could only cook one meal for someone, what would it be?
- Wow. Not cooking, I make a pretty mean smoothie. As far as cooking, probably anything seafood. I really like to cook seafood. I cook very simply, actually. I’ve learned how to make all the crazy stuff, but I love just quickly grilling something and letting the food speak for itself.
Pertaining to this event, what’s your favorite psychedelic?
- Nature is the ultimate psychedelic, especially the sun. If I had to choose a synthetic, I would definitely say LSD.
I hear that playing music with your brother when you were little opened your mind to psychedelics?
- It’s wild. The story was told to me by my brother, because I was so young. A toddler. He told me he would drop acid and jam with me. He said fractals would swirl off of me when we would jam.
- He told me those stories when I was in my teens, so I definitely didn’t have any cognition at the time that it was happening. But, by the time I got into my teens, he was still encouraging me to jam with him and play music. For him, that was something we’d been doing for awhile. My earliest memories of it are probably from when I was seven, eight, nine, or 10 years old. He had me jam with his band at a live show when I was about 10 or 11. It was a lot of fun. It really immersed me in [music]. I think he just wanted to share that experience. He was excited to have a younger brother to share it with.
- I grew up into [associating music with psychedelics]; I don’t think I realized how profound and meaningful it was, or how much it influenced me, until I got older. Looking back on it, it’s just been incredible. I remember being in my teens and tripping out on all the cool psychedelic rock that was happening in the late 60s and early 70s. That was big for me. It was a huge influence and it still is.
What’s your favorite music to listen to?
- Jazz, for sure. I love listening to jazz. I’m a big Bill Evans fan. I love Bill Evans. There’s a drummer named Ari Hoenig, who’s just a fierce drummer and very experimental in terms of the type of jazz he does.
- I really like that world. Jazz, primarily, and then a lot of related genres, like soul and funk, for sure. But, if I had to pick a favorite to sit and chill out to, I just love the sounds of jazz.
Is there a particular moment in your career that you’re most proud of so far?
- Wow. That’s a really great question. Each new thing is just mind-blowing and unexpected and cool. Playing a new environment or even playing somewhere I’ve performed before, but returning for a different show that’s maybe bigger, with more people, and more excitement around it is pretty mind-blowing. With these latest releases, I think I’m starting to wrap my mind around the fact that Solarmaxxing is doing really well. I’m definitely proud of it. I think I’m going to get to a point in the near future where I can fully appreciate that. I’m still in that mode where I’m seeing it evolve and take off.
- People are telling me [the EP] is great and I think this is the project where I’ve received the most feedback and excitement. People are buying the record, it’s getting played all over the place and all of those things. I love the project. I wanted it to be a really strong project and I put a lot into it.
Do you think music can produce something similar to a psychedelic experience on its own, without substances involved?
- One hundred percent. I’ve certainly seen it happen for other people. I perform sober all the time and I completely lose myself in the music. That experience, to me, is more psychedelic than any trip or journey on a substance, for sure. There’s nothing else quite like it.
What’s something you believe about music or consciousness that most people would think sounds a little crazy?
- I’m starting to believe that the sun is conscious.
- I think if we are consciousness experiencing itself, so much of that is driven by light. But also, the sun is part of that. It very obviously provides algorithms and information to life on Earth. I think that’s the part we can comprehend and agree on.
- Maybe the next step in understanding is realizing that it’s conscious.
What’s on the docket for you over the next year? Are you working on another album or planning more shows?
- I have a couple of projects I’m working on with other artists that we’ll announce and I’m really excited about those. The big focus right now is shows and I’m doing more with Solarmaxxing.
- Coming up on November 20th, I’m releasing an alternate version of the single “Solar Maxxing” that I produced. There are also going to be other remixes from songs on the album coming out over the next few months. And I’m super excited about playing an all-vinyl set at Dante’s HiFi in Miami.
For more on DJ Nutritious, follow the links below and make sure to check out his Solarmaxxing EP, out now on all digital outlets!
Listen to ‘Solarmaxxing’ EP on Spotify
Photography by Derek Jones; article by Anastasia Elliot
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