Darby O’Trill cuts it up with ROX-TV. Check out the new interview with our homie from Florida.

As always, we strive to bring interesting artists on from the independent world, and give them a platform that might not always be available elsewhere. We support the underground and the people that make it all work. Tonight we have a special guest from Florida and I was thrilled when he said he would talk with us. So without further to do, lets get to it…

Welcome to ROX-TV Darby O’Trill. Before we get going, can you let the readers know what area and city your representing tonight?

I’m from South Florida, I grew up in Key Largo and Homestead. Most of the shows I do are in the Miami area.

As a person that is really into music, I dig hearing stories about what led artists to their journey with the sounds. When I was a young kid, I heard “6 in the mornin” by Ice T and it literally changed my life. I abandoned what I was doing and jumped on board with the rap scene in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Darby can you tell the readers when that moment came for you? Was there a particular band or song that got you excited about the art form?

I know this might come off as cliché or whatever, but the first songs that come to mind that really captured me were “Halls of Illusions” by ICP and “Freak on a Leash” by Korn. Both of those songs were just so heavy and different than all the classic rock bullshit my parents always had on, and the videos for both of those songs were incredible and mesmerizing to me.  The music hit me differently than anything I had ever heard before, I instantly connected deeply and identified with these songs. I can still listen to them and feel the same magic I felt when I first heard them. I found these songs and bands when I was around 11 or 12,and I would credit them as being the 2 songs that really helped get me into music.

From the time you started really paying attention to the music, how long was it before you jumped in and started “creating” your own music? 

It was only a couple years after I really started listening and identifying with music that I started to create it myself. I had a friend named Twitch who would freestyle all the time and he would always try to get me to rap with him. Eventually I tried and I found out I wasn’t completely garbage. From then on, I would always try to get everyone around me to freestyle. When I was about 16, my best friend Mark and I started a punk band called Brain Dead, and I would play the drums and sing on a few songs. I quickly realized that I hated playing drums, and just wanted to sing and rap, so we converted the band into a weird mash of punk and hip hop. After that inevitably didn’t work out, I just kept writing my own solo songs on any beat I could find.  Over a decade later and I’m still here doing it.

I’m an old school Juggalo from 1992. I got involved with the Clownz after getting turned onto “Dog Beats” when they were still Inner City Posse. They played a serious role in my life, for the next 29 years or so. On your 2018 “Cat dead, details later” album you have a song called “No one wants to be my friend because I’m a Juggalo”. All in all, there are eleven songs on that album, and it clocks in at 26 minutes. What can you tell me about that album? And about that particular song?

“Cat dead, details later” is actually an album of remixes done by my homie Cutthroat the Coroner. I had previously put out a bunch of songs using free and leased beats, and I wanted to make them more of my own and unique, not just the same beats a million other up and coming rappers were using, so Cutty and I came up with the idea to remix some of my more popular songs and release them as an actual cohesive album instead of some random sounding mixtape.

There’s a video out for “no one wants to be my friend because I’m a Juggalo” and it’s a completely different beat than what you hear on the album due to this. That song in particular means a lot to me cause it’s just me paying homage to the artists that inspired me. All the punchlines are references to Juggalo shit. I always see fans and internet heads giving Juggalo artists shit for referencing anything Juggalo related in their music, but any other “mainstream” type of artist can reference another artist or pop culture icon and it’s fine. I find that kind of hypocritical or ignorant, like another rapper can reference biggie or Tupac and that’s fine, but if I reference my favorite artists it’s not? So I used that song to say “fuck you and your standards. This is who I am and where I come from. I rep this shit to the fullest”.

“Blood Guts and a whole lotta love” dropped in November of 2018. Can you talk about that album for a little bit? My favorite songs from that release are “Rotten Body in a trailer park bathroom” and “Who left this dead midget in my trunk”. I’m into dark music, with serious undertones of sadness, and also the wicked shit as well. I grew up on ESHAM and ICP, and I’ve always enjoyed the darker corners of life personally. What was going on in your world at the time? What role did music start to play in your life during this time?

In all honesty, “Blood, Guts and a Whole Lotta Love” is less of an album and more of a compilation of a bunch of random songs I had out at the time that I grouped together into one release to put out on Spotify and iTunes etc.  but as with all of my songs, those tracks come from a personal place. As for what was going on in my world, I had just went through a split with a group I was a part of, so I was really trying to get my solo work pushed out. A lot of people have told me that some of my songs are too sad or too dark, but that’s just how my mind works. That’s how my life is, and music is how I vent my frustrations. Music will always play a crucial role in my life.

In 2019 you dropped “Fester” on Mental Warp Records. How would describe your music at this point and as you continued to drop releases? Would you say the process and creation started to get easier, or I guess a better way to put it, was as time went on, how did your sound evolve? There were 17 songs and the album clocked in at 39 minutes. It seems like the albums were starting to get longer with more tracks as you went along.

Fester’s release is pretty similar to “Blood, guts, and a whole lotta love”. I had been putting out a bunch of singles on SoundCloud, basically releasing songs as soon as I recorded them, so when I started having access to a wider distribution through Spotify, Apple Music and such, I just compiled all of those singles into one album instead of uploading a ton of random singles. I do know with the majority of those songs tho, I was starting to get more into a heavier type of sound that would continue to evolve into what my sound is today. I started experimenting with my voice and delivery a lot more on the songs featured on “Fester”.

In 2020 “Piecemeal” dropped on Mental Warp Records. You have SCUM on the track “Staying alive ain’t part of your future” and also another dope track with Ouija Macc called “Why is the rug talking to me”. What was it like to work with these two heavy hitters in the underground? How did the process for these collabs start? Can you talk some about the production/studio time?

Piecemeal was the first really I guess you would say “professional” album I did. It’s the first album I put out that was intentionally an album, and not just a bunch of singles out together. Devereaux and I had been talking about putting an album together for about a year, so he had been sending me hella beats and we just kept knocking songs out. At the time he was also working on some music with Scum and Dev knows that Scum has been one of my favorite artists for a long time, so he made that whole Collab happen by asking Scum if he would be down to work. I laced up my parts, sent it over and he had sent his verse back in like a day or two. Scum is the absolute dopest artist in the game. Dude works his ass off. I’m beyond proud of that song. As for Ouija, I had previously done a song with him when he was a part of Swag Toof, so him and I already had a working relationship. That’s the homie.

In November of 2020 you dropped the album “The Remains”. On the song “Street Trash” you have Shaggy the Airhead on the track. How did come together?

“The Remains” EP came about after Devereaux and I had finalized Piecemeal, there was a couple of tracks that I left off the album because I felt they didn’t fit right. So we took those leftover tracks and added a couple brand new songs we were working on and put the EP out. One of the new songs was “Street Trash” with ShaggyTheAirhead. Shaggy and I had been homies for a while, and had put out an EP together called “Bring out the clowns” a couple months prior, as well as collaborating on a couple different art ideas. Shaggy and I both grew up skateboarding so we made an ode to that. The song came out really dope. Shaggy killed it on his verse, and he came up with the concept for the skit in the middle. Dude is such an insanely talented artist. I really don’t like doing a lot of collabs unless I think it’s a really good fit, and with this one it made perfect sense. I feel a lot of times people try to get certain artists on songs with them to boost their clout or whatever, and then you’re left with an unbalanced track. I’m only really trying to work with homies and people I know will sound good on a song with me.

Between 2019 and 2020 you dropped a handful of singles. All in all, you’ve created a shit load of content in a short amount of time. What is the driving force behind you and your break neck work grind? 

At the end of the day, I just really love creating. Music is the one thing that is always there for me that helps me escape from all the other bullshit that comes with life.  I am constantly writing music and coming up with ideas. I guess my problems with myself and the world as a whole are the driving force behind what I’m doing. I’m trying to make dope songs for people who are into the same shit as me. I wanna keep the wicked shit alive.

I understand you plan to drop a series of new songs on the 17th of each month. The first installment was the “Terrorizer” which landed on March 17 of this year. Produced by Devereaux, the video was directed by Yung Strife, and filmed by Nikita Bliss. Can you describe this track to readers who haven’t heard it yet and tell them why they need to go check it out today?

So what we are doing is dropping new music videos on the 17th of each month until the end of the year. Some of these videos will be for new songs, and some will be for older songs.  Every video will be directed and edited by another one of my super talented homies, Yung Strife, who is an artist out of Seattle. Not only is he hella skilled with his video editing, but he’s also a really fresh musician. Seriously go check out his videos for “concussion cradle songs” and “grass just dies”. Dude is an underground gem, he reminds me of like a fusion between ICP and the Deftones. So for the video series we decided to start the rollout with a brand new song “terrorizer” which is the first single off of Devereaux and I’s upcoming double album “the beginning of the end” which is slated to drop later this year. Strife describes Terrorizer as “a song about murder over a booty shaking Miami club beat that is unapologetically Juggalo as fuck”. I think I’d have to agree with him. A lot of my songs seem to take on story telling elements, but with “Terrorizer” I see it as an old school shit talking type of song. If you like hype music about murder and mayhem, go check it out. The video came out hella fresh.

What’s the next song to drop in the series, since we are so close to the 17th, unless your keeping it under wraps for now? Any news you want to tease out to the fans on ROX-TV?

The next video to drop is another brand new song from Devereaux and I, off the new album. This one is a hard hitting horrorcore banger entitled “Down By The Lake” and will be out on April 17th. This song and video is more story oriented and cinematic as opposed to the shit talking and flexing seen and heard on “Terrorizer”. Then next month we are taking it back to “Piecemeal” with a video for the song “I think you would make excellent pig feed”.

What are your plans for the rest of 2021 and beyond? Shows, more drops?

For the rest of 2021 there will be the new music videos on the seventeenth of every month, “The beginning of the end” double album with Devereaux, another album I’ve been working on called “Suffer” which is all produced by my homie Cutty. ShaggyTheAirhead and I have a couple songs put together for a Collab EP and there is a couple other group projects I’m involved with that I can’t quite talk about yet. All I can say is if you are a fan of the wicked shit, be prepared because we are bringing it as hard as it can possibly get. Devereaux and I have also been doing a live show called “Swamp Ratz” on Instagram every Monday at 9pm est. As for shows, I’m booked to play Piratefest in Muncie, Indiana in August, and I’m currently looking to book more shows. I haven’t done a show in over a year and before that I was doing a couple shows a month. This pandemic shit sucks. But hopefully soon we can all get back out there and throw hands in the pit.

I’m an old school cat from the 1990’s. I dig the shout outs, always have. Who is Darby O’Trill shouting out tonight?

I have hella people to shout out and thank. First of all, I gotta shout out my brother Devereaux for believing in me and helping me create the best music I can possibly make. Love and thanks go out to Nikoteenie, Mark, ShaggyTheAirhead, Yung Strife, Cutty, Grim B, Zak, Carly, Ryan and Nikki, Rufio Spenz, LilGenny, JakeGee, Trade Voorhees, Fraylsail, Frankie G, Sean Davis, JR, JoJo, Keagan Grimm, Tommy Gunz, The Dirty Duo, Stray, the killthebasic and fsmg homies, DarianTHC, Warlord Colossus, Scum, Cyco, Damien Quinn and all of LSP, Dylan Hesterly, TeamMUJ, JedtheSloth, Gary and Helene, Caity, My Dad and big love and thanks to everyone who has shown me support during my journey, whether its purchasing an album, streaming, or sharing my art. I appreciate all of you. And thanks to y’all at ROX-TV for having me on. Much love.