Gainesville Duo Aspires To Be The Next EDM Chart-Toppers Story by Lawrence Laguna Photos by Robin Andrews
I
t was a normal day for high school teens David Hall and Tripp Churchill.
While some students unwind from the stresses of the day at the park or under the covers napping at home, Hall and Churchill are drawn to music. To them, making music with a laptop and their creative spirit in Hall’s room was all they needed to end the day. All they wanted to do was create music. Hall’s music producing skills and Churchill’s disk jockey mixing talents came together, and they planned how they could become one sound while fusing their passions for electronic dance music. The young duo is currently working to establish themselves in Gainesville’s EDM community. Hall got an early start working on what he believes will be his career. He aspires to become the next big name in the EDM world. At just 16, Hall was invested in producing music, but he struggled balancing his academics at Buchholz High School. He was more passionate about music production than studying and doing homework.
PART NATIVE
“Eventually I thought of the word nativity. We both have Cherokee lineage." Hall, now 18, walked at his graduation ceremony in May, but he is still working on completing one more high school credit. He decided to take a break between high school and college to focus on music, and he is enrolled at Santa Fe College for the spring 2016 semester.
to 2014, he said his songs were used in a variety of videos across the Web, from skydiving experiences to a tribute video of Paul Walker’s passing. Hall said his dubstep songs were becoming more popular on the Internet. Though Hall was advancing with his music online, he wanted to improve his workflow. He needed to be able to put his ideas onto the screen and learn the essentials as quickly as possible. So he decided to make the challenging switch from a PC to a MacBook, where software and hardware differed. But because he wanted to progress as an artist, he knew the challenge would pay off. Hall said MacBooks have a higher processing speed, which allowed him to generate and compile music demos. The MacBook advanced his ability to work with computers. Even with these technological advances, Hall envisioned his music career becoming bigger than just having people on the Internet use his songs in videos. Remixing a song with his school friend Churchill was the first step in their natural partnership as a musical duo. Churchill,18, was inspired by dubstep music in eighth grade and began creating music using beat-making software for rappers. He liked what hip-hop had to offer musically, and that influenced him to create instrumentals. Hall and Churchill aspire to be the next superstars of the EDM community under the name Part Native. It took the relatively inexperienced artists months to figure out a duo name that truly represented both members' identities. “Eventually I thought of the word nativity,” Hall said. “We both have Cherokee lineage.” Churchill added, “Then I figured, ‘Hey let’s just be Part Native because you’re (Hall) part Native (American).”’
In the meantime, Hall started producing original work under online creative common licensing, which enables people to use his songs as long as they credit him for his work.
Creating new beats together came naturally to Hall and Churchill. They have been friends since 2013 and meshing their sounds together was easy. Every now and then they log in to YouTube and search for their inspiration in the music scene: Zeds Dead, an EDM duo.
Hall explained that he was successful under the artist name Jallacy. From 2013
One video the two often watch is Zeds Dead’s 2014 multi-city New Year’s Eve tour.
23