Derek Palmer is a musician, composer and producer hailing from the Midwest United States. Even at an early age, the passion of music and creation ran through his veins. Striving to learn and experience music in all forms, he embarked on a musical journey that took him through all sights, sounds and moods of musical life. His focus on learning and expanding musical knowledge led him to begin writing music for trailers and film.
During this time, he began toying with the ideas of EDM as well and found a love for melodic based EDM music. Uplifting and melodic trance in the electronic music world has been his major focus, however, he also breaks out and enjoys writing more progressive and deep styles of music.
Through his journey in the EDM world, he has been fortunate enough to be supported by top acts in the EDM scene such as Armin van Burren, Aly & Fila, Paul Van Dyk, Paul Oakenfold, Ben Gold, Dan Stone, Aruna, Guisseppe Ottaviani and numerous others. He's also had his work featured from top labels in the scene as well such as A State of Trance, FSOE, Fables, Amsterdam Trance, Suanda Music, AVA Recordings/AVA White and many more.
The musical journey is never ending and there is much yet to be discovered.
Derek latest collaboration with Thomas Nikki Cielos Tranquilos is out now on FSOE Fables the label curated by Ferry Tayle. We are super glad that Derek took the challenge to answer out interview and we are super happy for his thought provoking answers. Prepare a nice cold drink and enjoy reading his answers.
1-Dimitris: It would be nice to start by telling us your 3 most important achievements or goals fulfilled in your career so far that you very are proud of.
Derek Palmer: My first thing I would have to talk about isn't even in the EDM world. I always wanted to write music for film and I've been fortunate enough to be able to do so in a few projects. I've been able to write for a few films and some trailers. A few of my bigger achievements has been doing work for Universal Studios and The US Army as well as a few national park promotions here in the US. I also did music for a video game, that unfortunately was put on the shelf after I had done some work, but nonetheless, still pretty cool to do that. When I first started writing music, I never thought I would see my music in a film or trailer (or in one instance a Hockey game!). So that's a major achievement and goal I've had for decades.
In terms of EDM, I wasn't even sure I would be good enough to get on record label releases. I've been doing this for quite some time, so it took some time before I was confident to do so. My first break so to speak, actually came from Levitated Music. They believed in my tune and from there on, I had the confidence to show my work more openly. From there it was spreading out and finding more established labels to work with and eventually, my goal was to have music featured on ASOT and FSOE, which I've been lucky enough to have multiple times in various instances. So I feel being able to be making music to be showcased on FSOE and ASOT is quite an achievement. Next major goal I have, is to get on ABGT.
And third, I would have to say just being able to grow a fanbase and have them appreciate what I do. I've spent years and years trying to grow my Youtube channel and social following, which is even more difficult now than it was a decade ago. But I'm proud of being able to have my YouTube channel do as well as it has, even if its just a 3k number, I worked hard to get to that and it's not easy.
2-Dimitris: Why and under which circumstances did you took the decision to start DJing or producing electronic dance music?
Derek Palmer: Here's the thing, I was listening to electronic music before I even realized what it was. As a kid, I became addicted to a few compilation series called "Ultimate Dance Party". I had UDP '97 and UDP '98, that played constantly on my stereo at home. I didn't have a ton of CD's back then (they were a bit pricey for being a kid at the time). I was listening to club mixes of tunes and I hadn't a clue what that even meant. I mean, I was 11 and 12 years old! Then honestly, I got a few albums that really changed my path into dance music. Cringy? Possibly. I picked up a copy of "Europop" from Eiffel 65 and "Aquarium" from Aqua. I fell in love with the style and the electronic aspects of this new music. Then I discovered other albums, such as work from Daft Punk, which led to compilation albums from Trance hits and learning about Tiesto and Paul Van Dyk and Above & Beyond.
Having fell in love with those types of sounds (lets be real, it was the mid 90's and pop/boy bands and grunge metal was everywhere and the rage), I sought out to find out more. 90's dance music, as cringy as it is, you can't deny that it's catchy as hell.
I actually have to thank my parents to be honest, in giving me a path to music creation. Home computers were just becoming more affordable for families around the mid to late 90's. I remember exactly the IBM we had for our family to share. Complete with all the Dial Up internet you could (or couldn't) ask for. For Christmas (or a birthday) I got a gift. Sort of a big but not too big box. Almost like an oversized book. Opening it, I was met with a sleek black case with a shot of a computer screen and some weird colored boxes with waveforms on them. "ACID 2.0" boldly across the box. This was my first DAW. With help, we got this thing crammed into the computer and I began learning how to make loop based music. EDM just like what I heard on the radio. I was making songs. On my computer. At 13 and 14 years old. I still have my first recordings from then. Terrible, but I have them. I recorded things on my Casio keyboard plenty of times but never something on the computer. And then being able to burn them to a CD and show my friends at school? Who wouldn't be proud of that.
So in short, my journey started with a music gift from my parents in the form of SonicFoundry Acid 2.0.
3-Dimitris: Can you note down the top 3 producers that have influenced your decision to get involved in the electronic dance music scene and you admire and respect them very much?
Derek Palmer: First I can think of is Eiffel 65. Europop came out and I probably played that record into the ground when I got it. The catchy beats, the "robotic" like vocals. It was new to me and made me fall in love with electronic music. Not really a producer so to speak, more of an act, but just as influential.
In terms of producers, as I'm sure a lot of people will say, Above & Beyond. Those guys really opened the door up to me for what trance was. I had no idea what that genre meant (or anything really). As far as I knew, techno was basically all EDM. How little I actually knew indeed. Above & Beyond had this ability to not only write catchy tracks and driving beats, but backed with emotion and giant melodic elements. I've a very melody driven person when it comes to music, so I would say their work (especially their earlier work and OceanLab days) really influenced me to write that style of music. Honorable mentions also go to Dan Stone, Daniel Kandi, Ferry Tayle & Paul Van Dyk. For similar reasons.
The past few years I've been diving more into progressive songwriting as well. I really enjoy a good 2.0 style tune. It's hard to just pick one producers so I will name drop a few as they have all inspired me to try this new style. Obviously the ABGT iteration of Above & Beyond, as they've moved into this progressive era. Myon (and before Myon & Shane54), Oliver Smith. Guys like these have been inspiring me to try new styles and sounds.
4-Dimitris: It would be fantastic to talk about your latest release Cielos Tranquilos with Thomas Nikki on FSOE Fables. Please tell us how this amazing track came about and what was the idea behind it.
Derek Palmer: I've worked with Thomas Nikki a few times on some other projects. Always an uplifting type of tune and thus "Cielos Tranquilos" aka Tranquil Skies, was born. He reached out to me with this idea and asked me to come on board to collaborate. He's pretty good at getting a good drive and groove going and I'm more of a melody guy, so I tend to work on the melodic aspects more during collabs. The idea was always to have this uplifting tone to the whole track. We wanted it to be catchy and dance-able but feature enough variation to keep it evolving. There were some ideas that we ultimately took out of the final track as it just didn't fit with the overall vision we wanted to have for it.
This track was actually supposed to be titled "Tranquil Skies", which is what I had dubbed the track during production. Just felt like the correct name to me. However, on sending in the demo, since Thomas speaks another language, it came out as "Cielos Tranquilos", which at first I wasn't too sure about, but honestly, I think it gives the track more character and more of an "exotic" type of vibe with the naming this way. So that's what ended up sticking!
5-Dimitris: How long it took you to produce it and can u describe the production process in simple steps?
Derek Palmer: I don't recall exactly how long it took to finish writing this track but I would estimate a month or two at least. Thomas luckily had a good chunk of the track finished up and arrangment. I was called on board to help with melody and ear candy so to speak. We would pass the track back and forth, updating and adding elements that we saw fit.
The biggest change came in the form of the melody. Originally it was just a chord based melody. We ended up decided that instead, we wanted something a bit more intricate and something that could really help bring both a dance-able driving melody and yet can be smooth and soothing during the break. So I came on and completely changed the melody to what it is in the final tune. I also came up with the secondary melody towards the end. I found this really nice bell pluck sound that I was wanting to add somewhere in the tune and came up with a "B-Section" so to speak. So that was one of my favorite parts.
6-Dimitris: Did you had any particular difficulties accomplishing that particular track or any specific technical challenges or obstacles that you had to overcome during its production.
Derek Palmer: Realistically, there wasn't a ton of issues or anything to really overcome. More so just collaborating with people, you never know what plugins and effects they have. There were a few things he had that I didn't have so I had to improvise and vice versa. For the most part we use roughly the same things and if not, we adapt to use something we both do have. This prevents issues in the long run. Worst thing to happen during collabs is opening a project only to not be able to load a plugin or synth that was used, then you can't even hear or see exactly what the other person has done. That's really the hardest part of collaborations, in terms of producers anyway.
Not really an obstacle, but as said earlier, we changed the entire melody idea. Thomas suggested a pluck like melody and showed me a reference to another track to help explain the idea. So it was my task to come up with the sounds and melody line for that (and in the end a secondary melody). This also went along with the piano part I had originally used. We ended up scrapping that entirely and I had to come up with a more simple piano line to match the new melody. So really, outside of the chord progression, all melodic elements had to be changed to work together. So that was a challenge to come up with on the fly, but ultimately we figured it out in the end.
7-Dimitris: If you would have the opportunity to change something in your track and maybe to do a new remix what elements are you unhappy with and you are going to change? Is there any artist that you feel would be fantastic to remix this track and why?
Derek Palmer: I don't know if there's anything specific I would want to change or redo. I mean, as an artist, every song I make at some point I have to just be done with it and stop nitpicking it. There's always things I find after the fact I think could have been better. A crash here being changed or an effect here being different. But overall, I am happy with the final result on this one. It sounds great. It feels great.
In terms of a remix? Oh geez, there could be loads of artists I think could do a solid remix. I've had Exolight and Mike Zaloxx both do remixes of something I did before and I think they could nail it. I think it would be cool to have a classic Dan Stone remix as I value all his work or someone like Ferry Tayle. Lot of names I could drop here.
8-Dimitris: Do you prefer vocal or instrumental tracks? If there are vocals on the track we discuss about tell us about the singer you work with?
Derek Palmer: I don't prefer one over the other as I feel each have their own value. I will say I do enjoy working on vocal tracks. I think you can get a lot of emotion out of a vocal track that you sometimes can't get out of a purely instrumental track. I've done many of both. This track in particular didn't feature a vocalist but I did use some vocal elements throughout the track to enhance transitions and add interest. I put in a lot of vocal swells and some pad like vocals as well as some choppy type vocal patterns. Again nothing substantial but just enough there to add some ear candy and interest to specific parts of the track.
9-Dimitris: Are there any vocalists/singers on electronic dance music you aspire to work with?
Derek Palmer: This is a hard question to answer as there's loads of vocalist I would love to work with. Some more established than others. I also have some vocalist I'm currently working with I haven't worked with before and others who have reached out to work on projects that I haven't had the chance to get to just yet.
I think I would like to try to work with Ren Faye and Sharon Valerona soon. I've really enjoyed the work they have been doing. I'm currently working with a vocalist named Sydien on a new progressive tune that I hope to have wrapped up soon.
I would also love to be able to work with Audrey Gallagher, Katty Heath, Ana Criado, Neev Kennedy, Sarah Russell, Sarah Lynn, Natune, Natalie Gioia, Jennifer Rene,, Clara Yates. The list can go on. I love working with new people as each person brings a new aspect and fresh viewpoints to a track. All of them are very talented and to be able to get a chance to work with anyone here would be amazing.
10-Dimitris: Do you believe that artwork on your latest track is good and do you believe that artwork can attract listeners or record buyers? Can you mention the best artwork of a track ever released?
Derek Palmer: I really like the artwork of this release. From what I see now a days, there's two ways to go about artwork for an album. Either a full on image or something minimal, such as this one. Each has their own benefits. A current trend is to have more minimal styles for EDM related releases, while for things like my trailer music work, the idea is to have something cinematic and epic looking.
In my opinion, you need good artwork, even if it is a minimal style. Something to first catch the eye. I'm also a graphic designer so it's an important detail for me as well. Lot of times, a simple font change can make or break an artwork or if something has an unbalanced image or too much going on it becomes hard to read.
A good artwork can catch someones eye and bring them into the record that might not have seen it or given it a go at first. Marketing 101 really. So, in short, I do believe that good artwork can really help sell your track to listeners.
11-Dimitris: Can you pick your favorite top 3 record labels including the one released the track that we discuss in this interview and give us a short comment about why these labels are important to you and the music scene too?
Derek Palmer: First up Fables, not just because this release is with them, but because they always want to deliver quality content right in that uplifting/melodic wheelhouse where I live. I've always wanted to release with them since they started, and finally I had the opportunity to do so.
Anjunabeats for better or worse as well. They have been able to brand their releases with quality and just like some other things in life, you see the branding of Anjuna, you know it's going to be quality stuff. That being said, now a days, they dive into more styles than I really listen to, so I don't listen as much, but when Anjuna first came to the party, practically everything they released was a hit. When they made the switch from uplifting/driving trance to focus more on progressive styles, they still released great quality release after release.
And I would have to also say similar things about Suanda Music. They release great quality tracks and have enough sub-labels to really reach different portions of the EDM world. Be it progressive, uplifting, vocal trance, house. They provide a platform for multiple genres and have name recognition for quality productions, just as the other two I've mentioned. I've also had a great working relationship with Suanda myself and the team there has been great to communicate with on my few releases with them.
12-Dimitris: Do you have your own record label? if yes tell us when did you set it up, the reasons behind this decision and your top 3 releases on the label so far plus 2 or 3 releases that we should look after from your label.
Derek Palmer: I do manage a trance label called "Emergent Skies", part of the Emergent Music family. I was originally onboard with them as an A&R for our previous work with Elliptical Sun, having split from that group to start our own label family in 2016. I've spearheaded Emergent Skies since about 2017 as the manger/A&R.
I can't really say any one track is better than the others as I feel all our releases have quality to offer, some do better than others however. But we've had some great releases with artists like Dennis Pedersen, Edelways, Sam Laxton, Malu, Cassandra Grey & Gerome, Amy Kirkpatrick, Den Rize, Alex Wright and many others. Over 185 releases so far and counting.
I also have personally put out two albums on the label. My first EDM styled albums to be released on labels.
13-Dimitris: Can you pick up your all time favorite album or compilation and tell us why you adore it so much?
Derek Palmer: I can't really say I have a favorite of all time persey, if I did it would probably be for a film score. However, in terms of EDM related albums, I would have to say OceanLab's "Sirens of the Sea". I've listened to this album and the follow up remix album, so many times. Just about every song in this album is a banger and the remixes to come of it, be it on the remix album or as singles, have all been phenomenal.
I mean, with tracks like the title track "Sirens of the Sea" and others like "Good Day", "Come Home", "Ashes", "Miracle", "Breaking Ties"..The whole album is fantastic from start to finish. It's a very rare occurrence (outside of film scores) that I find myself liking pretty much every single track on an album.
14-Dimitris:How much time do you spend promoting yourself in your social media and you see this as essential tool for self promotion and getting bookings too? Which social media is the one that seems to work better for you?
Derek Palmer: Honestly, I think for most of us, most of our time is spent just trying to promote our work. Social media has been both a blessing and a curse. Considering that social media companies are making it harder and harder just for artist pages to be seen without spending an exuberant amount of money to promote it.
However, it can be a very good marketing tool for artists. Social media wasn't a thing when I started writing music and now it's everywhere. Some are better than others at being seen however. Facebook for example, is very difficult to be seen. Same goes for Twitter now a days. What I've found is places that offer short hand media is better currently. YouTube and YouTube Shorts are great to help get seen. Instagram and by far TikTok seems to be the best ways to be seen in my experience.
Derek Palmer: I do have a bi-weekly radio show on DI.FM: Epic Trance. Every first and third Thursday of the month. It's an hour long show featuring trance and progressive from legends and mainstay to upcoming artists.
Each episode takes me about 2 hours to prepare and record and another hour or so to render/edit and upload. Some weeks are easier to do than others. Some weeks I'm so busy and tired from working that it's difficult to bang out a mix on a whim. But a TON of time is spent going through promos. I get a few hundred a week and it take a lot of time to go through them and select tracks to potentially play in the show.
But all and all, people seem to enjoy the show and that's why I keep doing it. 180 episodes strong so far.
16-Do you post videos on tiktok? If yes please reference for us your favourite? What is your opinion about the power of tiktok to promote music releases?Is there any tiktok video created by fans of you with your music worth mentioning?@derek_palmer_music
Derek Palmer: I did jump on the TikTok train, still fairly new but nonetheless I post videos and preview there. It's actually a decent tool for promoting music. Accompany that with a video edit that can gauge attention and you would be surprised how many views you can get. TikTok is the new favorite at the moment, so it makes sense to capitalize on it. Some videos do better than others, but I've had more views and engagement on TikTok than I have on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram combined.
One of my videos is sitting at over 100k views so far, which happens to be one of my favorite videos. It's not of an EDM track but rather one of my last film/trailer scores. My videos tend to look like actual movie trailers and music videos, so that also helps.
A cool feature on the platform is people can stitch videos and react to them or do their own videos using your music in them, which gets tagged back to you as well. I've seen some reaction videos and some dance videos and little skits with my trailer music. Pretty cool to see people engaging in what I do musically in creative ways. I appreciate any and all support from fans and listeners, whatever that may be.
17-Dimitris: If you expect to have a steady income from your music productions are you satisfied with the way that royalties system works particularly regarding streaming revenue? Do you believe that artists get what they deserve from streaming providers/DJs playing your tracks in gigs/radio and selling music in physical formats like CDs/Vinyl or digitally.
Derek Palmer: I don't expect most people (say 99 percent of artists) cannot make a steady income from music royalties alone. The entire industry needs some sort of restructuring in my opinion. Just as the film industry has had changes with the times of streaming royalties, the same needs to happen for the music industry. The industry itself is still treating things like it did decades ago when you could put out an album CD and make millions of sales and make a decent income. With streaming being the new normal here, the royalties are so abysmal that it would take many many many releases and an insane amount of streams just to make anything really. And it's not even labels that are the issue, it's the streaming services themselves. I feel they could increase the royalty rate a bit and still be able to make a profit on their streaming service, they make millions or billions a year.
It's a hot topic for sure, but I do feel the streaming industry has brought on a need for change in the music business that has yet to happen.
In terms of physical media, I'm sure people still purchase physical media. The issue is, especially for EDM, most of us release singles and that's not very realistic to release singles on CD's. But most people I know do not even purchase physical media any longer. I can't even tell you the last actual record I bought. It was easily a decade ago. We live in a digital world now and that's how things are evolving to.
18-Dimitris: Please note for all the new talents that read this interview to get some inspiration from you any technical tips in relation to your DJing or music productions. Also any piece of personal or music business' advice that has helped you to progress even further and is worth telling to the new upcoming talents.
Derek Palmer: One of the biggest things I can't stress enough, is make sure you enjoy doing what you do. It will take some time to develop. There will be failures, rejections, bad tracks, bad experiences. But if you don't enjoy making music, you won't ever be truly happy with your work.
It takes a lot of work to do what we do as artists and not everything will be a smash hit. And not just the music aspect, but promoting your work is a grind in and of itself. There's a lot of things going against you and a lot of people out there, so never give up on it and stay focused on creating rather than success. Success will come in time, but if you give up on creating then you'll never know success.
And a final thing, which I see from time to time, is don't think you will make a ton of money (at least for just music production). The fact of the matter is, royalties from streaming aren't great to begin with and especially when you're starting out, you most likely won't make much. Unless you're doing tours and DJing (which I do not do), most likely royalties will look like double to triple digits at best. In time, you can build up and succeed but it doesn't happen overnight nor does it happen instantly.
So in short, do what you love. Love what you do. Create for the sake of creating and enjoyment. Success can always come later, or perhaps not. But happiness in creating something you love, that will last a lifetime.
18-Dimitris: Many producers and DJs offer online masterclasses or teach to music production & DJing courses. Do you believe is essential to take part in any of these courses to develop your skills? Are you are offering any of these services? or other related services like ghost-producing or mastering? please tell us about these activities
Derek Palmer: Training can always be beneficial. But here's the catch, you need to know at least some basic music skills, in my opinion. You can take every course you like about how to adjust an EQ and use a compressor or make a pluck sound. But if you don't know how to utilize that in terms of music, it won't amount to much. So consider taking at least some course about basic music theory instead of just doing production courses. I can't even stress the amount of songs I've heard as demos that have good production but the actual musical aspects are pretty bad.
That being said, if you feel you want to take a course, go for it! You might learn something. HOWEVER, also do some research and look at what people think of those courses. Don't look at the reviews on their sites who promote the courses, those are always inflated to show only the best feedback. For example, I've taken a lot of film scoring courses and composition courses. Some are better than others. One in particular was a masterclass course from a big notable composer. What ended up happening is it was just an elongated talk about his own work and what he did to come up with parts of it. It didn't have much value or add anything that I learned from it. So do some research before you dive in, just to make sure you don't end up blowing a few hundred dollars for a glorified interview.
While I don't offer any educational services, I do provide feedback on demos and things. I make sure to email back every person who emails me a demo. Even if I don't sign it or like it, I will give feedback on how to make it better. Same goes for comments and things on my YouTube. If someone asks how I did something, I'll tell them. I'm not going to paywall any knowledge I do have. I was there before once, not knowing how to do a thing or two. Nothing against those guys who offer things like that, but I've been in a situation where I was like "How did you get your bass so clean?" and I'm told to buy a 200 dollar course instead of a real answer. I do not want to be that guy.
That leads to my feeling on Ghost producing. I hate it. I'm a very VERY strong anti-ghost production person. I feel if you can't make your own music, you don't belong here claiming to make your own music. Having an engineer to clean up a mix or master a mix or help with adjusting a vocal for you is one thing, and that's fine. I use engineers to master my tracks and in some cases to have them adjust some stem mixing for me. However, outright ghost production I can't get behind at all. It makes me very angry that people can just hire someone to do the music, and then go spew to the world that they made it. I care about my music and my art too much to just have someone do it for me or have me do it for someone else for a cheap pay check. I know it's common place these days, too much really, but I feel its a downfall of the music industry in the EDM world.
19-Dimitris: Is there a club classic that you would like to remix or rework in 2023? Do you attempt often to do your own bootlegs of classics?
Derek Palmer: Off the top of my head, there's not a ton of classics I would want to remix persey. The ones I love, I love them enough not to ruin them! But to be honest, I have done some random bootleg mixes in the past of things. I've done some of Above & Beyond's "Sirens of the Sea" and "Counting Down The Days". But those were eons ago. I used to do remixes of a lot of vocal tracks if I could get my hands on the accapellas. This is what helped me be able to learn how to write and do vocal tracks. It was great practice. But now a days, I would rather make something new than rehash a classic tune that is already great (and most likely already has some stellar remixes as is)
20-Dimitris: How much do you care if your fans or followers like your productions? Do you struggle with the audience reception of your tracks and is this thought adds extra pressure on you and discourage you too?
Derek Palmer: This is always a constant battle. I love that my fans and followers enjoy what I do. My friends are usually the first people who hear a new song I've worked on. I want people to enjoy what I create as I put so much time, love and effort into what I do. The downside is, when you don't get the reception you thought you would or if people don't seem as into it, it's very difficult to not be hard on yourself and think "I should have done better".
It definitely adds extra pressure on me. My fans and followers are very important to me and I want them to enjoy what I do. But I know not everything I do will be a homerun for them. Some people don't like my film work, others don't like my EDM work or prefer the uplifting trance stuff to the progressive stuff. Some don't like the vocalist I worked with while others would rather me try other genres they personally like that I may not like.
So it's a constant battle between making what you like, and trying to do something great for your fans. Because without them, it's very hard to grow in the digital age. To be honest, I have real life friends who I see on a daily basis who know what I do, but they don't even follow my music pages or share my work. Most don't have a clue I have a new song out until I tell them personally. That's a hard bullet to bite some times.
Dimitris: Your message & wishes for Flux Bpm Online readers.
Derek Palmer: I just want to thank first and foremost Flux Bpm for giving me the opportunity to have an interview to help spread awareness of my works. And for FSOE and Fables for being so great to work with giving my music a place to call home. It's been fantastic. And to all of the readers, fans, followers or people who are finding me for the first time, thank you for letting me into your world for a bit and hopefully your ears and hearts.
I appreciate each and every person who takes the time out of their lives to give me the opportunity to show my work to them. I love seeing how people enjoy what I do. I love seeing new people show up in my comments or a fellow producer learning something from a track I've done or a tutorial I've made. I appreciate every single person who supports anything I do. Be it my trance tunes or progressive tunes. Or my film music and film trailers I've worked on. You all help me about my day and bring light into the world where there can be so much darkness. I hope that you all will continue with me on my musical journey. There's plenty more to come and maybe..just maybe..a few surprises.
Thank you again! I'll see you all in the digital world.
Thanks so much to Derek Palmer for this thought provoking interview.
Thanks so much to Stuart at FSOE for arranging this interview.
Additional info:
Threads: @derekpalmermusic