[INTERVIEW] In Conversation w/ The Comeback Season Kids :: Pt. 2

BP: So when did INK Entertainment come in?

Ronnice: I guess we’d been reaching a point where we’d been doing this for awhile and to really complete our vision and to take it where it needs to be we have to evolve. So evolve in the sense of…[turns to Xander] I don’t know, how would you describe moving onto INK Entertainment?

Xander: It’s more room to do what you want. We’re more valued here at INK Entertainment. Embrace has a whole bunch of young, cool acts that are all very Queen Street West. Here they have a completely different niche. They have all of the Richmond Hill’s and the suburbs. So, here I knew we could do bigger things. We have another channel to work with.

Ronnice: We’re Queen Street West and Queen Street West has that crowd where you’re cool one week and the other week you’re not cool – it’s a lot to keep up with. And there was always cool shit at Embrace. At INK Entertainment, not to say there’s not cool shit, there’s tons of cool shit, but they don’t have anything on the ground level, in the streets. INK Entertainment is such a big company and it’s harder for them. We can be more of an asset here. Before, we were kind of distracted. Xander, he doesn’t want to DJ. He’s never wanted to DJ. He’s just really talented. DJ Whoo Kid and I don’t know who else taught him how to DJ.

Xander: Rynecologist, he’s from Toronto, he’s worked with A-Trak and…I don’t know. But he taught me how to DJ, originally. I mixed Ryne’s style and I mixed it with stuff I like. Everything trap and Justice and Kid Cudi and things I like to hear. I’m not a real DJ, I don’t know how to manipulate the crowd. I just actually play what I like to hear, it just so happens it works.

Ronnice: At Winter Jam when Whoo Kid came remember he’d just switch the songs?

Xander: Yeah he said “Mixing is stupid. You don’t need to mix, just go like this!” [Motions a track switch]

I took that advice and created my own way of doing it because I’ll never forget the way he explained it – it was so true.

Ronnice: Yeah so basically here we’re more valued because there’s nothing like that over here. At Embrace there’s cool shit everyday so it’s not that big of a deal. And just like he doesn’t wanna DJ and all that shit, I don’t fully want to be throwing parties. That was something we happened to be good at. It was fun and it’s getting addictive but I wanna be in advertising, marketing and branding – that sort of thing. Comeback Season helps with with that, for me, particularly.

Xander: It helps with everything. I mean the learning experience is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s not like school, it’s better. But I don’t know what I wanna do yet, the stuff that I’m around with Ron and Ink, it’s somewhere in that career pool.

Ronnice: But it’s fun. Shit, it’s fun. I do miss the days when we could literally do whatever. It’s gotten to the point where we can’t just wake up and not get shit done. Before we could party the night before and wake up at 6PM or I could watch all the Justice League cartoons I want all night. But now, I haven’t watched the new Thor movie that came out in theatres, I’m pretty bummed about that. I feel like I’m falling off. I haven’t watched the new Hobbit. Man, I’m missing everything.

BP: When I was back at your party, I ran into so many people I used to run with back in the day and it clicked to me, you guys are people connectors and you’ve nurtured a loyal following. I mean, you could pack a club with thousands of people just through Facebook, so how did you get to that point?

Xander: We didn’t do it alone.

Ronnice: Should we tell these secrets? First off, I just wanna say on record that whenever people say that Comeback Season parties are the craziest…I know this sounds super corny but it really goes out to the people. We couldn’t do the same party if it wasn’t those people coming to the parties to do what they do – it wouldn’t be so crazy. Whoever comes to the party, they gotta pat themselves on the back. Does that make sense? They’re the ones putting their energy into it and they’re having fun and being open-minded.

On our end, we’re not doing that much to the party except making sure everyone’s O.K. It’s the people themselves. Technically, I could say they throw the sickest parties. They’re the ones who come in and have fun.

BP: There is an element of coolness that you draw from cultural references that Millennials understand like KAWS and the Silk Road. These are things that are unique to our generation and that are considered ‘cool’ and that not everybody knows about.

Ronnice: We do get a lot of help with all that. Silk Road, for example. The DSTRY crew.

Xander: That was all their marketing.

Ronnice: They did a lot of research and we did a lot of research and we figured out how to incorporate the Silk Road and what it meant with the bitcoin and that was all underground. I guess you are right, but we’ve got to give credit to a lot of people for helping with that and being on that level. And it’s a lot of work behind the scenes.

Always be humble, that’s the most important thing. I don’t know if this is humble, me saying that we’re always humble but even when when like the coolest shit happens with us, we are always super humble. It might not seem like it at times, but we are, you know? When you’re humble and you’re nice to everyone no matter how far you’ve gotten, or even if you haven’t gotten that far, stay the same way. Always be humble, always be nice to people.

It’s difficult for us to comment on that or even give advice on what we did because we were being ourselves. Xander doesn’t do anything he doesn’t wanna do. He stays true to himself. Like literally. The same goes for Kim [of CBS], she’s true to her self. And I think for those reasons that we like personally, stuff that just happens to be cool now…those things are always gonna go on whether CBS falls off or not, we’re always gonna be the same. We’ve never really changed.

Except I have more sneakers now [laughs].

Xander: More video games!

BP: So who is officially a part of CBS?

Ronnice: Officially, its just Xander, Ron and Kim. I think we all take on different roles except Xander legitly [sic] knows how to DJ, like if we DJ together, it’s something that we’re working on. He’s the main DJ and I will facilitate.

There’s a lot of that so what we’re working on this year is putting that together. That’s a separate entity of its own. Eventually taking that on the road. Maybe go to Montreal with it, like a DJ collective.