Stream The Exclusive Premiere of Protohype’s Bombastic New EP ‘Encore’

I reached Protohype on the phone just a few days after he's arrived home from Shambhala Festival in Canada and he's still recovering, he tells me as he plopped down on his couch.

"It's the best festival I've ever been to, for sure," he says before turning away from the phone, saying something about how his dog, a beagle named Jelly, is acting weird and having trouble jumping up onto the couch next to him.

At Shambhala he played some of his new music, this bold, bombastic "main stage dubstep" off his latest EP Encore, now streaming before its release tomorrow. "The sound is big progressive style chords, mainstreamish vocals and big dubstep drops. It's a sound I've been working on for a little while and it's all coming together now."

Love him or hate him for it, Protohype is definitely not scared of the mainstream haters. "I guess that would be the place I'm trying to move forward towards," he admits, albeit with some hesitation.

It's a grand departure from Max Hype's beginnings as a producer in high school when he exclusively made hip-hop beats. Hype went off to college and decided to take a break from producing music completely, until he stumbled upon dubstep.

"I can't remember the first dubstep record I heard, but I'm pretty sure it was a Rusko record," Hype recalls. "I was like, that was really cool and would be a great way to get back into making music." So he did, renaming himself Protohype to match his new sound. At that point "the only music I had experience with was rap beats, so my dubstep was coming from a rap-influenced background." Hence, his self-claimed genre: dub-hop.

Since then Protohype's gone to Icon Collective Music Production School in LA to work on his sound and fully transition into his latest iteration, constantly pushed by an attraction to melodies and whatever's the next new sound. He's still interested in collaborating with rappers, but only if they're willing to "go out on a limb" and rap over a dubstep beat.

"I like making music that's current because my tastes change a lot," Protohype explains. "I think a lot of people have music ADD nowadays, so their tastes in music change a lot.  I like what's cool in the moment and what's present and popping." Understandably, he's excited to finally get Encore out so he can start on the next project.

In addition to the music, Protohype is also dedicated to creating a non-profit, taking his #PuppyCrew to the next level. It started with a tweet to about donating money to the ASPCA and how his fans send him photos of their dogs. "It's pretty much just anyone who likes my music and likes dogs," he says, describing plans for meet-and-greets at local dog shelters before shows.

Charity, puppies and dub-hop. It doesn't get much better than that.

Keep reading and watching…
Stream the Exclusive Premiere of Fox Stevenson's Blockbuster New EP Throwdown
Watch Datsik and Protohype in BFFs
The Best Interview With 12th Planet Ever