The Majestic Theatre will host Paper Diamond this Wednesday on his most exciting headline tour yet. The Rain Drops Tour, supporting an EP of the same name set to drop this week, promises a cohesive and thoughtful experience for all those in attendance. Alex Botwin, the talented artist behind Paper Diamond, has been working in the music industry and crafting visual art for over a decade, managing his various projects through his company Elm & Oak. Over the years, Botwin gravitated from visual art and management to his new role as an electronic musician and released the first Paper Diamond EP, Levitate, in 2011.
Paper Diamond gained significant notoriety from his 2014 remix of Diplo’s hit single “Revolution.” I spoke with Botwin about his upcoming show in Madison, and the journey that has brought him to the Rain Drops Tour. According to Botwin, the ability for musicians to learn from each other is instrumental to moving forward and growing as a musician. “It’s just about learning and trading ideas and skills with everybody and using it to make your own stuff,” he said. “I know that anyone can teach me something just like I have a lot to teach people too, but I’m always down to learn. Music is alive and always changing. If there’s a reason I’ve been able to be in the music industry for ten years it’s because I’m down to roll with it… I just want to have my mind blown and I want to share that with people, and that’s what it’s all about.”
“The Rain Drops is coming out on Tuesday, I believe,” Botwin said. “We’re just solidifying some last minute details. It’s basically just my favorites of the songs I’ve written over the past year that I wanted to release immediately. And I think that this year in general is the most music you’re going to see released from me.”
According to Botwin, the new EP is just the beginning of a wave of new inspiration to the Paper Diamond catalog. “I have so much different stuff, so many different genres, so many songs with different rappers and singers that I’m just actively working on getting it all out,” he said. “The Rain Drops EP is going to be the beginning of that.”
“With the tour itself, it’s 32 cities in America, and then I’m going to Europe, playing a bunch over there, and then we’re going to be doing New Zealand and Australia as well right after that,” Botwin noted about his schedule on the Rain Drops Tour, a relentless effort that is mirrored by the artistic effort involved in the live show itself.
“I have an artist on the road with me,” he explained. “We go through the show and make these different artistic videos and ideas and start to incorporate more real content into the visual show, not just loops and computer screensaver stuff, but stuff that makes you feel something or has something to do with the music. I feel like now with the sound and the lights and the video and all the custom content and the whole new set of music it’s a crazy experience. That’s really what its all about, just making an experience for people to come together and celebrate and have fun and let loose and escape from the normal every day bullshit.”
“When I’m not working on music I’m taking pictures and working on design stuff,” Botwin said. Visual art and graphic design have long been an important factor, both in Paper Diamond releases and Botwin’s company, Elm & Oak. “We get up and do our normal daily routine, and then it’s music and art or clothing all day long every day. If I get sick of working on music I just open up Illustrator and start working on design stuff, and if I get bored with that I get back into the music.”
“For the last few years, Elm & Oak is a management company, a record label, a clothing line, a design firm; we had an art gallery in Boulder, Colorado, and basically it was an outlet for my boy and I to make art together,” Botwin explained when I asked him about some of the projects he’d been involved in before and during his musical career as Paper Diamond. “At the time, up until the beginning of 2014 when we were doing Elm & Oak, we were doing art for lots of different people and I was managing Cherub… We were having galleries all the time, and we started the Elm & Oak Academy, which was an on-campus round table discussion with agents, managers and artists that was actually funded by the college. There was a lot happening with Elm & Oak.”
“I came to realize that as far as managing bands and having a label and all that other stuff, I can do that when I’m older. Right now I’ve stepped back from doing all the other stuff to just focus on Paper Diamond art and music,” Botwin said.
“It was a great learning experience, but when you have fifteen businesses at once, it really deterred me from really continuing to flex musically.”
“My head isn’t even thinking about the scene,” Botwin told me. Having grown from an instrumental musician and graphic artist to a music industry veteran to an innovative dance music artist, Alex Botwin’s focus remains simple. “I just want to put out a bunch of dope music and inspire people to make more music and make more art. I want people to be responsible and thoughtful but also know how to party and let loose and let music do its thing.”
“I always love coming out to Madison,” Botwin kindly mentioned at the end of our interview. “I think we’ve sold out the last couple times. It’s going to be an insane night. You can just expect a lot of new music from me, and it’s going to be great to be back in Madtown. So let’s hit it."
