treasure fingers interview.

ashley jones has been an artist known by multiple names and has, in turn, produced tracks spanning the genre spectrum. taking the building blocks that his musician father prepared him with, he has been playing the proverbial musical roulette wheel landing briefly on everything from high school bands to producing beats for hip hop artists to a drum n bass outfit called evol intent. the ball has finally come to rest on his most recent and aptly named nu-disco moniker, treasure fingers.

so in looking back at the flavors of your past projects, i am curious how this whole disco sound emerged from you?

i was really into the 90's chicago house sound and then the french house sound in the late 90s. that's the sound i started djing, along with drum & bass under a different name. someone ended up stealing all my house records. i was just too poor and lazy to go back and buy all the house records to keep djing that back then so i just stuck with drum & bass. that ended up turning into the evol intent project.

that's so shitty. how did they get stolen?

treasure fingers - what am i supposed to do

i was doing this really lo-fi tour with some dudes in a van. we were just traveling around the country and meeting up with whatever connections or friends we could and playing wherever we could. we had our own soundsystem so a lot of times we would end up playing in a basement or park or something. one dude with us was just a scam artist i guess. he ran off with my records and also took some money from some of the others. no one has heard from him to this day. i kind of look at it as a blessing in disguise because i started focusing heavily on drum & bass at that point and that turned somewhat successful. which in return helped me launch the treasure fingers project when i was ready.

that sucks. well look who's laughing now. can you remember what one of your first house records was that you purchased way back when?

i remember playing thomas bangalter 'spinal scratch' a lot. i also loved sneaker pimps 'spin spin sugar' armand van helden remix. speed garage blew my mind when i first heard it. but i really have no clue what the first record was. it was probably something shitty in the $1 bin.

how do you feel like you fit into club culture now with your specific sound. do you sometimes feel more comfortable in a different setting like a pool party?

i feel like a bit of an outcast most places in the united states just because all the kids have been so into super heavy noisy electro the past few years. i don't mind it though. i like doing my own thing. i usually get a lot of good feedback, like that it was a refreshing sound, or they loved how 'feel good' the music was. i'm actually more comfortable in a dark night club at 2 or 3am, but only with the right crowd i guess.

do you feel more well-recepted in other parts of the world?

i think australia and europe, yeah. they are just much more receptive to house music in general. but especially disco or melodic type stuff. i feel like new york and a few other spots around the united states are getting more and more familiar though. all the dates on this current tour have been amazing, really good turn outs and great crowd response.

it seems like there's kindof a plateau that these wave of producers reach. they get on the blogs, get dj gigs, get noticed by an agent and a manager and then they get launched worldwide. what comes after that?

i'm not quite sure, still figuring out the science to that haha. it seems like you just have to consistently keep hits coming and get all the dj's to play your stuff out. i think just getting some big records out this year, and hitting some of the same festivals i've done, but just moving up in those prime time slots would be nice. i just signed with coda agency who'll handle my uk/europe bookings now, so i hope to get over there a lot more often. i still haven't done the euro festival circuit yet, so that would be good also.

you're always going to all these crazy places all over the world as part of your job. what would qualify as a vacation to you (length of time, location, activities or lack of, etc)?

i think i've had one proper vacation in the last two or three years. it was in costa rica for about four days. i did some zip lining canopy tours, beaches, jungles, etc. i'm gonna try to take a bit more time off just to keep my mind & body refreshed. i think a good week or two off, a couple times a year would be a good look. i'm more a tropical vacation type, but i've been itching to go skiing or snowboarding sometime soon, too.

how do you keep healthy/sane on the road? do you take any comforts of home with you?

i take a lot of vitamins and take it pretty easy. i always try to swim and relax in the pool at hotels haha. i think just having my laptop and being able to produce music with minimal equipment keeps me most sane though. i always miss my home studio and all the gear, but I'm glad technology has advanced that i can get the job done with a macbook pro and portable sound card.

any musicmakers we should be keeping our eye on?

nightriders from boston are kiilling it right now. dcup from sydney.

what would someone receive if they ordered a 'treasure fingers' cocktail?

for me personally it'd probably be heavy dark liquor. but for the sake of keeping it smooth, maybe vodka, sprite with a splash of grape juice (or purple drank whatever you got handy). that seems a bit hood, but still classy somehow.

what's your drink of choice?

these days i go with makers mark; either w/ coke or manhattan or an old fashioned.

tell us four things we don't know about you.

1. i secretly want to write jokes for stand up comedians.
2. i'm pretty sure i suffer from posteriophobia, yet I really like being alone.
3. i grew up in a small, oklahoma town with the population of 4000.
4. i have an xbox 'call of duty' obsession.

*he volunteered his gamer tag: ev0l intent

and what surprises do you have in store for us in the near future?

fools gold is gonna put out a new single called 'keep up' early this summer, along with a full length hybrid mix cd. it will include about five or six originals along with a bunch of remixes i've done. that'll be like a mixed compilation, but different from a lot out there since all the material will be my own in some form.