Sign in / Join
0
OneDrain beatbox Interview

Exclusive Interview: OneDrain | Community is First

OneDrain provides insight into his beatbox journey, the online community, and his wanting to make a difference.

OneDrain from Romania is a familiar name amongst beatboxers in the online community, pushing ridiculous basslines and ending his routines tastefully with his signature powerful burps. In this interview, we got to know him a little better and took a dive into the change he wants to see in the online community.

Let's get started.

Hi Andrei, thanks for interviewing with us.

We actually first discovered you when we saw your shoutout video on Swissbeatbox, but you’ve been beatboxing for quite a long time. How did you get into beatboxing?

It's an honor!

Well, I was really bored one day and I thought to myself “I wanna try something cool out, I wanna make music.” At the time, I didn’t know how to make electronic music, but I knew beatboxing existed because some rap songs that I listened to had it.

Even Romanian rap, believe it or not haha!

And I started watching YouTube videos of people beatboxing and I was really amazed! But the very very first beatbox video I watched was of Reeps One and Hikakin - which made me research more about beatbox.

It’s really awesome seeing a lot of online beatboxers coming to events and making it onto SBX. How did you get started with the online community and what is it like?

It all started when I met Epos from the U.K. online. After 3 months, I was following this guy’s YouTube channel, MVJ. He was doing really well-explained tutorials and he taught me many things. And he had this shoutout series and I started making some for him. And right after me, there was Epos.

And just like that, we were giving each other positive feedback and started talking. We were jamming and after a while, he told me about this teamspeak server, Beatbox-Rap.com.

At first, I was a bit anxious. I was kind of afraid to show my beats in front of other people, so I refused to join. But after like a month, I decided to join and there were sooo many people in one channel.

A video posted by OneDrain (@onedrain.beatbox) on


Everybody was jamming. Everyone was helping each other. And they saw that I wasn’t beatboxing. Then Epos came online and was like “ONEDRAIN!! YOU FINALLY CAME!! Come on - show the others something.”

I felt a bit weird, but I thought, “F*ck it. What’s the worst that can happen? These guys seem peaceful.”

And when I beatboxed - keep in mind, I was beatboxing for only 1 year and I was quite terrible - everybody freaked out and said something like “That bass? What?” Every time I joined a channel there, it seemed like it was a family meeting. I loved it.

Wait, so you had that bass without knowing it? It came naturally?


Oh I learned it when I was sick, trying to master throat bass. I thought all that time that it’s normal throat bass - when it wasn’t. And yeah, after that first encounter, I started going there more often.  

Tell me more about your signature bass and you wanting to be a bassline beatboxer. What does that mean exactly?

Well, after seeing Big Ben’s shoutout, I wanted to learn how to do that kind of low bass. I was really into dirty dubstep at the time, and still am. I thought it would be a sick sound to use.

I started off with one of the shittiest throat basses you could ever hear. It didn’t even sound like a throat bass. It sounded like a guy trying to take a sh*t.

How did you come up with the name OneDrain?

Oh it’s from my real name, Andrei and came to me when I was sleeping. I was thinking all night for a name and when I woke up - BOOM - OneDrain. It’s because it’s pronounced as “Uandrein” and remove the “u” and the “n’ and you get my real name - Andrei.

Clever!

So I’ve seen your rants and there’s a lot going in your mind. When I asked what you wanted from the community, you interestingly said, “peace.” What do you mean by that?

So at that time, a lot of sh*t was happening, mostly in the online community and in real life as well. I won’t give any names though, I’m not an a**hole. People were getting arrogant, didn’t want to help others, they just wanted to show off.

They gave negative feedback to beginners and didn’t even want to listen to other people beatboxing. And they weren’t only a few people - it was like a huge group who came to f*ck things up.

And the behavior caught on to some people I knew for a long time as well. Right now they are chill, but then - it was bad. That’s when I said I wanted peace. When I first joined the community, it was all positive feedback and no hate.

It seems like that’s the general perception of the online community. From an outside perspective and YouTube comments, it feels like it’s fairly negative and almost separate from the values of the larger beatbox community.

Do you think this is unfair?

Of course it’s not fair. For example, some people used to talk shit in the YouTube comments about people like Faya Braz and many others. Even started the hate to Kaila. Why? It’s not live - you don’t know the actual quality of the beatboxing so you can’t judge if someone sounds like sh*t or not through a damn video.

I saw people saying that Babeli is sh*t, and they were basing it off of a youtube video. How’s that relevant?

Totally - I remember writing those articles :).

Yup, I must be honest though, I was pretty upset in my rant video. I felt like the community would go to sh*t. I kind of had a mental breakdown - I had the intention of being calm but I was so upset and wanted to get everything off my chest.


Some people may not even believe it, but I’m pretty emotional. And I always feel guilty if I don’t solve a crucial problem. Even between my friends, I may be awkward but I have good intentions. After I made this video, things started to come back to normal.

It goes to show that you care. I found it disturbing how there was a lack of voicing of opinions in the beatbox community, but I’m glad that people like you have stepped up to the plate.

On that note, what do you love most about beatbox?

I was on the teamspeak server jamming and there was this guy called Seedix from Czech Republic. He was talking to Pira for a while back then and I think Pira recommended him to me to teach him. He messaged me saying that he would love to be coached and he was a bit shy. I coached him for 2 hours straight and he understood and applied it like no problem!

He was really happy and was thanking me and stuff. I was just speechless. This is embarrassing - I started crying. They were tears of joy.

The feeling when you helped someone massively I can’t put it into words. I continued coaching him and he told me that thanks to my help, he made it into the top 16. I was so happy!

Wait - we didn’t tell our readers. How old are you again?

I’m 15.

A video posted by OneDrain (@onedrain.beatbox) on

That’s crazy - you’ve done so much already. Can’t wait to see what you’ll have next.

So my next question is: who is your biggest inspiration?

Most likely BigBen, Reeps One, Dharni, and ZeDe. But there are some people who definitely inspired me to try new things such as Helium and Outcheck from Russia, Pira of course, and Funktion from the UK.

What advice do you have for any new beatboxers?

Always be confident and never be cocky and be sure to think before you act. Pretty straightforward, but it could be a nice reminder :).

And last but not least, who would you like to dedicate this interview to? Any shoutouts?

I would like to shoutout Pira, Seedix, Epos, Pocoyo, Calexy, Magic, D-Low, Selfx, Slykku, and Cosmin!

Be sure to follow OneDrain and his amazing beatbox journey!

HBB Profile | Youtube | Instagram

 

1 comment

  1. Pacerbeats 6 November, 2017 at 00:52

    One Drain !!!!!!!!! I feel his situation. I’m very cocky but When i’m alone i get better but performing with a audience is hard for me .THANKS FOR THE ARTICLE

Leave a reply