Electronic artist Coleman Hell will kick off University Union’s spring Bandersnatch series Wednesday. The performance in Schine Underground will take place just one day before Hell embarks on his first-ever United States tour. Before he hits the stage, here are five things to know about Hell.

1. Hell describes himself as an electronic artist, but has dabbled in many genres

All of Hell’s music is produced electronically on a keyboard. However, he will use sounds from other genres. On his best-known track, “2 Heads,” Hell incorporates banjo sounds to create a swinging beat. In an interview with radio.com, Hell said “I guess I’m pretty influenced by classic older music, so that’s why I choose to incorporate sort of rootsier, folkier sounds in my music.” Hell also used to be one half of Canadian hip-hop duo, Burnz N Hell.

2. He won the first ever SuperNOVA award

 

The Northwestern Ontario Visionary Awards for professionals under 40 have existed since 2010, but this year Hell was the first recipient of the SuperNOVA award. Hell is from Ontario and told tbnewswatch.com it was a great honor to receive the award in his home town of Thunder Bay, Canada. Hell has also been nominated for the Breakthrough Artist of the Year award at this year’s JUNO Awards.

3. “2 Heads” reached the No.15 spot on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 chart

The song has spent 36 weeks on the chart and climbed to No. 20. spot on the Billboard Twitter Emerging Artists list in December. The song also garnered more that 13 million streams on Spotify and peaked at No. 5 on Bilboard’s Alternative music charts. Hell’s self titled EP ranked 49 on the Billboard Top Albums list in both 2015 and 2016. “2 Heads” has gone double platinum in Canada.

4. Hell was heavily involved in the creation of the music video with five million views on Youtube

 

The video for “2 Heads” was inspired by Hell’s hometown and the dive bars he used to go to. He directed, casted and edited the video. Hell told radio.com he enjoys editing videos and has since directed and edited a music video for his songwriting partner La+ch. In the interview with radio.com, he said, “It’s really fun, I’d like to do it more, it’s really time consuming and I’m kind of like obsessive about it so it’s draining but I enjoy doing it.”

5. He is a co-founder of Toronto-based music collective Sideways

 

Along with La+ch, Michah and Shan Vincent de Paul, Hell works to write, produce, perform, edit and design music that falls under genres. According to Sideways’ website, “No matter what genre they may be delving in, the collective strives to take an original and unorthodox approach to their music while aiming to reach the largest audience possible.”

Published on March 3, 2016 at 7:01 pm

Contact Rachel: rcgilber@syr.edu