Fresh off his tour with Girl Talk and Max Tundra, Deepak Mantera, aka Junk Culture, cleverly pursues new frontiers in electronica, layering opposing cuts and synths to make unexpectedly lush, intricate melodies. Named after the OMD song of the same name, Junk Culture played to two back-to-back sold out shows at the Ogden Theater in Denver last month and blew audiences away with his fresh beats and live instrumentation. Deepak took the time to talk to PopWreckoning about his musical influences and what it’s like playing music in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi. 
Brianna Hernandez, PopWreckoning: How did you get your start?
Deepak Mantera, Junk Culture: I’ve been doing all sorts of weird art and music things since I was a kid. The music stuff I’ve been doing since I was maybe 12 or 13. My older brother was really into home recording so I naturally got into it that way, kinda peeking on what he was doing. Eventually he gave me a bunch of his old equipment so I learned on that stuff myself pretty quick.
PW: What is Oxford like?
JC: It’s slow and stable. Certified retirement community. I like it because it’s cheap and I can work on art projects there without much distraction. I’m personally not too into bigger cities or city living or anything. I definitely like having a lot of space and Oxford delivers on that. The only other place I can imagine myself living is Portland – it’s pretty Oxford-like to me in a lot of ways.
PW: Your sound is largely electronic influenced. Does Mississippi’s music scene have an appreciation for electronic music outside of traditional EDM? What has it been like to get your start and evolve in a place like Oxford?
JC: The music economy in Oxford is for the most part blues jam rock stuff. There isn’t really the same appreciation for electronic music here as in Baltimore or Detroit or something, but I think that’s changing. Not just here but everywhere. It’s just becoming more “normal” to complement live performance with electronics and computers and stuff. Honestly, I don’t know how much playing live in Oxford had to do with my music evolving. I mean, I played something like 120 shows last year and only maybe 10 of those were in Oxford. Touring around the country gave me way more perspective than playing in just Oxford.
PW: What was your first show like? How has your set evolved since then?
JC: The first Junk Culture show was more a mix of live and purely electronic songs. We don’t play any of those purely electronic songs anymore. Since then I’ve also added live visuals to the set and do a lot of things that make the live experience more raw and human. I’m all about doing shit that people might not expect to see at a show.
PW: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
JC: Things like movies, other music, and photographs are definitely huge emotional inspiration points for me. I can be pretty sentimental sometimes so I’m thankful that to this point that has helped me write some songs rather than wallow in self-pity.
PW: Is it important to you to include live instrumentation in your sets?
JC: Absolutely. I’m constantly trying to come up with ways to make the set more live and raw.
PW: Who have you collaborated with in the past and who would you love to collaborate with in the future?
JC: I haven’t really done a ton of collaboration with people in the past. The most recent one I can remember was for a track off my new record. I sampled heavily from a song that my younger brother’s band Koala wrote for “Honeysuckle.” There are a couple of vocalists who I’ve played with before that I’m getting to sing on a few new tracks I’m working on. I’m pretty psyched about that. Other than that, there’re tons of people I’d love to collaborate with: Das Racist, Javelin, James Pants, Lil B to name a few.
PW: If you weren’t making music and touring, what would you be doing?
JC: Making comedy films. Working on interface design projects. Copy editing. Something like that.
