Ape Drums Reinvents His Solo Career

Being part of one of the biggest electronic music groups in the form of Major Lazer can be pretty demanding, but also working on a solo career simultaneously can be pretty exhausting.

Well, Eric Alberto Lopez, professionally known as Ape Drums, seems to have a handle on all the chaos, continuing to announce shows, drop music, and produce for some of the most prominent artists in the world.

Recently, New Times sat down with Miami-based, Texas-bred DJ and producer on Zoom to catch up before his show on Friday at Jolene in downtown, which is coming after dates in Houston and Toronto.

"All of these have basically felt like debut shows. Houston was like a debut, Toronto felt like a debut, same with Miami. It's been back to back to back — so it's all super exciting. I can't wait to do a few more and get a better understanding of everything: going through the whole process, playing these venues, learning what the people want to hear. Each show just gets better and better, bigger and bigger," he says.

While Jolene won’t be his Miami debut, having played shows here as part of Major Lazer, including a surprise show during F1 Weekend at ZeyZey, Ape has become quite the fan of pop-up shows.

He played a gig at Tacombi during Art Basel last year, headlining alongside A-Trak who also threw down a masterclass. Fellow Major Lazer member Walshy Fire was also in attendance in what was easily one of the best "you had to be there" parties for Art Basel last year.

Moments like that are what Ape is chasing nowadays, having recently opened up his own creative outlet in the form of Jaam Sound. It’s his newest project that has allowed him to drop guest mixes, throw pop-ups, and a way to experiment with what is working well in electronic music.

"I like being able to design flyers my own way. When I throw events, I want to decorate the space as I envision it. I just want to keep creating things outside of music — beyond just production." He admits: "I want to design spaces and host guest mixes. Every month, I feature a guest mix from a DJ I think has really good taste in music. It's a creative outlet for me."

His first pop-up under the Jaam Sound banner actually took place at Caracas Bakery (which is currently on YouTube, in case you missed it). It was part of an experiment to see what they could do as an alternative to the coffee party craze.
"The whole Caracas Bakery idea came about pretty naturally. I told my manager, Jake, I wanted to start doing events again in Miami, something different. I wasn’t into the whole coffee rave trend, no alcohol, 10 a.m., grab a coffee, and go to work. That's not me. I still want tequila, I want a brand involved, I want people dancing and having fun," he recalls. Still, he didn't want to deal with clubs, dress codes, or feeling out of place. "I wanted something more laid-back but still a party. Our first event at Caracas Bakery was great — we transformed the space, and it didn't even feel like a bakery. The production was solid, and it set the tone for what we're building."

Although he loves doing those kinds of events, his main focus right now is producing for himself and for other artists. His latest collaboration includes credits on the newest Blackpink drop, "Jump", which he helped produce with Diplo. "That song was originally meant for a Major Lazer record. We had some other artists on it at first, but they ended up passing; they felt like it wasn't really their vibe and wanted to go in a different direction. So we started looking around to see who else we could bring on," Lopez says.

He explains that the track started off completely different and then evolved into what it is now. "Diplo was just sending beats out, and the opportunity came up for Blackpink to be like, 'Hey, we want this record.'" Lopez is confident that the song would make a bigger impact coming from the K-pop group.

For Lopez this is quite the home run as he tells us that he's been lucky to not only work on stuff for huge groups like Blackpink, but also work on more Caribbean-inspired sounds with Major Lazer, all while diving into his progressive house bag for his own releases.

The latest of these releases is "Into My Ocean", which was released July 18, is another progressive house track that is meant to be listened to on a boat riding round Biscayne in order to fully appreciate and dive into.

It’s a fun, bouncy track with subtle nods to afro house, which is the sound that Ape seems to be jumping into lately. The track is following up "For Your Love" which came out back in June, and is a progression on the warm, summer vibes that "Into My Ocean" played into. Ape tells us that he’s going to be releasing music monthly, thanks to the fact that he just has an abundance of it at the moment. "Honestly, we weren't supposed to have this many records out."
"It all kind of happened at once, so it was tough to fit everything in. If it were up to me, I'd prefer at least a month between each release. But sometimes we’d have one drop scheduled, and then another label would come back like, 'You know what? Let’s release it too.' So we had to shift things around at the last minute." Lopez admits.

He tells New Times that it's been a hectic time, but moving forward, releases will come out more regularly instead of sporadically right now. Ape is a multifaceted artist working on multiple projects at once, and he doesn’t seem like he wants to stop.

"To me, is all about creating. As humans, we’re meant to create. We’re smart, complex beings, and there's nothing more fulfilling than making something from scratch," Lopez reflects.

Ape is not going to stop any time soon, but he tells New Times that he recently took time to sit down and reflect on his achievements in the past few years. "There's touring the world as Ape Drums, joining Major Lazer and getting them their first Grammy nod, making my first reggaetón track with Randy [23] that ended up on Rolling Stone's Top 100 Reggaetón Songs of All Time. Like, that's wild. I never appreciated it in the moment, but now I look back and think — damn, I really did all that."

Not many people can say they’ve had a reggaetón hit, a Grammy-nominated dance record, and tracks played by the top Afro Tech DJs. "It gives me confidence and reminds me I have a unique place in this music space," he says.

Ape Drums. 10 p.m. Friday, August 1, at Jolene Sound Room Miami, 200 East Flagler Street, Miami; info via jolenesoundroom.com; tickets from $12 on sale now via dice.fm.