If you don’t know who Deer is, where exactly have you been? With collaborations with U V b o i, remixes of MssingNo’s ‘XE2’, to supporting the likes of Ryan Hemsworth, Shlohmo & Djemba Djemba as well as local legends Alison Wonderland and Nina Las Vegas, the Melbourne producer is on the up and up. With a strong cohort of established producers backing his production, Deer’s career is only getting started.

Coming off the back of the success of his last single, ‘Cry For Help‘, he has now dropped the highly anticipated, ‘All Alone’, featuring The Harpoons, Martin King, who lends his dreamy and soulful vocals to the sophisticated, dark and introspective track. A mashing of pop nuances intertwined with flecks of flute, the low tempo and highly emotional ‘All Alone’ is bound to find you in your loneliest hour.

To coincide with the release of ‘All Alone‘, we had a chance to sit down with Deer and ask him a few burning questions.

SR: Hi Tom, how’s 2015 been treating you?

D: Pretty good, have just been writing heaps of music and finally have some original music released, the reception for my last single, ‘Cry For Help’ has been really cool.

SR: What do you get up to when you’re not making music?

D: I like playing with my housemate’s cat, he’s my best friend. If I’m not making music I’m usually listening to Young Thug or watching album reviews on The Needle Drop. I also like to skate sometimes too.

SR: Rumour has it that the likes of RL Grime and Ryan Hemsworth have been spinning your tunes in their sets for the past year or so? What does that feel like?

D: It’s sweet, they’re both super cool DJs in their own right so it’s cool to know that they’ve heard my music and wanted to play it out.
It’s good to have the acknowledgement that you’re doing something right. I’ve talked to Ryan via Twitter and he’s really nice.

SR: Your new single, ‘All Alone’ features Martin King from cult Melbourne band The Harpoons and of Oscar + Martin fame on vocals? How did that collaboration come about? What was it like working with him?

D: Martin’s cool, I hadn’t actually properly met him until after the track was done, we did everything via email. I hit him up after I saw a Harpoons show around a year ago, I was looking for a vocalist for the track and he was down to make something cool together which was refreshing after shopping the beat around to some other vocalists. Everything came together pretty quickly from his part, I’m just super pedantic when it comes to finishing tracks so it went through a few edits before the finish project was done.

SR: You’re appearing at the 2015 Paradise Music Festival later this month, who are 3 acts (apart from yourself of course) that people should check out?

D: Strict Face is my new favourite Australian producer. I haven’t actually seen him live but I heard he’s an incredible DJ, I love everything he’s released and he’s got a single coming out on NLV records which is super cool.
I’m also really keen to see Good Morning and Oslow again as I’ve only seen them once (and of course The Harpoons, sorry that was 4 haha).

Deer plays at Paradise Music Festival on November 27 – 29. Tickets are on sale now through Paradise