Rising DJ, producer and electronic music artist Nick Rowland—aka Super Future—wants to take listeners on a journey with the release of his new EP, Full Spectrum.
Transporting audiences through time, space, and sound, he aims to venture through a wide array of styles and sonic emotions, as well as his own personal journey, when he returns to Grand Rapids to release the record and kick off his upcoming tour.
“I do to sound what a prism does to light,” Rowland said of his far-reaching, forward-thinking music. “Sound waves go into something and I just spread it out and blow it out into a million different fragmented colors to make a really beautiful moment.”
Although originally from Rochester Hills, near Detroit, and now once again residing on the East side of the state, Rowland considers Grand Rapids something of a second hometown as it’s where he first found his footing in music.
After graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in Chemical Engineering back in 2012, Rowland said he really got into EDM, citing big names like Skrillex, Zed’s Dead and others. He decided he wanted to start DJing as a hobby, and began playing bars by MSU.
“I really fell in love with it pretty quickly, which is weird because I used to be really against it because of being like a pure guitarist, a music purist and metal head,” Rowland said, adding that he grew up playing guitar. “But then I started to see the parallels, and really started to enjoy the energy that heavy electronic music created.”
Almost getting fired as a DJ for playing subgenres and sounds that hadn’t really caught on commercially at that time, Rowland knew early on that he wanted to make his own music, and he found more welcoming opportunities to develop his sound and network with other likeminded DJs in Grand Rapids.
He moved here in 2015, and played his first shows at The Intersection in 2016, where he became a regular opener for touring EDM acts, until he left West Michigan in 2021.
“I became a really good asset for tours who wanted more of a vibe-y, chill opener, who could still make people dance,” Rowland said. “And I think I found my pocket right there. And that little space where I exist, I’ve expanded and helped build some underground trends myself in the national experimental bass format throughout the states.”
Co-founding the Samsara Family Collective here in West Michigan in 2017, Rowland fondly looks back on the many connections he has to the electronic music community even as he’s ventured out onto his own solo endeavors.
In 2018 Super Future performed at major electronic music festivals like Chicago’s Spring Awakening and West Michigan’s own Electric Forest for the first time, broadening his fan base.
“(Electric Forest) was really the first festival that I felt was a home to me,” Rowland said.
He’s continued to perform and appear at the festival in official and unofficial ways ever since, DJing after-parties in the campgrounds, and even recording a song, “Sherwood Forest,” inspired by the festival’s famed woods, that appeared on his last EP, 2022’s Moon Stone.
“The newer thing that is becoming a mainstay for me is sunrise sets,” Rowland said of his experiences at Electric Forest. “Which as I get older, it’s not my favorite time to be awake. But like when you’re in the throes of a festival, time doesn’t even exist. So I’ve really enjoyed the feeling that I bring to that.”
He started developing that more downtempo bass side of his sound during COVID-19 lockdown, exploring the more emotional side of electronic music.
“It’s like what people say when they go through a breakup,” Rowland said. “They write their best music, right? And the pandemic was on an equal scale to the anxiety of a breakup, maybe even more. You just broke up with the whole world, basically. You had to. So that was my breakup… and I’m thankful for that, honestly.”
Just before the pandemic started, Super Future had just finished his first national tour with fellow Michigan electronic artist Wreckno, who he continues to collaborate with closely now.
He’s also gone on to land numerous opportunities across the country, and the world, working with the likes of CloZee, Liquid Stranger’s Wakaan label, and Rezz, who Super Future will be opening for at a huge show in Brooklyn coming up on June 9, following his own Full Spectrum Tour.
Upping his production and stage design for his show in Grand Rapids April 1, including adding extra speakers, lighting and lasers, Rowland said he wants to make the event feel massive even while the music feels more introspective.
“I’ve really been touting the fact that this is – in sort of a vulnerable way – not the music people would go see for a main stage show,” Rowland said. “But I’m trying to bring the feeling of a dynamic experience to my set and I’m curating it as such so that people can feel something a little bit deeper, more engaging than just one style of music.”
Super Future
Full Spectrum EP Release
Wsg. Mindset, Miilk, Arcadian Sound
The Intersection, 133 Cesar E. Chavez Ave. SW, Grand Rapids
April 1, 8 p.m. doors, 9 p.m. show, $15 advance, $20 day of show
sectionlive.com, superfuturedj.co
