The current music world is surrounded by digital sounds that seem to cross and break every genre barrier, thus leading to new forms of electronica, hip-hop, and experimental sounds. As new cross genres of electronic music continue to show up throughout the world and internet sphere, it is no wonder that someone like Silver Medallion is starting to pop up all over the place with new collaborations and experimental sounds to show that one genre is not always enough. Oren J, DJ and original vocalist (and now sole member) of Silver Medallion, has gone through a lot in the past few years to establish himself in the music world. After an explosive start in the Arizona Electronic Dance Music (EDM) scene and the death of his musical-partner/best friend, Silver Medallion has pressed on to release some incredible cross genre sounds stemming from influences all over the United States.

Inked Magazine: So why don't we start by getting to know what separates the man from the Medallion. How are Oren J and Silver Medallion different?

Silver Medallion: Well, Silver Medallion used to be a group. There was a second person [Abay 'Carnegie' Lattin] in it and he passed away on tour. I continued on with the Silver Medallion name. What separates the two mostly is Silver Medallion still has a little bit of a persona. It stands for something, whereas in my day to day, while I'm still living that life style, I am a little more casual than Silver Medallion.

Inked: Silver Medallion has been labeled as all sorts of things, from hip-hop to EDM and now you've kind of moved away from some of that and introduced some new stuff.

Silver Medallion: Yeah, it was really EDM for a long time. I guess a lot of making so much EDM comes from the sort of pressure of the "if you want to be successful then you have to have songs that DJs play, songs that go to the radio etc." and while that's always amazing to make and great to see people have reactions to in those environments, I also want to feel fulfilled as an artist. I know recently I've been trying to take advantage of the fact that we are in 2013 and if I make a rock track/EDM electro-hip-hop song it's still going to get supported by blogs and get supported by my fans. So I'm trying to not worry when I sit down and write a song about what genre it's going to end up being because I feel like real artists will have their personality and what they are trying to say shine through no matter what form of record it is going to be on.

Inked: So speaking of records, Xanaxland came out about two months ago. That's got to have some personality, especially with a name like that.

Silver Medallion: I moved to New York about three years ago from Scottsdale, Arizona. New York is a whole new world for me of this roaring up club scene and there are so many more people who have crazy amounts of money and who take these crazy lifestyles. No one is really judging you in New York for what you look like or your personality. People just kind of accept that you're just around all of these extremes. Xanaxland is like an outsider's perspective of it, as like this rabbit hole that people go down. And this is what I have seen. [Xanaxland] is sort of the negative side of that, it's just something to sum up this really strange lifestyle that I have seen and been around since coming here. It's a great lifestyle to write records about and there are so many underlying issues and interesting personas within it that I really gravitate to from a writing perspective. And also, it was an opportunity to create a project so people would know it's a separate project that obviously sounds nothing like any of the music I've made previously.