Today we’d like to introduce you to Brennan Forrester.
Hi Brennan, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I couldn’t tell you where I’m from. My parents split when I was young, my mom remarried a cowboy, a real one on a horse working cattle, and after that we moved every year or two. Small towns and remote ranches in Colorado, with stretches back in Tennessee where my family is from. Music came with me every time. A guitar, a little keyboard, whatever I had. It was also how I made friends in each new place, and then we’d move and I’d start over.
I went to college for music production, figuring I’d end up engineering in a studio, and then piano took over completely. I hadn’t grown up playing seriously, so I felt behind everyone in the building and decided the only way to catch up was to out-work them. Eight hours a day, treated like a job.
The summer after my first year is when I knew it had taken. A few friends and I were driving to music festivals all summer, and partway through I had them drop me at my grandparents’ house instead, because there was a piano there. I gave them my car, they went on to Bonnaroo, and I stayed behind and practiced.
Since then I’ve toured playing synth bass with the electronic rock band Evanoff, and now I’m focused on my solo drum and bass project, 8 of Spades, here in Denver.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not a smooth road. Junior year of college I got tendinitis bad enough that I was told to stop playing. I ignored it at first. I was in four bands and I didn’t want to slow down. What got through to me was a professor who’d had the same injury at the same age, who pointed out that a short break now buys you decades later.
So I took a summer off, went through physical therapy, and rebuilt how I touch the keys. My mentor Curtis Madigan later introduced me to Liangong, and that routine is now the first thing I do every morning, non-negotiable, before anything else. I’d been trying to catch up to everyone through sheer volume, and the injury forced me to learn the difference between working hard and working well.
The other challenge is the one every independent artist knows. When you’re starting out it’s hard to make rent from gigs, so you take whatever’s around. Odd jobs, deliveries, driving Uber, which for the record is terrible for your arms. Teaching is what changed that for me, and now it’s work I love in its own right.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My main project is 8 of Spades, a solo drum and bass project built around two rubber hose cartoon mascots that act as the devils on my shoulder, the part of me that wants to push a track further than it probably should go. I like the friction between very modern music and very old cartoons.
Two things make it sound like mine. One is that I came up as a classical and jazz pianist, so I’m putting harmonic language into a genre that doesn’t always reach for it. The other is Evanoff. Playing in a rock band for years taught me to build a song for the room, take people on a ride, and give them a real payoff at the end. Most drum and bass isn’t structured that way, and mine is.
The debut EP, Ante Up, came out on 8/8/2025, the eights being a nod to the project name, and it’s the first in a series themed around a poker game.
Outside of that I play piano in violinist Josh Teed’s live ensemble. He’s a Denver violinist and producer blending classical instrumentation with electronic music, and his ensemble includes horns, strings, live drums, a harpist and a choir. I get to be the piano guy, and it’s honestly an honor.
I also teach more than twenty private students in piano, percussion, and production, using the Sound Formation Method created by my mentor Curtis Madigan. Six months of intensive training with him taught me more about groove and rhythm than five years at university did, and it’s completely changed how I teach. A few of my students are already releasing their own music, and watching that happen is one of the best parts of the job.
Any big plans?
More releases over the next year, and my first solo set by spring or summer. I’ve got a deep backlog written already, which is deliberate. I never want to be writing something fast just to keep a schedule alive.
The first live show will most likely be me DJing my own material. I’ve never been a DJ, always a musician or a guy live looping, so it’s a whole skill set I’m learning my way into.
Mostly I want more collaboration. I’m looking to work with singers and songwriters. There’s no instrument quite like the human voice, and helping someone make a record sound the way it sounds in their head is my favorite work there is. If you’ve got something to say, come find me.
If I’ve learned one thing worth passing on, it’s to be the person who’s actually in the room. In college I was in the practice rooms every hour I could get, and the relationships that came out of that are still the ones carrying my career. Big thanks to Curtis Madigan, to Josh Teed, to the guys in Evanoff, and to my wife Mattie, who makes all of it possible.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linke.ro/8_of_spades_dnb
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/8_of_spades_dnb/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@8ofSpades_dnb
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/8-of-spades-413661683
