Danger.Less Makes Music Milshakes 

• Provided
• Danger Less

Music producers wear a lot of hats. Not only do they help bring life to a band's artistic vision, but they also play the role of mediator, hype man and oftentimes therapist. Finding a good producer who meets your needs and understands your artistic vision can make or break a project, and Danger.Less knows that more than anyone. The producer duo find themselves taking on these roles for their clients on the daily—and there's nothing else they'd rather be doing.

Danger.Less, formerly Slow Wave, is made up of Caleb Loveless and Dane Holmes, two friends who lovingly admit to having a major man-crush on each other. Circa 2014, the duo met through the band OKKAH, and after working together on projects for them, they realized there was something special there.

"We just fell in love with each other a little bit, a little man-crush on each other. But mostly, it was that we just kind of had similar vision and we spoke a similar language and just got along really well," Loveless said.

Loveless and Holmes complement each other in a way that has so far been an excellent recipe for making the best music milkshakes. "I'm really into sound design," Holmes said. "I obsess over composition, sound design, just the intricacies of the little kind of ear candies and details of the music," he said. "Not that Caleb doesn't, but Caleb's strength I would say, is the songwriting. He oversees executively the vision of the song, and has that in mind much more than I was ever able to, because I was so in the weeds with the production, the electronic production, the instrumentals and all those things."

Loveless and Holmes are self-taught, and the years spent honing their skills is evident on everything they work on. You can find their credits on local artists like OKKAH, Die Shiny and Robyn Cage, as well as national acts and for company brands. The duo love signing up for new projects, but working with the same singers/bands on multiple projects is something special.

"You can really create an intimacy and learn an artist on such a deep level given some time," Loveless said. "I honestly love when I feel like artists I've worked with, Die Shiny, for example, I feel like just through the process of working together, everyone got better. They got better and everyone improved."

"A producer can do a lot of things and take on many roles, depending on the project," Loveless added. "It's the creative part of taking a song that's like a skeleton or just a stripped-down version or an idea and flushing out all the music behind it, and even just overseeing the song structure and how it all works, and that can take many forms."

Danger.Less love creating music themselves, so a lot of passion for producing comes from there, but extracting creativity from an artist is also a big part of why they do what they do. "There's a whole psychology behind that," Loveless said. "Something that I just really love is thinking about how to create a safe enough space or a space that's conducive to the creative process, and then being bold and patient enough to extract from every person their best artistic self, their most creative self. That's the greatest gift you could give as a producer to somebody, I think."

That's the difference between a producer or a good producer, according to Holmes. Learning about the artist, what they need to do their best and knowing what their goals are all represent key factors in getting a great project done. "It's knowing when to push them, knowing when to push them out of their comfort zone, knowing when [not to], having a vision of not accepting anything less than the vision," Loveless said.

If all those ingredients are put together properly, you end up with a delicious music milkshake. When all of these elements come together and the creativity comes out in full force from everyone involved, it ends up being that perfect milkshake on a summer day.

Loveless and Holmes consider themselves a match made in heaven, so there's no way they're going to stop working together anytime soon. "I love working with Dane. He's a very talented producer and I just like the way his brain works. He's just really good at what he does," Loveless said. There are plenty more milkshakes needing to be made, after all."

Check out Danger.Less' website thedangerless.com to see their work and inquire about help with your producing needs. Also be sure to follow them on Instagram, @danger.less.