The Fifth Step: A Sci-Fi Synth Pop Odyssey by Rogue FX
Enter a futuristic world of synth pop with Rogue FX’s new EP, The Fifth Step. This EP transcends the boundaries of music, as it unfolds the story of Max Rogue, a mercenary and ex-con who gets entangled with the nefarious Mind Corporation. On his journey, he encounters peril, treachery, and redemption, as he unravels the secrets of his own identity and history.
The Fifth Step EP is a captivating and immersive experience that blends synth pop, electro, and retro wave elements to produce a vibrant and rhythmic sound. Between the tracks, you will listen to audio inserts that amplify the narrative and make you feel like you are part of the adventure. The Fifth Step EP is an essential listen for aficionados of sci-fi, synth pop, and electro music. Accompany Max Rogue on his quest and get ready to be astonished by Rogue FX’s brilliant Electro Synth Pop infused with house and trance.
Today is the release day of your new EP “Fifth Step”. How would you describe it to our readers?
The Fifth Step is a sci fi inspired EP that follows a story arc across the tracks of the anti-hero of the piece called Max Rogue and his experience with the corrupt Mind Corporation, an organization that sells dangerous medically induced “mind trips” to a desperate dystopian society that is in the grip of continuous pandemics and lockdowns in the year 2033. Musically the EP is influenced by late 80s and early 90s electro synth pop and dance music. Although synth pop is its cornerstone you will hear touches of house and trance through the tracks as I wanted to give the EP an energetic dance groove.
Rogue FX means finest Synth-Pop touched by the 80s. How do you balance your sounds between being fresh and contemporary and being retro?
Thank you for the compliment. The 80s retro sound is a huge part of the Rogue FX sound and I wear my love of the 80s on my sleeve on probably every track I have released. But I do take notice of what other artists in the scene are producing and try to bring in some more contemporary touches to the production on the beats, vocals and effects used to balance out those retro synth sounds that are the heartbeat of my music. Also, the mastering that is done so well at Electric Desk in Windsor CA does use very modern compression techniques and EQ on the sound to make it more radio friendly for today.
How do your songs relate to each other? Do they form a story, or are they more standalone tracks?
The tracks on the EP do form an end-to-end story yes. The first track The Fifth Step is the beginning of the journey – it can be seen as almost a publicity campaign by Mind Corporation or as the character Max Rogue convincing himself to take “the fifth step” . Track 2 has Max Rogue is the start of his “mind trip”, with Max enjoying that luxury experience, paid for by his not quite legal acts, but as we move into track 3 Chaos Theory there is a pull from his unconscious creating a realization in Max that there is something better he could be doing with his (criminal) life which is causing the internal battle / chaos of the title that culminates in the final track Drifting – the start of the redemption of the character.
We have added short movie type sections between the EP tracks to further put the listener into that world, with special guest artists driving the story which leads to the ultimate redemption of the main character. Hopefully the EP will have an audience that does tap into the story arc as one body of work , but the songs all work as standalone tracks also with their own sound and stories to tell.
Out of all the songs from the EP, which one was the most challenging to create, considering the aspects of songwriting, production, sound selection, and more?
Probably the lead single The Fifth Track was the most challenging track to create – there is a lot going on in that track and it had quite a story to tell of its own from two separate viewpoints. It was the one track on the EP that I used some hardware synths on which although they are great and have their own unique sound, are a little more difficult to produce than the software synths. The songwriting on this was constantly evolving, I was changing vocal melodies and adding new sections just prior to and during recording of the vocals and I also went back and added further overdubs a couple of times. It was quite difficult to trim the track down actually as it was well over 6 minutes, but I managed to reduce to around 5 minutes which by modern day standards is still pretty long but for me it needed that length to tell its story. Mixing wise I ended up with over 60 tracks to mix and it I was well into double figures in mix revisions. I am looking forward to hearing the remix version of this track which will hopefully be released towards the end of the year as a remix version of the EP – I have some great artists on board remixing all of the tracks and am very excited about that – it will be great to hear the other producers / artists takes.
To give our readers a good impression of Rogue FX, which five songs of yours would you suggest them to check out?
Well in addition to the tracks on my brand-new EP which I would love your readers to check out, the songs that are most indicative of the Rogue FX sound and vision I think are Don’t Talk To Strangers – a past Nene’s Butler Chart number 1 which I was very pleased about and very thankful and appreciative of. Vocally this paved the way for where I was heading and it is chocka block full of synthesizers with a pretty nice sax riff – im actually going to be doing a sequel to this song next year.
Filofax is another track that is close to my heart, it shows more of my electro side but I know that it’s a lot of peoples favorite Rogue FX track and tells the story of 80s financial excess. Another story song is American Dream – this track has a little bit more of a synth rock element and lyrically describes a relationship from both sides, against the backdrop of a disintegrating American Dream and also had a really positive reception.
Collaborations are great to add an extra dimension to the sound of the collaborating artists and I have been fortunate enough to have been involved in a few.
(Because) We Belong with US Astronaut and DJ DR Chrispy is a unique track in the Rogue FX discography, a reworking of my debut synthwave single We Belong - it is more progressive house and less retro – but its my most streamed track getting on for 50k streams and counting, DR Chrispy did an outstanding job. Although I am proud of Domino with Toxic Drive the collaboration, I recently released with UK Retrowave producer Fonz Tramontano called Two Hearts is a love letter to 80s John Hughes movies and a uplifting track that I hope people will give a listen to on their platform of choice, we have had some great feedback on that one !
We are curious about your music label that you run by yourself. Can you tell us more about it?
The record label is a new development. It is called FiloFX Records, and I just wanted to put a label behind Rogue FX releases and I plan to release side projects and some collaborations with unsigned artists via the label. Possibly in the future I might look at adding another artist or two to the label but at the moment its primarily for Rogue FX releases.
I do have a Spotify playlist for the label that is synth pop based which other artists can submit their tracks to via Soundplate – that is growing quite nicely. Im very happy to have started a label as it’s something that I always wanted to do and I have plans of maybe a radio show for the label once it gets more established, playing songs that influence the labels 80s ethos and current tracks in the scene.
