Meet Easynoodles
“Easynoodles,” aka Eli Schwemler, is a communications design student who, in his rare free time, produces synth-sounding music with catchy beats and unique instruments, solely from his computer. However, you may remember his face before you recall his name, as he has ~arguably~ one of the most unique styles on campus; most notably including his painted pink shoes and wide array of funky jackets.
courtesy of @schwemler
From high school to college, Eli has taken his fun pastime of creating music and turned it into something more serious. He has begun to release songs on several different social platforms including Spotify, YouTube, and Soundcloud, and is continuing to take Syracuse campus by storm. As Cuse students ourselves, we decided to sit down and talk with him about why he decided to start producing music, the origin of ‘easynoodles,’ and more on the meaning of his three latest singles. Tune into the unparalleled character that is “Easynoodles,” and more importantly, meet Eli!
Q: The question everyone is dying to know, what does your stage name, “Easynoodles,” mean?
“Before I started making music at all, what I first did and what I still love to do is graphic design, photoshop especially. This place in Philly Chinatown sells these noodles that are thick with lots of ingredients that make them a meal, and I ate those for lunch every day, they were so delicious. Not only did they taste amazing, but they looked amazing. I realized when I got a camera up to them, the broth and ingredients looked like a little galaxy. I had a series of pictures of bowls of noodles, and they were all photoshopped in this one style I had. So then I’d post it on my design Instagram. Since I was posting all this stuff of easy noodles I was like ‘Cool, I’ll call this design Instagram ‘Easy Noodles Media’. From there I would do graphic design for all my local rappers and whenever I would sign my work, I’d sign it with a little easy noodles media squiggle that looked like a noodle.”
Q: When do you feel is the most creative time of day to create your music?
“For some reason any time past 11 pm is really good for creative output. Screens keep you awake, and since you’re on a computer, you’re just on a constant loop of listening to the same thing over and over again, time flies by. You start at 11 pm and then its 3 am and you say, ‘Uh oh, this isn’t good!’ I have nights where I don’t allow myself to open a computer at all just so I can get some sleep.”
Q: Not majoring in music production, how to find time to balance your major, communications design, and your music?
“Well, I don’t! For my major, I make relative advertisements based on voices & messages of brands. I made an antifungal product and decided to make a Spotify jingle for one of the creative ads I had to produce for class. So, that’s how I got around to that single. It’s a fun way to weave an external interest that I don’t get much time to do on my own, with something I have to do.”
Q: Do you take inspiration from any artists?
“‘Mother Earth’s Plantasia,’ by Mort Garson, is a mood synthesizer, kinda one of the earliest uses back in the 70s. Really good, cool, and spacey sound. It also had a good advertisement, which is what I really liked about it. It was sorta my music in the way that it was an advertisement for something. Basically, you got an organized synthey sounding album for free when you bought a house plant. Also, hamburger helper dropped a mixtape which is really good and well produced. I remember my friends listening to that in high school unironically.”
Q: Is there any specific audience you make this music for?
“Well, ideally I wanna experiment with all the genres, cause that just sounds fun and exciting to me. I have so many songs saved on my computer, and that’s how I listen to them, through the software I make them on the computer. There came a point when I just wanted it on a streaming service so I could listen to them anywhere I wanted. Is it too vain to say I made them for myself?”
Q: Your next single, Jensen Beach, represents a protest song. Can you explain a little further the importance of the protest?
“I’m a homeowner in Jensen Beach, FL, right by the northeast part of the Indian River. Fun fact- it looks like a gingerbread house that’s elevated on stilts, with a bunch of cool mid-century furniture inside, because my mother is a great interior decorator. Anyways, it’s a really small town, and basically everyone knows each other. A lot of the storefronts there rely on tourist attractions and water sport activities. Right now, there’s a toxic algae bloom that occurs when agriculture by Lake Okeechobee is not handled correctly. That explains a snippet of the congressman saying, ‘Not one drop headed our way,’ because they’re referring to the tainted water coming from Lake Okeechobee. There’s also another protest in Jensen beach that is about high speed railways, which connect Miami and Orlando. There are no stops along the way and the railway makes loud noises, holds traffic, and scares people. If you isolate a small town, it’s only going to become smaller.
Q: We love hotcakes, you love hotcakes, everyone loves hotcakes, and were not just talking about the big fluffy ones you order from Stella’s diner downtown. What’s the meaning behind your third and final single titled, ‘Hotcakes’?
“That’s a really weird song, but for good purposes! It was produced when I brought my computer around a room and let all my friends contribute one instrument to a track that I was then planning on mixing together. It was funny cause people chose really weird instruments, a lot of it didn’t make sense and it was very chaotic at first. While we were all goofing off in a fast food drive through later that night, I got a lot of cool vocal snippets that I laid over the mix. It’s called hotcakes because that was one of many things ordered, but also because it’s a really messy mix at first that comes together to something light and fluffy. I sent it to them on Christmas as a little gift afterwards.”
Q: Last year your first EP, ‘The Unzone’, was released. How are these two projects different from each other?
“That project is isolated in itself right now because it has this ongoing storyline, and a multimedia campaign to help perpetuate that storyline. Head to toe is wrapped up because it was a class project that is now over with. Jensen Beach is over because you only really need 1 protest song. I do plan on continuing it in the same means as I made it, with screenplays and music visuals, and once I get around to that it won’t be so isolated.”
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
“Every time I talk about works I want to release in the future, it’s almost as if it brings on a curse of not being able to complete it. I like to tell as few as possible of what I’m up to so I can really focus and be in my own head when I’m creating.”