Rudebrat

The newest addition to the Vital family is 20-year-old student Jake Bratrude, who goes by the name of Rudebrat. Originally from Dublin, California, Bratrude, whose DJ alias came from simply flipping his last name, started producing music in his early teens. Bratrude has been a guitarist since age 11 and a regular attendee of raves and electro shows since the age of 14. Bratrude may seem young, but has been a musician for 10 years, and is even studying electronic music at the University of California, where he is a psychology major. 

Computers, synths, and keyboards are not the only instruments upon which Bratrude composes. He is a full-time instrumentalist, who also plays seven-string guitar, bass, drums and piano. A member of multiple metal bands throughout his teen years, Bratrude was never a huge fan of dubstep until about two years ago, when he purchased some turntables and, as he puts it, “The rest is history I guess!” 

After meeting Bay Area DJs Switchup and Sublock, Bratrude — who also makes house and drum and bass music in addition to dubstep — was introduced to fellow young producer and member of Vital Management Tanner Petulla, otherwise known as Getter. “We really hit it off,” Bratrude explains, “While I was playing we got to be friends, so he sent Robert [Mine, of Vital Management] my Soundcloud link and they sent me a contract a few days later.” 

Such confidence in a new artist is rarely shown, but Vital’s faith in Bratrude comes from the strength and prolificness of his work, which Bratrude describes as “heavy, filthy, distorted, melodic, dubstep-electro craziness.” The abundance of quality tracks comes from Bratrude’s commitment to constant production. “I produce a lot, almost two to three hours a day, and I practice mixing in that time too,” he explains. “I’m in it to win it!” 

The same diversity and passion can be found when Rudebrat plays a set at a Vital SC show. “My sets are all over the place, I’ll be dropping a lot of dub and then switch into house and drum and bass … I have a lot of unreleased tracks people haven’t heard … heavy, crazy stuff!” Bratrude, who names Skrillex and Deadmau5 as dream collaborations, is currently joining forces on a song with Sublock, and shows no signs of slowing down the production as more and more shows get added to his schedule. 

“I keep banging out tracks until one gets really noticed,” he says. “I have to produce a track every week for my class for my [electronic music] minor so I’m just gonna go crazy with it and not stop!” Another collaboration track with Getter is in the works, and the two Vital powerhouses even have tentative plans to share a house in Santa Cruz after this summer. “That fool came out of nowhere with the beefiest dubs,” Getter said about his friend. “He can make whatever sound he puts his mind to. Prodigy in the making fsho!” 

The popular track “Obsolete” is one that displays Bratrude’s dubstep production style very well — intensely grimy, but at the same time complex and melodic. Another fan favorite is his heavy remix of “Abducted” by Rings of Saturn. However, his most popular track to date is one that was actually supposed to be a joke but turned into a surprise hit: the Rudebrat dubstep remix of Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” The viral sensation was discovered early on by Bratrude, who knew it would be big and so made a remix in about two hours. Once on the internet, Bratrude’s version was instantly a huge hit, one of the most popular remixes of the song to date. A snippet of the remix even appeared on the “Meme Watch” segment of G4 television program “Attack of the Show.” So far Bratrude’s remix has quickly amassed half a million views on YouTube, and counting. 

The production wiz and exciting new addition to Vital Management is equally thrilled to be a member of the Vital team. Bratrude hopes to make a career out of his musical passion as a touring DJ after he graduates from UCSC, alongside his dreams to work “producing tracks for big names, be an engineer working with that … or make sounds for movies, like ‘Transformers.’” He adds, of course, that “touring as Rudebrat would be the coolest thing though.” We here at Vital think — for us and all of Rudebrat’s fans, new and old — that it would be pretty cool too.