Illusionist. Entertainer. DJ. Those are all titles for Weyburn’s Richy Roy. He can now add EDM producer to that list, with the release of his first single, “Time Will Tell”.  

“Time Will Tell is available everywhere on any streaming platform, which is fantastic,” Roy said on a visit to Discover Weyburn Monday morning. “I’m really proud of my first single. It’s something that really resonated with a lot of the pop culture.” 

Roy was a recipient of the Millie Coghill Award earlier this year, through the Weyburn Arts Council. The award provided money towards courses on how to become an EDM, or electronic dance music, producer. From there, he got to work on honing his craft.  

“Pretty much anything I step my foot into, I dive all in, so I’m putting in three hours a day down in my studio,” Roy explained of the process. “The off time when I’m not actually working on my music, I’m learning lectures, I’m learning different immersive courses, and I go 110 percent in.” 

As he worked on the music, he sought feedback from others in the profession. He sent out the songs as he was going, and admitted he received some harsh criticism of his first efforts. 

“It hurts when people say ‘this sucks and it sounds awful’, but then they’d say ‘here’s how you fix it and make it good,’” Roy told of the feedback process. What the feedback did was give him notes on what to do to improve the track. From there, he would refine it, send it out, get more notes, and then refine it more.  

“That process happened four or five times over and over again just to refine it, and that’s the beautiful thing about making electronic music, or any music for that matter, is that you can keep rewriting it until it’s where you need to be,” he continued.  

Now, the challenge comes in getting the song out to the masses. With more than 100,000 songs being uploaded to Spotify, the world’s top music streaming platform, the goal now is to get noticed. For Roy, he is getting a little help with that from a place one wouldn’t necessarily expect. 

“There’s radio stations even in France that are playing the song, and they’re going to put it into rotation for the month of December, which is fantastic,” Roy enthused when asked about the reception to the song so far.  

From here, the goal is to continue work on the music, with more singles planned before the end of the year.  

“January, I’m looking to release my first full album,” Roy added. “It’s going to be called Rave 306 and should have about 12 to 14 EDM tracks on it. ‘Time Will Tell’ is a great track. It’s vocal driven track with a chill vibe. It was inspired by a Chris Lake style music, but on the album, it gets into a bigger mainstage sound.” 

From here, the next steps for Roy will include taking his music onto the festival circuit, starting here in Saskatchewan, and growing from there. 

“Tomorrowland is the goal – that is the ultimate. I mean, Tomorrowland is the mecca of all EDM festivals. It’s where all the biggest professionals play.”