uc Bradford, also known as ford., just celebrated his 19th birthday and he also recently played the Dolab stage at Coachella 2019. This is not a common feat for a teenager but then again, Bradford is no ordinary teenager. In the past couple of years he has been scouted by Odesza's Foreign Family Collective, released a full length album, made remixes for Odesza and Kasbo, and played shows with musical masterminds like Emancipator. Bradford recently passed through Chicago with Jai Wolf's The Cure to Loneliness Tour and we had to ask him a few questions about his journey.

Before all the career level-ups, Bradford always had the intention of making music and he started working on his goal at a very young age.

I started getting into producing around 5th or 6th grade, at the time everyone was getting into EDM and dubstep was the big thing. A bunch of kids my age started to realize you can make music on your computer, people realized that it was such an easy, accessible thing now.

Although he was circling his passion, Bradford struggled to allocate the funds for expensive music programs and felt bewildered by the complexity of music production. Eventually he found a free program, Audiotool, that allowed him to begin his experimentation with music and develop a small following. He was known in high school as "the kid who makes music" but he didn't have "any major achievements as an artist". This would all change during his senior year.

At the end of my senior year I got an email from Foreign Family because Clay from Odesza had come across my Soundcloud. I sent them a demo and at the time it was the rough, rough version of what would end up becoming "Craving". The vocalist I got involved in the project was somebody I went to highschool with, way back in the day, weird decision but sometimes it works out like that.

After making contact with Foreign Family Bradford began working on a 10-track album, (The) Evening, which was released at the end of 2018. This powerful project reveals the layered sonic atmosphere that ford. has become recognized for. Although many listeners extract certain emotions from ford.'s music, his process does not involve focusing on a particular emotion but rather letting an idea grow naturally.

When I make music, I'll have some small idea and usually it's like the worst timing, like I'll be in the middle of class or I'll be somewhere where I can't jot down my ideas on my computer. But it's a tiny idea and I sort of test it out, I try to work on it, and if the inspiration comes I just know what to do with it. It's honestly just a stream of consciousness.

Bradford is currently working on a lot of original material and preparing for a monumental opening set for Odesza on July 27, 2019 at Los Angeles Historic State Park.