hen Morning Coffee (Pheel's collab project with Parkbreezy) got a slot at the 2022 Tipper and Friends event at Suwannee, I knew the all:Lo Collective would go worldwide... I asked Pheel. (AKA Phil Gallo) if he felt like the torch of the left-field bass scene was being passed to him and his friends (Thought Process played the next TNF in 2023, Pheel. was invited again for the 2024 Rendezvous in which he amassed a giant crowd for an impromptu Sunday morning set after his set on Saturday was rained out and Pheel was just invited to the final TNF at the Gorge) he modestly chuckled and shrugged off the notion. Instead of focusing on torch passing, Pheel is all about curation and cultivation. 

I really like curating and being able to put people on that I think are sick. I like to look at it as how people helped and put me on when I was coming up. Now that I have a platform where I can, I want to do that too. I think that's just a way that keeps shit growing

After disavowing the bass scene for years, I moved to Denver in late 2020 and all I heard about was the all:lo collective. This group of young musicians consisting of Pheel, Parkbreezy, TF Marz, Thought Process and more were stirring the pot of the whole psychedelic bass scene by integrating Boom Bap/Lofi beat themes and everyone was noticing. When I first heard Pheel at the Black Box, I was instantly hooked. His scratching skills were unbelievable and his production spoke to my very soul. It was heavy but not obtrusive, it was gnarly but not ugly, it was uptempo but it was downtempo too. It's everything I wanted in a bass show and I almost left the scene because I thought it didn't exist.

I feel like it's pushing a different type of thing in the club. Because now it's all really heavy music and everything. There's nothing wrong with it, like my stuff goes kind of heavier but not fucking Riddim territory. It's combining the stuff that we grew up on. It's chiller stuff that you can listen to in your room or wiggle to it on a dance floor.

Although Pheel is a household name by now, he had to go through the trenches to make it there. Pheel's musical journey began when his cousin Karl started showing him artists like "Big L, Biggie, [and] D12" on burnt CDs. Karl was a "big influence" for Pheel and he eventually put him on to artists like Big Gigantic, Deadmau5 and Pretty Lights. Pheel was also getting acquainted with the overarching festival scene as he worked Camp Bisco in the early 2010s. At 19 he scored a gig DJing at a college bar in upstate New York and he did that for two years before realizing he wanted to make music of his own. But his family didn't think it was a good idea...

I used all my college money that my parents had saved up to go to this school called Dubspot. They were so against it. They were like, "You're not going to make any money with this. This is a bad choice." I was like, "That's what I want to do, just let me try it. I'll just work hard with it" and I did that.

In an episode of pure fate, Pheel's mind was melted by a DJ Craze set right before making his decision to go to DubSpot. After he decided to go, his love for scratching and turntablism would be cemented as he saw Tipper? for the first time at Camp Bisco 2015. There was no turning back after that.

I saw DJ Craze play and it was the first time hearing scratching go off. It was a hip-hop set that he did and the whole time I was there, I was like, "What the fuck?" I didn't know you could do that and that was right before I started going to Dubspot. 

In the last month of a six-month turntable class, I went to Camp Bisco  and it was the first time I saw Tipper. All my friends didn't know how to digest it and I'm just like, "Holy shit..." Especially since I was learning how to actually scratch. That was scratching sound design, not just vocal samples. That's when I was like, "Oh, you could go so much deeper with this."

Pheel’s parents started to get the picture when he took the stage at Red Rocks with his Groovesauce project (with Parkbreezy & Thought Process) and curated festival takeovers across the country. But that was after ten years of hard work! First, he would have to move to Denver and meet a few friends that would later be known as the all:Lo Collective. It all started when he was living with Thought Process and Parkbreezy for years.

I can only speak for myself but I feel like that was the best thing that like could have happened for us. When we were living together we'd hear one person working on a tune and it made you feel like, "Fuck I should be doing this instead of sitting on the couch or some shit." It was a constant motivation and we all have different strengths and weaknesses. We all showed each other ways that we can improve our weaknesses and all that, It was a big like learning time. It was before  when we were first starting to play shows, living together and everything. I feel like it fast-tracked this learning curve. 

Me and Parker (Parkbreezy) had a spot together at first. I met him probably 2017 and then we moved in later that year. That's when  me, him, and Marley (TF Marz) started up all:Lo. Maybe a month or so after is when we met Joe (Thought Process). He was coming over and we're working on tunes. He was sending us stuff and played some of Marley's Curation Series shows. Then his old girlfriend got accepted to medical school in Pennsylvania. She was moving out there but he didn't want to leave.

I told him we were trying to get a fucking house because we were in an apartment and anytime after 10 p.m. they would be fucking banging on our walls while we're working on music. So we need a house. Then we ended up going to get a house and that's when COVID hit. It was the first time where we didn't have to work and we just stayed at home, ate mushrooms, and fucking made music for a year straight. It was the best [and] we were making more money off COVID money than actual working.

‍Although the all:Lo squad all have their individual sounds, they use an ethos of collaboration to guide their craft. The group played together all over Denver including the Black Box, Brunch Box, Meow Wolf, free shows at the Cheesman Park Pavilion, Threyda Gallery and so many more.

Groovesauce started that way. Joe was just working on a beat upstairs and we're hanging out and then I was like “let me go grab my turntable. I'll just like fuck around scratching over it.” Parker came in and he's like “Fuck I'll go grab my keyboard.” He came up and then we just started just jamming over this beat that he was working on.

What started as a local phenomenon quickly turned into a national one with every bass festival begging for an all:Lo take over. Pheel has opened for Detox Unit, played Envision Festival in Costa Rica and frequently travels across the U.S. Having already achieved so much  (including an awesome fashion line), Pheel and the all:Lo collective is looking far into the future. They want to provide more musical access to the next generation of creators as they progress in their careers.

Marley (TF Marz) really wants to get into doing a nonprofit and do stuff like  Youth on Record. It's that kind of stuff where they provide materials for kids in elementary school, middle school to learn how to make music. We could use this to give back to the younger generations and people not as privileged. That's the type of goal we’re going for next and it's obviously all outside of the music part. 

I feel like doing something because we're coming up on the 10 year. In two years it'll be 10 years since the start of all:Lo. We want to do something cool with that. Maybe a full tour with everybody…

It’s crazy what a group of friends can do together when they really put their mind to something. The powerful creative force that Pheel brings to his music has been fine-tuned through years of support from his closest friends and they just happen to be super creative forces in their own right. Even though the whole group has their own individual paths they feel like a collective more than anything.

That’s one thing with Joe and Parker, I feel like I could always sit down and at least get a good idea. That's from just years of living with each other and growing up with each other that way. We’re all going slightly different paths, but they're all still connected, which is the cool part. We're able to get lined up with bigger producers in our own senses, but then it's not just one person. That person will end up fucking with the whole crew. So then it's not just like, “Oh, this person's going this way, this is going this way, and that's it.” It's like a Y in the road. It's a Y that turns into a loop. It all comes back together.

Recently Pheel just dropped an official remix for a Sunquabi track and a collab with Daggz. But he also has some other tricks up his sleeve.

I have this EP that's been done for a while. The artwork came. So I'm just going to do a random drop someday soon. I don't know when. I like the random drops now.

If Pheel is new to you, start studying and get out to a show now. This dude will be in the big venues with his friends any day now and those tickets can be fucking expensive! Also for all you music producers out there, here’s Pheel favorite toys to make music with.

All Ableton. I have some synths. I use Access Virus TI2 a lot. My first synth ever was a Moog Sub Fatty, and that's used in Snail Trail, that bass is a Sub Fatty. Just a bunch of other random little things here and there, like TB303. I got into an acidy phase for a little bit. It’s  nice having those and just being able to get really into it and then forget about it and then come back to it later. Like, oh man, “I forgot about this sound.”

This interview and the photos were taken Chicago stop of the ongoing 2025 all:Lo Spring tour.