Oxygen Thief’s Electronic Embrace of Queer Angst and DIY Drive

On the surface, Peter Constas may appear like any other early-20-something. However, there’s much more than meets the eye, namely his musical alter ego, the ever-evolving, electronic, DIY project Oxygen Thief. 

Constas pops on his Zoom camera on a break at work to chat, his face and attire a stark contrast to the often theatrical looks and outfits he rocks on the Oxygen Thief Instagram page.

Fort Collins-based and a recent CSU grad, Constas says that music was always part of his life. He grew up in a very musical family, started playing the clarinet as a kid, and then taught himself how to play bass guitar, nodding to his early love of jazz.

“High school was tough, just because I was so tired of starting high school bands, and then nothing coming of it,” he says. “I really wanted to put music out there but not have to be reliant on bands and have full control. So, that’s why I started producing.”

He’s fronted other projects as well, like Paranoid Preacher, “which is more of a synthpunk idea,” and When Good Dogs Do Bad Things, “which was just like—oh boy—an emo project, which there was a lot (of emo feelings) to be had in freshman year of college.”

Head over to Oxygen Thief’s Bandcamp page, and you’ll see 22 total projects, and the music you hear on one album might differ greatly in relation to the next.

For example, IMHAPPYDONTFUCKWITHIT is a summer album: “I was feeling good; I was in a really good headspace, and I just wanted to make music that encapsulated that.” CRUSH, his most recent project, is the “most crushing, intense, disco-dance, kind of weird, very experimental, very abstract kind of music. That’s how I was feeling at the time.” 

He adds, “If you don’t like one, you can go to the next one.”

Constas is inspired by an abundance of music, like the 90s west-German digital hardcore scene, name-dropping folks like experimental electronic musician Alec Empire and electronic producer and DJ Christoph de Babalon, along with hip-hop, chopped-and-screwed pioneer DJ Screw.

“(DJ Screw is) probably one of my biggest influences, just because I love his style so much,” Constas says. “He is literally DIY, and he made all the music on one turntable, lived paycheck to paycheck, and just made music for his buddies and kept on producing.”

Making music started as a healthy and cathartic way for Constas to express himself, and he admits that so much of that expression involves learning on the go and continuing to work with what he has. With every album, he learns something new about how to produce music.

He doesn’t use Ableton or similar software; rather, he has a collection of beat-making equipment and instruments, gushing over his recently purchased CDJ, for example, a small audio controller that changed his production style for the better.

Constas often finds workarounds to incorporate the limitations at play, which made him embrace sampling. Earlier on, he admitted it was tough to record music that sounded “professional,” so he bought records “nobody wanted” from bargain bins and transformed those sounds into something new.

“I’ve always been really into the DIY scene here in Fort Collins, also in Denver, and that kind of inspired me to just start making music in the most unique way possible,” he says. “My favorite tool, it’s this broken radio that I found at Goodwill. It’s also a sound sleeper. So, there are certain settings for waves crashing on the shore, rainfall, stuff like that.”

He’s always on the lookout for sounds he can work into Oxygen Thief’s songs, referencing sample material like a hypnotist record to help folks to stop smoking, a record narrated by Walter Cronkite talking about the moon landing, or a favorite, 50s record of call girls talking about their most interesting stories in the sex work industry.

Constas also says that Oxygen Thief is a character of sorts that has allowed him to express his queerness and journey through queer temporality, an element of himself he says he didn’t gwet to fully explore as a teenager.

“It’s kind of an exercise in that teenage angst and ethos, that type of expression; when you’re a teenager, you like to dress however you want, to rebel against your parents, stuff like that. You’re always so dramatic because it’s always the first time you’ve experienced anything, and you’re just kind of this mess, all jumbled up into this one little package.”

Through Oxygen Thief—an exasperated and emphasized version of himself—Constas sits more solidly in his identity outside of the project. He also recognizes that it’s an opportunity to play with his manhood and expectations surrounding masculinity. As a fairly gender-nonconforming person who often doesn’t come off as cis, he says Oxygen Thief allows him to hold that element of himself close and express it in a unique way.

Like many young creatives, he knows he will always make space to express that creativity, even if the main aim isn’t necessarily monetization or some kind of huge success story that thrusts Oxygen Thief into the broader public eye.

“That’s something that my dad taught me. He said, ‘Never compromise. You can be a lawyer and a DJ on the weekends, whatever you want.’”

As great as it would be for the project to grow and become a full-time venture, he’s hesitant to say that’s something he even genuinely wants, given the society we live in.

“I’ve heard a lot of horror stories, especially in my family, where people have tried to pursue music as a career, and it just kills them. It’s work; you can’t do what you were really passionate about really anymore,” he says. 

Though, that’s not to say he isn’t going to embrace elements of his craft in his professional career. As a journalism major, he notes his interest in audio and would love to look more into podcasting to explore his passion for sound from a different angle.

“If I didn’t have music, I wouldn’t be here,” he affirms. “So, playing music, listening to music, I’m obsessed with all of that. No matter what I’m doing, I’m gonna be making beats. Whoever wants to listen can listen, but I’m just gonna keep doing that forever.”

Dive into the world of Oxygen Thief on Instagram @ohtripleexwhy and Bandcamp at oxygenthief2049.bandcamp.com.     

Photos courtesy of Oxygen Thief