Highly Venomous

Hailing from the smoggy city in the great white north of Toronto Ontario, Ricardo Bairos and Jeff Buchanan are quietly making a name for themselves in their hometown where dance culture runs deep. Bringing a hard-hitting combination of their own very different musical backgrounds to the dance floor, they are at the forefront of the groovy new era of big room where noise and generic drops are a thing of the past. Starting out at the ripe young age of 12, Ricardo quickly found a love for DJing spawning from the electronic boom in the 90s and his classic rock youth. He began playing 19+ shows in Toronto at the age of 14. He held numerous residencies around famed nightclubs such as Tryst, Lot 332, 69 Bathurst and This Is London. “I fell in love with the underground in 2009 when Dubfire played Guvernment.” That same year he decided to take his musical knowledge to the next level and take up production. Soon after he founded the Toronto Producers Group, a group that seeks out and helps talented producers in the local scene. Growing up with The Beatles or Rolling Stones constantly playing in the background Jeff knew at a very young age that he wanted to pursue music in any capacity for as long as he could. He started playing guitar at the age of 12, then taught himself to play the drums in high school playing in punk rock and hardcore bands through college. After graduating from Metalworks Institute for music production in 2009 he started working at the Kool Haus/Guvernment Entertainment complex as a stagehand. At the time he knew very little about the electronic music world until his second day on the job working a Deadmau5 show in The Guvernment. “That show completely changed my outlook on that whole culture, from that point on I wanted to know what these guys were doing, and how they were creating this music.” He switched from producing rock and metal to teach himself electronic music production. After he began playing shows under the alias “Skugog,” he would eventually cross paths with Ricardo playing as “Ricardo Rise” in the summer of 2014. Throughout the summer of playing shows together and sharing a residency at the newly opened RED Nightclub they decided to combine forces in the studio. Sharing a love for progressive big room along the lines of Steve Angello, Tom Staar & Kryder they began to develop their new sound and bring groove to the stale big room that had been outplayed in their city. Their combination of underground percussion and bass with high-energy synths is the signature sound that drives Highly Venomous. Production/DJ Duo Ricardo Bairos & Jeff Buchanan from Toronto, CA