DMb | Dance Music blog & Podcast

Myon & Shane 54 are one of the brightest stars of the so-called new generation of dance music producer / DJs.

Coming from Hungary, the duo have achieved serious success in the international dance music scene; an achievement no artist had done before from their home country. In less than 2 years after they started making music together, the pair were voted into DJMag’s Top 100 DJs at #91. They’ve been producing for the biggest names in the trance scene, are a constant fixture in their record boxes, and the combined sales of everything they’ve done way exceeds the million mark.

USTM: Hello guys, how are you? You just celebrated 100 Episode’s of International Departures! Must have been a great achievement in your life/music career. Can you tell us how you celebrated?

S: The show started a few days after our big introduction at ASOT 400, which was our 2nd international gig together in 2009. We had a few ideas about how it’s gonna turn out, but we never imagined it will go this far. It’s still weird to think about all those people around the world listening to what we do week by week. We get a lot of feedback, and that’s what keeps us going really. It might sound cheesy, but the love of the fans makes everything worthwhile.

M: We were celebrating in Winnipeg, Canada while we had a few days off while touring there. We made a regular radio episode, and we thought it would be great to do a long mix consisting of all our stuff, just to show how far we’ve come since day one. But as the mix reached 4.5 hours length, we realized we might not be able to squeeze everything in there. So we kept half of those tracks and remixes for episode 200, where we pretty sure they will work with our future material. And it was a lot of fun listening back to all those old productions we’ve made like 3 years ago, and haven’t heard for a long time. We will also have an ID100 Celebration in Hawaii on New Years Eve. Now THAT is something we are looking forward to…

USTM: What are your opinions on the changing EDM scene and the effect that pop culture has had on EDM? Do you think its better? Worse? And would you be willing to change your style to fit the new and growing audience?

M:It’s just as true the other way around. Pop music has changed a lot due to dance music, and now every single big pop artist wants to work a dj or seen hanging out with big djs. Obviously those people don’t have any real idea what EDM is really about, but they have a great sense of pop of course. Underground djs can moan about this, but we don’t necessarily think that way. We think it’s a great thing, and it opened a lot of doors for people who might have never thought about 4/4 beats if it wasn’t for all those big cheesy hits.

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Arty at Vision Nightclub says the US is the top for Electronic Dance Music and reveals that he uses FL Studio to write his tracks and put down ideas when on the road.

The 5 Year Anniversary of Massive Event with Simon Patterson, Roger Shah, & tyDi @ Highline Ballroom, NYC . For more info go to www.massiveevent.com

Simon Patterson Hi Simon, Massive Event will be celebrating its five years of event production in New York, and invited you back for the celebration along with Tydi & Roger Shah. You have been working with Massive Events for quite some time now. What is it about Massive that makes you continue to come back?

Simon Patterson: Well I have known Mike for the same amount of time and he’s a good friend. His parties have been amazing since day one and he was the first to bring me there so I have a tremendous amount of loyalty to him and the people that always go to his shows. I haven’t played at Massive for a while so this is going to be a great party!

Any new remixes or tracks you have been working on, that you’re looking to share for the anniversary?

Simmon Patterson: I have been working on a few things, but nothing’s quite finished yet. I’m just toying with sounds and new ideas and seeing what’s working and what’s not. There will be a few new vocal tracks coming from me soon.

What advice would you have for both Michael Brand and Matthew Felner in their continuing drive to push the boundaries of event production & promotion?

Simon Patterson: Just keep doing what you’re doing. You are keeping the NYC scene alive so keep it up! Any last words for your fans and New York?

Simon Patterson: Can’t wait to be back… see you there!!!

Roger Shah

Hi Roger! How are you doing? Massive Event will be celebrating its five years of event production in New York, and invited you back for the celebration along with Tydi & Simon Patterson. What are you looking forward to most of your return back to the Big Apple?

Roger Shah: The most i look forward to the incredible music lovers of nyc. i’m still in early steps to conquer the united states and my profile is still not on the level as i have in other countries where i even do solo concerts like a band, but for some reason i have a special connection to nyc which started when i played the a state of trance 450 with an unbelievable crowd reaction, this continued when i played for massive events earlier this year, so i can say that nyc is my favorite place in the usa to play and i’m very excited to be back even i have to admit that i had the hope to play a longer set is i usually do on my current openminded album tour.

Any new remixes or tracks you have been working on, that you’re looking to test out at the Anniversary party?

Roger Shah: always work on new stuff, recently i just finished a new single under my famous global experience alias, for which i had no time the past couple of years, i also did some new remixes for 3 drives – greece 2000 or loverush uk ft carla werner but i also will play all main tracks from my new album and of course some of my greatest hits as well.

Massive Event has been around for five years here in New York, and is bringing in new talent to the masses monthly. What advice would you have for both Michael Brand and Matthew Felner in their continuing drive to push the boundaries of event production & promotion?

Roger Shah: I think there is not really an advice to give to those guys since i think they do everything right, especially in a country where edm is still a small sub genre. i think it’s more to give a lot of respect than advices. just keep on doing what u doing for the love of edm music. from the production side i can say that my last show was really amazing, they brought in a lot of show elements and i also had one of my singers with me, so i think it was a great experience for the audience. we are in entertaining biz and the guys know what it needs.

Any last words for your fans and New York? See you there!

Roger Shah: I just wanna send a shout out to my fans in nyc with the note the i think that i will have the first set time, so make sure to be there early, not to miss anything, i will prepare a special live show and trying to play as many songs as i can in this 90 minutes of my set. can’t wait to be back and i love my fans there. see you soon

Tydi

Hello Tydi, How’s it going? Massive Event will be celebrating its five years of event production in New York, and invited you for the celebration along with Roger Shah & Simon Patterson. What are you looking forward to most, as this is your first time playing in New York, and will end your Tour with.

Tydi: Hey hey! There’s nothing more exciting than playing in a city for the first time! I’ve toured nearly everywhere around the world and all over the USA except for NYC, in fact it’s one of my last few major cities to visit. Saving the best for last I guess I hear the vibe in NY is crazy, and I’m already getting flooded with fan mail from people who are excited about my first visit, so that’s a great sign! I have no doubt that this show is going to be CRAZY! I can’t wait

Any new remixes or tracks you have been working on, that you’re looking to share

Tydi: I just released my brand new album ‘Shooting Stars’! It’s been topping the charts around the world and hit #4 on USA iTunes dance; you guys have really shown a lot of love for the album so I’ve prepared a whole bunch of exclusive remixes that you’ll only hear at my live performances. As this is part of my Shooting Stars tour you can expect my show to be built around the album.

Massive Event has been around for five years here in New York, and is bringing in new talent to the masses monthly. What advice would you have for both Michael Brand and Matthew Felner in their continuing drive to push the boundaries of event production & promotion?

Tydi: It sounds like they are going really well, five years is a long time to do well in suck a fickle industry – so I’m not sure I should be offering advice? They have it nailed! The advice I give to anyone out there is to keep up to date with the new sounds, the scene moves quickly so it’s important to keep up with who’s on top of their game, tomorrow it could be someone else!

Any last words for your fans and New York? See you there!

Tydi: I am SO excited to be performing in NYC for the first time! I know I’ve got a lot of supporters in your city and I’m sorry it’s taken me so damn long to get out to you! I promise this will be a night to remember, I’m gonna to bring the party

Is that hummus? Oh my god I can’t believe somebody like you would eat hummus ha ha ha. I thought hummus was only sold in North Scottsdale where I live in my gated community. Ha ha ha. Wow…hummus.

We have a new interview with Master’s at Work’s Louie Vega talking about Soul Heaven, Current Projects, and little known bits about his personal life. Enjoy.

How important is Soul Heaven to you and why is you think they have been successful; proudly celebrating their 10th Anniversary?
At soul heaven we have always kept it real musically and all the djs have done wonderful work giving you the best in soul dance music. Soul Heaven always kept a close contact with the fans, and there is always an a class set of entertainment. With the cds, events worldwide, and quality of music they bring, you can’t go wrong. They are also friendly with all fans and give them the time they deserve. 10 years is a long time to keep for an ongoing party, and soul heaven has proven themselves in our industry.

Your career spans way more than ten years but can you remember the time when you celebrated 10 years in the industry and as MAW?
I will never forget our 10-year anniversary (maw). We had a huge party in Miami at opium garden, over 2000 people and the best live entertainment you could ever have. We invited the Nuyorican Soul band to back up Roy Ayers, Bebe Winans, Stephanie Mills, James Ingram, Jody Watley, and many more. Brazilian dancers, fireworks, the infamous MAW gift bags, and much more.

Soul Heaven brought together the soulful sounds of house and really gave it a worldwide stage. How have you seen dance music evolve over the last decade?
Dance music has evolved very much. From djs playing at the Olympics, to playing at the super bowl, working with cirque du soleil and even getting recognized at the Grammys with awards, dance music is growing in a big way. Many pop artists now are leaning towards dance music where before many in that world saw it as taboo. I only see it growing bigger in that way where the worlds will mix more musicially.

Are there any particular styles that you have seen arise and quite happily seen disappear…? (more…)

Erick Morillo interviewed Steve Angello, sent it our way to pass on to our readers, and is giving us 3 copies of Steve’s new double mix CD to give away to our US readers (sorry rest of the world we’ll try to make it up to you.) So drop us a comment and tell us where you’re writing from and we’ll do a drawing 24 hours from now for the 3 double packs. We’ve also got a audio player below the interview so you can preview the mixes.

Erick, take it away…

When you first started out did you wish you could be Erick Morillo?

Erick’s a big inspiration for a lot of DJ’s, you can see a little bit of him in everyone from David Guetta to us and to anybody. I think he’s a really big inspiration to house DJ’s.

At what point in your career did think ‘This is it, I’ve made it!’?

I still don’t think I’ve made it yet. There’s still so much more you can do and you can always achieve and accomplish more than what you’ve done. So I’m still waiting for that moment.

Tell me about your passions outside of music.

I’m definitely into cars and watches and food! I have 5 cars, 11 or 12 watches.

What’s the difference in your sound when you’re playing a stadium to when you’re playing an underground club?

When you play a stadium you can play the bigger music, you can drop the classics such as The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers and you can do boot-legs and mash ups. I think when you play clubs you can go a lot more intimate and sexy and more bass-line based, more so than you can do at festivals.

Describe the style of your set.

The style I like is to go up and down and left to right with the music and I just try and make the people enjoy themselves and I think the way to do that various from different clubs and different cities and different parts of the world. In South America you have a certain sound, the same goes for America. I think in Europe you have to be more picky because the dance music culture has been there for a much longer time so I think the crowds in Europe are more educated than other places.

What’s this thing with Pharrell? Why are the big Hip Hop stars looking to top European DJ’s all of a sudden?

I think America has recently seen just how good dance music is. There’s a lot of energy in it with a lot of people having a good time. Me and Sebastian worked with Pharrell, and I worked with him again after that and I think they are trying to explore new genres to get involved in because everybody gets bored of doing whatever they do. So as much as they come to us, we’d like to work with them because they give us something that we don’t have and vice-versa.

Who would be your ultimate pop/rock hook-up?

I don’t set goals on artists. Madonna would be an achievement but there’s so many big acts around that you just have to find the one that fits you rather than just going for the biggest ones.

What is it about the Subliminal sound that you’re so attracted to? What have they got right?

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Sander van Doorn has been on a tear lately remixing some of the biggest artists out there and playing every massive around the world. He recently took some time to do a quick interview with DanceMusicblog and here it is.

So you’ve been getting a lot of great press lately and you’ve been doing some high-profile remix work for Depeche Mode and The Killers to name a few. How did you feel and what kind of approach do you take when doing a remix for such an influential band as Depeche Mode?

It was an honour to be asked to remix the Depeche Mode track. I’ve been a fan for years and feel privileged to have my name attached to their music. I guess I approach it the same as any other remix but make sure it really works and does the original song justice.

The Killers are one of the biggest bands on the planet with some great melodies. That can make remixing a track easy when you have great parts to work with, especially when it’s a strong vocal.

Did you get to speak with any if the band members of DM, The Killers, or other artists before you started work on a remix?

No I didn’t speak to them. It’s extremely rare to do so when you’re doing a remix.

They must, obviously, like your work to choose you to reinterpret their music. Did they give you any specific instructions or ideas they had for a remix or did you have complete control over it?

No they left me to do as I thought best. I guess I was chosen because they like my style and they thought it would work well with the parts of the tracks. Obviously you work very hard on a remix when it’s for artists like the Killers or Depeche Mode.

Your second remix of the Killers’ track Spaceman has been my favorite track the past month or so. The lead synth string sound has a haunting kinda feel to it. What can you tell us about that sound and how you work in the studio?

That sound is a sample from the Killers track that I treated with some overdrive and other effects. The best way to see how I work in the studio is to watch the Studio Sessions videos on my website which show how I create my projects, some of the equipment I use and some tips and tricks.
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Beatportal Interview:

DJs were confined to the turntable for a quarter of a century. They were slaves to the music. Rhythmically matching two records together was all they could do to help people dance. Then technology set them free.

CD players with loop functionality, FX units, and sophisticated mixers all helped DJs to seize control of the music in the 1990s. Software was the next phase and it is changing the very meaning of the word ‘DJ’.

Dutch producer and DJ Joris Voorn has embraced technology. His ‘Balance 14’ mix CD, released in February, saw Voorn mix over 100 tracks across two CDs, with each different track a layered construction of three or four different songs.

With mixing in parts (or molecular mixing) becoming more and more common, Beatportal decided to meet Joris Voorn to find out his opinion about what is the definition of a DJ today.
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