I personally would like to know what is your musical background?
I studied the piano at a music school for 7 years. It was really cool! I played at many shows and festivals. I had a lot of piano practicing lessons so I really stressed out back in the day. Right now I really appreciate what my teachers did for me so ya it was really great for me. It really helped my music making skills!
Is the piano the only instrument you play?
I play a little bit of the guitar but only a little.
So you’re 21?
Ya, my birthday is next week! I don’t have any plans. I’m going back to my town to spend time with my family and my girlfriend. So heading back to my home after this tour.
How much time do you get to spend at home?
Right now it’s not so much because I only have like three or four days next month of down time because I’ve had a really big month. September has been really busy for me… I had like 8 shows in 8 days! Ya the beginning of September was really hard for me. It was like seventeen flights to four continents in eight days! So ya I’m a bit tired! All I want is to go back home and go to work in the studio.
Do you have any mentors or people that you look up to?
Well it’s hard to name people like mentors but for sure! Everyone has someone behind the scenes who gives some help. Alexander Popov has helped me a lot with knowing how labels work with all the conditions and what I need to do with my music because I didn’t do anything with it at first. I didn’t send it to labels; I didn’t show it for musicals or DJ’s. So he told me about it and I started to send tracks to labels, which was the beginning. But back in the day like five or six years ago I had a really closed mind with trance and he showed me a trance video. Like try to imagine six years ago! But since then I tried to learn more about trance. And about three years ago I decided that I wanted to make music and start DJing and now I’m here because it was my dream. It was my dream to make music and look at the crowd to see their faces!
And now you’re living that dream and you can see how your music affects the crowd by looking at their faces!
Ya sometimes you can be exhausted from music production. Seventeen hours in the studio and then traveling a lot can be hard on your health. But when you start to think that it’s your dream– it’s what you wanted to do and have, so you feel much more bright!
Where do you see yourself five to ten years from now?
That’s a really hard question! I mean look what already happened so fast! Even the trends of music change so fast! There’s so many styles, so many new popular styles, and it’s already hard to know how to change your music. But right now I’m going to continue to keep doing what I’m doing.
You’ve produced many remixes in the past and some originals; can we expect an artist album soon?
Right now I’m trying to focus on my original productions but it’s hard to tell with an artist album. It’s hard to talk about an artist album because it has to be really complete! It takes a lot of hard work and you need to spend a lot—A LOT of time in the studio so right now I’m not ready for it. But I do have some ideas for the album! I have a bunch of tracks that I want to finish that won’t go to the label directly; they will go to the album boss! But we’ll see what happens!
Have you thought about playing around with other genres like House, Drum & Bass, maybe Dubstep?
Ya for sure! I don’t want to be just one style. If you stick to just one style you can lose a lot of ideas. Really cool tracks can inspire you or help you produce something really crazy! So I prefer to listen to a lot of different styles and play a lot of music—not Drum & Bass and Dubstep but something around Trance and House music.
A State of Trance 500 in Den Bosch was massive! Pretty much the entire trance family here in San Francisco were all watching you! How do you handle that kind of pressure?
I worried a little bit in the beginning. Especially right before I got on stage! There was a lot of people so I was kind of shocked! It’s kind of a different feeling because you see a lot of people and you start to get nervous but you tell yourself that you need to stay focused and focus on your DJ set. So I definitely was nervous and had butterflies in my stomach but I was ready for it! Because as I said when I went to school I would play the piano at big festivals! But A State of Trance was sick and one of the best shows so far!
Well we are looking forward to seeing you more in the future and you’ve definitely made an impact here in San Francisco— you haven’t even gone on stage yet! Personally I think you’ve made a huge impact on the genre of Trance music and we can definitely expect a lot of great things from you!
Well thank you! I’m glad to be here and I’m looking forward to tonight!
A HUGE thank you to Arty for making time for the interview and thank you to Ruby Skye and TORQ!
-Kendra Aker
~Photographs courtesy of Ryan Russell and TranceFamily SF~