Part 2
Do you engage with audiences/dancers — and how? Taking one of your online DJ mixes as an example, how does the experience and the way you DJ change when you subtract the audience?
Honestly, if you subtract the audience from DJing, there’s not much left. The crowd is everything. As a DJ, you’re not just performing to the crowd, you’re part of it. You feed off their energy, you respond to their reactions, and you shape the night with them. It’s not about you, it’s about them.
That’s why the idea of DJing without an audience doesn’t really compute for me. I rarely even play records at home just for myself. I'm always on the road, so there’s not a lot of downtime. But even when I do have a quiet moment to play a few vinyls with friends, it just doesn’t hit the same way. It gets boring quickly.
Because for me, it’s not really about the mixing. It’s about sharing music with people. That’s what makes it special, not how you do it, but who you’re doing it for. The way you play, the choices you make, they all change when you're playing for a room full of living, breathing people.
So for me, there is no version of DJing without an audience. The audience is the point.
Collaboration is a key part of almost every aspect of music making, but it is still rare in DJing. Tell me about your own views on back-to-back DJing, interactions with live musicians, or other forms of turning DJing into a more collective process.
Back-to-backs are really hit or miss for me.
If I’m completely honest, I usually prefer to play solo. Like I mentioned earlier, DJing for me is about telling a story, building something over time. When you go back-to-back with someone, it can either turn into one beautiful, coherent journey ... or it ends up sounding like a bunch of disconnected six-minute stories.
Sometimes the flow is there, and it feels like magic. You just keep playing because neither of you wants to stop. But there have also been sets where I thought, “Yeah ... I’m probably not going to do that again.” That’s just the hard truth.
That said, I’ve had some amazing back-to-back experiences, especially last year, which felt like a real back-to-back era for me. I got to play with some of my favorite legends, artists I’ve looked up to for years. There were moments where I honestly couldn’t believe they wanted to play with me. And when it clicks, it’s the best feeling.
But I’d never do a back-to-back with someone I don’t believe in musically. It has to make sense, even, or especially, if it’s an unexpected combination. I love when things get stirred up like that. Collaboration in production is similar. It can be incredible, you can learn so much from one another. But again, it has to click.
Making music is such a raw and emotional thing. You have to allow someone into that vulnerable creative space. It might sound cheesy, but it’s true: if the connection’s not there, it’s tough to make anything meaningful.
How important is dancing for our wellbeing — on a personal and even on a societal level?
I think dancing, going out, club culture in general, it’s incredibly important for a lot of people. Just think about how many people work Monday to Friday and live for the weekend. That moment when they get to see their friends again, forget about all the stress around them, and just lose themselves for a night on the dancefloor. That’s powerful. It’s not just about having fun, it’s about release, escape, and presence.
And that’s without even mentioning the love of music itself. That’s the heartbeat of it all. You see it in the way communities form around music scenes. Entire social circles grow from people meeting up at the same events over and over, suddenly that becomes a tight-knit community. That’s really what the dance scene is built on: social interaction.
As humans, we’re social animals. And when you take that away, as we saw during the pandemic, it messes with us on a deep level.
Most people I know met their significant other through parties. Nearly all of my closest friends, I met through music. It connects people in a way very few things can. Music is such a strong binding force, and if you take it away, a lot of people would feel truly lost or isolated.
One of the most beautiful things about club culture is that it’s one of the few experiences you can fully enjoy alone. You can walk into a club by yourself, and still have the time of your life, meet new people, dance, connect. And you’ll almost always succeed. That’s something really rare and really special.
Especially in the light of advances in AI, where do you see the role of humans in DJing versus that of technology? Can AI act as a collaborator or creative stimulus?
AI is a fascinating topic. It’s incredibly useful, no matter what you do in life, it can make things easier. But I do think there’s a limit to how far it should go.
When AI first started taking off, I honestly expected it to take over the work, so that people could focus on creating art. But now it’s kind of the opposite, AI is creating the art, and people are doing the work around it. That shift took me by surprise.
Still, when I look at it purely from my own perspective as a DJ and producer, AI has opened up a few doors that would’ve been unthinkable a few years ago. I’ve used it to change my voice in tracks, to extract vocals from existing tracks for edits, all things that used to take hours or were borderline impossible to do cleanly. Now, tools like FL Studio literally have a “split stems” option with one right-click. You suddenly have all the parts of a track ready to go. That’s wild.
But I also have mixed feelings about it. Part of me feels like it takes away some of the charm of music production. Until recently, you needed real skills to pull off certain things in a DAW, knowledge of music theory, technical finesse. Now AI can do a lot of that for you. And yeah, it’s a bit tough when you’ve spent years learning those things and suddenly the software can just auto-generate it.
That said, you can’t stop it, so the best thing to do is learn how to work with it. I see AI as a new instrument, a new tool in the box. It’s up to us to find creative ways to use it.
I saw this old interview once, maybe from the ’60s, where kids were being asked what they thought about computers. They said things like “we won’t have any jobs anymore” or “the machines will take over everything.” It kind of reminds me of where we are now with AI. But just like then, I believe this will lead to entirely new paths, new ideas, and new ways to be creative. We just have to embrace it, and push it somewhere interesting.
Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard — and if you're suffering from these or similar issues, how do you cope with them?
If I’m being totally honest, I try to always DJ with hearing protection. I’ve invested in a high-quality pair of custom-made earplugs with specialized filters. I wear them whenever I’m in the crowd or walking through the venue, always. But I have to admit, when it’s time for me to actually step into the booth and play, I still sometimes take them out.
It’s not ideal, but I just feel like I can’t hear properly when I’m mixing with them in, even though the filters are set really low. I want to deliver a good set and be totally dialed into the sound, and sometimes I feel like the plugs dull that connection.
That said, I take this topic seriously. I’ve seen first hand what tinnitus can do to people. Friends, colleagues, people I care about. It can completely disrupt your life. I’ve talked to older folks in the industry, even friends’ dads who used to work in events or music, and many of them have permanent ringing or hearing loss. They tell me it’s never truly quiet anymore. That really stuck with me.
I used to be pretty reckless with sound, I loved blasting music in the studio, and I didn’t always think about the long-term effects. But I’m trying to change that. I want to be able to do this for another 30 years, minimum. So now I’m making more of a conscious effort: turning the volume down in the studio, wearing earplugs more consistently, and encouraging others around me to do the same.
Am I a perfect example? No. I’m still working on it. But I’m taking it seriously, and that’s a start.
Let’s imagine you lost all your music for one night and all there is left at the venue is a crate of records containing a random selection of music. How would you approach this set?
First things first, I’d go through the crate to see what I’m working with, try to get a sense of the vibe. If I had the time, I’d probably label the sleeves, mark what I like, maybe use a quick sticker system to keep track of what’s usable. Just anything to make sure I know what I have before jumping in.
If the music’s decent, there’s no reason the night couldn’t still be great. The crowd doesn’t even need to know I lost my music. You just make it work with what’s there.
That said, losing my music would be my absolute worst nightmare. I’ve been collecting music for over 10 years, so if I lost everything, it would honestly feel like starting from scratch. But hey, in that scenario … I guess that random crate would be as good a place to start as any.
