Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - AFROJACK

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by AFROJACK. A decade-and-a-half ago, AFROJACK rocketed to the mainstream for his alluring blend of EDM, house, and pop — a classic sound he recently returned to with his March single “Never Forget You.” Since then, he’s created a legacy that includes massive hits (“Give Me Everything,” “Take Over Control”), distinguished collaborations, and Coachella performances. In a conversation with Madden, the GRAMMY award-winning producer and multi-platinum dance music icon opens up about hacking the subconscious, the importance of both fun and discipline in creating, and his latest single. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'm talking with Grammy-award-winning producer and electronic dance music icon Afrojack. Let's go. I don't want to bed times. I don't want to have bad. Like when I was a kid, up until I was 15, I didn't understand it. I didn't get life. Like, I was always unpopular. I was always like the bullied kid. And like, like, nothing ever went my way. I felt like that was my experience. And then when I started learning like 15, I accidentally stumbled across subconscious psychology.

Like some guys, they were giving a lecture on how to pick up girls. And like, it was like, whatever. But they said some things that just completely were opposite of what I was learned from my family. So I was like, okay, this doesn't make sense. So I went to dive into it deeper. I learned about body language,

about tone of voice pitch, like even like moving your hands while talking. and then I learned like some things that actually made sense of why life wasn't going my way. And I figured out life wasn't going my like life was going everyone's way. But because I lacked certain social skills, I wasn't able to, how you say, build a life. I suck that communication. And I don't know why. I think some people just have it naturally as some people don't.

There's a book by Malcolm Gladler, Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers, which kind of touches upon subconscious growth. Yeah. But for some reason, that didn't work for me. And then when I was 15, I learned about psychology. I went out there. I experimented socially, which was scary and awkward as hell. But I learned so much about how people work and how their subconscious work

that I was able to go from being completely introverted to being super comfortable talking to one person I just met. Or like we literally just met like five. We didn't even meet properly. We didn't even meet properly. We didn't even meet, yeah, and we've never met before. I obviously know who you are, but we've never, and I was excited that you're coming in. Thank you.

But we've never met before. I really believe that we are like this species of animal that have the capacity and the potential to do what anyone else has done, right? So in the sense of what our own capacity is, we can take it to the maximum. Exactly that. it's not like limited per person it's like limited by again it goes back to the outliers book it's like a lot has to do with what happens around you and how you spend your time and that's the reason i also like became a music producer and a DJ is because when i when i learned about the

basic psychology of of humans how our brain works like oh this means anyone could potentially do anything it just matters how do you develop your time of course if if you're talking about physical capability in sports is very different. So I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about creative capacity. Like anyone can do anything. And that's why I said, well, if anyone can do anything, this is what I want to do. And I just went for it fully, got very lucky that my family supported me in that. And then, like, I just kept going for it.

And it just grew and grew and grew and grew and step by step. That never happens overnight, of course. As you know, it's like you start very small. And then it just grows and grows and grows. and now I'm here. And here you are. Yeah. And you're young as shit.

37. That's young as shit. That's the crazy part for me is when I saw how old you were. I was like, what? How old are you? I'm 46. So I'm just saying I have almost a decade. You're also young, though.

I'm young, but I don't feel old. But when I look at your age for what you've accomplished. So what I think you, the only, it was a pleasant surprise. It gives me a lot of like, it makes me really happy. when I see someone who you would almost imagine is older because of their experience and their accomplishment. You're very accomplished. You've got two decades now of fucking accomplishing shit and doing really well and making what you could say is a legacy in music. Maybe 15 years ago, you wouldn't say, I have a legacy. But you knew something in you knew that you were building

a legacy, whether you do it naturally or whether you have a vision. for it but now here you are at 37 which is young as shit and you have what other people dream about which is like a legacy you have a time spent in a space accomplishing things and all of that stack together is like this rich legacy it's pretty cool yeah when you look at it that way yeah but like well like I think and I think you probably feel the same it's like you're not actively focused on building a legacy you're just actively focused on doing the best you can do it's like right now on my way here. I was talking to my manager like, yo, I need a MIDI keyboard. Like, I don't know why, but I need to like maximize my, I'm sitting in the car for hours.

Like, I need to make music even when I'm in the car now. So I need a media keyboard so I can make music in the car. And I think having that mindset of just constantly trying to do the best you can with your time is something that apparently then later on you can look back at it. Like, oh, wow, actually build a legacy. But like, like, like, while you're doing it, it's not like, oh, yeah, this is really good for my future legacy. Like, hmm, I'm going to do this and this. So in 10 years, when I look back at it, it looks nice. Yeah, it's, it's getting the very most out of every hour you have when you're excited about things. It's, that's how you think when you're inspired.

When you're, even when you're on stage, like, when you're talking to the people in front of you, you like, actually like, it makes some noise and it makes some noise and like, really make some noise. Just to go on top of that, even though you don't have to, just to give it a little bit more, the maximum impact you can reach. And I think that's, like, I have a wall pro academy, which is like I'm teaching young kids. I always signed young artists, sign them, teach them, help them with music production, but also like getting the most out of life and then growing them. And now we put that into kind of a lesson program. And there it's kind of the same thing. like the main thing you're trying to teach people,

first of all, anyone can do anything. And now once you notice, how do you start doing it? By doing the maximum you can always. It starts with like stupid things like, I work a lot with David Gatta, for example, who's like he's 10 years older than you. So we're like all different generations.

OG, OG. He's the OG, and he's still making the hits. Yeah. And even with him, even though he's one of my best friends, I call him, like I text him. And if he does, reply me within the hour, I text him again.

And if he doesn't reply me one hour later, I call him. And then a few hours later, if he didn't pick up, I will call him again. Right. And a lot of people wouldn't do it. They're like, yeah, but that's like socially awkward. Like you just send him a text and maybe he'll get back to you. But like, I don't want to wait to. Like the thing is, I can have 12 hours extra to work on a project if I call him now and

he picks up. So I just, I want to be first always. And I don't want to be like the first winner. I just want to be the first in line. And if you're the first in line, the chances are that you will get the shoe that you like or whatever is that you're aiming for. Well, you're a gamer. I'm a gamer too.

You want to win. That's a gamer. I think of myself as a gamer in the sense of the same. I want to get to the answer I want to get to. And especially if we're friends. If we're friends and I'm going to be who I am, which is I might call you five times in a row. and you know it doesn't mean it like it's just in the headspace I'm in I need to get to what I need to get to get to get to whatever and my friends understand that's how I operate so it doesn't put them off you know but if you guys can't do that with each other then you're yeah that's a problem then you're just associate to work working um I didn't realize you were so tall I'm just my chair back a little bit my legs are like um Which is a great thing, by the way.

I'd love to have about probably like three or four more inches. Maybe you could trade. I bummed my head into everything. Yeah, that's a good problem, though. It's like I have a lot of bumps on my heads for hitting doorways and stuff. Do you think that the shy kid or maybe the introverted kid in Holland? Yeah.

Okay. Do you think that what you would have perceived, as your problem, right, that you were trying to solve. Right? That's where I think all of our greatest attributes, inventions, discoveries come from is solving real problems. Like where we feel like we have, I have a problem. I don't have, I got bullied.

I don't have any friends, maybe, I don't know how to maybe talk to girls or I don't know how, I was in a similar situation. But do you think that the, that the, that the, the, the journey. it put you on to discover like how life works. Yeah, I think I got lucky with that. But then it gave you almost like a model for how life works. Yeah, that's what I said. I think I got lucky because I know a lot of people and they're they're like adults or like adults and they have like full on families and they still never really figured out how their brain works or how the brain of people work. So they still have all these questions like why is my job not working out for me or why is my social life not working

the way I wanted because they never got confronted like maybe they were popular in school so they never got confronted with the issue of how the society function like it wasn't painful enough to force them and that's the thing too is not to say that everyone's teenage years aren't a little painful but it seems almost like the ones of us who was really painful for for different reasons went and solved these major conceptual problems that then gave us a model for the way to live the rest of our life. That's what I said. I think if we had like a painful school experience,

I think most people, like most people that I know that are very successful, they did not have a successful school experience. They had a painful school experience. And because of that, they were forced to figure out different solutions to deal with life that made them way more adaptive, way more creative on dealing with life, on getting out of life what you want to get out of it.

And of course, it's going to be way easier for you if you're doing that when you're 15, like me, like I was getting into psychology at 15 than when you're 35. Yeah. And you're like,

I have a full-time job and kids and responsibilities. This is a very different situation. So I kind of think that like the education that I got by accident really helped me be able to really follow my passion and really build something out of it. So I really feel like I was super lucky with that. I think luck is a nice way to look at it.

I think gratitude is an amazing, is probably one of the most important things we can have is like gratitude, right, and to feel lucky. But I also think that it's a, it's a real tell of like a winner and a successful person. Yeah, I do want to point out because you hear the word gratitude thrown around a lot lately, like everyone's like oh yeah i'm so grateful blessed yeah i see so many people that are faking it and like

if your life is crap according to you and you think i'm just going to pretend to be grateful it will work it doesn't work like that like it really is like whatever shit you have that you're not happy with and you start figuring it out once it's figured out you'll be so grateful that you have the shit to figure out in first place because it avoids you from ever getting in that shit again So like I see so many people, oh yeah, you know, it's it's not where I want it to be, but I'm grateful. It's like, no, don't be grateful yet. Like work on it, fix it.

And when it's fixed, be grateful that you never have to go through that shit again. Yeah. But like don't just like think like, ah, if I'm going to be grateful, the problem will solve itself. Like that doesn't really work. So. Yeah. It's cool we're having this conversation. This week, every once in a while, I will spend a week kind of meditating on like,

making sure that I'm my inner thought process is tuned up so that I can keep. What I struggled with when I was a kid was low self-esteem and like hopelessness. I grew up with, you know, poor, not great relationship with my parents because they were, they were just busy trying to make life work and they were falling apart. And then I didn't do well in school and, you know, it didn't fit in. So it was all that stuff. So I have to really make sure that I'm keeping an eye on my thought process and my thoughts so that I'm always acclimating my thoughts towards possibility, positive outcomes.

So every once in a while I will go, I'll rededicate my mind to a week of kind of like keeping an eye on it to make sure that all the dials are just. Yeah. So you like, you set a benchmark. You like take a moment to set a benchmark and then once every week you look, am I doing well? Is there like a problem somewhere? And do I wake up every day with... I have to go to the toilet? Yeah, do I wake up every day with the right attitude?

Yeah. And then I find when I check the in with myself every once in a while, and usually everything checks out. And I really do believe that like my own personal success in life, aside from career success, which I care about deeply, but I care deeply about my family, my wife, my own personal health and well-being and my own feeling of like, am I having a good life? If we think we're having a good life and we acclimate ourselves towards the idea that life is good and full of potential and possibility and good shit, we will find it in the world.

And if we think why this life isn't good, everything's always happening to me and everything's bad happen to me, we'll find that too. And so I think like because of music, I got to understand very easily, very simply imagining something. and then doing it. And then everything happening. So the thing is what I use to make sure that's good all the time. So instead of like doing the weekly benchmark check myself and then later turning it into practice, I learned a very simple trick.

It's very scary, very scary trick. But basically what you do, that benchmark you set for yourself, when you were at a great place in your life. You tell your friends, your team, I'm in a great place in life because this, this, this, this and this. If I'm ever not in a great place in my life, or you think I'm making decisions or I'm saying things that might not be in my own best interest or like I'm just not at the right place, tell me. The thing that's scary about that is you're basically putting like the highest amount of pressure to be the best version of yourself out there. But because you put it out there, people will be able to be honest with you because they know that you trust them.

So then instead of having to wonder, am I being the best version of myself? The moment you're not being the best version of yourself, your friends will immediately look at you like, what's going on? What are you doing? Like, you're good? And then like you automatically know because you had the conversation, oh my God, I'm not being the best version of myself. So when I started doing this, like seven years ago, Fritz, you know, my camera guy, media director, has been with me all my life. And when I started doing that, like especially when I started like, I have managers and stuff,

but I started like my own company about 10 years ago, when you have staff and people around you and you need to take care of them, it's not just any more about being the artist to your friends. It's also about being a good employer. Good leader. Because you're taking care of people and they're. families. So then, like, you have to kind of be a responsible person. So you can still go out and party. But, like, if someone does one thing wrong and you're annoyed and you say, like, I'm going to fire you now and you will never work in this industry again, like this type of feelings

that you can get if someone makes a very bad mistake at a very big moment. Like, you're playing the biggest show of your life and they didn't prepare properly and now you're pissed. if you ever feel like that, if you have people around you that tell you, this might not be in their best interest or your own best interest to make a stupid decision like that, you don't even have to tell you. They'll give you a look,

and that look will make you think twice about what you're doing because you know they know. But if you don't tell anyone, of course, it's like it makes your life a little bit easier because you don't have to constantly perform to your maximum of your ability, but at the same time, that means you will make mistakes because no one will hold you accountable for your mistakes.

Because in our case, like we're the boss, so no one dares to say as anything. So it's super important, at least that's my trick, to empower everyone around you to explain to them. Listen, I might be wearing like the, how you say, I might be the one on stage, but I'm on stage because all of us work together as a team. That's right. And because you keep me in check when I start acting like it. idiot. And I remember when I came up, like back 2010 internationally, imagine this is 15 years ago. Yeah. I was 22. And everyone said I was awesome. So I was just going around thinking,

oh, wow, I'm awesome. Yeah. I'm awesome. Go to the hotel. Yeah, I'm sorry, this room is not ready. Yeah, but did you know I'm awesome? So you should have the room ready. Yeah. Stupid shit like that. Right. And no one checked me because every, and this is the thing in the music industry, but I think also in a lot of creative industries. Yes. The companies make money of you thinking you're awesome. Yeah.

They don't make money if everyone around you is in power and you start making better decisions. That's right. I was flying around the world that had an Afrojet, like privages everywhere, drinking all the time.

I didn't make any money. Yeah. They said in Forbes, our projects doing 10 million a year. Gross. I met zero. My management made $2 million a year. Right.

The publishers made 10%. Like everyone made their percentage. Right. And I was going around like a drunk idiot. just DJing, having fun, not understanding I was actually not building anything. And even worse, that I was probably destroying relationships

because, like, I thought promoters are booking me to make money. They're not, like, promoters aren't a music business because they love music. So they're like, no, no, no, you just book me because you just want to make money, so I need this and this and there. I was like the worst example of, like, diva music industry behavior. We've all had those experiences.

Because no one tells us. So then when I split up with my management 2015 and I had to handle everything myself, like, oh my God. Right. How lucky I've been that I had all these promoters that wanted to support me. Right. That all these people that enjoyed my music, all these labels that loved working on my music, all the people that worked at the label that loved working on my music, not because it makes

them a lot of money, but because they actually like the music and they like the message behind the music. they like what it did for people. It was like, oh my God, like, I've been kind of an asshole to all of these people. And that's when I realized, like, if I don't empower people around me to be honest with me and to tell me the truth and to feel valued at the same level as the person that is on stage, this can happen again and again and again and again, again, again, again, again. I mean, dude, the thing that strikes me about you, though, to sit here and listen to you

is how profound it is for someone to admit that. I'm just saying, listen, I've admitted it and even not such. You summed up, I think, what it means the pop success, the fame, the things we can get when we have big songs, hit songs, this and that. We could become completely infanelized. Because we don't know better. And I'll take it further. We think it's actually what we're supposed to do.

We have been kind of told, if you get success and people, treat you in a certain way that everyone says you're awesome and you act like you're awesome and you get more success you think that it's part of the job to act like you're awesome yeah it's like people they all people want to see me act like a D D Ds especially if you're like an introverted kid who couldn't talk to girls when you're 15 I have to recognize though that we can say that and then go I could still say that and blame everyone else and go yeah but they I didn't know I wasn't supposed to like but but to hear someone go no no no no no

I thought that's how it worked. I thought that's what I was supposed to be doing. And yes, people were enabling me in some ways. But the buck stops with me. I had to, you said it. You fired your managers and you got into the driver's seat and you were like, holy shit. And then you start to realize, okay, some of the mistakes were youthful, right? But what you realize actually was the power of what you were doing, building your business.

And yes, maybe, maybe, by the way, we all blew. money when we didn't understand money and the business and the value of it and all the things. If we were just, if we were running a startup, we would look at our revenue and we would look at our net and we would start to do the multiples off of it and we'd want our net revenue to go up every year. And we'd start going and it's a game that we would play very well because we're gamers. But when it's a magic thing that we don't know, like we feel lucky and we feel like someone waved the magic wand and we became famous and it might go away tomorrow.

So like let's just live it up and try to get the most out of it right now. Nothing is actually true in the functionality of the business. But on the other side of that, not only do you realize like, okay, I might have wasted some money, but I learned a lot. I know how to run a business. I know how to build an artist brand. And the more and more you get your hands on the wheel and you get your hands into it, you become even better at it.

But flash forward to now with wall, right? You're teaching people. had you not gone through that whole experience and understood. Absolutely. You know what I mean? And then you become immune. Think about this. I feel this way about myself.

I'm immune to fame. You can't buy me with it. I don't care about it. I already had that experience. It's not that it's not valuable in some ways. It's still nice sometimes. There's aspects of it that are very valuable. There's aspects of it that are nice.

But it's not the thing that drives me. I don't care about it. So I'm immune to things that would in, 20 years ago would have made me go, oh my God, wow, you're going to fly me on your private jet and you're going to make me famous? I don't care now. Now, I had to go through all the experiences to get back to the core idea of what's truly valuable, an artist who actually creates original and cool ideas. I wanted to say the same thing. Like, every artist that is in the come up, like, I was just at Coachella, and I love seeing those young, like young artists that are just

popping. He's hitting their first hit, big hit. riding the wave of fame. They think they're awesome. I'm super happy for them. I just wish for their future that someone at least drops them a drip of truthfulness that they understand

there's more to it than this. I think we had no idea and no one was really working on education. Now, of course, information is a lot more available with podcasts and stuff. But I just love seeing them ride the wave, but at the same time, I'm like, I hope someone will tell you one day,

like there's more. There's more to it. And you got to celebrate the hits, celebrate the moments, and in between those moments, build businesses that are sustainable, and that you actually like, and a life that you like living in

and a thing, like, you go to work every day. So easy to forget. You forget, like, I'm actually living in a real life as well. So if all my chips go into being famous, and I don't build any other, rooms in the house that that i like then i'll only be in the famous room and then i won't go so so i think of it as my real life i i was so like busy writing the wave of fame yeah that i forgot i was a

musician i was a dj so i was so busy doing interviews and being at cool places and partying with famous people that i like i put music like on a third or fourth place as a priority priority yeah by the time after a year of touring and being famous and having to get back in the studio to actually have to make music, I'm not as good at this as I used to because I've been focusing on other stuff for a year. Right. So now I'm kind of in a position where I'm like, okay, like I'll still do some interviews, but I really see it now as completely opposite. An interview is a side effect of making great music.

That's right. Saying cool stuff or making funny jokes on social media is a side. thing of making cool music. And it's funny that you mentioned legacy before because I might have a legacy, but I am nothing more than whatever I'm doing at this moment. So it's nice I did some good shit 10 years ago. Do it again. So I'm like, I do not allow myself to say because I did something great means I am great.

I am not great. I might do something great again. But you look at sports people, that's probably the reason they're a little bit more humble. they have to go out and perform. Doesn't matter that you won last year, win again. And there's an expiration date on sports. You age out of it, and it's really hard. We don't have that excuse.

So do it again. Go back to the studio. It's like, yeah, but rock is not as hot right now, or EDM is not as hot right now. It doesn't matter. Make a song that's so good that it makes rock hot again. Make a song that's so good that makes EDM good again. You have to be above,

you have to be above society. You have to work so hard that whatever's going on in society, in politics, in the world, it doesn't matter. Your product that you make, the song that you make is going to give people what they need to disassociate from everything else in the world. And the only way we can do that is if we remember that this is what we're supposed to do, not going on social media and putting enough TikToks out there to hope one will go viral. and then accidentally we get famous. I don't know. This is like the way I see the world is working right now,

and I see so many kids that think, oh, if I only get one video that goes viral, it will change my life. It will only change your life if you actually are that guy. If you're authentic. Exactly. I think that anything as an artist, if you do it, so again, like I come back to Wall

because I was really interested in the idea that you started this, this place for artists and young artists to learn. And essentially you're giving them your curriculum, which is what we're talking about. It's what I wish someone would have told me when I was 18, when I came into this. That's when we started our company,

we have a music company, it's a management company. I saw some pictures. I was just like, let's be the guys we wish we would have met. Let's just be honest with people. Exactly. Tell them how it works. That's exactly the thing. So like if it took us like 10 years to get somewhere,

then I think when I see a 20 year old kid, like you already have this talent. If I give you the information, probably you get to where I am in like five years. And you get to live your dream life. It's good business for the company. And you can later teach other people. And when they have success and you help nurture them through that success

so that when every career, no one has a hit every time. No one. No. And so on the other side of that hit is a valley. On the other side of that peak. Now, how deep that valley is, we don't know. Some people, it might be a little dip.

Some people, it might be a complete fall off. And then they have to rebuild and rediscover what it means to be them and then build their way back to hopefully another success. Most people quit. Yeah, or wait 15 years to be retro. Right. So the idea that a career is not linear, a career is this very dynamic and like very hard to predict, but you can predict if I go forward, I put forth effort and I do things I care about and I'm

authentic to myself, that I will have some version of success. Exactly that. And that's what I tell people. If you perform, like you do your absolute best all of the time and you give that honest benchmarks to the people around you, so they will always keep you focused. You will have a minimum level of success guaranteed. The only way you wouldn't reach that success, if you're not truthful with yourself, you are not putting in the time or the effort that you should be putting in. You might be lying to yourself saying, I did my best. Did you really do your best? Like, one of the things

I also dive into is, how you say, this is a very sensitive subject. Okay, it's fine. So many people I see interviews and the artist goes like, follow your heart. Bro, that's like the worst possible advice you can ever get if you don't know what it means. Right. Like they say you want to be a best basketball player in the world. Okay, follow your heart. And you're going to start playing like NBA in the PlayStation every day, but you never go out and practice. You will fail miserably.

Or you're my height. It ain't happening. It got to be realistic. You know what I mean? I always wanted to be a break dancer. or a pro snowboarder, bro. I'm too happy. It's like, yeah, but if I train hard enough,

my legs will be, it's not happening. That's not how gravity works. Yeah, someone once told me, an author, really good author, love the things that love you back. Yeah, that's a good point. And like, I could tell you,

like, I want to be the biggest movie star in the world. I don't know, I'm trying to go with something. Okay, there's a potential there if I put all my effort, all my time, shift my focus, give up everything that I've built and just dedicate the next 20 years to movies. There's a potential I could find a role and like become a movie like a movie star.

And I'm in entertainment. So the odds are like for me, I'm not saying that people can't achieve their dreams. But in basketball heights a thing. There is like physical, there is physical limitation. But the thing is when it comes to creative things like acting, writing, music. Truly anyone could do it. Yeah, that's probably a bad example. Well, the thing is what there is, which is so amazing, is basically how your brain works.

Yeah. Is that also the way we perceive arts is limited to a certain amount of variables. And it sounds very technical. That's why I say this is a very sensitive subject. But making great music does not mean you have to be a great musician. Because if you understand how people perceive great music, the only thing you have to do is fake it till you make it. And it's very funny. There's one of the things I read also, again, going back to the books, Outliers, the Beatles,

they were going out and playing, I think 200 nights a year in some club in London or Germany, and they were playing covers of the biggest hits. If you train your motoric system, your fingers, playing guitar, only playing covers of hits, when you write a song, you will play hit chord progressions. That's right. You will write a song to a hit chord progression. Now, how big is the chance you're going to write a hit if you use a hit chord progression versus using a randomly made up chord progression?

Probably way bigger. So that's why I'm saying, if you really want to act, a lot of people think, okay, I'm going to follow my heart. I'm going to try acting very hard. It doesn't work like that. You need to understand the theory of acting, the theory of brand management, like the reasons that actors don't have social media, because people, they perceive people. in a certain way when they see them as actors.

And the only way the actor can get the part is if he does not have a public image. Doesn't give up the real person. Exactly. Because the moment you know the real person, you won't believe him when he's acting. But if you don't know this, you might think, I'm going to go out and be a person. I'm going to try then after when I'm famous, I'm going to try to be actor. It doesn't work because they won't book you because no one believes you. But if you don't know this, you might just try to act as hard as you can and it will never work out.

Same thing with music. All these kids are saying like, in my basic rules, you can go in the studio. You can do two things. You can try to win or you can have fun. Having fun is super important to stimulate your creativity. Go behind the piano, do whatever you want, make whatever genre you want. But if you want to win, look at Billboard, look at who's touring, look at who's doing great, look at who's not doing great, what sounds are they using, what chord progressions are they

using. What are they talking about? How many syllables do the lyrics have per chorus? Stupid shit like that. It's absolutely not fun. That's why I said, this is a very sensitive subject because people like to believe in the art of the creative. But end of the day, our mind is very limited into the perception of art. And we have things that we like. So I always say the same thing as a, like if you want to be a chef, are you going to make a salami sandwich with nata, or are you going to make pancakes with Nutella? People like pancakes with Nutella. Make some pancakes with Nutella.

You want to start a restaurant? Do your version of that. Don't try to invent the wheel. Use the wheel. Cars have four wheels. Improve it. Don't build a car with five wheels or one wheel. It's like you're shrinking your own market.

So it's like I'm trying to explain the kids at the same time. Yes, follow your passion. But also instead of just following your passion blindly, look at what works. You want to be the greatest basketball player of all time? Look at what Kobe Bryant was doing to motivate himself, the amount of training he put in, not just throwing balls, also running,

because the faster you run, the more chance you're going to have to actually throw the ball. So it's like all these, there's so many extensions of it. And in sports, because it's managed by professionals, there's so much, how you say, there's so much protocol into becoming great.

at sports. When you go to music, everyone's just like, you do whatever the fuck you want. And when you make a hit, we'll make money off of it. And they don't care if you fail afterwards. Right. Or if you're healthy. They don't care about nothing. Yeah.

So that's kind of what I try to explain the kids. It's like if you build a protocol built on maximizing your chances of success by trying to build a training protocol comparable to the pro sports, you have a very big shot of not maybe becoming the most famous musician of all time, but having a professional career in music. Yeah, career. And I think that's what everyone that wants to be a musician wants. Like, we just want to make money from doing what we love.

And then if we have that, then on top of that, you can be super creative and do whatever the hell you want. But if you want to have that guarantee of making it as a basic musician, you need to understand how YouTube works. You need to understand. I don't like it, but you need to understand how social media. There's a discipline. There's a discipline.

And the disciplines are these things. It's understanding how all the, all the, the verticals that we interact in, how they work. Yeah. And do you have a workout regimen and stuff like that? I was doing a lunges and squats outside because I was standing still. So I was just doing some lunges and squats because why not? I didn't start doing that until a few weeks ago. But one thing I really noticed, I talked to some people that, like a friend of mine was not feeling

well, like not always happy and stuff. And I just, I learned doing sports or doing like a quick, powerful activity. It releases like dopamine in your brain. So I told him. And then when I told him, I'm like, oh, crap, I should do this myself. So now whenever I'm like, I'm in

the studio and I'm going to the toilet, I do some lunges or I bought like one of those power bricks where you can change the dumble weight. Yeah. And I put it next to my computer. So every time I get up, I just, ooh, get a pump in. You just, you just, you feel better.

Yeah. Stupid stuff like that. And this is what I mean. Like, when you notice, your life will be so much more pleasant. But unfortunately, no one is like, no one dares to attribute life to that. People always think like your life quality or your perception of your quality of life is dependent on very big moves and very big decisions. And it doesn't work like that.

It's very tiny things. It's all the little things that add up to the. big things. Yeah, like you wake up, you're going to be on your phone for 30 minutes. You're not going to be happy when you get out of bed. That's right. If you wake up, you get out of bed, you do, like, you take a shower, you do some squats, you do some pushups, whatever, like anything active, and then you look on your phone, you'll feel way better about yourself before even opening your phone. And you look at Instagram, you're like, oh, that's not as interesting. But when you wake up and you didn't do anything yet, and you kill yourself with 30 minutes of nonstop social media,

of things around the world about how important everything is. The moment you get out of bed, you're like, well, I suck. So it's like all these tiny things that no one is telling us. Then like I got lucky that I got into books that I learned it from reading all these books. I'm like, oh my God, life is actually pretty great. Yeah. If you know how to navigate. It's funny how little decisions have such big effects like what you're saying.

If someone that struggles with their inner dialogue, wants to change that, I would guarantee that putting your phone in another room when you go to bed and waking up without it, try that for a day or two or three. Just give it a try. And watch what you think about in the morning when you're not connected at the hip.

And then the same thing, like I work out every morning. I don't miss it because my head, I need it. It gives me dopamine. It gives me like a perception of life that's exciting. I get excited. I feel great after I work out. And I could probably miss one day. That's it.

That's my limit. If I go two days without working out, I start to get down. I start to feel bad. I have it with sugar. So like, processed sugar? No, processed sugar. If I eat Nutella, I need to have like a hit of processed sugar every 12 hours. Because if I don't, everything sucks.

Everyone sucks. My life sucks. I'm not amounting to anything. Oh my God. I think maybe I should. maybe I should stop DJing and start doing something else just because I didn't have my hit of processed sugar. Let's go.

Thank you so much. I love sugar too. I've had to like wean myself down every 12 hours would actually be a miracle. I eat it more than that. But that's the one thing I got to continue to work on is my sugar. Well, once you're out of it, it's super easy to stay out of it. But once you're in it, and usually you get even in it by accident, like, oh, I'm going to have this French fries with tomato ketchup.

Tomato ketchup is 30% processed sugar. It was all sugar. I love ketchup. Five hours later, like, let's have some Nutella. So, yeah, that's difficult. But that's for me really a big thing. I try. Cheers.

Cheers. Caffeine. I try to stick with caffeine, and I try to fill myself with as much protein as possible, so I'm not going to get hungry for sugar snacks. Yeah. But, oh my God, do I love Kinderbuenos? Yeah.

It's so bad. I would never recommend it. What are they called? Like Kinder Buenos. Oh, Kinder Buenis. Oh, Kinder. Yeah. Kinders.

Yeah. I love kinder stuff. You know, like, chocolate. Yeah, chocolate. It says chocolate bar. It's like, you can agree with 60% sugar. The Kinder chocolate. Yeah, you have Hershey's.

Yeah. Mars. Yeah, I like to. Do you still live in Europe? Part time. Part time. I live between Milan and Miami. Okay.

Miami's cool. It's such a madhouse. Yeah. It's like I got, so I was here at Coachella this week. How was it? Amazing and the show was amazing. And it was very fun. But living in Miami now for about a year and then going to California, you notice like how

everything is so much more nuanced in California, which has positives and negatives. Yeah. It's like everyone is super, their vocabulary is super expanded. And Miami is like more a little bit like New York. Yes. No. And then in LA it's absolutely, I don't think that's possible. Yeah.

So it's like a little bit different lifestyle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I really, I haven't been a day like, like really spent time here for like five years. And I like it. It's very, how you say? It's very special. And I also notice it's mostly a vocabulary thing, like between the East Coast and West Coast. It is.

Like New Yorkers are way more direct. And Dutch people are like, New Yorkers think we are rude. So you can imagine. And what I love about Miami is just in the mix of people. Like we live at Saitai, which is like on Miami Beach. Yeah. Right in the middle. So we're like a 20th.

And if you go down, you have all the craziness, the tourists, the party people, the, a year ago or something. I heard something about a guy running around with a machete. Yeah. And then you go north and it's all families and it's quiet, no tourists. So, yeah, me and my wife love walking down and love walking up. It's a very worldly experience because you have all the happy people, you have all the sad people,

you have all the angry people. Like every emotion is represented. I'mena. And like my music, my hair can be able to be able to continue my rhythm. For so, Potion Nine,

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they're they're they love Miami and the the Latin influence there is amazing

that too and then also it's still East Coast so like you're saying like people are

very direct yeah so you don't have to guess yeah LA is is a thing

you learn how to navigate because you got to read between the lines. So in California, you have to be careful not to get canceled. In Miami, everyone's already canceled. Yes. It's kind of like different lifestyle.

And you have to read between the lines. Like people will say one thing and they mean another. And if you've lived here long enough, you just know what is what? But I like it. Yeah. It's kind of like the thing. I listen to a guy called Ellen Watselot. Yeah.

The old theologist, like a lot of philosophers, like a lot of philosophy. philosophy. And one thing he always says is like life is kind of a game and you kind of choose how much you want to participate in it. And that's very clear with communication in California. It's like you have to read between the lines. And people are still people, but their vocabulary is just different. But when you get emotional when something happens, they will still understand. Like they will never blame you for being rude because something awful happened to you. Right. But if you're too direct without a proper reason, you have to be careful. It's true. It's really nice.

How long have you been married? Five years. That's nice. Yeah. It's nice. It's really nice marriage. It does something I find, like, there's something about, there's something I like more about my career since I've been married.

I don't know what it is. I feel like my marriage and my, I'm obviously, I have kids and everything. They give me this true sanctuary that, like. Something to work for, something to protect. Something to work for, something to protect, and something to go home to. where the success of the day doesn't matter. Exactly. And, you know, they believe in me and I believe in them.

And it isn't all about me. It's not my show. No, absolutely. We're all together, you know? I know. And I think we get that with a family. It's not all about us. It's about all of us.

Exactly that. It's not all about us. Yeah. And I think that quote also like, good quote. It's an amazing quote. But I think that quote works if you marry the right person. And I heard so many people before I married my wife,

like, never get married. It's a trap. You see all these things. I think that makes sense for the people that got married because out of societal pressure. Right. Which is real. I met a lot of married couples. And they didn't get married because they loved that person and they want to die with the person.

They got married because it seemed the logical thing to do. It's like, oh, I'm going to get this job and I'm going to get married. I'm going to do this and that. it's like if you get married like that I don't know what it's like like for me when I met my wife I was like well I've been around the world I've seen a lot of things

like this is the best thing I've ever met instant marriage like instant like after one year I said like will you marry me second year we got married and that's great super fast but I did it because how you say it's the best person I've ever met

and she inspires me and she motivates me and that's why I want to to marry her. That's how I feel. Yeah, so when you have that, absolutely get married. If you don't have, I would definitely not recommend getting married

because I cannot imagine spending time every day with someone that is not that person to you. I would, it must be, that's probably why a lot of people get divorced because if you marry the wrong person, your life becomes a living hell. Oh yeah.

You're forced to spend time with someone. Life isn't better. It gets worse. Probably. When you marry the right person, life just keeps getting better. even when you're working through what I would say it's interesting the first five years of marriage I would say

are like well there's the honeymoon period but like you're actually like figuring out how this company runs who does what who like what when you get past five six seven you hit these new heights of like closeness of of function of like productivity together and then you got kids coming in the picture and then it's exciting but like it just cycles up and gets better and better and progresses like that when you when i think if you pick the other which is like a digress right to degenerate and digress is like one avenue so

i'm a i'm a progressive person i want to i want to grow and get better and better and better and and i think my wife is of the same mind like we i can i can give you an example like on the opposite side. A friend of mine is getting divorced right now. And when he told me, he's like, I'm like, how are you? And it's like, ah, not so good, man. I'm getting divorced. And I told him like, I'm so happy for you. Yeah. Because like I always saw them together. And there were always problems. There were always issues. They, like, they were not fitting. Like, she had a very different version of vision of life than him. It's painful to watch. Yeah. So when he said it, I was like, oh, wow. That's awesome. You're going to try again.

You didn't get it, but then I called it and I explained it like, yo, I think you're going to be way happier and yada, yada, yada. And I don't know if it's my position. And you both deserve to try to find the best version of life that life has offered. I'm happy for both of them. Yeah. I think that's real. I don't know if this is like, am I saying something wrong now? No, no, I think what, no.

I think you're honest and direct. It's refreshing. It's very Dutch, by the way. I have a few Dutch friends. and at first when you get to talk to someone, like the Dutch have a way where it's like, at first it's like, boom, this hits you over the head, you're like, whoa, that was very direct. But you start to actually appreciate not having to wait around for an answer

to get to the bottom of how someone feels or what they think or if they're in or they're out or if they like it or they don't, which is very, it's very, I don't want to say un-American because America, were made up of so many different cultures and there's influences from everywhere but like i find the dutch to be very direct and very um not to say you're you're absolute like you couldn't be your mind couldn't be changed if someone presented like a good no of course you know but you have a way of just saying it like it is and i think that's like a refreshing that's interesting even in holland you have some people that are like still like beating around the bush but there's a lot of

clarity. It's a very like, I love Holland. I think in Holland we call it a farmer mentality. Right. It's like we have a lot of farms in Holland and I think one of like the big things that we have is just like, this is what it is. You wake up like chicken makes the egg, you sell the egg, you make the money, you put the food on the table. What else is there to talk about? The sun is shining or it's raining, whatever like it's fact. But that's the thing like, hmm, it's raining. What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. It's raining. Take an umbrella. It's like, it's that simple. Life.

Yeah. This is what I love about Alan Watts also. It's like you can dive so deep into the reason of life. People, I mean, like, what's the meaning of everything? Bro, it's almost like a joke. It, like, it only matters dependent on how much energy you put into it. Right. There is no absolute answer to everything.

It's very difficult for people to accept because everyone needs something to hold on to. And what I love about. That is that, like, especially like, Adam Watts per se, is really saying, like, there is nothing to hold on to. There is you. You wake up. The fact that you get to wake up and experience life, experience pleasure, experience food, experience love, even experience hardship, the fact that we get to wake up and experience,

do something with that, do something with that. And that's like the thing that I used to motivate myself and also the people that that I signed the people around me is like, we just want to get the most out of it. You know, like you get 20, everyone gets 24 hours a day. Do something with it. Even if you want to play Fortnite for 12 hours, I play Call of Duty, I play Final Fantasy. It's okay as long as you're not going to lie to yourself about what you're doing with your time. That's right.

Just accept it. Yeah. You don't have to be on 24-7. I feel that. And if you're going on vacation, go on vacation. Go on vacation. Enjoy it. But I still say it's so important to understand how your brain works.

Because for example, like what you said, go to sleep with your phone in the other room. You're going to wake up so much more happier. Because even the 30 seconds it takes you to walk to the other room to turn your phone on and then look at it. You will have a more, how you say, real experience of life than instantly being zoned in into social media. Because your complete conception of life changes. Yeah. Like instead of looking like this, you will actually see the wood on the wall and the lamp and the mic. Like there's so much stuff that we see with peripheral vision.

We are not looking at it. And because we're not looking at it, we cannot appreciate it. And this is not our fault. This is capitalism. Because they make money of us not looking at the things. They make money of us like disregarding and just getting zoned in. It's their job to figure out how to keep us locked into that platforms. It's very compelling to think about that.

Like, it is literally billions and billions of dollars are spent developing more efficient ways to get people to stay locked into, tranced into the thing that we all kind of also depend on to promote things, to sell things, to run our businesses. So it's a, so you, it's fine. It's up to you to figure out how you navigate the matrix. Exactly. Exactly. The only thing that I always want to keep telling people, though, is this is like, I don't necessarily agree with capitalism, but I don't know how you say, who started it, but this is definitely the world we live in. So instead of trying to- Reality. Instead of trying to fight the entire world, the way it functions, just understand how it works and navigate it. That's right. But like, understanding makes it so much easier. It just makes it so much easier to know that, like, when I'm on Instagram for 30 minutes nonstop scrolling, the fact that now I know that this is what it's made for

makes it easier for me to put it away and saying like, oh, I've been doing this too much. Oh shit. I start forgetting about, you got me. You got me. I'll see you in a few hours. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like when life is like that, it's so much more comfortable

instead of just getting lost and don't know what's happening. One of the things I love about this show personally is like every time I sit down to have a conversation I'm locked into it for an hour and a half. There's no phone. There's nothing. And you're actually experiencing another person that you've never met. And you're getting a sense of like a real person.

And that to me is like the most, it's the thing I think I get the most joy out of is seeing, getting a sense of someone that I know your work. Like for a long time now. I know your work. And I've had a perception of you in the sense, you know, like just a percent, an outwardly perception. and then to sit with the person and I can almost formulate. I don't know everything about your life,

but I can get a sense of you and I walk away with a different, I don't know, I listen to the music again and it gives it more texture. It's weird. It's really cool. But it's like unplugging from the world and having a conversation with another human for more than an hour is something. It's something that feels like different. It's like a different experience that I feel like that I get to do on this.

this show that I really enjoy. It's cool. I think that might also be why people enjoy listening to podcasts because they actually are experiencing an actual conversation that's lasting more. When you go out on the street or you live your life, like how many conversations actually last more than five minutes? Right. Even when you're like with your friends or when you're online playing a video game, even then is always a conversation with activity. It's rarely just conversation. And the more digital we become as we have these these past decade, the less long conversations are a thing like in real life. And the more valuable this becomes. I think I think this is also like probably the future of social media will be. Well, actually it kind of is already. Most

of viral social media is outtakes from long things. That's right. That's right. Most of the things that you see are viral aren't like something that's made for a moment. It's a moment cut out of a very long thing. It's the best moments taken, like, most people that come on this show want the clips because they like it for their socials, which I like. I think it's great, but it's like some moment in the conversation that really stuck or really hit. It's like the hits of the conversation are the little moments.

But the only way the hits are made is by having a long conversation. That's right. You cannot make the hits. It's like making an album. Exactly. Yeah. You won't make the hit if you don't make the album. Always back to music.

So you have the label and the school or the institute or whatever. What would you call it? You know, X-Men? Yeah, like they had like a school. Do you handpick the young artists? I'm not bald yet, but. Do you handpick the young artist that you pull into the program at Wall? So we started to have that now.

So first I only handpicked people to sign. And now we started Wall Pro Academy together with Tomorrowland, which is like 30-hour me explaining stuff. about making music, producing, tutorials, a lot of stuff about life and basically everything else outside of music. It's like a program, you can buy it, and then you watch those lessons. And then there's a Discord where when you watch the lessons,

like sometimes people come inside, they send me like a demo. And I hear they didn't watch the lessons. I'm like, go back, watch the lessons. I'll see you in one month. Yeah. But we have like a little Discord server where everyone's sending music, talking about their experiences, wins, fails, mental talk, whatever. Yeah.

And now we have actually two songs. No, I think we released five different artists over the last year. We only started one year ago that already released. And now we have two songs that I started playing at my shows that are... Amazing. Yeah. That's awesome. For me, it's just awesome to see that if you give people the right information,

suddenly their ability changes. And a lot of people don't think their ability is based on information. they think their ability is based on the skill they have at the moment. And I always tell people, the first song you will make will suck. Then you will reach some tutorials. And then you'll make another song. It will be twice as good as the first one. It will still suck.

And you do this for three years. And then if you get enough information, suddenly you start making good songs. But none of us are talented musician. First time you play the guitar, it sounded like shit. First time I set behind the drum set sounded like shit. For years, it sounded like shit. Exactly. But because we learn.

and we learn how to play a chord progression, it's like there's theory attached. And once you learn the theory, it changes. Effort is a broad word. Intelligent effort, intelligent work, smart. We always say, me and my brother always say to each other, we remind each other, well, let's just work hard and be smart. And then what does be smart imply?

Well, we're gonna get some information and get some more information, get some more information, figure it out, go back to the drawing board, figure it out, work, hard is the through line, right? We got to show up every day, put forth effort, but we got to be smart. So what does be smart mean? It doesn't mean just appear smart or, oh, I'm naturally smart. No, it means try to get information and deduct the best next move. And then... But this is what I'm saying. Everyone could potentially do this. You don't have to be born hyper-intelligent.

You have to just understand that if you can apply information to your skill, your skill will get better or will get perceived as better, especially when it comes to creative arts. Yeah. How do you feel about, let's talk about your music, the latest music, and like where you feel like, like where you feel like you're at? Because I would say in electronic music, I would have put you in the category. of like, oh, geez, guys who have had a lot of success. But again, you're young, and it's kind of a genre of music that's... I think it's very similar to rock, actually. Yeah.

There's a lot of subgenres. Yeah, lots of subgenres. With new hypes. Like, there's always a new hype. And the problem for me, and I think you have the same thing, I like it all. Yeah. And it's very difficult to establish yourself as a brand. if like in my case you like techno you like house you like uh like dance pop and i think it's the same

thing like for rock you like it's very difficult to be a brand if you like acoustic country and at the same time like death metal and you want to do both right so for me it's very difficult to establish myself as a brand but like this is the reason why i have great difficulty talking about music or where i'm with music when it comes to music the best thing i can do is whatever the fuck I want whenever I want. Right. And then I'll let my, the people around me that have like a hit vision or like, oh, this is popular right now.

Like this is popular right now. Then you have fun. You put it out as the next single. And I will continue to make the music as I feel is working. Right. You just, you are constantly creating. Yeah. And some of it we may never hear and some of it we may.

I will play it in my sets. But you can drop it live. That's the power of live. And this is kind of the thing. I do is like I make the music. I know how to make some stuff that has a bigger chance of working or like a smaller chance of working. I will do both because I like both. But I let the people around me that are working every day with labels with like radio, et cetera, et cetera. I let them figure out what they want the single to be. Right. Because our fans don't care what's the single. They care

about the song they're listening to and they like it or not. Yeah. So it doesn't matter if I put something out with a $100,000 marketing budget on it, or I put it on SoundCloud. It doesn't matter for the fan. Right. And I personally don't care who chooses what single, because for me it's still the same thing. I put out two songs,

and one might have a big marketing budget and will be in the radio, and the other might only be on South Cloud, but my success is not dependent on which song becomes more successful. My success is based on what the fan likes. I had a show in Las Vegas last week, week right before Coachella. And there was a guy holding his phone saying, Lionheart. This guy bought a table, I think, like a $10,000 table. And this song is like a super underground song I made 15 years ago.

Oh, wow. So it's like, you never? Did you drop it? Ah, yeah, I played it. Nice. He was very happy. But just like these type of things, that's what creates the success. It's not necessarily saying like, oh, yes, my new single is the best song I ever made. Like, you don't even have to play the charade anymore. people are smart enough. So it's like this song has some vocals, has a nice chord progression, is more radio fit. I like it.

That's the new single. Yeah. Yeah, it's nice. But I also, like tonight I'm playing a venue here called sound, ran by a friend of mine. I'm playing five hours.

I will probably not play any of my. You're playing five hours? Yeah. Holy shit. I like it. You play five hours. Yeah. And I'm a little bit of a marathon.

How do you like, I actually usually do it without peeing even. Wow. Yeah. That's, that's crazy, dude. What would you say over the like, say like just the last, let's say the last 20 years, right? What do you feel like has either, it could be good or bad?

I'm going to lean probably more like good. But like what do you think's changed? Has anything changed? Yeah. So like 15 years ago, EDM came to the world. Everyone was talking about electronic dance music. It was the biggest had been maybe. Back then, it was like everyone started getting it.

Like I got it the first time I went to cloud. They're like, oh my God, this is awesome. I'm going to make this my life. And then 2010-ish, the whole world was like, oh, wow, this is awesome. Let's do something with it. And now it's beyond that. So now all the subgenres are popping. So you have like very big techno artists.

You have like a very big hard techno artist, which is 170 BPM, very fast. That's crazy. It's crazy. And it's big. Sarah Landry played Sahara at Coachella, I was packed and went crazy. And for me, what I love about seeing all these subgenres grow is it's great for dance music in general.

The whole culture. Yeah, it's not necessarily great for me because I do more pop stuff. So there's way more competition and way more segmented. But even though it's not good for business, I personally love it because it's super inspiring. Like you can go to Coachella and see five different types of dance music. You can see drum and bass. You can see Sarah Landry. You can see Chris Lake.

You can see a me me like this subgenres, Afro House at 120 BPM. Kaina Music was also playing Sahara. They're super big right now. And they played the same weekend that Sarah Landry played 170 BPM, Hard Techno. They're complete opposites. And people are okay to enjoy both. And for me, I've been waiting for this for a long time because it used to be like there's purists.

You probably have it with your own subgenres. Oh, death metal is better than punk. Punk is better than this, blah, blah, blah. And now I think it takes well for a genre to evolve to a place where people no longer care about what's better than something else. They can enjoy both. Right. They just like what they like and it's cool. Exactly.

So dance music is now at a place like that where everyone is kind of united in being okay with liking multiple genres. Like people can go see my set and then go see a kind of music set and not think one is better than the other. We're just two completely different things. Yeah. One of the examples I always used is, and I got so scalded for this back when EDM was booming, like I said, I'm not EDM. I like EDM, but I'm not EDM. You like pancakes?

Yeah. Does that mean you are a pancake? No, but I love pancakes. Yeah, but does that mean you have to eat pancakes every day? No. Sometimes I want chicken. Sometimes I want fish. Sometimes I want vegetables.

but like just because I like one thing doesn't mean I have to be it all the time always I also like aha take on me right like everyone in the world that when the song goes on and fuck yeah dude so that's the point like back then I tried to make it and then everyone said like oh look he's he's saying he's not EDM wow what is blasphemous

and now everyone is finally at a level they're like no I kind of like multiple things and even just calling something EDM feels out of date because it's all... I know, but it's electronic dance music. It is the term. It's like you could say rock, calling rock, rock is out of date.

Yeah, it's guys, guitars, band, drums, rock party. Right. And we even like, we always got kind of boxed into labels of our band, but we're just a rock band. We've always like just been a rock band. Yeah, but when you have one successful song, suddenly you're a sellout rock band. You're a pop punk or you're this or that and we're like, hey, we got a bunch of stuff in the bag, but we're just a rock band.

We started in a garage and we're a rock band. And, you know. Well, I think, like, people always say, like, how do you define your sound? Don't define your sound. Listen to my music. Call it vegetable rock. It doesn't matter. It's the song is the song.

Right. Like, the nice thing about music is it's undefinable by words. Like, you cannot define a chord progression. More of a feeling. You can describe a chord progression, but you cannot define a chord progression in emotional words. Yeah. You can try to sort of say, oh, it's. sad or it's uplifting, but if I say an uplifting chord progression, you cannot play one

chord progression. So I think the great thing about music is it goes beyond words. It goes it goes around words. It's like filling up the space that words cannot bring. So that's, I think, what makes it so magical. And I think that's why it's so important for musicians to learn about the value of music so they stop trying to describe their sound or they stop trying to worry about their brand appearance or like oh i have to put more information on my social media or i have to be more active no just make great music and plug that and then everything will happen and then work hard to figure out how it all fucking works exactly right like learn how the game works learn how to play the game and learn how, but like, there's the game and then there's the art, the dream, like to dream

and make things you like and to follow your interest there and just create is one thing. And then you put it out and you learn. That's the interesting thing about what I'm sitting here listening to. I'm like, so you strike me as like anything's possible dreamer kind of person. Like you'll encourage someone that's got a dream, right? like people you work with that wall. But then you're also a realist in the sense of like, okay, now let's figure out how this shit works.

There's a mathematical equation. Right. Like there is. I think that's really, I think that's cool. It's very Dutch. It's, I don't know what it is, but the thing is for me,

what I just learned is that anyone can literally do anything if they have the correct mathematical equation. Yeah. It's like compound interest on finance. I learned about that five years ago. I wish I learned about that early. but it works the way it works. The same thing like that when you go to sleep,

usually at night, when you wake up the next day, the sun will come up. That's right. Like, this is how the world works. And the more you know about it, the easier it becomes to use it to your advantage. How many shows a year do you play? 150.

That's a lot. I'm a DJ. You've probably got more on a year. Like, you've probably done in the 300. No, I did like 270 shows one year back in the prime. Well, it's still kind of the prime. Like, I can definitely not complain. But, yeah, I think this year is like 150.

And I always say I'm going to tour less next year. But you know how difficult it is when you get a, you get an email saying like, hey, this guy wants to pay you this bag. And the only thing you have to come do is come, fly first class and do what you love. It's like, hmm, I don't know about that. Easy, yes. Maybe. That's right. I'm kind of busy right now doing other things I love.

It's like, no, that's right. And I'm not like, I'm not a band, so I don't have to carry drum kit, I don't have to carry guitars, I don't have to bring,

Rodeys, it's like I show up, I bring a USB, and there's decks and I will, well, I kind of use the decks like instruments. There's a way more lot of buttons than pressing play,

but technically only thing I could do, press play, press play, press play, press play, press play. There are some DJs, they tour the world like that. Yeah, you can edit a set together and poop, poop, yeah. I don't do that.

I really. like I said, five hours tonight. I really enjoy it. But it's so difficult to say no. But what a huge accomplishment. You're actually every night somewhere in the world and you could just be showing up to do what you love. Somebody celebrating a birthday.

Someone's celebrating a big life moment. Some friends are seeing each other for the first time after a long time. Some people are falling in love. Some people are breaking up. There's so much emotion happening in those rooms. People getting married sometimes. Right. So when you think about it, like we could write off

parties as not important, but I think they're the most important concerts and parties, people coming together. Your moments. To make life. And it's a, in general, it's a happy idea. Let's all go here and celebrate or have a good time. I always downplay it because I don't want to be that guy that's doing great things. Right. But I do think it's very important for people to have a place to, The reason I became a DJ is because I went to a nightclub for the first time where there was house music. And I noticed that everything disappeared. There was no racism. There was no classicism.

No one cared if you were fat or thin, black or white. Nothing mattered. The only thing was people were there enjoying, experiencing the music that was unknown to them. So it was always, like DJs would always come and play songs that you could only hear there or they only had on vinyl and you can find them on Spotify. And now is still the same thing. A lot of the biggest moments in dance music come from artists that are playing songs or edits of songs that you can only hear there because they made it and they didn't put it out. Or they call it IDs, like playing a new record that everyone's talking about, but it's not out yet.

So the only way to experience it is by coming together and enjoying the music. And when I saw that, there was, again, no racism, no discrimination. Everyone was just there for the music. And I stepped outside of the club and I was. on the subway and suddenly everyone like was distant again. Separate again. Black and white and fat and skinny and rich and poor. I was like, okay, I don't know a lot about life,

but I definitely know I don't like this. I do like this. And I was already into music. So I said like, okay, I need to make this area of life, my life. No drugs. Never did drugs. Sometimes drink, but never, how you say? Oh, wow.

No, no drugs. Me either. So many DJs I know, they never do drugs. Like for some reason, they're like, yeah. You think everyone's on drugs and you're like, actually, no, that's probably why I want to DJs is I don't want to have to be in the party. I want to be in my own little space and like enjoy it from here and play the music. Also a lot of the fans, they like, well, I have to say, I've seen some things at some

festivals these days. I think some people are definitely doing drugs. Yeah. But also a lot of people, like music fans, they go to experience the music. I'm sure, like, at your concerts, you have people that come for the concert and the mosh bits and whatever. And there's people that are there for the music. They love the music. I'd say, like, actually, now these days, the shows feel bigger and broader than they were back in the day.

So there's maybe more drinking, but, like, it was never a drug thing with our band or, like, even, like, partying was like, like, eh, not really the main idea. The main idea was, like, this music. and then everything else was kind of ancillary, so it wasn't as important. So, like, the partying was never really, like, a main idea of us. So it wasn't a big factor, but there was certainly, like, some bands known for it.

Like, that was their thing. They were wild. And then there was, you know, so we, I never did drugs. This is weird. I never really was interested in. Like, once I took half a pill at, like, one of my first EDM concerts, like, I was 15, was actually a techno.

Before you were, DJing? Yeah, yeah. No, I was like DJing for fun, but not, I wasn't like after Jack. Just the early stages. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I did half a pill. I don't even know what it was. And it just was like, I had 10 Red Bulls. You were hyped. Yeah. And then I was like, I wonder what it was. Maybe it was like, I don't know, but like, what's the point?

Yeah. Like, I'll just have 10 Red Bulls. Right. So, who was your hero early on in, in music? So it's funny. So there was, there was two DJs I saw that, like, musically, I was like, oh my God. When I'm not going to name, because I saw him, like, oh, my God, I can do that so much better.

Like, I saw that guy was like, wow. I can do it better than him. If that guy is there, well, wait until I get there. Yeah, yeah, I love that. And there was another guy, his name was Benny Rodriguez, Dutch DJ. Yeah. And when I saw him play, he was like, oh, my God, I want to do that. That's like he was doing, he was using the mixer and the CD players as instruments.

Right. Like with little effects and tricks. Not like really scratching and stuff, but like a lot of cool tricks to extend buildups, to extend drops, like just really cool stuff, technical stuff. And it just blew my mind. And still to this day is probably the best technical DJ I know in the whole world. Out of all like the world superstar DJs, right. He's still mostly based in Holland, but he's still like my favorite DJ.

That's amazing. Yeah. That's cool. And that other guy is, Who is it? I don't know, I'm going to say, because this is very rude, but that guy is still when I see him DJ, I'm like, yeah. I'm better.

Do it better. Yeah. It's okay to be competitive. Well, I think what was very important is like he didn't try. Right. So I saw that, I was like, wait, they let you DJ here in front of, they're not letting me DJ and you're just like playing too, like, this guy was like, play this song. I'm going to play this song.

I was like, do like cool tricks and make a little. and use some hot cues, like, do something. You know, this guy was just playing two records. And now I still see him play and he's still playing two records. So I'm like, God bless him. He's still. Well, yeah, I'm happy for him. But for me, I think like when I talk to other talents or like young, young artists or young

artists that want to be DJs or they want to be on the big stage, I always tell them, just try harder. There's a guy right now. A lot of people hate him because he's getting very successful very quickly. His name is James Hype. Uh-huh. By far, the most technically skis. skilled DJ of 99% of all successful DJs. Right.

And this guy is just going like to the roof. And you know why? Because he's constantly playing with four CDJs at the same time. So four songs at the same time. And he's showing off and he's going like this to the camera. So people actually know he's doing skill. He started a YouTube channel explaining why he does his mixes. He started making production videos, even though like his product.

I love you, bro. of you, bro, your productions aren't the next, next, next, next level of technical ability. But the fact that he went on Twitch to do those productions and have everyone watch and make it good enough, that's why he won. And he keeps winning. And every time like, that's cool. He might not have the best song every time, but this guy's putting out 20 songs a year and he just keeps going and he makes bootlegs of every song. He doesn't just play a song. He will make a remix of a song before he plays it. Right.

So that effort does not go unnoticed. Right. And that's why I'm telling my guys like, yo, you want to be on that stage. Give people a reason to put you on that stage. Be great. Be better than James Hype, which I have to say is honestly very difficult. This guy is working out. He's healthy.

He's putting everything online. He does motivational videos. This guy's like doing everything. But try. Because if you do half of what he does, I guarantee you, you will be. close to where he is now in a few years. Is there anything left for you? Like when you think about the next 10 years,

like what that you want to accomplish, I think I can see that the, that Lual Academy and the label is super important to you. I think that's important as well for artists to understand like, no matter where you put your music out, to me, the core of your business has to feel independent these days.

I think you need to understand how your business functions and you need to have you need to be plugged in to have a modern career, I think, is one that where artists understand what they're doing, right? And I think that it's guys like you and me telling people like, hey, this is the mistakes I made. Let's like, let's get better. We want you to be better than us. We want you. And so I think I can tell like that part is a big part of your next decade is giving back and building something that feels more right, feels fair,

It feels transparent, feels like it's got some purpose to it. It has something like that. So there's two things I do that I want to do in the future. When it comes to my career, I want to float. I went in the studio yesterday with a really big artist, one of my favorite artists of all time, worked with her a lot. And I don't go in there to try and get a record. I go in there because I love her music so much.

I hope she wants to work with me on more songs. But I don't go there to get a song. I go there out of fun and respect for the person. And that's what I mean about floating. I don't do sessions to get a hit. I do sessions to have fun, to be natural, to create organic stuff. And then when I get home and I'm in my studio,

I will work discipline. And I believe by creating relationships and creating a loving situation and caring situation between people, combining that with at the office discipline, you can create great things. So the most important thing for me is when I go out of my studio or I go out to, I was at Coachella,

I float. I am not trying to get anything. I'm not trying to get the best viral social media. I am not going to be in this podcast and try to get the right clip. I need to float. And if I float, the best things will happen from that. I love that. That's real, dude. That's like experience.

I think that's what my experience taught me that will get you the best results. And then on the wall side, I do my best every day to discipline the shit out of these kids. As in, I am the most Dutch direct person you can meet. A friend of mine recently got fired from his job and he's like, yeah, it wasn't my fault. I'm like, yes, it was. Like, it doesn't even matter. Yeah, but this guy didn't like me. He should have made him like you.

It is what it is. Like life works in a certain way and everything that happens around you in life is because of you. You might not agree with it. I might agree with you that you don't agree with it. But it's in your power. I'm not saying that he should have kept the job.

I think he should have left because it was a toxic situation. Right. But it was your choice to be there in the first place. And it's the same thing with these kids. Sometimes people, like they send me music. I'm like, you say you want to become successful, but what you just sent me is not looking like you want to be successful. It's looking like you enjoy making music for fun.

And that's fine. But like, I created this company to help people that really want to create a career to get a career. So don't waste not just my time, but there's like, we have 10 people working full time trying to get these kids to where they want to be. So if you're going to waste these 10 people's time, there's 10 other kids that want to a successful DJ, they want to be a successful artist. Yeah. And they did study hit chord progressions. They did study what sounds are working right now. They did study what BPMs are working right now.

It's not fun. I know, but I also tell them, you can send me something fun, but tell me it's for fun. Yeah, you can also, and it might not be for you. Like, you may not have what it takes to exist inside of a system where we are asking for more, right? We're asking you. you to show up every day and bring the energy we bring. And that's what our experience has told us in order to have success. You got to show up every day. You got to plug in. And you've got to care about what you're doing. And you got to listen to the people that have, that you came to for advice. You asked them for their advice. And you said, well, okay, are you really sure? Because if you get on this, if you get on this train, you're going to hear what I think. You're going to hear what I know.

You're going to hear. It's not always fun. And it's not always fun. It's the truth. And that's a career that That is, it's not always fun, but you show up every day. And I would say probably you strike me as probably the same as me as, I'm also not quick to judge if that was good or bad. If you getting fired from your job was a good thing or a bad thing, we'll find out later what it means. Yeah, but don't say it wasn't your fault. But exactly, don't say it wasn't something that you didn't have power over.

The thing is like you should never say things that you didn't have power over. because even like if it was outside your power, the fact that you pretend it's something that was inside your power will make you better for the future. I always say when I'm driving a car, you have to assume that the drunk driver will cross the red light and hit your car. That's right.

You have to assume this. So even when you have a green light, yeah, but it was green. It was not my fault. Bro, look both ways because there are drunk idiots that will kill you or your family. That's life. So presume everyone,

one around you is driving drunk and your life will be a lot better. That's right. That is that that's that's right. Closing statement. Listen, thank you. You're a legend. I see why you're I see why. Thank you. Thanks for coming on here. I wish you a lot of success with the new music and with wall. And I hope I see you again down the road. I hope so too. Thanks, bro. Thank you. Thank you for listening to artist friendly. We really appreciate it. If you like the show, can also follow us on Spotify, you can follow us on Instagram at artist. Friendly, and you can watch us on YouTube and Veeps. Leave comments. I always read them. See you next time.