I've talked to people who say that their music and their creative work is a much needed and appreciated escape, where they don't have to think about the state of the world; they're not even thinking about themselves so much. They're not trying to express their own experiences of that day or relationship strife or anything.
A-TrakThere's a bit less elbow room and latitude to take it somewhere else, at least at festivals. In the club you can do whatever you want but at festivals, especially Ultra, nowadays the crowd wants to hear our songs.
A-TrakThe essential component of being a DJ is setting the mood; it's playing to the context. So that if you're not able to adapt from one context to another, then you're not a DJ.
A-TrakThere are producers that have been my friends for many years that I'm still a big fan of, from Boyz Noize to solo acts. Justice. It really varies. All the way to like...sometimes I'll just find some dude out of Chicago that makes a great house song. I'm feeling a lot of the deep house stuff, Jamie Jones.
A-TrakAt the end of the day, if I do a set at a festival and I only have an hour, which is kind of short for a DJ set, I know that I have to play at least six of my songs. Then the whole challenge is what do I weave around that. How do I stand out? Because at a festival there's probably fifteen songs every DJ's going to play every hour, for the whole day. That to me is more interesting, because I still feel like an outsider in this world.
A-Trak