SWACQ on Rave Alert, Black Eyed Peas, and Being an Influencer [EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]

SWACQ on Rave Alert, Black Eyed Peas, and Being an Influencer

12/11/2018

In the past year or so, you've made big room, groove, future bass, and even pop. However, that can potentially make branding a bit difficult. What do you want people to think of when they see a new track from SWACQ?
First of all, thank you for having me! I don't let any genre go untouched because I love music not genres. It might be more difficult to brand, but it also gives me a lot of credits and opportunities. Music is changing and evolving so fast; if you're only good in one genre, you will be forgotten over time. Look at all these huge artists like Skrillex, David Guetta , DJ Snake, or Tiesto, they all have so many different styles.

I want people to be surprised when they listen to a SWACQ song. I believe it's more powerful to give them that unexpected feeling instead of giving them something where they think, "Oh it will probably be something like the other tracks again."

Your first release as SWACQ was a remix of the Black Eyed Peas "Pump It" which was a massive hit from the start. What planning went into that release and what sort of work went on behind the scenes to start your career off with such a bang?

The story behind my very first release is something I could have never imagined! When I started SWACQ, I wanted to launch it with a remix of a song that was close to me. I grew up listening to Black Eyed Peas, and their song "Pump It" was always getting me pumped! So before I started working on it, I searched for other remixes because I didn't want to flip a song that might have been done too many times already. After Googling for quite some time, I was shocked and excited that there was actually no decent remixes out there.

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A post shared by SWACQ (@swacqmusic) on Dec 16, 2016 at 12:01pm PST

The promotion that went into this remix was something that anyone could have done. I started to reach out to Chill Planet, which is a Soundcloud channel that is promoting upcoming artists at the time, and asked them if they want to post my remix on their profile. After a few days they got back to me saying they loved the remix and definitely wanted to give it a push! From there, I just sent a shit load of emails to DJs and did the needed promotion through social media.

After two weeks, my remix got picked up by a huge Youtube channel with over six million subscribers called TrapMusicHDTV and DJs like Tiesto, Ephwurd, and Apashe who started to play it at their shows! That's when the remix got really out there!

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A post shared by SWACQ (@swacqmusic) on Sep 5, 2017 at 12:23pm PDT

How did the remix help shape the course of your career?
Well since then, a lot of doors have opened for me. It helped me get in touch with a lot of artists that I look up to. The biggest thing that happened to me back at that time then was that I was able to work on Tiesto's Clublife Volume 5 and include four songs of my own, two of which were collaborations with the boss himself! Tiesto and the Musical Freedom team have given me such huge support and brought the whole SWACQ project to a new level! We made a video about the whole experience which you can check out on my YouTube channel! There are some interviews with myself, John Christian, and Tiesto about the making of the album and some of the philosophies behind the project.

You recently made a post on your Facebook page sharing a moment where you met will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas. Tell us how that came together after all this time!
Well actually, Tiesto helped me promote my "Pump It" remix further by sending it to will.i.am, but we never really got a response on that. Fast forward to today, after roughly 2 years, I got a tweet from someone saying The Black Eyed Peas was using my remix in their new Master Of The Sun Tour! So I checked the video and I jumped out of bed so fast and was hopping around my room like a happy kid! I mean, you start with remix of a band you have always been fan of, and now they're using your remix! That's just incredible!

Now the funny part is that when I told my friend about it, he told me they were touring in Europe and playing in Amsterdam in five days. So I immediately called my manager and asked him if he could try to get in touch with their management so we could get a meeting with them. As it turned out, he had already talked to their tour manager during ADE, so everything came together like a puzzle! So we got invited to Amsterdam to watch the full show and I met the whole crew backstage afterwards. We talked about music, shared our experiences, and had some drinks of course! They were so humble and it felt like we were all one big family.

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A post shared by SWACQ (@swacqmusic) on Nov 14, 2018 at 9:46am PST

Tell us about the making of "Rave Alert" with Justin Mylo and the insane amount of hype building up to the track's release.
I started to get in touch with Justin Mylo after he supported my track "Guerilla". After we had chatted a few times, we got to that inevitable, "Collab Bro?" We got into the studio and started working to combine my festival banger style with Justin's future house style into a cohesive track. The result was a hard, big room track that was still groovy and danceable at the same time! We were both really happy with the final product and started to look for its home.

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A post shared by SWACQ (@swacqmusic) on Dec 7, 2018 at 1:03pm PST

Some of you might know I work in the same studio complex as John Christian and so one day, Hardwell dropped by and I asked him if he wanted to listen to a few of my songs. When I started playing "Rave Alert," he got this really serious look on his face which made me think he thought it was total shit. Then he looked at me and said "Can I play this at EDC?" Thus, "Rave Alert" found its home. It took quite a while to get released because Revealed Recordings already had a lot of tracks planned for the upcoming year and so we had to try and find a date that work with their schedule as well as the solo tracks that Justin Mylo and I had coming out. Finally we found a date that worked for all of us and so it was released on December 7th after all this time!

While scanning your Instagram page, I found that you are one of the few EDM artists I've come across that has done brand deals! What is your opinion on producers and DJs turning into influencers in the near future and why do you think more of them aren't doing influencer work now?
Interesting question! I think a lot of DJs or artists with a big fanbase are already influencers by definition. An influencer is nothing more than someone with an engaged audience for whatever type of content you're putting out. All we're doing is living our lives and showing it to our fanbase. I think nowadays a lot more artists are realizing this potential and are making influencer deals for themselves. It's part of being an artist in today's era. For the upcoming content like videos, posts, and story posts, I will be working with more brands thus being an producer, artist, and influencer all at once.

Building this name and this brand for just two years, you've seen some remarkable releases on renown labels as well as collaborations with one of the biggest names in the industry. What should we expect from SWACQ in 2019?
I think 2019 is going to be even more huge than 2018! I just have a lovely feeling about it. There's a lot of new music and more collabs with huge names coming up! Unfortunately I cannot give away too much, but the SWACQ as you know it is going to evolve into SWACQ 3.0 very soon!