SEVENN ON THE VIRTUAL SESSIONS PRESENTED BY THE DJ SESSIONS 2/9/22

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Darran: Welcome back to the DJ sessions where we teach you the best DJs producers. From around the world. I’m your host there. And right now I’m in the virtual studios with none other on the other end of this zoom call coming in. I have seven AKA Kevin Brauer coming in all the way in from the deep south of Brazil.

Kevin, where are you coming into from exactly.

Sevenn: The deep, deep south of Brazil, the very

Darran: deepest stuff, but I mean, it’s Casa dilute. Where was that?

Sevenn: So it’s in, um, it’s, it’s in a state called Hugoton Rio Grande you the soul and it’s I’m, I’m in a, in a very small town. I’m actually German called. Um, we’re actually a lot of them speak German.

My girlfriend speaks German, her grandparents speak German long story. The Germans came in 1850, um, because they were promised free land from the, the, the Portuguese emperor Brazilian emperor. And, um, so here I am, I met my girlfriend at a party and we’d been dating for four years and I come down to Brazil to see her and to, to make music and relax.

And then, you know, I’m between, um, the south of Brazil and Pasa Robles, California nonstop and Los Angeles.

Darran: And you know, what a better, I mean, I could only imagine what it’s like down there and in a tropical warm environment and it doesn’t stay that way all year round there. Or does it happen? Seasons. Is it like rainy season, sunny season or is it

Sevenn: so here in particular it gets pretty damn cold.

Cause we’re, we’re, we’re we’re next to Uruguay. Right? Rick and cold it’ll it’ll drop below zero. You’ll wake up with everything frozen, but because it’s so humid, it doesn’t necessarily snow here, but you’ll get snow, like, you know, a couple of hours away. There’s there’s snow and stuff. So it gets cold and they have wine here.

It’s fascinating. Fascinating.

Darran: Well, we’re definitely gonna talk about some of your travels and events and things that you have coming up, um, later in the show. But right now I want to talk with you about the recent remix that you did, uh, with Jonas blue. And don’t wake me up. How was that? How did that collaboration come together?

Sevenn: Um, funny now we hit each other up on, on social media, basically at the same time. And then he, um, he’s like, I’m a dude been wanting to talk to you for years. You know, please, you know, let me have a chance that, you know, speaking, cause dude, I’ve been a fan of Joe’s book for years and, um, especially cause he’s got one of the best poppies in the industry, you know?

But, um, and so, you know, he, he offered me to remix his song and I said, hell yes, you know, jumped on it. And, um, it was a very, like in terms of music, production is pretty complex project in terms of like the sound design and stuff, but it was, it was very fun, very exciting. And one of the fate, one of my favorite things is I’ve done.

Darran: You ever get nervous when you’re reaching out to other artists that you may not know or intimidated by in any way? Like, I don’t know if they’re going to say yes, I’m never going to say no, but oh, I hope something happens at anticipation or what what’s the, I was recently told that in this day and age that if you’re a producer, Instead of like back in the day, we used to go to the nightclubs and you’d kind of network in the nightclub to find other DJs or, and, or producers because they might be hanging out one to listen to their own tracks that people are playing in the clubs.

But now in the online world, we have the accessibility to reach out to people. Via, obviously the internet very quickly and that collaboration is, is grown by, you know, maybe 10 fold, a hundred fold, depends on who you are, how fast you want to be. Somebody told me recently you should be making five contacts a day, networking and making five genuine, genuine contacts today.

Would that be a rule that you think would be a good one to follow for upcoming?

Sevenn: For sure. Um, but something that I, that I tell everyone, it’s, it’s something, that’s a lesson for myself also as good music will speak for itself, you know? So focus on the music, focus on like, if you’re a music producer focused on the music first more than anything.

If, you know, it will get heard if it’s, if it’s, if your soul is in the right place and if your, your heart’s in the right place, if you’re making it in, in the right place, it’s going to get hurt no matter what, you know, but you do have to send it out and don’t be afraid to send it out because you already have.

You already have, you know, in Portuguese, you have the saying, you already have a no, you know, so might as well just ask, you know, to see what happens and do you know, I’ve had tons of people reach out to me. I’ve reached out to tons of people and that’s how the best things happen.

Darran: One of the, one of the key phrases I like to tell my crew, my team that I work with is you miss 100%, 100% of the shots you never take.

I believe, I hope I’m not misquoting Michael Jordan on that one, but I think it was Michael Jordan had said that I picked it up somewhere, somewhere. I hope it’s true, but yeah, I mean, it kind of is true if you always got it. Your it’s always going to be no, if you never. You know, so you, you never know. And, uh, and so that’s awesome that, you know, you got that collaboration going, you also have a number of other collaborations going on.

We’ll talk about that in a moment. I want to talk and I’m sure you haven’t talked to this ad nauseum and you really want to talk about it because this is where I’m going to, I rarely fanboy in episode, but I’m going to tell you, boom, was it drives me absolutely insane. Awesome have a track that is, and I just want to say thank you and TSM for producing that because it was the first time I heard it was a couple of years ago and the girl I was dating at the time said, Hey, I was rugged and I was jogging or biking or whatever she was doing working.

I says, I heard this track. You got to listen to it. And I heard it and I was like, wow. AF is this, this is so amazing that it’s actually one of the anthems we play in our mobile studio. If you go to our website, we have a mobile suit, a big glass box that we built on the back of a truck. Few years back, we put a stereo grade sounds as the monitor.

Everyone loses their mind when we drive down the streets, playing that song. So thank you so much. I just want to get that out and say, thank you so much for that track. It was so amazing. And then, uh, I believe you had the collab with, um, oh, don’t say it, the rapper hip hop artists, Gucci mane later on on it.

And just, I remember seeing a dance. If you have you seen that video with the dance troupe come out and they did. That was so amazing too. And I’m like, whoa, it’s such, I mean, just shitty, but you are literally have been blowing up. I mean, you you’re going out there. Um, you know, if. You just were talking to me before the show, he just got signed on with a pretty big agency.

You want to tell us about

Sevenn: that? That’s right. I just signed with, oops.

No, I don’t. I can’t pay you the money I owe, you know? Um, uh, no, so I just signed with William Morris, um, and you know, huge, huge, huge dream come true for. Um, and you know, we’re, we’re working on all kinds of projects, all kinds of shows happening, and it’s completely incredible. Like the other day I was having dinner with some of my friends and I was talking to him about, you know, just trying to fully Morrison the whole thing.

Like it, it, if simulation, I don’t know if you know what simulation theory is where, uh, uh, simulation theory is, is the possibility that we’re living in a simulation because I was like, this is so good. This is so good. This is. The best thing that could possibly happen to me, I feel like it’s too good to be true.

It’s like this, this has to be simulation. And like I won part of the computer game was like, ah, you know, that’s the level or something now it feels fucking incredible. It’s amazing.

Darran: I can, I can completely relate to that. Um, just like we were talking before the interview, there are some things we can discuss, some things we can’t discuss.

Um, for the longest time we’ve been an independent and independently run. You know, show we’ve been producing our podcast series over the years, working with a lot of top people, but, um, you know, we’re never. We were, we were positioned to get sponsors, but we weren’t going after sponsors until we wanted to get everything lined up, to present it to sponsors and the other a month and a half ago, we were, I started knocking on the doors of agencies and I knocked on the door of this agency that was over in the UK and they came back and they want to set up a zoom with me.

They looked at our, looked us all over and said, yes, you’re worth our time. We’ll talk to you. Seem like you’ve got something going on. And I said, okay, we’ll do the, we’ll do the meeting Pacific. You know, US-based time and they’re like, wait, you’re based in the U S oh, well, then you need to talk to our U S guy and got on the phone with the UN or got on a zoom with the U S guy.

And while it was a hundred thousand foot level conversation, it was a very productive conversation to where the next email that came through. Can you start on Q1 or do you need to wait until Q2 to get us on board? And the bullet points that we talked about, he hit on and was like, yep, we can do that. We can do that.

So that simulation area they’re like, is this really happening now? I’ve been doing this for so long and. You know, you’re sitting there. Just go, okay, cool. What else? So I’m making notes at all times to get this deal locked in, but it’s some really awesome stuff for our brand. So I can only re I can relate to where that surreal illness comes in.

Like, did that really just happen? Like I got an email from, you know, Mixcloud right. Yeah. A few about a year or two ago, I got an email from the CEO of Mixcloud. And I saw it. And this is, I was like, is this a practical joke? Is somebody like making this up? And it turned out, he had heard about a friend of his, told him about a podcast.

He was listening to that I was interviewed in. And then. Interviewed podcast that I did with a lawyer about copyright. And he said, you got to listen to this. He went back and listened to him and then contacted me and said, dude, I want to be interviewed on your show. And I was like, you know, but I thought it was surreal.

I was like, what? Like the CEO of Mixcloud wants to talk to me. Okay, cool. And it’s really cool stuff. Um, so, you know, You never know what’s going to happen, but you’ve done. You’ve been in a lot of, kind of surreal experiences. I would say for yourself, one of them let’s talk about some of the festivals, you know, being at tomorrow land and Lollapalooza, Brazil.

I mean, these are pretty big. Big name festivals. What’s that like being on stage one? And then what happens behind the stage at those kind of events?

Sevenn: I’ll tell you what w what happens behind the stage? They’ll tell you first, you, you try your best not to drink all the champagne and you try to, you know, maintain composure as best as possible.

Cause also in, you know, the backstage, backstage years at these festivals, you’ll see all your favorite artists. Um, and it’s, it’s a very humbling and very, uh, Like it’s, it’s, it’s so incredible to see all your favorite artists in the same place. It’s, it’s, it’s almost scary, you know? Um, but it’s, it’s, it’s magical, you know, you’re on stage playing music that you made, you know, that came off your laptop, um, for thousands of people it’s, it’s absolutely incredible.

And you couldn’t feel more grateful that you have the opportunity to do that. You know? Phenomenal. Yeah.

Darran: And who would be the most inspiring person you ever met backstage? And why is this person such an inspiration to you? Ah, that’s a good question.

Sevenn: Damn. Um, most inspirational person. Woof. There’s like, I have like three in the top of my head.

Um, I’d say, I’d say, amen. I met Armin a couple of times backstage. And not only is he like way taller than you think he is, but, um, he just, he, he feels kind of to Jesus Christ. He has to also, you know, he smells so good. You know, he’s got. Colonialism, but it’s incredible. Um, but also very, very, very, just, just so I’m just very tall, huge smile, very welcoming.

Very, yes, let’s go, you know, you’re like, okay. Yes, let’s go. Yes, I’m ready. You know, just very, very, um, very exciting, you know, very exciting. I know

Darran: you’re buddies with him and everything. And he won’t remember the time that I met him. Nothing really bad happened, but I would love to give him an apology. It wasn’t bad.

I just, I didn’t recognize him. And so he came up and he was very outgoing, nice, and everything. I was backstage and he came over and I kind of turned and was like, Can I like, can I help you? And I turned back, I was having a conversation with my friend. I was deep in, and then I saw a picture of him in the club the next day I was like, oh dude, you know, but it wasn’t bad.

It just is. I just didn’t recognize, like over my shoulder is kind of this funny thing. And so I kind of said this to a few people. I was like, If I ever get a chance, I will apologize to him. He probably won’t remember it, but I’ll say, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blow you off. I just was like in a deep conversation over here and he seemed to be a really nice guy.

I didn’t get a chance to smell him though.

Sevenn: Um, it’s incredible.

Darran: It’s incredible. I will have to check on that,

but,

Sevenn: but, you know, what’s also very interesting about a lot of, you know, uh, people at the height that, you know, Ts does that or Arman or, or, you know, Paul called Brenner, you know, some of these other guys, um, they’ll remember.

You know, they’ll remember, I’m trying to think of an example, like Armand specifically, you know, I, I met him once in frickin rock and Rio or something, and he was like, I didn’t even remember exactly when he’s like Kevin Brazil, but I was like, yeah. You know, so they, you know, they, they remember very well.

They, they they’ve got great numbers. Imagine how many people they’ve met, you know, throughout the years. Um, so yeah, and I try to use that as example too. Like I actually try to every place I go, I try to write down names and people and phone numbers and contacts so that when you go back to that place, you know, you’ll meet someone to promoters someone or a fan or, or, you know, a wage, anyone that you meet along along the way, and you remember them by name and it’s, you know, it’s, it’s just, I feel like I owe that respect to them.

You know, if they come up to you saying, I love your music, you know, you kind of owe that to them, to, you know, to.

Darran: Absolutely. And you know, with things opening back up things coming back to full production question here, ultra or ADE, which one would you choose?

Sevenn: Whoosh. I’ve actually never been to Asia. Um, but, um, ultra is just crazy fun, you know, just larger than life, huge rowdy, hot and sticky and sweaty.

Um, I don’t know. It, it, it, it, that, that goes for like the kind of experience you’re in for, you know, cause I’m, I’m assuming you’re for ADU in Amsterdam, right? The, the dance event. Um, this time I would choose 80 for educational purposes, but for fun purposes and for rowdiness, I’d probably choose ultra. Go completely insane.

Darran: Yeah. We cannot wait to get out there and kind of be on the street level again, I’m obviously doing a lot of virtual interviews. Hence the virtual sessions being created, which I love doing, but there’s nothing like being on the street in the mix, on the fly, on the go. And, you know, I get a chance to do some research, the questions I have, but I could be walking on the street and run into somebody.

I know, oh, can you do a 10 minute, 15 minute interview? And just on the cuff, on the fly of the adrenaline rush for us when, as I’m reporting type of, um, uh, company is just awesome. Plus you mentioned the education, but what I was more interested in, what inspired me to go with that question? There was you were talking about the networking and, and making sure that if you are making connection, Right.

Those connections down, and then you can build friendships. You can have that moment where somebody sees you. A few years later, like I remember you and you, you could say, oh, I don’t remember you, or Hey, I mean, yeah. Awesome. Collaborations can happen from that.

Sevenn: Yeah. Yeah. I took the lesson from, I was, I was actually on the stage at ultra that time in 2017 and a manager came up to me.

I was like, yo, you know, great to meet you guys. You guys are seven. And like, yeah. Yeah. And then he had a spreadsheet. You had an Excel sheet. Named number, phone number causes everything, all super organized date place you met. And I was like, wow. I was like, so, and he’s like, yeah. This is business. You know, this is content, this is, um, connections.

This is where the magic happens, you know? So, yeah.

Darran: And, and speaking of, um, magic, having you live in Los Angeles, there’s

Sevenn: I live in Pasa. Pat

Darran: wares at the Robles was pass the road. It’s a

Sevenn: further up north from Los Angeles, about three hours and a half away.

Darran: Well, if we, if we live that far away from Seattle, we just say, Seattle,

Sevenn: Los Angeles, fine.

Yeah. Three hours. Right? Come on three hours,

Darran: three hours might be Portland, but still we’d say Seattle Pacific Northwest. But that means say you’re in the LA kind of LA area, but, um, is that your little tiny? Is that your own little tiny greenhouse that we see in the videos you’re making? Is that where you live?

Sevenn: It is. Yeah. Yeah. That place

Darran: looks really cozy.

Sevenn: Arbit hobble, you know, it’s um, it’s, it’s, it’s, there’s something about the energy in California. Make music. I don’t know if it’s the geography, the geometry, I don’t know what it is. Maybe the fact that there’s just so much intensity happened, um, intensity happening with, you know, the ocean that desert, the snow, the mountains that this, that, it’s just, there’s something about it.

And, um, yeah, there’s, there’s, there’s definitely a magical. And I,

Darran: I saw you were filming off of your, your back deck or your front deck. I’m not sure if your house, but, um, you actually do with filming from a lot of different locations. I saw Sedona, I saw Florida and I was kind of like, is, is that something that is pre-planned or are you just kind of on-site and say, let’s go out in the middle of somewhere and do you get to go scout these locations?

Do you have somebody scouting those locations or how do you find.

Sevenn: Well, they were all pretty, um, well it’s one of my, one of my friends was there, um, in Sedona and said, yo, you got to come shoot this place, you know? Um, and, um, and a lot of these, we just kind of winged it. You know, we, we, we at in Sedona, we actually, it was this one energy vortex that was at this hotel.

And then my manager. Got the hotel. It’s just, we have to make it happen somehow or another. Um, and then, uh, uh, Florida, same thing, you know, it’s, it’s, they’re all pretty spur of the moment. And the idea is to showcase the, the music right. And showcase, um, what, what I’m doing musically includes some ideas, um, and also something for people to watch at home or, you know, to, to watch during a barbecue or to watch stream a party.

You know, there’s, they’re, they’re pretty, um, they’re not exactly what I would play at a, at a level. Uh, at a show of mine, you know, but it’s not, not in that sequence at least, you know, cause I, I started a lot of them pretty slow and then kind of build up, play a lot of, you know, melodic, um, uh, techno uh, progressive house.

So it depends on the setting obviously, but, um, you know, just kind of showcase the kind of music I’m listening to, kind of these guys enjoy and kinda music I think would, would fit the scene. Yeah.

Darran: I was listening to the mix out of Sedona and I’m loving it. I think I heard a quote from Alan Watson, one of the tracks.

He’s one of my biggest favorite philosophers guys of all time. And, um, and, uh, then I also heard, you know, Donna summer, I feel love come in the mix. I’m like, ah, okay, this is me. This is awesome. I just really love that. But I was. Who does your drone footage and are they on your rider?

Sevenn: Oh, so the drone footage, believe it or not for a lot of.

Like all of the footage that you’ve seen from Sedona and from all that, it’s been just me and my brother. So sometimes, and this, this specific drone, it films by itself, you can actually set it to circle. So actually, like while I’m playing, you know, kind of, I have my cell phone here and I’ll throw it up.

It’s, it’s basically just me and my brother for, for all of these, you know? Um, and, and the Florida. If you want, the Florida wanted me, I’m going to be putting out this week. I’m in the middle of the swamp and, uh, same situation, you know, it’s just me and my brother and, and, um, we had a lot of help from friends and management, but, um, it was just us filming, you know, it’s pretty fun, pretty challenging.

Darran: I think that what has happened over the last few years, inspired a lot more DJs to get out of the studio and film those kinds of. Doing sets in, in very awesome locations. Like something like circle is doing. I mean, it’s just, they got some of the craziest production, some of the craziest areas out there.

Um, we just had a recent DJ who’s submitting a guest mix to the show and turns out they they’re in. Um, oh gosh. I should know where they’re at Austria and they have a partnership with the ski resort and the hotel that’s there. And. When he sent a picture on Instagram and I saw it and he tagged us in him.

I thought he was up on this platform on top of a mountain with a DJ booth. And they had a couple of cameras after talking about it with them, Sebastian Bronk by the way, after talking about it with him, he’s like we had eight cameras, a drone, it took a seven lifts to get everything up there. We had to shovel snow.

Mike, do you guys really went out of the way for this? Thank you so much. But he goes, no, I really wanted something really awesome. And just, you. Uh, have, have you, we’ve seen more and more D has going out in the forest or the guy who gets on the bike or stands in traffic, or he goes down the river, you know, DJ and in crazy areas, or I’m going to go DJ out in the middle of a lake.

Uh, uh, Don Diablo took his, his pool and his place and put a board and was deejaying has pulled a whole really crazy light show. So, you know, I think people took video and really embraced it over the last few years, which was just awesome. Especially being a video guy myself, I’m like, that’s some cool stuff.

You know, I come up with that idea, you know, I come up with some crazy stuff, but, um, was that always part of your inspiration? Have you always been making videos like that? Or was that something that just was kind of new that you said, you know, we’re here and somebody says, let’s go do this and Sedona, let’s go do this.

Sevenn: Yeah, that was pretty much it. Well, it was also like one of my favorite hobbies and a lot of people say your hobby is actually, you know, I’ll open a bottle of wine and watch the circle set, you know, and I’ll just completely, you know, you get hypnotized by the landscapes, by the drone footage, by, you know, the music that’s being played.

So there’s definitely a vibe to, you know, that the fact that you’re combining, you know, the, the, the audio visual senses into this kind of experience, it’s, it’s increasing. Um, it’s one of my favorite things to do, and it also showcases your work as a DJ. So it’s like, I like it. Other people will hopefully enjoy it, you know?

And it’s, it’s, it’s fun, man. It’s fun. And the, and especially during the pandemic, there was no, um, there, there was, there was no, there was no shows, you know, That’s where it all kind of really took off, you know, circle’s already going for awhile, but then pandemic, it just did.

Darran: And have you ever thought about bringing video into your live sets, like mixing video and audio together at the same time, I’ve seen a couple of your stage productions and you know, obviously the light shows the led walls, all of that.

Um, coming into fruition, but is it, have you ever thought, like taking actual videos and mixing them in, do you have a lighting designer that goes on tour with you and brings that in and you talk about on this show to be this way and this show to be that way? Or how does it,

Sevenn: yeah, so ideally there’s there’s time code, right?

Like you, you structure your entire. Or actually you sync your songs through time code, um, so that, you know, the, the, whatever visual you want will be perfectly to it. And, you know, no matter the BPM, no matter what you’re doing, and that’s what I’ve been working on right now with a couple of different people to try to find the right, the right mesh for it.

And it also depends on the, on the, the, the vibe you want to pass. You know, you mentioned them, Alan Watson, you know, feel loved and stuff. So it’d be nice to include, you know, just, um, Positively deep, but fun elements like that same time. It’s like the best experience I’ve had are just like, you know, you were telling me before the interview, I’m like at eclipse festival and stuff, you know?

So then you have these kinds of deep, but, um, I don’t know something about electronic music, man, you know, and it’s, it’s super deep and it just brings out things you didn’t know were there and just kind of combine the whole thing into this, you know, um, amalgamation. The sensory explosion, you know, and that’s kind of what you want is just bring it all together into one, one big passion and music is about sharing, right?

So you want to share with the people that are listening, what you’re kind of sharing at the same time, it gets a little tricky, cause you don’t want to take them away from what they could possibly be experiencing. So it’s gotta be. Uh, somewhat neutral, right? You can’t put like, you know, I don’t know, like you, you want a hunting trip or something.

That’s like, you, you gotta be, you gotta be very careful with what you put, you know, and make sure that it’s conducive to, you know, the person’s experienced and you know, that they’re getting the best out of what you’re trying to, what are you trying to show them in?

Darran: Absolutely. And I love the universal translation of electronic music and not that any other, it’s a great form of music that.

Across so many levels because language barriers, aren’t there inflection of different languages, you know, words aren’t they have to be translated. And what it means in this culture, that culture, it is the music. I mean, of course, if you’re using a sample like Donna Summers or Alan Watts, that’s going to need to be translated, but that’s usually an, um, It’s not the focal point of the actual track, you know, whereas like in a rock music song or a hip hop song, you know, different words could have different, different meanings in different cultures, you know?

And so that universal aspect of the music is there. And I, I think. Really cool. You touched on that. I’m curious to know a little bit about what you mean by a hybrid techno oh B. Tell our DJ sessions viewers about that.

Sevenn: Well, so, so just to, to pre-phase that, so, so the interesting bit about dad’s who’s writing music is, is music connects people, music is universal language, right?

But then dance music takes that to a whole nother level. Um, you know, dance music, it basically forbids you from being prejudiced, from being racist, from being, you know, from having any kind of, of like evil thoughts towards someone, because you’re all in the same pile. You’re all dancing. You’re all having fun.

It’s just, it’s completely uniting it’s. It’s it’s unifying. Um, and dance music, like I used to be into, I used to make metal, you know, I used to make, I used to call it Disney metal and it was basically, you know, beauty and the beast, but guest on kills the hell out of the beast, like emo Disney metal, like fucking the whole, you know, I’ll send you latest.

It’s, it’s, it’s mad, it’s a hyper caffeinated, just complete madness. But, um, so then, but it just wasn’t so connecting, you know, and then my brother started showing me dance music back in 2013. The first song that really got me was Zed spectrum, you know, and from a music theory standpoint, from music production standpoint, Very complex and very deep and emotional and huge and involving, and, and I was like, yeah, fuck.

This is it. You know? And, um, and I had a lot of experiences like that and he he’s a in Turkey, just dancing with people that I did not know a word of their language. I didn’t. You know, and, and just, you, you, you create connections that you never thought were possible. I, you know, create friends all over the world.

It’s just, it’s complete unifying and there’s no age involved. You don’t have to know how to dance. You don’t have to be not sober. You know, you can be completely sober. So there’s th th there’s that about dancing, it’s just freaking magical, you know, and the idea behind hybrid techno was, um, was exactly kind of that, because the best experience I had were in, in, in, in Ibiza and we’re with this kind of.

You know, Solomon and spend bath, you know, and, and I, I didn’t know anything about, about techno or, or, or deep house or anything, you know, and I go to Solomon’s spin bath at amnesia, you know, for eight hours or nine hours, however long it was, I just remember thinking the charm of the thing was the fact that no one, it w it wasn’t over the top.

Everything was balanced. Like. Losing their minds in a balanced way. It was hard to explain. Everyone’s just dancing. And there was no, you know, it was just, it was so, so I wanted to include those elements that I felt any BS, the Sonic elements and the dance elements into. Um, a more commercial dance music and to include those kinds of melodic phones, those groups, those kind of beats, and, you know, melodic techno and progressive house, the sound, a lot of the times it is softer, you know, and that’s for specific reasons.

But I wanted to kind of bring that sound up a little bit, you know, make the sound a little, you know, a little bit bigger so we could take it to even a, even a bigger audience, you know, and have them feel that same kind of. Um, energy, you know, cause there’s, there’s nothing like it, man. There’s nothing like it.

And there’s a lot of that happening nowadays, you know, the underground has become upper ground. Um, and that’s it’s it’s it’s I knew it was going to happen cause the music is too fucking good. The music is just too good. Yeah. From every standpoint possible production dance, every just it’s so good. You know, it’s just, it’s amazing for this era we’re living in, you know, if

Darran: you could take one of your hybrid techno productions you’ve done so far, which one of those stand out the most to you and why?

Sevenn: Um, I would say Alexander, um, uh, just to, to show off the melodic and the, um, The, the, the sound overall is pretty big. Like I tried to beef it up as big as possible for kind of a main stage setting. Um, and I felt like that was that that was missing in a lot of the songs that I, that I liked from the, the, the melodic techno progressive house, deep housing.

And I really tried to put that into that song and to kind of showcase the. Where you could go, you know, the, the, the, the limits are endless. You can go anywhere with this stuff, you know, and basically the Jonas blue remix was basically hybrid techno. And what I did with the sense, and, you know, at the automation level 9,000, you know, I’m actually going to do a tutorial today on how I did it.

Cause it was pretty intricate. Um, and actually it kind of feels like a guitar rift at the end, at the denim, Dan the band, it’s like a, you know, it’s almost a guitar if it was pretty fun. And a lot of people enjoyed the remix. I’m very happy. They did enjoy it.

Darran: What what’s been the weirdest moment or weirdest place you’ve ever been when you’ve heard one of your own tracks play?

Ooh,

Sevenn: the weirdest place. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but a strip club, you know,

girlfriend’s going to kill me. Yeah. Boom. You know, it was on a strip club and I was like, oh, there it is. And everyone they’re dancing, you know? And I was like, oh wow. You know,

Darran: did anyone there know who you were? Or were you kind of oh, no.

Sevenn: I kind of went like,

Darran: oh, awesome. If you could go back 25 years in music history or 50 years forward, which way would you go and why?

Sevenn: I would go definitely go 20 something years. You know, just because the authenticity and the skills, you know, the skill set was just incredible back then, you know, 20, okay. I’d say a little more than 20 years, even like 30 years ago, people were just at the height of musical talent and skill and the mixture of everything actually.

But you know, to be fair recently, there’s, there’s been less, but there’s been a lot of very, very, very good music being made that. You know, so popular, but there’s a lot of good music out there, man. You know, from a technical standpoint, from a musical standpoint, just got to look for it, you know, but there’s all kinds of incredible music being made.

Like my favorite band in the world is called Tesseract. If you want to check them out later, progressive ambient metal. It’s just so good. It’s just man. You know, if you’re, if you’re a rock fan, You know, there’s nothing like it. Um, some other bands, like there’s a band called leprous, I wasn’t such a big fan of their latest two albums, but you know, things like that, this is, there’s a lot of good music being made in, in, you know, kind of underground scene.

And, you know, to be fair, some of the best music I’ve ever made has been dance music recently, you know, with the, the advent of this, you know, progressive house D passed, if it’s just so good, it’s so good. It’s like universally good. You

Darran: know, and, and when, when you’re sourcing, when you’re listening to music and we were talking a little bit about this before.

And how podcasts have become a very huge medium. We’ve been podcasting for 17 years. I’ve been podcasting for 17 years now, but, um, what are the top three podcast shows that you listen to? That could be your go-to. Finding new music or finding a new new artists?

Sevenn: Well, to be very honest, I don’t listen to podcasts for music.

I actually listened to them to get away from music. Cause my head’s always thinking about something. So like before I go to sleep, I really just, I can’t be thinking about which filter I’m going to be using on this or that. So I listened to Andrew Huberman. Um, I listened to Lex Friedman and obviously Joe Rogan, just because you know, it it’s, it’s just relaxing.

You know, a lot of the times the comments. It’s just pretty flowy.

Darran: Yeah. And, and, you know, um, shell production. I remember looking back, do you know who Gary V. Yeah, very bad Gary manager. So, you know, I remember seeing something of his, he was talking to the camera about, you know, obviously being total motivational, Gary V he normally is, but he did this kind of thing where he what’s up by NFTs.

We’ll talk about that in a second. But he had this, he had a little like picture and picture up here of like his first. It was going through all his episodes and it was counting like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And it was just racking them up, racking them up. And you could see the quality of that reduction from where he started to kind of where he was at now.

And it took hundreds of episodes to get that kind of dialed in. And as we were talking before the show, you know, some people start out and I think even Joe Rogan. Podcasts. They look like crap when he first started from what I remember and, uh, didn’t have the level of production that they have now. Um, even some viral from the DJ sessions, you go back and you’re like, you guys were live streaming this crap, like, okay.

But it wasn’t crap at that time. It was the cutting edge of technology, the less to disseminate and distribute. And if you can create a podcast series, what would the topic of conversation be?

Sevenn: It probably, I probably get into music theory theory, like the theory of theory. Um, there’s a lot of crazy ideas I’ve had over the years in terms of, you know, why this sounds good.

Why that sounds good. Why this works, why that works. And I’d love to discuss them because I think I’m full of shit. And I’d love someone to call me out and say, what is wrong with you? Like you better put down that coffee pot and start, you know, praying to Jesus. Cause bro, you gotta get your life straight.

You know, you, you are just, you’re thinking. Cap, you know? Um, but there’s, there’s a lot of interesting conversations like that, you know, especially about music and, um, um, yeah, music and just like philosophy in general. And, um, it’d be fun, you know, I thought about it for awhile. I just don’t don’t have the bandwidth, you know, like you said, it’s, it’s a lot of work, you know?

Darran: Absolutely. Oh, that’d be awesome. I listened to it. Um, you mentioned NFTs earlier and. Have you been exploring or looking into NFC? So I was looking at a little bit on your socials, but it looks like you have been, looks like you’re getting into that. What is your experience been like with NFS?

Sevenn: It’s been, it’s been cool.

Um, w we did an auction for an NFT. Um, there’s this, uh, NFT based, um, music label called purple fly. And we actually released a song with them and sold, um, NFTs of the artwork and 3d and this and that. And, um, it w it was, it was interesting, but, um, I would love to explore, um, there’s a, I’m sure you’re familiar with what Blau has been doing with, um, join Royal, actually, I think it was just called Royal.

Um, so, so, um, basically, yeah. Um, fans will be able to own pieces of the artists music and the more the music. If I hope I’m getting this right, the more the music gets streamed, the more. The artist makes and the fan makes, you know, so, so the, the, the, the song becomes a piece, like a piece of art that everyone can own, and everyone can actually make money off at the same time.

You know? So that’s, that’s a very interesting concept for me. Um, it, it’s, it’s very new. It’s very. Futuristic, because there’s all kinds of, you know, things that could happen with that in, in, in favor and against. But, um, I’m, I’m very interested in that and I’d love to look into more. I’m just waiting for things to kind of happen before I jumped, you know, full throttle.

And, um, I don’t think the platform has been launched yet. Uh, release with God. I’m totally butchering this, but they have a release with a very w with a large hip hop artist, um, coming up and it’s going to be their first one. If I’m not mistaken, I hope I’m getting this right. I really haven’t done the research recently, but very interesting, overall, very interesting.

And I’m waiting for that to kick in, you know,

Darran: and as far as technology goes, I mean that we good on the whole web point web three deep in for a long time on that conversation. When I say these next four letters, I’m going to know what it comes to mind, VR and AR. Hm,

Sevenn: I think there, you know, we’re still at the beginning, you know, uh, um, there’s all kinds of room for, to grow.

Uh, David Guetta is going to do a set in roadblocks, right? It’s it’s, it’s very interesting. It’s it’s it’s I love to, to be a part of it. I love to, you know, do a digital concert, like. But I still feel like we have a lot of room to go before. It’s going to get anywhere close to the concert experience, you know, with, with sweat and human interaction and dirt and the smell of beer on the floor and you know,

Darran: and the smell.

Sevenn: And he has those incredible perfume. We need

Darran: Willy Wonka to come in and get smellovision on that, you know, create that. Okay. Now it’s a real show. You can’t smell Ts though. I’m not going.

Sevenn: Exactly. Exactly. Well, what would be interesting would be, you know, if you had a pair of VR goggles and if you had some way of sharing what you’re seeing from the stage, you know, for other people now, the emotions that you’re feeling, there’s also the emotional part, right?

Like it’s, it’s, I wonder if in the future, you know, with neuro link and all these other crazy ideas, there might be a way to share what you’re experiencing, you know, like the nervousness or, you know, the fact that your, your armpits are now, you know, becoming, you know, water, um, retainers, you know, Um, it’s, it’s fun, man.

It’s I, I can’t wait to see what, what the future is. I’m super open to it, you know, I’m I used to be very closed minded, these kinds of things, just because I was terrified of them, but now I understand that, um, normally we’re afraid of things we don’t understand. Right. For in, in a lot of the cases, and this is one of those cases where it’s like, um, be open to it, you know, explore it and, and, and, you know, use it, you know,

Darran: Yeah, we’re actually in development right now of our beta version.

We have our beta version of our nightclub built. That’s that’s going to be version one. It’s pretty cool. We’re already talking about version two and I’m already working with a tech developer for version three, which is something that’s not, has not been done in the world yet. The prototype works everything’s there.

It’s going to be some really sick stuff when we launch it. We’re super excited for it. Um, I’ll talk with you guys. Uh, I’ll talk to you tomorrow about that offline, because don’t want to give away all the secrets cause then somebody gets it and does something for us. But, uh, no, we’re, we’re really big looking at VR being another medium, you know, that people can, can go into, especially with, you know, the companies that are behind it, you know, net, um, you know, um, you know, everyone coming out behind it, knocking it, we’re putting a little stock into the, to the Oculus platform.

Right. Um, just because. Look at the numbers, look at the money. Backing is kind of, you know, but, but as far as AR comes out, you know, things are supposed to start coming out later this year, uh, to the consumers now, uh, at, uh, if it’s a thousand dollars, $1,500 price. How soon is it going to become before it comes a $300 price point, and we’re all able to take these glasses, go to an event and then enhance the event through AR where you could have a complete stage lighting show, but then have an AR built AR experience built on top of that.

Just going to be huge. Like I can’t wait for that to happen. And Hey ads, it’s going to be some changing times. I think we’ll see this in the next couple of years. So if somebody. I don’t think we’ll get it like 3d glasses in the movie theater, everyone’s going to be handed out, you know, pair of plastic glasses and say, here’s your AR experience, but definitely have to shove move it away from the, the phone, um, or you’re right.

You know, how, how do people take that experience and translate? You can’t translate the live experience into a VR environment? Well, not yet. Not yet. Not yet. I was, I was watching something. I was watching. I was on something with Carl Cox last year and how they had a room that everyone could go into. And they had Carl standing here in the room talking.

But if you move on the screen, if you move yourself further away from Karl, it was like you were moving yourself away from the conversation. So it’s kind of like if you, it wasn’t VR, but it was, um, it was just like on the screen, it was kind of really cool until you can move over here and like you and I could go walk across and stand in a different corner of the room and you, and I would only hear each other and we had.

Um, voice is really faint. It’s kind of really cool. So, you know, th th the networking opportunity who you’re gonna be able to meet in these areas. I think, I think everyone’s going to grab a, grab a VR headset here soon. Um, but again, bandwidth times, Who’s going to want to consume it. You know, you go to the real shows, you go to the real shows and you want to go to the real shows.

Maybe I’ll go a pay-per-view and watch that show on I next theater screen from my living room, like the perfect sound quality. And that’s going to be an interesting

Sevenn: thing. There that’d be incredible yell. So to have to have, you know, just perfect sound quality in your own living room, you know, you could be in your pajamas, you know, doing handstands, you know, no one’s going to get cause what’s happening a lot.

Also, especially during the pandemic people, you know, got stuck at home. And, um, the kids nowadays, they’re getting the, you know, they’re, they’re all their experiences are being had online. You know, whether it be through social media or through the games they’re playing. So, um, you know, I was having this discussion, most likely what’s gonna happen is it’s just easier.

You know, it’s just easier to have these virtual experiences than it is to deal with it in the real world. So that’s most likely what’s going to happen, you know? And, and we just got it. Okay, cool. You know, that’s like, no, no, not the children, you know, it’s like,

Darran: well, what was even interesting is, um, few months back, my friend and I bought a game, um, space pirate, duels.

I should know it space, but anyways, we went out to a tennis court. We draw 10 meter by 10 meter square on each half of the tennis court. And we’re playing virtual laser tag in. Going against each other. So you think could they make a virtual reality nightclub where you bring your headset, you log in there and, and, and now I am in a real nightclub with DJs playing music, but I’m in a virtual nightclub.

I dunno. You can bump into people really easily. That can be chaos married. So, which might be of obviously a lot easier to pull off in an AR kind of cause you’re going to be seeing you see through the glass and see what’s going on around you. But I mean, could you invite five or six of your friends over to your house and then all of your watching the concert hanging out party and drinking together, you know, doing that thing rather than watching it on a 2d screen or a TV, you know, Um, it’s going to be interesting to see where all that goes though.

Going back to production just a little bit, um, because I know we’re running a little, little short on time. Is there something you’d like to say to new and up-and-coming producers to watch out for when it comes to making their career successful?

Sevenn: Yes. Um, well, I don’t want to get too into the topic cause there’s, there’s, there’s a lot on it past couple of weeks.

Um, in case anyone wants to check it out, there’s a billboard article basically discussing it, but I’d say to ’em first thing first by a book called. All you need to know about everything you need to know about the music business, which is an incredible book. Heard about that book, incredible book, incredible book, um, study like the Bible, because you, you can have, you can make a living off of music, you know, it’s, it sounds wild, but you can actually make living off of music and you have to know your rights and you have to know just how much, your little idea.

That you made while you were, you know, sitting on the toilet on a laptop is worth, you know, it could be, you know, that could be your living, you know, so give yourself the credit and give yourself, um, um, w what you deserve, you know, and, and in, in all fairness, right. And make sure that you’re getting what’s fair, make sure that if you’re working with other singers, other producers that you’re giving them, what’s fair.

Um, and you’ll have a very successful, substantial career, you know, there’s, there’s, um, that’s just the way to do it, man, you know, um, internationally, it is so important to. To be as fair as possible. It’s going to be good for you in the long run. It’s going to be good for everyone. There’s no point and try to, you know, um, uh, squeeze out a vocal from a volt or not telling a vocalist, you know, vocalist sends, sends you a song.

You don’t tell them that, you know, okay, you get, you know, whatever 80% of the public is, like, make sure you’re, you’re telling people these, these rights that they’re owed so that it doesn’t, you know, just to be fair. It’s just, it’s the right thing to do.

Darran: Absolutely. And good suggestion that book. Um, I talk with people all the time about music rights management, because we do DJ sets on the show and a lot of people were coming to me two years ago, going, why am I getting five for copyright?

I bought this through apple. I paid 99 cents for it. I got the rights to play this in a video show. Put it on. No, you don’t, you don’t got synchronization. You don’t got master use. He didn’t get all the permission to no. And they’re like, well, how come Facebook and Google and Amazon, how come they don’t pay for those rights to have it?

They got bunches of money. That’s not how this works. Okay. But, um, we definitely want to catch up with you later in the year. I know you got a lot more under the trunk, under the hood. We gotta release. We’re going to be touching base with you. Definitely staying in touch with you, Kevin. Um, is there anything else you want to let our DJ sessions fans know about before we let you go?

Sevenn: Um, a few like your DJ session fans? Um, I’m sure. Well aware of just like the, of, of, of the, the, the scope of the music industry and dance music, and, you know, for the producers out there make as much music as you can put your heart into it. And for the fans out there support your artists, um, in any way you can and, um, and also support authentic.

As much as you can, you know, support artists who are putting their soul into what they’re doing more than anything, you know, because they deserve it. You know, and, and the smaller artists, the big artists, you know, whoever, whoever you feel is like, they, they touch your soul, you know, just put whatever you can into it, you know, give them everything you got every like is important.

Every communist important, you know,

Darran: the last of the part that I took away from that, that was the last part of what you just said, which was one of the key founding. Um, principles of the DJ sessions was to work with independent, non signed non-popular artists, because I was going to nightclubs my whole life for years and saying, why isn’t this person there, this is an amazing set.

This is an amazing production. Why aren’t they in the limelight? Why aren’t they out there? Then I kind of said, let me grab my video camera, let me start filming and talking to these people. And. Bigger things in, soon as I got bigger mindsets, but you’re right. It’s the independent artists that. I’m going to be the future of tomorrow or what we call now are the legacy, you know, of, what’s going to be down the line and, and you know, who’s gonna be hot, but thank you so much, Kevin, for coming on the show really appreciate it.

Like I said, we’re going to stay in touch with you because I know there’s a lot more, we didn’t get to, but you got a lot more coming out this year and there you’re going to be kind of having a lot more coming out for the rest of your career, but where can people find out more information about you and where to, where to stay in.

Sevenn: Um, everything is just seven everywhere. With two NS, Instagram, Twitter, all the oldest social, even

Darran: tick tock

tick. I cannot get a huge smile on my face because the tick talks I make. They’re funny. I’m not going to knock myself down, but I mean, I just, I’m just go. I go with it. And a lot of my stuff has a lot of food stuff that I put up there right now. Like making food videos of me kicking in the kitchen and it plays in with my whole, uh, I just announced that I’m a DJ, but I’m not a DJ.

It’s a parody kind of thing. It’s kind of funny, but it ties into my whole tick talk and everything, but it just some funny stuff, but tic talks a crazy man. It’s a crazy beast. It’s it’s, it’s a very interesting these, but S E V E N N. Yeah. At mentioned, hashtag look them up everywhere. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

I really appreciate it. And looking forward to seeing what comes out for your 2022 and.

Sevenn: Hell. Yeah. And thank you so much for having me on man. Really appreciate it. And, um, uh, love what you’re doing, you know? Uh, thank you. You’ve been doing it for so long, you know, just, just you’re you’re doing amazing things, man.

Thank you.

Darran: And don’t forget to go to our website. The DJ sessions.com. Find us on Twitter. Find us on Instagram. Find us on Facebook hashtag as the DJ sessions or TD JS of your syllable. This is seven AKA Kevin Brauer coming all the way in from Brazil. South of Brazil next to Uruguay, where it does get cold, who are the virtual sessions.

And you know what happens on the DJ sessions? The music never stops.