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A turntable is the classic DJ's weapon for playing vinyl, but the mixer is the device that actually allows you to blend multiple tracks together to create a mix.
It's great to see Latino music coming to the mainstream, but at the same time, there are also a lot more styles to explore: African music, Indian music, Chinese music.
But generally I think I'm a good judge of character - you have to be as a DJ to read the crowds and understand their vibes. You can use that to suss out a lot of people.
There's a lot of amazing women out there. There's a lot of hot models. But models are the worst, because they're models, you have to always step up and always look good.
A mixer for me needs to have some sort of effects, as it's a big part of how I might hype up the crowd in certain parts of a track, using the delays and filters for instance.
It's definitely hard to have relationships. When your life moves so quickly, people generally want replies on messenger apps and sometimes I don't get back to people for two or three weeks.
I come from a songwriter background, so essentially with my music, I'm trying to make songs that will last a lifetime and although 'Fast Car' was a cover, it reflects what I'm trying to do.
The role of a DJ is being able to keep people on the floor for X amount of hours so you can't just push buttons to do that, you have to have good tracks and a knowledge of where to take people.
It's the worst feeling, going into your record label when you haven't got a hit. It was like: 'Maybe you've lost it.' And, once you're done, that's it. There's no support, or anyone to help you.
I've gone through a lot of 'nos' from record labels but I've built a great team along the way and that's the best thing you can have - people around you who believe in you and drive you forward.
I'm very close to my family but this life moves so fast. Coming off stage, you're so tired so forget to make the call or send the text. By then five days have gone by and you haven't spoken to your family.
That's the whole part about being a deejay: You've got to make sure you are prepared. At the end of the day, you do have your genre - house music, dance music - but there are many different ways of playing that.
People like Sam Smith and Adele, they're album artists but for me, where I go around the world and sounds are changing so quickly, singles are the best way to get those influences out there and try new things out.
I stay up night after night looking at new software, seeing new trends, what music's happening you know you've just got stay constantly connected and that's just something that I do and I think is really important.
The adrenaline is like nothing else. You might be tired or whatever else, but when you get on that stage and see people reacting there's nothing like it. It's a bit god-like - that feeling that nothing can feel better.
I've always wanted to collaborate with Shawn Mendes, he's an amazing artist, but the thing with Shawn is that I won't collaborate... me just sending some beats. It has to be in the studio where we'd both be there recording together.
Well after 'Fast Car' was so huge, everyone was asking me, 'What's the next song?' At the time I just had ideas I was working on, but it was very clear I needed to finish another song ASAP, and that's how 'Perfect Strangers' came about.
I kind of write in a very classic way. I sit in the piano, working on some catchy, cool melodies and coming up with song concepts for those melodies. I kind of write in a very traditional way '- how people have written since the early '40s.
The one thing about Essex is that there's a lot of people there that are into their soul music. And I'm talking '80s and '70s soul music, that was a big part of my childhood, there was Al Green, Luther Vandross, Stevie Wonder, people like that.
The 'I Wanna Dance' hook actually came to me when I was in bed and just in that lucid moment between consciousness and sleep... I jumped out of bed and recorded a voice note of the vocal hook and I went into the studio the next day fully inspired.
I got on a bit of a rollercoaster looking into how Herbie Hancock used to make his tunes, and I remember a picture of Jean-Michel Jarre at one of his concerts and seeing the Memorymoog. When I heard the sound it I was like, 'Arrrgh, I really need that.'
Before I hit any country I always do my research. I look at what's on the chart there, what's worked in the last few years. As a deejay, as a producer, that's when I get editing. I bring my own edits of tracks that are really cool and happening out there.
Abbey Road was actually one of the first studios I ever got the chance to go to. A friend of mine won a competition and got the chance to spend a day recording there - that's when I was around 15 - and I was the only one who could engineer out of all of us.
People like Little Mix... they've got a big lot of choreography that they need to do so it's difficult to sing and dance at the same time. I think if they've got to do a big performance with loads of visuals behind, they need to possibly mime at some point.
The concept of 'Blue' is to transport its listeners to a different world with music. And I chose to release a full-length album because it enables me to experiment with many different production styles, not just a single sound, and take listeners on a journey.
I love the idea of Pro Tools, but it doesn't seem as attractive to me in terms of the music-making side. It's great for recording, but with Logic you get the best of both worlds, the ability to do great tracking and producing something that sounds great as well.
I think some people have this thing where just because you do singles that means you're not a real artist. It's like hold on a minute - I'm selling millions of records here and been streamed billions of times... How can I not be taken as a real artist just because these songs are singles?
I find in America, actually, I actually prefer it because it's all about energy. It's all about making everyone feel happy and smiling. In the U.K. sometimes people are a bit too concerned about, 'Did you play that track? Did you play that track?' It's not so much about the music in the U.K.
There's benefits of having established artists on the record, Liam Payne on 'Polaroid' for example. If you look at that song you have Lennon Stella, who's an up-and-coming artist, so there's a balance on there because I still want people to focus on the song just as much as Liam being an amazing superstar.
I like releasing singles because I can get them out there quickly and it's based on the changes, the sounds that are going on all around the world that I'm hearing and just a whole different bunch of influences which is sometimes hard to get across on an album because it can take a few months or a year to come along.