There'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.

I was really young when I signed with Spinnin' Records, and the huge success of 'Animals' hit me by surprise. I didn't expect my life to turn like that at all. But it was a very welcome surprise, to say the least!

I have a radio show on Sirius XM. I put it up as a free download on my Soundcloud and on iTunes. That's a portal for me once a month, to play songs I know aren't getting played on that station the rest of the week.

I've always felt that people's ears are wider than programmers are ever wiling to give them credit for. It's always been very important to me that you not have to turn me off because your kids are in the back seat.

I really like to know people from a lot of places. It's like the world is a really big city that you just keep meeting other people that you've met in different cities before. It's quite crazy, but it's quite nice.

When I design the clothes, I have a very good team around me, showing me different pieces and cuts. I'm very involved in the process, I go to L.A. and get onto the design floor, and I help pick out the best pieces.

That's why I'm very wise [in] the way I choose the remixes 'cuz I know that the song has to transcend well. You already have a base, instead of me just doing my own production and I don't have to start from scratch.

I'm a lot more sensitive about music, I think, than most other guys in this particular side of the business. Most of them are beat crazy and beat heavy. I'm more melody. I'm more musical than most of the other ones.

A friend of mine that happened to be a DJ at another club actually offered me a job [as a DJ]. I didn't think I could do it but he said, "You know all the music. You are at all the parties, and everybody knows you."

A lot of DJs who started the same time as me, they are not to be seen anymore. And I get so much love and respect from the young DJs, and some of them look up to me or ask me for advice. I am almost like the mentor.

Klaus from the Teddybears, Bloodshy and Avant and Mike Snow, they've done lots of Britney Spears production. They went backwards from production to being in a band, which might be cool. I might do that, too, one day.

I used to tell myself when I was much younger that I didn't want to wake up one day and be 32 years old and still playing records. It's just not going to happen. Well, the joke is on me, because I'm 56 years old now.

When I can control my own show, I want the price to be affordable so fans can actually see me. It's a challenge because I have to do a lot of navigating to make the production stellar but do it on a realistic budget.

I didn't finish high school, but I went to a special school for producers and musicians, a three year course for engineering, producing and learning all the tricks. So now I have my producing degree and certification.

I honestly produce for myself, not for other people and everyone who supports me I'm really, really, really am thankful for the fact they are supporting me. However, in dance music, you need to switch it up sometimes.

There is always a point in the party where I wouldn't say I have people in the palm of my hands, but when there is a point in the evening... if you have been to any great party, you know when the whole room becomes one.

Of course I party. Of course I go chase girls. Again, for me, balance is important. One hundred per cent, my work goes first. Martin Garrix is my main priority. But to maintain Martin Garrix, I have to enjoy my downtime.

I was in Fort Lauderdale from about age 7 to 14. And that's where I learned the most about music. My favorite DJ was this guy named DJ Laz and the Miami bass guys. I was super into, like, Arthur Baker, that kind of stuff.

Most people went to dance shows, but it was basically a table and a DJ playing and not really a spectacular thing. I brought the whole production with the effects - the best sound, the best lighting to blow the fans away.

I used to play a few instruments including guitar and snare drums, but I think a musical background is an important part of a career. If you start out playing instruments you create a better instinct and feeling for music.

I have heard, 'Never go to bed angry,' and that makes sense. Unless you're always checking yourself, a grudge or something small can break apart a relationship, and you start to forget what is so amazing about your partner.

Watching people reach a higher level of consciousness. A fixation. For a few moments in their lives, they transcend and become lost in the fantasy of it all. As a DJ, I'm trying to create the opportunity for this to happen.

Education is a cause very close to me. What matters is encouraging my fans to focus on their education, because only an educated generation can ensure a better future. Even when I was on tour, I did my homework and studied.

Heroes inspire us for many reasons: they make tough decisions, they keep going and they get done what matters. But there’s another reason we love our heroes. Inside us all, we know we have the power to become one ourselves.

I wouldn't call myself a leader. I don't want to lead people, I want to tempt them, I want to create a new world for them, just for that very small moment, when they are losing themselves in my music. I want to inspire them

November is Hip-Hop History Month, where we give celebration to what hip hop has done to bring together people of the world, people of all nationalities, young people, all the political systems and politicians on the planet.

All music is dance music. But when people think of dance music, they think of techno or just house. Anything you can dance to is dance music. I don't care if it's classical, funk, salsa, reggae, calypso; it's all dance music.

When it comes to electronic music, I started listening to a lot of Daft Punk, way before I knew what house music was, and then progressed into a lot of Steve Angello, Eric Prydz, Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, and Laidback Luke.

It's interesting: in the late '80s, there was this really random mix of new wave, industrial, and these early house records. And a lot of it was coming out of Chicago because of Wax Trax! So I always visited Wax Trax Records.

I love decompressing with friends. Sometimes when a tour is long, I'll fly friends over for the last part of the tour. I love to bring family with me, and spending time with them and my family is really the way to decompress.

If you're the biggest DJ in the world, you're in a position where you can play stuff that people don't know and blow people's minds. But if you just chose to play stuff they know just to get a reaction, that's just being lazy.

Now you are seeing electronic dance music producers on TV, on talk shows. It's so great to see the festivals growing bigger and bigger, it's like one big family that's all partying with each other. I love being a part of that.

It's a weird sound [ "Animals"] inspired by a hip hop drum loop. I listen to a lot of hip hop tracks and it's not used quite often in House currently. I chopped up the loop and edited it so you wouldn't recognize the original.

I think it would be different to work with a guy like Kanye West or Jay-Z, those guys are so phenomenal, but just to work with a rapper, I don't think is really my thing. I really like songs, like true songs. Like indie songs.

I'm a very good listener. I think that's one of the things that makes me a good producer. But it's a challenge for me because my custom is to listen and absorb what someone is saying and take it in, and not necessarily comment.

It's getting to the point where, to be honest with you, even though there is a lot of great music around, especially in clubland, certainly from my corner of something I just felt like I needed to get my hands dirty and DJ out.

The 'Work Hard, Play Hard' video shows how much a part of music the fans can really be. With the help of SanDisk, we were able to create the first-ever music video to be made using fan videos shot only from their mobile phones.

Since the pharmaceuticals don't make any money and they control the doctors. If the doctors don't make any money then all hell breaks loose. In communities like LA and New York they are using a lot of the youth for a test sight.

We must not concentrate overmuch upon our feelings. Do not spend too much time feeling your own pulse taking your own spiritual temperature, do not spend too much time analyzing your feelings. That is the high road to morbidity.

The best clubs in the world are always the clubs where you have a variety of people. Like, you have the crazy people, you have the nicely dressed people, you have the office people, you have the regular guys - that makes it fun.

HIP-HOP HAS DIFFERENT ELEMENTS DEALING WITH MUSIC, RAP, GRAFFITI ART, B-BOYS (WHAT YOU CALL BREAK BOYS)... AND ALSO DEALING WITH CULTURE, AND A WHOLE MOVEMENT DEALING WITH WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING, AS WELL AS PEACE UNITY AND FUN.

As far as hip hop, I ain't even gonna front, it was 'Rapper's Delight.' That was the first thing I heard where I was like, 'Whoa.' You take that beat and do something over it. I started collecting records after that, old records.

I want to produce more number one hits but not follow trends blindly! What I really hope to achieve in the long-term is to get that cross-over status such as Calvin Harris and Avicii. I'd love to be a household name in pop music.

Shall I throw away the materials and time paying homage to the perfectionist - knowing that nothing is ever perfect and also knowing that redoing yesterday is not always proceeding to tomorrow's discovery? What an eternal debate!

I've been doing it since I was prepubescent when I loved to scratch records and play good music. As it happens, you know I sort of fell into the mix. I really feel like I played a role in bringing dance music to America years ago.

I'd like to see people pay attention to the science of hip hop. The knowledge part, the political side of what hip hop could do, or where hip hop is gonna go. I always say it's gonna become universal as we become a galactic union.

Future's Pluto is my favorite album of the year. It's so emo. Future is the number one dude I'd love to produce for - every time I listen to the song he did with Rihanna, "Loveeeeeee Song", I'm like, "I should have produced that."

Traditionally, with a DJ set, you just go hear DJ that has a good reputation and let the DJ take you somewhere. It was up to the DJ what he wanted to play. Typically in dance music, people didn't know most of the songs a DJ played.

When you do a remix, obviously you get a beautiful melody, you get the beautiful vocals - everything is already set up. You already have a base, which means all I gotta to do is create the music behind, 'cuz it's already beautiful.

When I started, DJs weren't in the media, electronic music wasn't in the sales charts and a DJ was the freak in the corner who provided the music while other people had fun. So to do it, you must have been a freak and a music lover.

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