Sep 16, 2019
Showtek's Exclusive Mix
The incredibly talented Showtek brothers are coming off another massive summer filled with highlight shows and hit releases! We’re celebrating their recent productions together with Steve Aoki, MAKJ, and Sultan + Shepard, as well as their favorite gigs of the summer at Disneyland Paris and S20 Festival in Japan. Read on to learn more about all of the above, plus their massive IDs, and timeless classics “Bad” and “Booyah.” Their Exclusive Mix is loaded with the biggest tracks in their sets this summer, so turn it up and embrace that summer festival vibe one more time!
Thanks for joining us guys as we wind down summer! Can you highlight some of your favorite moments and shows of the summer, and why they stand out?
It’s kind of hard to say which ones were the best, but there were a few that definitely stood out. One was Electroland Paris. It was of course very special to play in Paris. Disneyland is a magical place where you dream of from when you are a kid. You know, you dream of going there and now you’re playing there. We had such great feedback. We have a very big following in France, it’s one of the biggest Showtek supporting countries when it comes to radio so we had a really big show there, but it was kind of funny to play in the middle of Disneyland in Paris. It was a very unique experience and we hope that we can do it again.
Another one was the S2O festival in Tokyo, Japan [Full set + tracklist]. We played there for like 20,000 very energetic Japanese fans and they were singing along to all of the songs. I would suggest you go to our Instagram and look at the video that we made. We made a little collage, like a 2 minute video with 15 seconds of all the songs and they’re singing along in every video.
S2O was a festival where they shoot water in the air constantly and since it was summer time, when every drop came in they were spraying people with water. That was a new experience for us as well.
We also have a really big festival in Brazil coming up at the end of September and that’s our last show in September. After that summer is done. So, we have a lot of cool stuff going on, but one of our other highlights is that we had a lot of cool studio sessions as well. There’s still a lot going on. It’s gonna be a very productive and fun month for us.
One of the biggest tracks of your sets this summer is your massive collaboration with Steve Aoki & MAKJ. Talk to us some more about how you guys came together to work on the track and a bit more about the production itself.
Well first of all we released “Slow Down” in 2014 and we’ve been talking to Steve Aoki about working together again ever since then. So finally, five years later we made a collab. The collab started with MAKJ and us having an idea of a song to use “Fight For Your Right.” So we made a little demo and we went to Steve with it and we were like, “Hey, Fight For Your Right, it’s kind of rocky, would you mind helping us make a drop?” Maybe with your leverage we can get the real vocals since it’s a cover.
So, we finished the song together over the phone, we did a few phone calls here and there. We work 24 hours a day you know, and so does Steve and so does MAKJ. No one ever sleeps. Steve played it at Ultra in 2018 and then we figured out that we couldn’t get the vocals, unfortunately. We wanted to release it in 2018 but we couldn’t. We tried to find new vocals and then Steve got Kris Kiss on top, who he was already talking to.
It took a few months to get the song ready. We spoke to Chris over the phone about how to do the vocals and yeah, we got it done. We played it and everybody likes it. Obviously, it has this really big Showtek lead, like it’s a massive EDM sound and that’s what people want to hear from us as well. It has that really big Showtek drop. We are very happy with that.
You’ve used the track as an intro in some of your biggest show such as Parookaville [Full set + tracklist]. Do you have a favorite memory playing it out?
S20 festival in Japan. We started and the people were singing louder than the music. We couldn’t even hear our own song. It just kicked in and people were screaming so hard it was unbelievable. So that was really cool.
We’ve seen some big potential Showtek IDs floating around including tracks with Gammer and Elephant Man, so can you tell us anything about either of those and any other upcoming music?
Yeah so the track with Gammer is called “EDM Sucks.” It’s about Siri, like an electronic voice and artificial intelligence taking over the industry. So basically, Siri or anybody can take over as a DJ and is deciding what’s gonna happen and knows exactly what humans want. That’s kind of the idea of the song. Artificial intelligence is taking over and is basically playing as DJs because it’s so well advanced that it knows exactly what the human brain wants to hear. It’s kind of like a fun song, don’t take it too seriously, but the drop is massive! Massive, massive drop!!
Elephant Man you don’t really have to explain, he’s pretty much a legend. He brings the reggae culture. And also Dropgun. It’s more of a good vibe club song, not too hard. Summer vibe. We’re releasing on an EP together. I’m not sure which one will come first. We’re getting the masters back this week and then we’re gonna plan. We think it’s gonna be October 15th and October 29th.
You guys have now also released a few collabs with Sultan + Shepard. What do you like most about working with them? What do you feel is their biggest strength as producers?
Their biggest strength is that they’re really good songwriters. They worked on “BAD” with David Guetta and that’s one of the biggest EDM songs… maybe in history. We don’t want to brag, but it may be one of the biggest songs in EDM. Also, for us it still gets three million streams a month and they wrote that song. They did the same thing with “Way We Used To” and “We Found Love.”
We like the guys, they have a really cool vibe. They live in LA and we spend a lot of time there.
“We Found Love” is old. We made that song in 2015, but we could never really find the right groove for it or the right timing. Then we picked it up again last year and it’s a really cool song. It brings you back to the old-school hip-hop vibe, combined with an EDM club vibe, which was cool for us to do, very original. Maybe not the most common drop for people but definitely original. It’s just a happy good vibes song. Girls love this song, all the girls dance when we play it. It’s even been picked up on French radio.
This year “Booyah” was again one of the most played tracks at Tomorrowland – what does the seemingly timeless nature of that track mean to you guys?
It’s one of our biggest songs too. “Booyah” just has this organic vibe, it’s so natural. We made it from scratch with Sonny Wilson. It just feels so real. You got so many different styles combined like EDM, drum and bass, reggae, it has a party sound, it’s original, it has everything. It has the X factor. You know you can never really say what the X factor is, but it’s a gathering of all the things that we just mentioned. That song is just a must play song and it’s great that it’s still being played at Tomorrowland. We sometimes still bring Sonny Wilson on stage and do it live with him and he brings a very cool element to our show sometimes so that’s really cool.
Turning our focus towards your Exclusive Mix, what are three tracks that you included that deserve particular mention and why?
That’s a tough question. One of them is the Major Lazer remix. We made a remix of “Can’t Take It From Me.” It’s a very cool song. We didn’t really touch it too much, it’s kind of still the same, we just festivalised it.
One of our favourite songs too is Vintage Culture – “My Girl.” One of our favourite club songs to play – just poppin’. You can play it anywhere and it just goes off. And then there is of course the acappella vocal, it’s amazingly catchy and the drop, they did it quite well and they did it so well that everybody can play it no matter what genre – EDM, house, electro, it always goes off.
And then another song that we want to mention is Henry Fong’s “Rave Tool.” It’s coming out on Skink Records in September. It’s a really cool song, it even got picked up by Skrillex!
As we head towards the fall, what has you particularly excited? Any plans for ADE this year?
We’re not doing the big show this year unfortunately so no AMF for us, but we are launching the Skink label record night. We’ve signed some really cool artists recently like Steve Walls, Linka Mondelo’G and a lot more.
We’re doing our party on October 18th and it’s going to be our first label night so we wanted to keep it small and intimate. Everybody’s invited. We’re gonna have Elliot Fitch, who made a remix for “Listen to Your Mama” – an amazing mix, one of the best mixes we had. And then we have Joel Sanders, Green Tree, Duckworth Sounds, Brooks – who else remembers our collaboration with him? Plus we signed him when he was like 17 or 18 years old – Sultan & Shepherd, Dropgun, Sidney Sampson, Bassjackers, and Steve Walls. It’s a big lineup and it all goes down Friday October 18th at Maia Nightclub.
We also have an EP coming and some more crossover releases planned with some Spanish artists. I can’t say who yet but they’re really cool. Probably in November. We’re super excited and very busy and very productive. We're actually about to go the studio now for a session with a Mexican popstar. So yeah we are very excited, and we’re working on everything. A lot of cool EDM stuff coming and hopefully some nice festivals. But not too busy, we need some time to make music and get ready for 2020. That’s it. We’re excited!!
Thank you for having us and enjoy the mix.
You can find more details on Showtek's Skink Label Night during ADE here: https://www.amsterdam-dance-event.nl/en/program/2019/showtek-presents-skink/26595/
short link 1001.tl/ulpyll
