The Kollection Music For The Rest Of Us

A couple of weeks ago 3LAU made a quick stop through Dallas to play a show at the Granada, and we had the fortunate opportunity to meet up with him and hang out before the show. We’ve been following 3LAU and supporting his music here on The Kollection since June of 2011, and just a few months later, this young artist has already passed 16,000 Facebook fans. His rapid growth has been fueled by his ear for mashups, his style as a producer, and his energy as a performer.

We showed up to 3LAU’s set a couple hours early, and just started talking with him about music – electronic music, his rise as an artist, the changing music world, our favorite artists, and more. Before I knew it we’d talked for an hour straight and I’d forgotten to hit the record button! Below is a transcribed recording of our interview with Justin Blau. I’ve cut it down – a lot. It seems like we went off and had separate conversations after every question, but here’s the good stuff. This kid is excited with where he’s at, eager to keep growing, and has the energy needed to take over the world. Put on a track, read the interview, and enjoy!

Tell us about how you got started and your inspiration in Sweden.

So I went to Sweden last summer with my best friend Johan and my other good friend Steven, and I had never listend to house music. I only listened to stuff off Pitchfork – Radiohead is my all time favorite band and uh, I went to Sweden and my perspective completely changed. The club scene there – obviously, being 18 and being able to party was a big factor – the music was unbelievable. The vibe of people was unbelievable. And I decided at that point that I really wanted to learn how to produce the house music that I was hearing. I just felt that mashups were an easy way to get started.

So what were the first mashups you made – do you even like them anymore?

[laughs] I started just messing around in Ableton in like, I guess November or October of last year, right after I went to Sweden and learned how to use the software a little bit. Some of the first mashups I did…I’m trying to remember. I did this mashup of Tiesto and Boom Boom Pow [laughs] that was actually…it worked, but it was just interesting. I would play them around campus and people would be grooving to them and all, but they were by no means great. I didn’t even feel comfortable enough with them to send them around or anything, so I felt that I just had to work at it a little.

Then you did Girls Who Save the World in June.

Yeah, I started making a little bit higher quality stuff – just messing with some technique – over winter break, and I actually started making this track called Children E.T. which reappeared on the album as E.T. Youth Takes Shots, just ’cause I added some acapellas. That was the first, I would say, “good, solid mashup” I made. That was around February. I was really excited about that, and a couple blogs posted it around. If you searched for the actual track name it was up on all these European house blogs, which I thought was really interesting, but it didn’t hit the college scene. I wasn’t even really credited for it – which is fine, I don’t expect to get credit for putting other people’s songs together – but it was just a really interesting thing to see.

And then I made I-3low, but the original name was 3LAU That Shit Up and that was also a solid mashup I did around February. Then, I guess Girls Who Save the World didn’t come until around May, because I was really busy with school last year. You know, I tried to do well. Then, when summer hit, I was like I have three weeks before my job starts this summer, and I’m just gonna lock myself in my room and make a ton of stuff. And that’s when I literally did All Night Long and Girls Who Save the World in two days, and stayed up all night to finish Girls. It was literally an idea I had at 9PM and I just stayed up until 10AM the next morning, so excited about it, and then just spammed the shit out of everyone. And that’s where you guys come in! [laughs]

Alright, so you hit the blogs – you’re honestly a nobody, nobody has ever heard of you – what did you start doing after that? Do you have any specific promotion techniques?

The motivation, once I started seeing my name on blogs that friends read – you know, people would tell me like ah, I saw you on The Kollection, or I saw you on Good Music All Day – that was just a huge motivating factor that I’m actually getting my stuff listened to. So I started reaching out to as many people as I could, particularly Kap Slap, Jared. Jared was a huge help. I guess he noticed that I was doing a very similar thing that he was doing, and he helped promote me initially when he already had a solid following for the same genre.

We did a lot of work together at that point, which was crucial to getting my name out there, because he did already have an established fan base.

You did a collaboration with Kap Slap, and then you worked with Sex Ray Vision – tell us what it’s like collaborating online with people you’ve never really met before.

Yeah, it’s a lot of phone conversations. It was never really awkward, as I thought it would be initially, it actually runs pretty smoothly. We’re all artists, in one way, shape, or form, and uh, you know, learning to collaborate was a completely different learning process entirely. Jared and I spent a month making Turbulent Rock Anthem, which was probably the most complex thing I’ve ever worked on, in terms of trying to get everything to fit. It was like twelve songs, and three different random samples, and you know, most people don’t see it, but interestingly enough there was some Sex Ray Vision in that track. Then I got in contact with Sex Ray Vision through Twitter later on, and we both kinda originally used Logic Studio, which was what I used to record guitar and piano when I was younger, so I was vaguely familiar.

Then we started working on that Tiesto project with 24 hours left until the deadline. We made it, and it was voted to number one, so that was pretty cool!

And you didn’t win…

[laughs] Yeah, didn’t win. Unfortunately. But it was still a great experience working with both of them.

If you were going to mentor someone trying to get started in the game, someone saying they want to be like 3LAU and do what he’s doing, what would you tell them? What’s setting you apart right now? Obviously you’re growing faster than any other mashup artist out there – Facebook likes, at least.

Ahhh. Yeah…I dunno, I mean…

Are people out there just not focusing enough on technique, and just listening for what melodies fit in?

In all honesty, and not to reference too many other mashup artists, but there have been quite a few mashup artists that have garnered success only off the fact that they just pack songs with popular styles of music. And being somewhat of an audiophile, you know, listening to that stuff, people listen to it just because it has all their favorite names in it. And I think that was a huge barrier to overcome, for me at least.

The pressure of combining so much stuff versus just making something sound good enough for a high profile DJ to play. My goal in all of this, I want to make house music. I want house DJs to play my stuff in the clubs. I don’t necessarily only want to make stuff for kids listening on their iPods. I want to make stuff that people can dance to live. So that’s kind of how I’ve tried to differentiate myself, and I’ve had to learn the relevant technique to do so. It’s certainly not as simple as pulling an acapella and pulling a track and putting them together. It’s a pretty big misconception that a lot of people have, but uh, it takes some work.

Ok, so now you’re moving on to original production – what are some of the challenges you’re facing, where are you going with that?

It takes a ton of time. I think that working on originals has really been eye opening to me. I’d always made some stuff, and I’m going back through all my old stuff that I was messing around with, and I’m trying to make it a lot more professional. And it is just about the time you put in, it’s not as simple as being a great songwriter – it’s very engineering-oriented, it’s very scientific. Now, I’m still going to put out bootlegs, I will call them from now on, since that’s the official European name for them, but I’m still gonna put them out as they come and as I hear them in my head, but certainly the priority now is taking it up to the next level and making original stuff.

Who are some other artists you want to collaborate with?

Probably my favorite artist right now, not just in terms of style, but in terms of everything he’s about, Porter Robinson is just mindblowing. In my mind he’s revolutionizing electronic music in so many ways that I don’t think people necessarily perceive yet, but people like Tiesto and big names know that he’s big business. I mean he just did the College Invasion Tour with Tiesto, and the new album was…I am mind blown by this kid. He is changing things. Because of his age, no question.

You’ve obviously got some passion for this – where are you going to be in five years? NO! One year? One year from now…

Well, one year from now I’ll be finishing up school. I’ve decided I’m staying. There’s no reason to close doors in my mind, and I have two open doors right now, and I’m just going to keep them open for a little longer. In a year, I hope to be playing Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, then being in my studio, hopefully in California, working on music during the week. That’s the dream, and I’m trying to move there as quickly as I can. I feel like at this momentum I might have a chance, so I’m going to work on it [laughs]!

Do you like dubstep?

Hm. Tricky question…I…like dubstep, but I don’t know if I like the noise that a lot of people are listening to. I’m a huge Skrillex fan, I think Skrillex is extremely talented. People say that he comes out with the same song every time, I completely disagree. Artists like Flux, I like more, I just have a very interesting dubstep taste because I was listening to the Pitchfork indie world, artists like Burial and Skream – original dubstep that was a lot less grimy, I-wanna-rage-and-take-my-clothes-off kinda thing [laughs]. Burial put out this album called Untrue – he’s a UK dubstep artist – that was just really trippy graveyard dubstep music. Nothing grimy about it, very smooth.

Now dubstep has just kind of taken on a completely different form. It’s tough for me to say – I like dubstep, but when people hear that word it’s like a dirty word. Kind of like mashup is to a lot of people too. But I like certain dubstep, and I tend to dislike some of the heavier stuff.

Last words to your fans at The Kollection?

Well, it’s because of you guys that I am here today. I’ll say it, and I will say it confidently, so thank you all for listening and look forward to seeing some more stuff from me soon!

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In recap, the interview feels so simple, and it really misses the passion that this kid has. Keep an eye out for Justin Blau, he’s doing big things!

Here’s a video shot from the night we did the interview. Much love to Esoteric Films for this one – keep your eyes peeled for our Kollection Banner hanging front and center!