The young Swedish producer who grew up with music all around him smashing it yet again
Interview by Dan Prince
Hey Marcus welcome to DMCWORLD, where on planet earth are you today?
Hi! I’m at my parent’s house in a suburb of Stockholm. It’s 10 am and for once the sun is shining so I will start the day by running 5 km inside the close by soccer stadium.
What was the first piece of music you heard this morning after falling out of bed?
Haha my dad bought speakers for his new electric guitar one week ago so I today I woke up to the sound of him playing guitar and everyone else in my family screaming that he should be quiet because it’s 7am haha.
An exciting few weeks for you with the release of your new ‘Sweet Insominia’ which we will come to later. Let’s rewind for a moment and take you back to your childhood. You hail from a very musical family – so much so that you really tried to get involved in other life areas before finally succumbing to the world of melody. Why didn’t you want to follow in your family’s foosteps and what other areas did you try out?
Because it’s hard to find the formula to succeed it in the music industry. People don’t like to talk about making music for money reasons, but at the end of the day you need to be able to pay your bills. Entering the music industry means risking everything you have with no guarantee of getting anything back. Even if you make it and become someone for the next upcoming year, if you don’t have anything unique to provide your fans with after that year, you will be forgotten. You need to be able to analyze what sound will be popular in the future and how to network and keep up with the industry. And the truth is that only my uncle is actually inside the music industry. He is a saxophonist in one of the biggest reggae bands here in Sweden, but the rest of my family have music as a hobby on the side and have “real” jobs that they go to every day. The decision to produce music to make a living instead of just for fun was taken about a year ago. Up until then I was not even sure I could provide any music that anyone else than myself liked. I am giving music 100% now, but I still have part time jobs and study business, economics, media and communications. I have found that all the time you spend suffering at a boring job makes your spare time even more valuable and that makes me produce very effectively when I finally have time to. A lot of what I learn from my college courses can be applied to the music. I’ve learned marketing and building a brand, how to put up budgets for projects, how corporations work (labels, blogs etc.) and how certain social media platforms work.
What made you finally give in to a life in music?
As I mentioned it was when I understood people were actually listening to my music. Something that really motivated me aswell is to do some research on your favorite producers and see what they sounded like 5-10 years ago. I always loved Avicii and the Swedish House Mafia guys and when you look back at what they did 10 years ago compared to now, you feel like anything is possible if you work hard. I’m not trying to say they were bad, but what they did back in 2006-ish was very simple and rough when it comes to quality and now they are making all these insane tracks.
What did your family think of your electronic music path – were they happy?
Haha none of them are yet a fan of EDM. I have noticed that people always think that the music from when they grew up was the best and most unique music. My grandpa always talks about how Elvis was the best artist ever and that the music from the 80’s is not good. My dad loves the music from the 80’s but if I put on something that does not contain a commercial vocal and is very different like some early Martin Garrix Big room or some Kryder grooves he asks me “Is this what young people listen to these days?”. I think Madeon sums of music pretty good with this quote “Anyone hating any genre of music simply doesn’t know the context in which it’s meant to be enjoyed”.
Tell us about that period between 2009-2011 when you started to discover some different types of dance music tracks that gave you inspiration…
That was a great time in my life. I did listen to dance music before I knew what it was, but during 2009-2011 I actually learned that house music specifically was a genre and did some research back to early 1990’s to find some classics. I tried to learn all about what you did at the time in the house music community. The art of sampling, using vocoders, having all tracks in 128BPM and so on. But with the internet and the social media explosion that has been the last 5-10 years, music change so fast. New genres can come up within just a week and after a few months the genre is dead. Before I even had learned how to produce what is referred to as “real” progressive house with beats and very repetitive chords going for 7 minutes, everyone started to produce the same thing as a “new” guy called Avicii. I also listened a lot to other kinds of dance music like Hardstyle, trance, Eurodance etc.
Who were your early producer inspirations?
Avicii was denifitely the biggest and still is. Marcus Maison and Will Dragen were really good back in 2009. The Swedish house mafia guys, Alesso, Eric Prydz, David Guetta, Tiesto etc. I were also impressed by the melodies of Headhunterz and Basshunter to name a few from other dance music genres.
Which brings us to ‘Sweet Insomnia’, a track you made in the summer of 2014 whilst you were at your family’s summer house in the Swedish archipelago. I understand watching a live stream from Tomorrowland gave you inspiration…?
Yes that is correct. I don’t know what it is, but to me as an atheist, my only way to get these sort of religious moments is when you watch your favorite artist playing a really good set and the atmosphere is great. You wait the entire night for that one banger that everyone wants to hear and then when he/she plays it you get goosebumps and everyone starts to sing along. It’s crazy. I don’t remember any specific moment from the 2014 Tomorrowland live stream that inspired me to write “Sweet Insomnia” but I remember seeing Avicii live when “Levels” was a new track back in 2011. I still get goosebumps if I watch videos on YouTube from festivals where he played it and I think “I want to be there someday”. Same thing when I watch the music video of Swedish House Mafia’s “Don’t you worry child”. You feel like you want to do something similar and like there’s more to life than just eating, sleeping and dying haha. The summer of 2014, so many great things happened and the vibe out in the archipelago was so nice so I just sat down and made what for me at the time WAS the definition of a good summer.
Talk us through the sound of the track…
“Sweet Insomnia” consists of really basic elements that work perfectly together. Some piano chords, a fantastic saxophone melody and a great vocal. Hopefully it will stay around for a long time because it fits really well during summer days and nights.
Are there any DJ plans in the offing?
Producing is what I like the most and where my focus always will be. I do have a DJ set up at home and know how to DJ, but since there hasn’t really been any public demand for my music until now, all gigs I have been offered where gigs were they just needed any DJ to play some music. But if I “make it” it would be a dream to go on a tour or so.
You have remixed some mighty artists these last 12 months…Avicii, Sebjak, AN21…what is next on your studio agenda?
The main focus now will be on originals. The remaing part of 2015 I will try to release some different kind of music with a more clubby sound and see what the audience thinks of that. I have probably 20 tracks that are finished that I think are really good, but I just have to find a way to put them out there.
Not many people know this, but Marcus Mouya is REALLY good at…?
Haha.. That would be arm wrestling.
What has been your big tune of summer 2015?
Hmm…I released a free EP/mini album during the summer called “Love is Love” to support all the inequalities between different races, men and women etc. The album was released around the same time as the legalization of same sex marriage in the US. The track that has gotten most attention from there would probably be “Together” or “Stay The Night” that was actually picked up by Swedish radio a few weeks ago.
What do want to have achieved by this time next year?
Let’s aim for the stars. Played at the Summerburst festival in Stockholm or making it to the DJ Mag top 100 haha.
A dream producer collab?
I don’t think I have to say who that would be haha!
And finally, gotta ask. What does your family think of your productions?!?
They do like them now, but it took me 4 years to convince them that “playing music games on your computer” can actually lead to a profession.
http://dwrec.co/MarcusMouyaSweetInsomnia
https://www.facebook.com/MarcusMouya/
