The overlords of Tomorrowland graced New York City with there presence last night. I met up with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike before they headed over to Lavo NYand had the chance to ask the boys a quick couple of questions. These guys are known for some of the best live sets EVER. If you ever get the chance to see them perform, I personally gaurentee they will Smash The House, no pun intended. I would like to thank Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike for taking the time out of their schedule to answer these questions for us.
RD: Where was your first gig? How old were you guys? How did you go about getting that gig?
LM: Our first gig together was in Ibiza right?
DV: I was DJing before that for almost ten years and the first gig together was Ibiza and one night Like Mike stumbled into the club drunk and started rapping over my set and that was the official first set together.
RD: How much of your day is devoted to music? How has it shaped your daily routine?
LM: It's everyday. All day.
DV: When we are touring it is harder because then the biggest part of your day is traveling but when we are at home or in the studio it is waking up and studio work. I do some A&R work and try to organize my stuff so it is kinda 50/50.
LM: I even work on music in my sleep haha.
RD: Did this duo form simply from the bonds of brotherhood or is the chemistry during producing come from the shared passion of house music?
DV: I would rather say brotherhood because he was into hip hop first and then being together as brothers in Ibiza it kinda followed the direct of house music.
LM: Once I moved to Ibiza I was 15 years old and I went to the club for the first time I think it was Erick Morillo's Subliminal Sessions and instantly I was sold.
RD: What do you guys think about the rise of EDM in the USA?
DV: It's amazing.
LM: It's great, this is our main market at the moment.
DV: We are here more then we are home.
RD: Dim Mak's DEADMEAT Tour just kicked off with Steve Aoki and numerous other artists including yourselves; known for some of the best sensory overload sets in the entire industry, what do you guys have planned for these series of event?
DV: Actually, we don't know yet.
RD: I saw the teaser you guys did for the tour, that was cool.
DV: Yeah we had two days in Belgium so we took some time to do that one but for the set I think we are going to do something different because being with Steve Aoki and Datsik I mean I think we can take it a little bit further and a little bit harder so yeah I will see.
RD: Momentum with Regi is set to be released on February 14, possibly one of your biggest tracks yet. Can you break down how you guys start to create a track?
LM: That track or a track?
RD: A track.
LM: It is always different we can start from a kick we can start from a drop or a break down or just a melody an idea of a melody it is different everytime.
RD: You guys probably have this down to a science, what does the process of a Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike track entail? Who does what? Which techniques work best? Do you guys have specific roles?
LM: We actually never work together in the studio.
DV: Most of the time it is Like Mike making ideas a lot of ideas and from those ideas I pick the ones that I see functional that I think okay this could be something this could be a good track. First I encourage Like Mike a little bit more to work it out and make additions to it.
LM: Then maybe it comes back to me.
DV: Exactly.
RD: How long have you been producing? What equipment (hardware/software) do you use?
LM: I started 4 or 5 years ago.
DV: The process was me learning all the software maybe when I was like 16 17 slowly slowly building up then at a certain point when I knew how everything worked I passed over the knowledge and Like Mike perfected it.
RD: Do you have any idea as to how popular your productions will become while you are creating them or do you tend to be surprised by their popularity?
LM: It is always difference but you can know like this track...
RD: Is gonna be a banger?
LM: Yeah.
DV: But you can never predict the actually success.
LM: Different factors.
RD: Wolfpack just released their single 'Rising Moon' on your label Smash The House is doing really well, who are these guys, where did you find them? any other Smash The House signings we can look forward to?
DV: Actually Wolfpack we did not have to look very far because half of them are guys from our town or even guys we've known for practically more then half of our lives.
LM: We kinda pushed them into that direction.
DV: And we merged them with a couple of artsts and it is working really great. As for Smash The House a lot lined up we just signed a track by Jaco von Hagen who has done tracks on Doorn Records and Dim Mak, really fat track. We are doing a second version of 'Cloudbreaker' from Basto and Yves V which is like a little more of a cross over orienatated, we are going to an edit of that too. And of course a lot of our own singles and I think I have a pile of like 500 tracks to check for the label so there will be more coming.
RD: Can you see yourselves producing other genres besides EDM?
LM: Mhhh... yeah.
DV: Of course, we are going in a little bit of a different directions even on Smash The House I forgot to mention we just signed a track by Timbaland, Missy Elliott, and Genuine.
RD: I saw on the facebook page.
DV: The remix is by Wolfpack, Yves V, and Firebeatz. A little bit harder and the Wolfpack one is nice and melodic so we try to keep the balance between house and other genres too.
RD: What are your plans for 2012?
LM: Make more music.
DV: First, I think is getting some sleep that is the main idea after this tour but after that we will just keep on working on new tracks and do our best to make as good tracks as possible.
RD: In 3 words describe performing at the Smash The House stage at Tomorrowland?
DV: Well, yeah it is a big difference in doing the main stage cause the main stage for us...
LM: In 3 words man.
LM: That shit rocks.
RD: Favorite cities to perform in? Favorite venue to play at?
LM: We really like Miami because they were the first people to ever book us over seas and kinda grew on us like Mansion I really love playing there always feels like coming home.
RD: You guys have had a lot of big collabs, anyone you're still craving to hit the studio with?
DV: We really really love Knife Party.
RD: Favorite track at the moment?
LM: For sure 'Internet Friends'.
DV: There are a lot of good tracks out there.
RD: Advice for upcoming artists?
LM: Keep doing what you do beleive in what you do work hard.
DV: Be original, don't be satisfied too easy and try to take it to the next level.
RD: My friend Kevin Cerrato has one question, what do you guys think about moombahton or dubstep anything like that?
DV: I mean we just did a new track with Angger Dimas which has a little bit of dubstep influence in there but to actually say we are gonna produce dubstep is, I'm gonna leave that to...
LM: If we make a Dutch track and we slow it down, we got moombahton.
DV: There are people who are really grew in that style and it is really there thing and I don't see us turning over into doing something like that.
Don't like to read? Lucky you, I made the DV&LM interview downloadable.
