songs. I just always thought that the internet was the future,” he elaborates in his So-Cal dialect. “I always thought that the internet was fun. It was the easiest place to get any information, anything you can conceive of. Being drawn to new fans and musicians just from getting onto MySpace.”
We ask him why he Tweets so much, and rather than citing music again, he opts for flexing his comedic muscles and testing out material he finds funny in some way. As we delve further into the discussion, it turns out that the internet has done more for his career than nearly anything else, except maybe Diplo, the Mad Decent boss who has signed Dillon up. “My manager at the time had sent this song that I had made to Diplo. And he sent me an email saying, ‘Wes loved the track. He said he wants to meet up with you.’ So I hit him up on Twitter and then he started following me. He tweeted me and was like, ‘Where do you live?’ And I was like, ‘I’m in LA.’ He said I should come to the studio. And that night I went to the studio and had a beer with him. We were watching the Phillies game and talking about music. He was like, ‘I can get into this.’ We ended up making a track. “It’s funny because social media has been one of the main things. It’s helped me hook up with every artist that I’ve worked with; the remix for Flux Pavilion, making a track with Calvin Harris and most of the other remixes that I’ve done.” The effect of this highly visible chatter has been substantial and easily quantifiable. When he started talking to Diplo, he had around 1000 followers. Now, he says, that number is, “A hundred and five thousand something, something, something,” (up to 110,882 when we last checked). “I look at most of them,” he tells us when we ask about the sheer volumes of Tweets and replies he must get. “Sometimes I just scroll through to the top.” Dillon agrees that there’s a connection between the digital age and the new wave of electronic music. After all, every song he puts out is on the internet. Nearly every collaboration he has done has started online. He tries to put out at least one or two songs per month. “Otherwise I feel like I’m falling behind. Everyone is always looking for the next thing.”
WE ARE YOUR
FRIENDS... Dillon’s influences and inspirations
01. “Calvin Harris, I’ve been obsessed with his music since ‘I Created Disco’. I think he’s made his career build up slowly until he was working with people like Rihanna. His career is really inspirational to me. His music is always evolving.”
02. “Diplo, I love that guy. I’ve always been so intrigued with how smart he is with new genres that he knows about. He is a tastemaker. I wanna be like him.”
03. “A-Trak is one of my favorite DJs. His cuts are so incredible. His production is amazing.“
04. “Nicky Romero has been a really big inspiration. He came up as a DJ so fast, he just jumped. I’m addicted to his production.”
05. “Zedd’s just like my best friend. I love that guy. His music is amazing. He’s a good person.”
www.djmag.com 013
It all started in the Los Angeles neighborhood where he grew up, at the end of a cul de sac, in a little pink house near the corner of National and Westwood. Dillon fondly recalls that there was a Trader Joe’s near his house. He attended art school where he tried his hand at many creative endeavors, photography, printmaking. He even vandalized a few walls. “I sucked at painting. I also sucked at drawing.” His parents were somewhat protective. “Throughout my whole childhood they sheltered me a lot when I was younger. So I didn’t really learn about cuss words or any bad things until I was around 15 from one of my best friends.” It turned out that the art Francis was most suited to was music production. But because of his parents, he had never even been to a rave when he started out. The experience proved to be somewhat of a shock. “The first time I ever went to one was when I actually played. It’s crazy. It’s its own culture. The kids, that’s what they do, go to shows.”
These days Dillon is on both sides of the DJ booth. When he is in his home town, he can be spotted from time to time downtown or in Santa Monica, hitting up shows at local venues. “I like to go to Avalon. Avalon’s really cool,” he informs us. “There’s this place called Central in Santa Monica. They put on a lot of good shows over there. I just really like that club, it’s enjoyable.” As for his future plans, we can expect a debut album sometime next year on Mad Decent. Dillon gained exceptional notoriety after his contribution to the ‘Dave Nada Presents Moombahton’ compilation, and he still likes to keep his tracks leveled at around 110 bpm, but he plans to switch it up for the album. “It’s gonna be a mix of everything that I’m really into. It’s going to be a little bit of that style of music. I’m going to go back to the ‘Westside’ EP. It’s going to be moombahton stuff, and then stuff that I’m into, and some cool filler tracks.”
He pauses to think for a moment when we ask if there is anything else he is excited about promoting. “There’s this Nicky Romero remix that I did,” he says referring to ‘Like Home’, which also features the voices of Nervo. “It’s very different sounding for him. It’s like my stuff,
but the way that I made it is totally original and I liked it. It’s big room music, but I slowed it down. “‘Something to Die For’ with Example, that just came out,” he adds on his latest team-up, a poppier, more slow-burning change of direction. He’s enthusiastic, too, about his new cat, Mittens Francis, who also has a Twitter account. As we prepare to say goodbye, he regales us with the story of the first day he brought Mittens home. “When I got the cat I think I paid $200 for him. I was going to dinner with my parents, so I left him roaming around my apartment. After my parents dropped me off, my friend ended up meeting me outside my apartment. I left my car in the loading zone because we were going to go somewhere quickly. So I was like, ‘I’ll just come upstairs and see the cat real quick and my car will be fine.’ We go upstairs and try to find my cat — it likes to hide under things, I noticed — so I was like, ‘It’s probably hiding under some clothes or something.’ And then we hear this meow that’s really faint. My friend was like, ‘I think your cat is in the ceiling!’ “My cat had climbed up — the only place where there was an opening was in the bathroom and it was in this little eave. It climbed all the way up into the ceiling and we had to cut a hole into the ceiling. We had to make a makeshift ladder and put tuna on it, and burn the tuna so that the cat would come over. When he came over I grabbed him out. But I forgot I left my car in the loading zone. It got towed. And I was also bleeding! “It was basically the most horrible chain of events to ever take place after buying a cat. I ended up spending a thousand dollars since I had to go get my car out of the impound, hire someone to repair the roof, and also buy the cat!”
Mittens Francis, you’ll be please to hear, was fine and has recovered remarkably since the incident. Dillon, sense of humor intact, has taken it all in his unstoppable stride.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78