C O VER MIX AR TIS T OF THE MONTH


0, I bought myself a really sweet Mac, I dropped like $3500 of investments to dive in and immerse myself in production. Even that wasn’t enough, you need time, and you need to develop things organically


1


think sounds great—you’ve listened to it hundreds of times, and you can lose perspective of what’s actually current. The only thing that really counts is when other people start playing your tracks. I released my first track in September of 20


1


wasn’t until I met Adam K that things really changed. I did some production classes with him in T


0 on a friend’s label Hubvibes, but it oronto, this was at


a time when I was playing out all his stuff, that was when progressive had its particular sound. Since then we’ve communicated regularly and he gives me immediate feedback on my tracks. He’s been really nice to help me out and give me some tips and pointers, and I’m very fortunate that he’s actually signed one of my tracks to his label Hotbo


x Digital, that’s coming out in January differ ent material and figur


en some of the international guys who come in ask me: “What is this place lik lik


formulaic as some of the mor Ev


e, what do people lik e “you can kind of do whatev in accelerating my go


Scott goes on to credit Circus for the opportunities he’s been given this year, such as playing festivals like Black & Blue in Montreal and Escapade in Ottawa, as well as opening for the wizard James Zabiela, and playing the Circus 2013 New Years Day party with Ben Gold and Nic Chagall. Other DJs might have a hard time adapting from the techy house that Zabiela plays, to the full blown trance one would expect at a Ben Gold show, but Scott knows that versatility is key to any well-rounded DJ.


I don’t r


heard me you would definitely hear dark tones, it’s v underr


gound. Giv dealing with a v en that w loe you for it. Befor , you can g


need to adapt to the crwd. For ev underr v


ery mainstr o


gound, if you pla ealize that it’s better to g elop as a DJ. e ar eam mark et com ery fiv


“techno all night” attitude, but it’s when you can accept all music for what it is, and ar library you r


elop a div et a whole bunch of people mo


dancing than to please those 1 fans. The faster you learn to pla you’e able to dev


r


Again referring back to Circus, James cites the importance of having the freedom to make and learn from your own mistakes while testing out material in a “no rules” environment.


As you pla y your ev ents (at Cir and open for differ cus) thr oughout the years ent guys, you can test out a lot of


et 990 people in the r 0 hardcor o


e underr y to the crwd, the q


e I used to hae a bit of an ignorant e able to dev


y one commer v


erse


ving… and oom


gound uick


er


eally hae a label for what I pla, but if you ery


v y


parativ , youely e tracks you pla


y cial tune, people will


you build the most experience. Ha try out pr


etty much anything I want has been instrumental rwth as a DJ.


James also cites the afterhours crowd as more reactive than a traditional club, giving DJ’s a perfect environment to receive feedback on elements of their mix or on specific tracks within their set.


Cir


Usually on an alcohol-fueled dance floor the momentum is com


cus is also one of those r pletely differ


to adjust to what you’e doing, wher absorbing ev


ent. P r


e in Canada, and w re’e about the pr r closing Cir the r


time, ev


to mak uick decisions and good ones too, you learn ogession of the night. My first big ev


the second you mak e q


oom was jammed, still lik eryone is partying, ev


can literally do whatev vy


cus after Benny Benassi, I got on at 7am and e 2,000 people in it. A eryone is ha


ent was t this


going. And the fun part about afterhours is that it’s your music that determines whether or not people sta


er you want as long as people k y


ou start hea , and you finish smooth. Wher mistak


and they go harder and faster dancing long . The r ar


e actually g etting tir state of mind, it will help k


es in my opinion, is when they pla er


, thinking it will k


the closing set is the same as an opening set, but opposite. Y


e people mak


ving fun, you eep


. For me e


y their closing set, eep people


eality at 8 or 9 in the morning is people ed, so if you can accommodate their eep them on the dance floor


.


From here we switch the focus of the conversation to production, which Scott has been working on for the past few years, in pursuit of producing a signature sound that he is now very close to achieving. I ask Scott how he made the switch from DJ to producer.


www.djmag.ca erything and they r


ooms that is 1 eople might tak


eas at Cir


e 4 or 5 songs cus, they’e


r e a bad decision, you feel it. Y


espond immediately… so ou learn


00% r esponsiv e.


e out what works. It’s not as e mainstr


eam clubs can be. e to hear?” and its


er you want”… that’s wher ving the opportunity to


e oolroom roster . I have


another one coming out in late January with Russell G on Music Matters. Paul Thomas is a Godskitchen resident from Birmingham, he’s on the T


, he helps me out


a lot too. I feel very fortunate to have these guys; getting feedback on a regular basis makes the biggest difference, it’s an open window in a world of closed ones.


How do you stay true to yourself when so much new music is sounding the same?


ou can’t go into the studio thinking you’re going to make a house anthem that’s going to get played around the world. It doesn’t work that way


Y . First off, you have


to build what you like, and you have to accept that it’s still good. Even if what you like is different from the mainstream sound, it’s still good because you like it—and a lot of people don’t see that. There’s so much pressure to make the commercially mainstream sound, and you start hearing demos from everybody that sound the exact same. I think every demo I listen to has Sylenth One in it. Y


catches then it’s a bomb. Like A


ou need to work on what you’re good at, and if it vicii… Tim created such


a powerful brand, that’s what made the music a bomb in the first place. It had nothing to do with him making bombs before, it’s a brand association thing, like a stamp of authenticity


. People think Afrojack’s stuff is a hit…


well it is a hit, but it’s a hit to his fans that he’s built over years. And because his fan base is so big, and they think it’s a hit… the whole world will think it’s a hit. So it’s all relative. John Digweed could come out with a massive tune, but the world won’t hear it because his fan base is much smaller


, but it’s still a massive hit.


With that, we decided to wrap up the interview and let the music do the rest of the talking. Scott has put together an essential selection of tunes in his exclusive DJ Mag Canada cover mix, which you can listen to right now by clicking on the podcast logo. Scott James also plays at Circus HD nearly every month and frequently releases new music, all of which can be found on his social channels, which are available through www.scottjames.ca.


57


I was a big fan of Future Music Magazine, so I was reading that a lot. Elementary band class was the extent of my musical background… because in reality you don’t need to be a musician to be a DJ. I could teach it to someone in a week, but the difference comes with experience. It comes from someone knowing how to program a room. So production for me was a bit more difficult than most, I didn’t have much piano knowledge, and didn’t know my chords at all. When I graduated from McGill in 20


. What you


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