With the constant pressure of single releases and remixes we pick his brain whether he misses working on albums. “I do, I really miss it because it’s another state of mind do- ing an album because it’s fun to plan how an album is going to go. You can throw in a couple down tempo tracks and you can really put an artist feel on it.” Every Artist has a preference of what they love working on and what styles the love to produce, for John “it depends and I’m basically all about the night club thing. When you go to a club at 11 pm it should be playing tech-house, and it should be playing tech-house until about 1-2 am and then the bangers should come on. I want to produce tracks that have a great feel. If I ever make an album again I would start it off deep and techy and then go into the bangers. A lot of the clubs you walk into the room and the opening DJ has been hammering it out since 10 or 11 and then you’re like ok now what can I do?”
Rapidly changing technology has completely evolved DJ and producing culture, both on how people get their tracks and how people play them. Now that music is so readily available at just the click of a button, John reminds us of how the system used to work. “I mean it was weird in the beginning because I used to send out like ten demos a week when I was fifteen. Back then you didn’t send out a link you had to send a CD, and you had to buy those big packages to send them out in. My mom would run back and forth to the post office and picked up contracts and dropped off my demos. Back then when people signed you it actually cost a lot of money to press vinyl’s, and everything cost money so when you got signed to something it was already like OK this stuff is good. I feel like now there are so many labels in the world and I can get promos from labels I have never heard of. So being picked up by Spinnin and Toolroom and other great labels is a very good thing.” We go on to chat about the release of the CD-J 2000 Nexus and his views on their features and the sync function. “I haven’t tried it out yet and I don’t think I will ever use that button because it’s not needed for anyone that can actually DJ, at the same time though when the cd players came the vinyl guys were like screw that I’m not going to use that. Then the usb sticks came and the CD guys were like naw I’m not going to use that either. The change is going on and you just have to deal with it. I can tell you it’s a lot easier to learn how to DJ now compared to back when I used vinyl.”
Canada has always been described as slightly ahead of the game. We have been cited as a great crowd to play for, with a very open-minded and European feel, here are John’s thoughts. “To be honest, when I first came the US that was 4-5 years ago and it was really tough to play for crowds in America, but when I went to Canada it was like they al- ready knew it, they understood. It feels like it has been bigger in Canada for a long time. Now the US has caught up and is also great to play.” With a track title of our national holiday we had to pick his brain about July 1st and how the name came to be. “It was the day I first came to Ibiza and it was on July 1st and I had a roof top terrace and the sunset was so extremely beautiful so I decided to make a track about it … and of course the Canada thing” (laughing). We went on to ask him about his favourite cities in the world and where he loves to spend his downtime “two of my favorite cities in the world are Toronto and Montreal, I just like being in those cities because they remind me of Sweden and Stockholm, I love being in LA also. I love North America in general”
John’s busy schedule has him stationed in LA, but he loves bringing his family over from Sweden to keep him company and unwind between producing and touring around the world. He says he has been looking forward to returning to Canada to play. With enough music in production to keep him busy with releases until the end of the year, you can expect a steady output from his record label Mutants, as well as releases on Spinnin and Toolroom this year. Make sure you check out his tour dates, you don’t want to miss this talent in action.