STILL BLOWING THE ROOF
LIVING IN THE MOMENT WITH
Much like the many superstars he’s remixed over the years including Calvin Harris, Kylie Minogue, and Robyn to name a few, Michael Woods has had numerous hits in the UK prior to being noticed in America. The London native has been crafting arena ready dance tracks since the beginning of the last decade when he exploded onto the UK club scene under his pseudonym Warrior with a dance hit of the same name. Some may know him from his Out of Office project with his mega-talented vocalist sister, Marcella Woods, but it wasn’t until about two years ago that North American crowds began to take notice of his talent. “I guess the scene in the USA wasn’t as big as it was in Europe and in recent years it’s really kind of mushroomed,” he says while reflecting on his transition from the European to American market. “My first entrance into the USA was via a remix I did that kind of put me on the map; it was a remix of ‘I Said, by deamau5” he recalls of his 2011 minimal house production. “Since then, I’ve been coming up more regularly and now I’m actually living here in the USA because I’m getting so many bookings so it seems to be getting bigger and bigger here for me; I’m pretty happy with it.”
We couldn’t be happier about it, ourselves. After all, if it wasn’t for his US success, we wouldn’t get to witness him dropping his amazing set of progressive and tech house bangers in Chicago’s top club, The MID, which is known for
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hosting the world’s crème de la crème of producers on a weekly basis. We visit him just half an hour ahead of his set and find him backstage completely calm and relaxed as ever. Taking advantage of his good mood we ask him why he’s considered “one of the world’s leading jackals.” “You’ve been on Wikipedia, haven’t you?” he laughs. “I don’t even know how that got on there! Basically, it’s a group of my friends back home … and every weekend they go out obviously looking for girls and they call themselves ‘The Jackals’ cause they’re on the hunt, like jackals. I kind of started to hang around with them a little bit and I believe they took it upon themselves to call me one of the fellow ‘jackals.’ I think one of my friends works in some respect for a company online or something, and they’ve managed to get it on Wikipedia. I don’t know how they did it … it’s crazy (laughs). It’s funny because my friend just told me about it last week.” Michael went on to describe another embarrassing moment while we were on the subject. “One of the first times I came to America, the first show I played at was in Denver and I was blown away by the crowd. I thought that North America is more of a hip-hop based crowd so I was not expecting the reception they gave me. I’ve got like underwear and shit thrown at me and it all kind of landed all over the decks and fucked up my mix and it was kind of crazy.” His down-to-earth attitude and friendly demeanor would put anyone at ease.
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