Deep house producer and DJ Justin Martin has gained the strong reception of dance music audiences performing live sets in the U.S. and internationally in recent years. Martin co-founded the San Francisco-based Dirtybird Records label along with Claude VonStroke in 2005 and has since released several albums and mixes, his most recent being the two-track “Hello Mr. Jello” in March 2014.
The Daily Bruin’s Max McGee spoke with Martin about his career and in anticipation of his upcoming appearance at HARD Summer at the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area, Aug. 2 and 3.
Daily Bruin: At UCLA, we have an Electronic Dance Music Club and a course called Music History 8: “History of Electronic Dance Music”. Many of our DJs in that club look up to you and your music while also pursuing other careers. Were there any sacrifices or risks that you felt you had to take in becoming a DJ in full force?
Justin Martin: When I was going to school, I went to Fordham University for a few years and then I transferred over to University of San Francisco. I majored in communications with an emphasis on media studies, so I was taking related classes and DJing was always my hobby and passion. I learned about the business side of things and actually wrote my senior thesis on how to start an independent record label. I started bartending right out of school which freed up my days so I could basically work my butt off on learning how to produce and save some money up for equipment.
As the ball started rolling, there was just a moment where I realized, “You know what, this is what I want to do and I can’t imagine doing anything else and I’m willing to sacrifice anything to do this.” If you have that mentality going into something, anything is possible. No matter what, don’t let any obstacle come in your way. Just let them make you grow stronger, as cliche as that sounds. I don’t think that anybody should give up on their dreams, ever.
DB: I feel that electronic music has become more and more stylistically dynamic, just in the past year. What do you think contributes to this progression of the genre?
JM: I think one factor definitively is the popularity. Dance music has grown tremendously from being relatively underground to a more mainstream thing, especially in the U.S. There’s a lot of young kids that are getting into it and the way that other generations looked up to musicians and bands, I think people are looking up to DJs, which is kind of crazy.
DB: Do you think that the technology is making it more accessible to more people?
JM: Oh, definitely. I was just going through a bunch of my old drum and bass records from like 1995 to about 2000, even stuff I have that is over 20 years old and I’m trying to imagine what it was like producing back then, because none of the technology that we have now existed. You had to have the the actual hardware like the compressors and didn’t have the computer memory or speed.
I think the key to having longevity in this occupation is that you have to be creative, different and try to find your own sound instead of copying what is cool or hip at the time. These trends are going to come and go.
DB: Along those lines, what inspired and gave you the confidence to transition from playing other people’s tracks as a DJ to start producing your own music?
JM: It’s something that I always had wanted to do because long before being a DJ, I played music. I played the saxophone in a funk band and was in a jazz band in high school and played the piano growing up as a kid as well. For me, it was like I always had a love of music and I always had all of these ideas floating around in my head with no idea how to make them.
As soon as I saved enough money to buy a computer right after college, I just dove into it and worked around around the clock to try and make music that sounded like some of the people I look up to. It’s kind of like trial and error – you test stuff out.
I think you’re constantly learning and figuring out in your head the way that it should be and the little tricks in the studio to get every sound its little own pocket and space while trying to get everything to pop out and hit on speakers and in the subs the way it should. It’s a long, long learning process but the more time you put into it, the quicker I think you are going to get it to a point where you are happy with your mixdowns.
DB: When you play gigs internationally, have you noticed differences in the way audiences from different cultures react to your sets?
JM: Definitely. When I play in Europe, it’s usually a lot longer set times. The more over the top breakdowns, buildups and drops and all that stuff doesn’t really work as well overseas. Every place is different but especially, like when I play in Berlin, I’m still playing music that I love, but I’m playing stuff that I normally don’t get to play when I’m in the U.S. They go to a club for hours and hours and I feel like in the U.S., people want the action, and people’s attention spans are a lot shorter. For me, it’s fun because I get to play all kinds of different styles and sounds that I like and I’m not just stuck doing the same set every single night.
DB: It must be quite an amazing experience, being able to do that and travel so much.
JM: I think it’s really cool and a bit of a challenge. I’ll never forget this gig I was playing at the (Berghain) Panorama Bar in Germany where it was my first time playing there and I went into it with the Dirtybird mentality like, “I’m just going to play all this really heavy, bassy stuff and they’re going to love it.”
I remember it was about 30 minutes into my set and there’s this girl in the front row screaming and I’m thinking “she’s totally into it and cheering me on”. Finally she hands me a napkin – I still have this napkin to this day – and it said: “Dear DJ, your music is not music. I am not the only one who feels this way, go home.”
I read this and I still had about two and a half hours to play. I remember just playing a bunch of banging techno after that and kind of got it right back on track. Everywhere is different, every crowd is different. You gotta be able to fly by the seat of your pants and feel the room and feel the vibe and what’s going on and roll with it.
DB: From your experience, can you describe the sense of community that there is between artists in the expanding EDM scene?
JM: For me, if I’m remixing somebody, it’s usually because either I am an absolute fan of their work or I am a fan of them as a person … actually usually it’s a combination of both. I get so many remix offers and I wish I had more time to do them, but I am not the most speedy producer in the world so I can’t just like knock out thing after thing so I have to kind of like really pick and choose which songs I’m gonna remix.
DB: In anticipation of HARD Summer, I was wondering from your perspective standing up on stage in front of all these people, how does it compare to playing a more intimate underground gig in San Francisco?
JM: I like them both for different reasons. Obviously starting off playing for just a small crowd on a good sound system in a room full of your super fans, that is the ultimate thing. Just sweaty vibes underground and people who … know your music and are responding to it in a positive way is just unreal.
At first, playing for the bigger crowds, to be honest, scared me. I always thought we were more on the kind of groovy, yet bassy and exciting but I never really thought that we could compete with bigger EDM acts. When you are playing at a festival you have to find a way to jam pack all of your favorite stuff in the amount of time that you would do over the course of a night.
DB: I’m curious, what’s the most amount of people that you think you have ever performed in front of?
JM: I would probably say, EXIT Festival in Serbia. The first time I played there was in 2007 and I think there was like probably somewhere between 15 (thousand) to 20 thousand people. That was one of the scariest but still one of the best gigs of my life.
Email McGee at mmgee@media.ucla.edu.