Jvst Breathe – From Software Engineering to Musical Expression on the Virtual Sessions 9/23/25

Summary

Tavian, better known as Jvst Breathe, shares his journey from classical training and computer science into electronic music, revealing how his analytical background fuels creativity. Growing up playing trombone, trumpet, violin, and guitar, music always came naturally, though he paused during high school and college to focus on sports and studies. After graduating in computer science, he faced a crossroads between climbing the corporate ladder or pursuing passion. Choosing music, he discovered production as both a challenge and an outlet for self-expression.

 

He reflects on early struggles and breakthroughs, explaining how turbulent life experiences and relationships drove him to create. Music became a necessity, a way to translate emotion into sound. His artistic name Jvst Breathe symbolizes mindfulness, spirituality, and a reminder to pause amid chaos. Inspiration comes from adventures, emotions, and the energy of dance floors, with festivals and raves shaping his understanding of how sound can connect and move people.

 

Production-wise, Tavian primarily uses Ableton Live and Serum, focusing on software-based sound design while learning to reintroduce analog instruments. He openly discusses overcoming creative blocks by taking breaks or diving into new learning, a process that mirrors his engineering mindset. Influences range from Taiki Nulight to Eminem, with admiration for local peers like Joosh who inspire him through performance and creativity.

 

Looking ahead, Tavian teases new originals, remixes, and live mixes, including a Lil Wayne remix and exclusive sets recorded at beach events. With a focus on authenticity, growth, and community, Jvst Breathe is carving a unique path that blends technical skill, emotional honesty, and a vision for innovation in dance music.

 

Topics

0:06 – Transition from software engineering to music creation
4:21 – Perspectives on AI in music and its creative impact
8:07 – Origin and meaning behind the name Jvst Breathe
10:32 – Musical family background and early instruments
14:09 – Life experiences sparking the pursuit of production
16:39 – Inspirations from nature, emotion, and festivals
19:27 – Tools of choice: Ableton Live, Serum, and Splice
20:45 – Overcoming creative blocks and learning through practice
24:35 – Key influences from Taiki Nulight to Eminem
29:27 – Supporting local artists, live shows, and future projects

Connect with Jvst Breathe

Instagram:@jvstbreathemusic
TikTok: @jvstbreathemusic

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions Presents the Virtual Sessions. I’m your host Darran and right now I’m again once in the virtual studios here in Seattle, Washington and coming in all the way from Los Angeles, California we have Tavian aka Jvst Breathe with us today. How are you doing today, Tavian?

Doing pretty good, Darran. How about yourself? I’m good, I’m good.

Just playing with the mascot over here. Don’t judge the DJ Sessions mascot trying to eat my hand over here. So you know if he jumps out, there he goes.

He’s having some fun too. So we’ve got the mascot and the host in the show today. Anyways, thank you for joining us today.

Super excited to be talking with you. Have some fun stuff to go over with you and let our DJ Sessions fans know more about Jvst Breathe and what you’ve got coming up and going on. You are basically kind of new to the music industry from what I understand.

Being an engineer, I think. Let’s see the notes. It’s a software engineer and making that jump into the music environment, the entertainment environment.

How has that transition been for you? Was it something you’ve always aspired to do or something you just said, I want to do this now?

[Tavian]
Yeah, so I grew up playing a bunch of different instruments like trombone, trumpet, violin, guitar, sing a little bit in choir and I essentially gave that up somewhere in high school and then in college. I did computer science and while I was in college, I’d started to get that itch to create music again and perform and all that. It’s something I’d put off for a while and when I finally graduated and got into the job field, I kind of was looking at the two different roads diverging.

One was just kind of stick through the corporate ladder and then one was, you know, pursue something you’re actually interested on the side and see if that, you know, becomes anything and so I went through this sort of purpose realignment process, I feel like, when I was 24 just thinking about what really interests me and since then I’ve been gradually making this transition to the music industry and, you know, it kind of started as wanting to work for a music company like Spotify or SoundCloud and then just very quickly turned into, oh crap, I actually want to make music on my own and see where I can go with that and learning music production has been probably the trickiest part but, you know, it’s definitely, it’s moving.

[Darran]
You know, I can definitely attest to that. I had a life-changing, you know, kind of life change, I guess. I went to school when I was 26 years old, had a lot of fun those years before and worked and worked in jobs and everything but, you know, went back to school at the age of 26 and that kind of really changed things for me drastically.

I went to go to school with the purpose of learning how to run a company or a corporation so I could run my own production company to produce my first broadcast television series that I wanted to do and ended up doing that and kind of never looked back and kept going forward like that. So, definitely helped out with making that change. It was right, like I said, around those 20s where you’re like, what have I been doing?

What am I gonna do here moving forward? You know, it helped out and so, yeah, definitely know that change. So, congratulations on making that move and making that effort and what I was gonna get into though, I worked for Apple over the years and one of my jobs was being a trainer, training people how to use logic or training, training, training how to train people how to use logic.

Now, not to make music but to actually just use the software. Like, where do you go to do this? Where do you go to do this?

Where do you go to do this? And then navigation but not training me. Same with Final Cut Pro.

So, you know, I can understand the task or the daunting task of music production. You can know all you want about the software but that doesn’t really help you in making the music. It doesn’t make the music for you.

Take us all the way forward to 2025 now and you got AI and that can really kind of change the game there in the sense of things. Have you explored using AI at all with your music creation and as a tool in any way, shape or form?

[Tavian]
Yeah. So, I’m really glad you mentioned that because where my career started, I was doing AI research and I did this with a small startup and then I did it with IBM which is, you know, super big computer company. Might be like a little too old for some of your viewers to know but they functionally invented computers as we know them today.

So, I did AI research with them and then I’ve like discovered just how common AI is becoming in the music production space and I have not really used it outside of isolating acapellas. That’s something AI does really well right now and if you can’t find a studio-grade acapella for a song, there’s a multitude of tools you can use now to take an mp3 that you own and then go ahead and splice that acapella away. But outside of that, there’s other tools like Suno and 11labs that just full-on create music for you using AI.

Those I’ve played around with but none of that stuff is used in any of the songs that I have released and I’m not really planning to use it although it is interesting and it’s a little frightening as a producer to see these tools continue to grow the way they are.

[Darran]
You know, I can know what you mean. I kind of remember back in the early days about 20 years ago before I actually went to school, I came across, I got a laptop and on that laptop, I put Fruity Loops on it. Fruity Loops 3.

And it had a sequencer and I thought this is really cool but even then I just my bare knowledge of what I knew of music creation at that time, I was still, you had to create music. If you have a synthesizer, we could do low-level sampling with the rack mounts, the equipment I had as a kid growing up. Low-level stuff like maybe a second, like doop, doop, doop, like a sound, right?

But not like full-length sampling. I mean not at that time with the gear that I had but when you had Fruity Loops come into play and I was using the sequencer and I’m like, well basically I just turn off and on stuff or I can program it and then let it play live and turn stuff on and turn stuff off. I’m like, I’m making music and I’m like, well isn’t the sequencer really kind of doing that?

I’m just turning stuff on and off like the bass like boom, boom, boom, boom, then turn the hi-hat boom, you know, and then put the other stuff and then you turn stuff off and bring it and then by the time you’re done, you’re like, I made this whole track. This is cool and this is in real time too. So anyways, set the wave 4 o’clock 25 years later and it’s like I could say, oh make me a David Guetta track that’s gonna be this at 126 beats per minute, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and throw it in the mixer and make me an extended version and this version and this version and it goes boop and I’m like, okay let me go up and load up the beat part.

I made that song because I told it what to do. I’m still iffy on the whole music creation, the art creation standpoint. I use AI and the tools that I do but I use it with works, like you said, with works that I own that like this interview will go through AI to help me generate the show notes, you know, as a tool like that but the show notes are coming directly from the transcription that you and I are basically doing.

I’m not out there grabbing other stuff from other people and merging it and making an interview happen. So that being said, I do understand that AI is a tool but where it can get dangerous or into weird grounds can, you know, can be questionable but enough about AI for now. Let’s get into talking about Taming and Jvst Breathe.

Jvst Breathe, where did that name come from? What’s the thought? What’s the idea behind Jvst Breathe?

[Tavian]
Yeah, so the V instead of the U is just some artsy experimentation that was a bit congruent with the name I had previously. So my first ever show that I performed two years ago in San Francisco, my name was actually Anomaly but it was spelled just with the consonants and the vowels was like A-N-M-L-Y and so I had that. Everyone on the show is like, so how do you pronounce like Anomaly or like, you know, very confusing and I found out there are also a lot of other users named Anomaly and so I already had this idea Jvst Breathe kind of sitting in the back burner.

I’m like, maybe that’ll be a label or a spinoff project and then after I got that feedback with the Anomaly name, I kind of just realized I wanted to go in a different direction. So my first release that I put out two years ago called Feel, I went with the name Jvst Breathe and it kind of symbolizes a lot of, I guess, changes in mentality that I’ve had as an adult and just getting more towards like spirituality and meditation and that school of thought, you know, and this kind of being a symbol of, I guess, what I’m trying to represent with my art and just my being as a whole.

[Darran]
Definitely, I think that’s a good, not only piece of advice for a lot of artists and a lot of people to just take a moment and Jvst Breathe, you know. I know that I have to have, with everything that I have going on over in my life and then, you know, I sat back a few months ago and realized I have like 14 different jobs that I do but I also have experts on those jobs of people that I work with to do different things but I’m all like the headpiece for that in a sense of things and really realizing like, wow, if you don’t just stop and take a break, you can really get overwhelmed or Jvst Breathe, you know, and take a break. A little shameless plug there but, you know, you can definitely get overwhelmed and stressed out and you got to take care of your physical, your mental state of well-being in this industry or in any industry, in just life in general. You mentioned earlier, you played a number of instruments though growing up, up in the high school and all that fun stuff.

Did you come from a musical family or was this a passion of your own or was that like, you’re going to learn to play the trumpet and the trombone and the guitar and this and this growing up? So is that something, how did that come all about?

[Tavian]
Yeah, I think my dad had always wished that he picked up instruments in his life and so it’s something that he encouraged me to do and once my mom also saw that I was picking them up really, really well, they both encouraged me to do that and then in high school, so the last instrument that I’ve been playing consistently was the trombone and so I had pretty much two choices and it was either go into the marching band or try and continue with sports at the high school level.

So I wanted to continue with sports, did football, wasn’t very great at it. In retrospect, I would have stuck with music but you know, it’s an experience that I wanted to see. I wanted to try, I wanted to see if I had what it took and yeah, no, I didn’t but that’s pretty much where the music stopped and it was something I was always, well, I guess came very naturally to me but it wasn’t at the forefront of my motivation.

You know, it’s just something that anytime I went to practice an instrument, it was very easy for me to learn how to read notes and music and all that and learn how to play an instrument and I had always wanted to be a rock star. I feel like most kids are either, you want to be a rock star or professional athlete or something, right? And that was definitely something that was the biggest aspiration of mine for a long time and I’d actually started a band with a few friends back in middle school that, you know, just very clearly wasn’t amounting to anything so, you know, passion kind of gave way to practicality.

[Darran]
You know, I remember when I was in high school, there was a poster on the wall by the gym and it said, it had like the three most toughest positions to make it at, in the world, maybe this is just the United States but in the world, one of them being a sports athlete, the other one being in the arts and entertainment in this, in the entertainment industry. I think the second one was, I think, sales or something like that or it was something like, you know, but it was like the dream careers. I want to be a star football, baseball player or I want to be a singer and be on stage, you know, and it’s like, you understand the millions of people, millions of people at that time, probably guys, if that was 1990, when I saw that poster, we’re talking 35 years ago.

So, what was the population of the earth then, population now, probably type that into chat and find that out pretty quickly but like I say, there’s probably still millions of people then, millions of people now and now that technology has brought us up to speed, you know, you know, the internet obviously coming in play, that ease of access of, well, I’m not a sports athlete obviously because you got to be physical with that pretty much for most sports unless you’re doing online video game sports, which is one of the rising top things in the world right now but I mean, music, you know, if you’re entering into that realm, it’s easier to distribute, it’s easier to publish, it’s easier to self-publish, it’s easier to get a label on your own, it’s easier to make a YouTube channel, a Twitch channel, a live stream, Instagram, TikTok, all the tools there to self-promote yourself but now you got to worry about all the other people that are doing that too. So what makes you stand out from the rest, you know, and you get out there and, you know, you sound like a very talented young man that definitely has a lot of different understandings of multiple facets here and I think you’re gonna do really well moving forward in that so, you know, out of all of that though, rather than just being the person on stage or the top player, what was one of your strongest motivations to pursue a career in music or go down that avenue?

[Tavian]
Yeah, you know, it’s something that I actually haven’t vocalized, if not to very many people, maybe even ever before. A lot of it just comes from experiences that I had while I was in school. I think when I entered college as an 18-year-old, my life and my background were very different and I had a lot of turbulent experiences and somewhat traumatic like relationship experiences that kind of pushed me to try and express myself in a different way and then ultimately it sort of became less of a curiosity and almost like a need, like I need to get this out there, I need to put this out there and if literally not a single other person in the world heard it, I would still be content if I was capable of producing the kind of music that I was feeling, that I was thinking about in my head and so that’s what kind of sparked my pursuit of music production and that ultimately turned into, okay well, if this is the thing that I enjoy doing the most, I would love to be able to do it full-time and if I’m going to do it full-time, you have to find a way to make money doing it and so that’s where I’ve gotten to right now where I picked up DJing and gone into a little bit of content creation to try and generate additional streams of revenue so that ultimately I can produce the music that I love and hopefully share it with everyone in the world someday.

[Darran]
Awesome and what are like three top things that create the inspiration for you when you’re looking at making music, looking to make a track? Is there something really that stands out to you? I mean like me, I’m a foodie.

One thing that creates inspiration for me to want to eat some food is going to an all-you-can-eat buffet, you know? It’s like I’m at home there because I got everything that I want. I have this really awesome one not too far away from where I live.

I have everything I want and on Saturdays, it’s a Dungeness crab. On Sundays, it’s lobster tails. I’m like, yes, you know, but that’s food.

That’s the foodie in me but as far as inspiration goes for you making music, what are three top things that really drive the inspiration of your musical journey and bringing it to the, I’d say to the computer screen nowadays, bringing it to the screen but bringing it to the masses?

[Tavian]
Yeah, I think the three biggest things, first of all, it’s going to be adventure and curiosity like whenever I go hike or climb or anything that’s a big part of my life. I do get inspiration from that. A lot of it is going to be just emotion that I experience throughout the day, often romantic-based emotion and stuff like that that just give me ideas for sounds that I want to create, mostly lyrics that I want to express because I’ve also, you know, gotten more into vocalism and I’ve started recording but it’s yet another area of production that you have to really hone in on and master as far as your tools and, you know, practice and all that and then the last thing is probably just going to be when I go out to dance or go to music festivals.

That’s, I think, the biggest motivation for me now to go to any concert or rave or music festival is to dance with people that I know and love and then new people that I’ve just met and just get more motivation for what can not only get me moving but can get a crowd moving. So, I think that’s a huge part of not just music in general but especially EDM. I mean, it’s electronic dance music, you know, and so the more you go out and the more you perform, the more you realize that there’s very much an art to producing not just sound but sound that can make people dance and interconnects them and I think at the heart of my motivations is a goal to connect people and help people love each other more efficiently and more prevalently and so that’s a huge part of it is, you know, when I think about how I can make myself dance and what would be fun to dance to and then also experience that in the wild.

[Darran]
Nice, yeah. I could see that being three key factors that, I mean, I guess when I go out, I don’t dance as much as I used to anymore. I go and watch shows.

Mainly, I’m usually behind the stage doing interviews and stuff. I’m watching like, whoa, what’s going on? This is really cool.

Like I said, I’m a foodie. I like to go to, when I visit other countries, I usually like to go out and eat and take in the culture. That’s one of my motivating factors for doing this.

I’d love to be able to travel the world and interview and be on site and see the sights and sounds of other places and other cultures, you know, so definitely taking all that in is one way to bring it back and hone it and say, ah, I want to make people feel that way. Yeah. Yeah, and when I cook, I want people to feel the way I feel when I’m eating.

I feel yummy. You like that too? You’re like, yummy, Darran.

I’m like, yeah. So now coming from what I would say kind of an analog background with the musical instruments you play, are you more of a software producer, hardware producer? Are you bringing some of these analog instruments into your productions as well?

[Tavian]
Definitely software. A lot of these instruments, I haven’t even touched since I was 14 years old, and I’ve got a guitar hanging here that I’m learning to play again, but I’m pretty far off from being able to record these instruments to use in my own song, and that’s definitely a goal that I have, but right now it’s been all software-based production with all these different plugins and yeah, that fun stuff.

[Darran]
What’s your favorite software choice you’re using right now?

[Tavian]
I use Ableton Live, and then my main synthesizer tool is going to be probably the most popular one. It’s called Serum, and then recently they came out with Serum 2. So Ableton has a lot of built-in tools, and I use Pro-Q and a few others as like a mastering chain, but then for sound design, a lot of it’s going to be Serum, and then you can get a lot of other pre-made sound effects from Splice that are all royalty-free that you can use to enhance your kicks and snares and all that fun stuff.

[Darran]
Nice. Do you ever get fed up with making and playing music, and how do you deal with that? Do you have a mantra or a set like, okay, I realize I’m hitting a musician’s block, aka a writer block, I gotta do something to refocus, re-center myself.

Does that ever happen to you, and what do you do when that happens?

[Tavian]
Yeah, so funny enough, I did a music production program all online at the beginning of this year, and one of the first things they talked about was how to overcome that writer’s block, and now I have really two tools in the tool shed that I use for that. One is the same tool that I use for when I get coding block, where my brain’s just had a wall and can’t get past it, and that’s to just stop. You’re transitioning for eight hours, you’re not making any progress, you’re not doing anyone any favors by continuing to hack away, going in circles, so probably just stop.

And then if you feel like even after you stop, you can’t get past this wall or get back into a rhythm, the thing that they discussed about in this program was that if you’ve hit a creative block, often what you should do or what you need to do is learn a little bit more. So if I’m really stuck and I keep going through the same cycle and I’m really trying to finish a song, but I feel like nothing that I’m adding is really doing anything more for it, then I’ll go and watch some YouTube videos or do some research on like how to design new sounds or how different artists create new and improved sounds in their drum patterns, stuff like that, and then see if it sparks anything.

[Darran]
You know, I definitely can have the same kind of thing happen where I realize when something is not just moving the way it should, it’s not fluid, I could be spending six hours on something and just not get it, not get it, not get it. And I’ll either drop it in a sense of things, I know I’m going to come back to it later, drop it, or I stop, leave it, let alone, and then I come back to the next day and I’m like, oh, in five minutes, I’m like, oh, that, what, what, why? Whoa.

Like I was just not connecting the dots or it wasn’t going the right way. Or wait a second, what if I tried it like this? And I go, oh, that worked.

Why couldn’t I come up with that last night? You know, I couldn’t come up with that a week ago, you know, but if I don’t write it down and keep it on my to-do list, it goes out of the ether. So I will make a note and I’m constantly making to-do lists and constantly taking notes to put down.

I mean, one day I’ll have a coffee book table produced, published of all my note sheets. And I think the title I’m going to call it is to do, you know, it’ll just be a kind of a funny anecdotal coffee book table. You can flip through all the pages and like different sections.

I’ll have different anecdotes of where I was at, what was going on at that period. You can, I mean, cause like a note to me could, I could put one word down and it can be something as simple as laundry. Okay.

Do my laundry, shave, shave, or it could be a company’s name. And throughout that company name, that one word right there could be 50 different things I need to talk to them about. Well, not 50, but at least a major conversation I’m going to have, but at least it’s there.

And I know that it went from here to there. I see it when I’m done. They say, I think it’s dopamine.

When you cross off something to do on a to-do list, it kind of triggers a natural dopamine or a fed dopamine. I think it’s dopamine effect that you’re like accomplish something that’s off. Well, you could just say, maybe I’m a little addicted to dopamine.

And this just goes back to like, I think this goes back to May 6th. So this year where I restarted, you know, I took an eight and a half month hiatus from everything for a while and came back and now stuff’s just running, running awesome, running at full speed, faster than light speed. I think we’ll break the, I think I’ll fly faster than Millennium Falcon this year and do it in less than 12 parsecs.

If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’ll get that joke. But you know, who’s been your biggest influence when it comes to your career as a musical artist, as an artist and why?

[Tavian]
That’s a really tough question to answer because I draw influence from different spheres. And I think there are artists who play a role as far as my inspiration. And then there are artists that play a role as far as almost guidelines that I want to try and emulate.

Some of the bigger artists that I’ve been really trying to emulate some of their production style this year has been Taiki New Light and MPH. And then there’s a lot of big artists that have inspired me throughout my life, you know, like Eminem, Mac Miller, just a couple. And those aren’t really the types of genres that I’m creating music wise right now.

But you know, they definitely are inspiring in terms of what I want people to get to feel with some of their music. And then yeah, I think, let’s see. So I saw a few different artists at Outsideland, which was last month.

It’s this big festival they do in San Francisco every year. And a few of them that really stand out to me. So there’s Walker and Royce.

They produce a lot of tech house, which is the type of music that I produce right now. And then two of the bigger ones are Justoffelstein and Anderson And I don’t know if I’ll be creating music like either of them anytime soon or ever. But just as far as who they are as performers and what their music is, it was definitely awe-inspiring to see people who have mastered their craft so well.

And you know, that definitely pushes me, it raises the bar pretty high. So it pushes me to strive a lot farther than I was ever intending. And then there are a lot of EDM artists who aren’t quite as big or performative that are definitely a more tangible benchmark as far as where I’m trying to push my music to.

And so, yeah.

[Darran]
In addition to going out and seeing the big names perform, do you like to go out and listen to sets of local area DJs or local crews? Not just the, I’m going to the club and check out what the big names are doing, you know, and see what they’re doing and come back and emulate that. Maybe like immerse yourself in the community or go out there and be like, are you one of the guys who runs a DJ booth?

Like, I’m Spotify and that shit. I mean, I’m not Spotify and I’m, Shazam. Why did I say Spotify?

They’ll probably build something in there so you can listen to it, so you can buy it in their store. I’m surprised they haven’t already. I’m surprised they haven’t either, you know, that’s true.

But yeah, I mean, are you constantly checking out and keeping your ear to the ground and then seeing the pulse of what’s happening in the local environment, not the big name?

[Tavian]
Yeah. And in LA, I think there’s a huge artist supporting artist culture. I think, you know, maybe you don’t need that to succeed, but I think it’s very important to engage in if you’re looking to, you know, expand in your music career.

And so it’s something that I do, not just out of desire for my own growth, but it’s also you meet friends who are producing music and you want to see where they’re going. You want to see how they perform. You want to learn from them, grow with them and just overall show support and show love in any way you can.

So I’m going to be honest. I think the majority of shows that I’ve gone to this year have been friends that I have who are performing. And if they aren’t someone that I know, it’s been a situation where I’ve tried to meet them after the show.

If I enjoy their music, like, hey, where can I find your stuff? Where are you playing next? You know, how can I get more involved?

All that stuff.

[Darran]
You know, I want to put you on the spot here and I hope I don’t get you in trouble. If you could take one of your friends in that group and say, that’s the one I always love going to see because they always bring it hardcore. Who would that be?

You’re going to get in trouble for this one.

[Tavian]
Not to like cast anyone else out because I feel like everyone that I’ve gone to see has been a phenomenal performer, but someone that I met very recently, his name or his artist name is Joosh. I believe it’s J-O-O-S-H. I don’t think there’s any U’s.

Yeah, I could be wrong. But his Instagram name is Joosh. He’s been someone who I actually performed with on like a small boat event.

And then I’ve seen a few of his shows and he honestly, you know, I love his production style. All his songs are clean. There’s definitely a certain like taste to the brand that he’s creating already.

But he’s also taught me to just have a little bit more fun with it, just in the way that he performs, the way that he uses the deck and all that stuff. It’s been fun to watch him perform and grow and all that. And he’s very interconnected with my group that I put on events with and hang out with.

Nice.

[Darran]
And do you think that after doing events, putting on shows, going out, do you think dance music actually sounds better at night or is it just good at any time of the day?

[Tavian]
It depends on the dance music. I have playlists that are specifically for the sunlight and then I have playlists that wouldn’t really sound right if the sun is still out. And I think honestly, a lot of the nighttime playlists hit a little bit harder.

I don’t know what it is, but, you know, something about just that vibe of like the late night tech house track that really just packs a wallop.

[Darran]
Yeah. And when you’re not listening to dance music, you know, what genre do you see yourself kind of going towards? Is it like, this is my passion, my life, but, you know, I’m going to turn on the classical station over here or I’m going to turn on the music station over here.

Do you divert away from it? Like I need a break and I want to come back. I do.

I definitely do. I mean, I still listen to electronic music, but anyone that knows me, I’m going to give a plug out for Groove Salad by Soma FM out of San Francisco, down-tempo ambient stuff. I don’t get paid for that, by the way.

But no, everyone knows it’s like my go-to go-to away from the tech house house. I’m immersed in that all the time. Do you go to a different genre at all or a different break from that?

And what is that?

[Tavian]
Yeah. So for coding and studying and just like stuff around the house, a lot of ambient music, lo-fi hip hop. I listen to a lot of rap and then also soul and funk music, both from like this era and also from, you know, 60s, 70s and all that stuff and getting more into.

And I would say classical music has consistently held a place in my life, probably since I picked up the violin when I was like eight or nine years old. And that’s something that I’ll always listen to, probably forever. I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to really compose on that level, but I would love to incorporate a lot of those instruments, like string symphonies into the music that I produce in the future.

But yeah, to take a break from the EDM, that’s the stuff I normally go towards.

[Darran]
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it’s just, it’s nice. I can also, you know, just get your mind a break to rest from time to time.

I know that can go. Now, have you ever thought of putting together like being on a radio show or podcast or doing anything with live streaming? Have you ever put anything like that together or is that on the, is that going to come out in the Jvst Breathe release updates here and everything?

[Tavian]
That will definitely come out more and more as time goes on. I did one or two live streams last year. I did a live stream with my sister that was a podcast style, kind of like this, but we couldn’t get her camera to work.

So it was really just me on the camera and her on the audio. I wasn’t super thrilled with how it came out, but it was like fun to get my feet wet with this style of content. And then the live stream was also really fun.

I love to maybe not do as much live streaming, but do more of the like hour long DJ sessions to post on YouTube. I think that’s like a very prominent way to digest DJ’s music nowadays.

[Darran]
As long as you watch out for those copyrights, if it’s your own music, you know, there you go. But yeah, I mean, that’s definitely, like I was talking to you, saying earlier, you know, the ability to distribute now is awesome and putting stuff out there, you know, is much easier and helping fans identify with the DJ. I mean, we’ve been doing this show for 16 years and, you know, started out by featuring Seattle based artists.

And my goal was to basically get them out to the world because there was no distribution. There was no radio station opportunities. It wasn’t there.

And so, you know, I had DJ’s that would play with me and they’d come by and pay a $50 a week studio fee for me to multi-cam their show and put it online and create a podcast series for them. And I had one DJ in the first few months, he said, Darran, I used the video that you did. And this is, if you go back and watch some of our early episodes and compare it to what it looks like nowadays, you’d be like, people actually watch that crap?

And they were like, that’s so high quality. That looks awesome. And it sounds great.

Going out at like 92 or not, it wasn’t even 128 bit audio. I mean, it was like, okay. And we’re going at less.

I think we had about 768 upload. That’s 768 megabits. That was not a gigabyte speeds.

Okay. We’re like two meg upload is what we had. And out of that, we’d get 768 and like 400 of that was being used for video.

And I was trying to push it 128. So we’d at least have some AAC. Okay.

Now we’re getting really too geeky here, but MP3 quality audio in our shows and the rest was left for video. I left a little bit of room in there to wiggle, but a guy took the video and showed it to a client. He booked like 12, 15 gigs just showing that video alone, because we like the way you are on camera.

We see you’re going to be awesome and dancing and moving and bringing it to the audience. We want that. So I was like, cool.

That’s how we always looked at it as like an addition to a digital business card that you’re going to be able to showcase. You can show all you want to pictures, pictures, pictures, pictures, music, music, music. But what do you like in person?

What’s your performance like? Are you going to stand? Are you a DJ?

And you’re like, or are you like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey. Cool. I’m still doing my thing.

Definitely can translate a lot. So cool. You’ve looked into that.

You are looking into that. Are there three top podcasts or live streams or radio shows that you frequently listen to that help create your inspiration or that you say, ah, I’d like to be on or one of those, one of these days, there’s one podcast

[Tavian]
that I listen to now that’s based in the artist space that I don’t necessarily know if I’m eligible or if I desire to be a guest on that show, but it’s called the neighborhood art supply. And it talks a lot about how prominent artists have gone about their marketing and branding, how you can learn what your story is as a musician and how you can tell that.

And then as far as like different live streams and podcasts for like EDM artists, I’ve watched a bunch of different ones across a whole bunch of pages that I can’t say there’s any one in particular that stands out significantly, but it’s definitely a space I’m looking to get more into. And I really liked the types of shows that you’ve done and the work that you’re doing.

[Darran]
Thank you. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I’ve noticed over the years is that that’s one key component that artists don’t focus on or understand how big it is, is the PR and or business side of the business.

And one of the things we did with our brand a few years ago, about three, three and a half years ago, was instead of just focusing on DJs, artists and producers per se, is we started opening it up to the entire electronic music industry. And, you know, we now talk to PR people, we talk to labels, we talk to lighting designers, audio engineers, people that are really behind the scenes that don’t get the spotlight a lot. You know, even vocalists that don’t get the spotlight a lot.

And what I hear out there, they are, it’s usually the artists that produce the song. They don’t want to talk to the person who sang the track. You know, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.

But I mean, we wanted to open it up to everyone in that sense, because I think there’s a lot of tidbits of information that are being missed or glanced over or not being taken seriously, that could definitely catapult an artist’s career. And PR and the business stuff doesn’t mean setting up social media accounts and getting your stuff on disk, disk, disk. What’s it called again?

I know there’s Goat, Destroyed, and there’s Goat, there’s CD Baby, used to be back in the day. But basically, you know, you can do all that. But okay, again, so can anyone else.

There’s no threshold, there’s no gatekeeping on it anymore. So how once you do all that, how do you stand out amongst everyone else? And that’s maybe doing some PR.

I mean, I believe that’s how I found you was through a press release that came through. I can’t remember that was play or do you know who that was through? How did we connect?

[Tavian]
I think it would have been through my buddy, Frank Midius. Oh, that’s networking for you.

[Darran]
That’s another big thing. Learn how to network.

[Tavian]
Yeah, yeah. I have a friend that I met in my apartment building who I’ve performed with a few times now. And yeah, he’s been doing this for a lot longer than I have definitely a lot bigger as a space.

And yeah, he’s been we’ve been both working on ways to get more content, more versatility for our brands out there.

[Darran]
Well, the key thing, and I was just talking with an artist from the UK, did an interview with him earlier today. And the biggest thing is you just got to churn out content and basically get that Google search engine. And that now the AI search engine to pick you up, you know, you got to kind of trend for that.

So it pulls you up and they say, you can’t be found in AI. You’re missing out, you know, in that sense. And I’m going to churn in from all the data that’s on the Internet and all that stuff.

But, you know, I saw an opportunity as that that and I believe in this content is king, you know, and the more you can get out there, the more you can have different areas, people out there talking about you, not just yourself. I mean, I have our platform, the DJ sessions, and yeah, I’m screaming it from the mountaintop. Come to the DJ session.

But I don’t say go watch it. Not that I’m knocking any platform out there, but I don’t say watch us on YouTube. Watch us on Twitch.

Listen to me on SoundCloud. Listen to me on find us in Apple. I’m saying come to our site and check us out and spend time there seeing what we have, because there’s a lot more information than just our show.

And it’s constantly updating with information as well. Or we want to be known as a platform where people can wake up in the morning. There’s something new lunchtime.

There’s something new dinnertime. There’s something new. Wake up in the middle of the night.

There’s something going on and new at the DJ sessions, you know, constantly just working with artists where the content is king, where, you know, it sounds like a lofty goal, but it’s completely achievable or ramping up to do it. Well, we’ll have over 60 hours of content a month produced here probably by the end of November is what we’re looking at. But going into 2026, we’ll be at 100 hours or more of content a month.

Raw, fresh interviews, exclusive mixes that you won’t hear anywhere else, you know, other onsite on location interviews from around the world, all that stuff. And that’s so that basically, people can find us and find these interviews with the celebrities or even new talent that they haven’t ever heard before. It’d be phenomenal for me if you came back.

Just the dream world, rub the magic land. I found Jvst Breathe because I saw the interview they did with you on the DJ sessions. I’m like, or you got feedback like that.

I’d be like, cool, it worked. You know, I mean, that’s we’re here about the artists. We’re not just trying to get the big name artists and have me fanboy with people I’ve listened to for 20, 30 years.

I mean, it’s cool when they come on the show. But our passion is about working with the younger up and coming talent because you’re next. You’re the next generation.

You’re the next talent. It’s going to be that Eminem or that, you know, any of those new artists that could be. I know you’re not going to hip hop, but I love Eminem too.

So big, big, probably there’s a few artists in the world that I would fanboy over. Probably Em would be one of them. But what’s up, dude?

Like, huh? Yeah. Okay, dude.

Sorry. You know, hopefully be like, cool, man. I got you, bro.

You know, but you know, we are going to be getting an exclusive mix from you. I got to ask, will it be one of those daytime ones or one of those nighttime ones?

[Tavian]
You know, it’s a daytime one. As of right now, I have a videographer that I’ve worked with in the past, and he basically got all the content that I had from like an hour and a half set I did on Saturday. Okay.

Yeah, we had a bunch of spectators on the beach. It was this like kind of burner style, like end of summer event. And yeah, me and Frank hired a videographer to go and collect all the content from that.

And so still waiting to collect everything, make sure it came out okay. And if it didn’t, I have another exclusive mix that I recorded before that that I’ll probably send over. But yeah.

[Darran]
Awesome. Well, thank you for putting the effort into that. I really do appreciate it.

It’s I always get a kick out of when people, you know, do awesome, exclusive mix. Not that I don’t, I mean, you got to understand before Pandy, if I ask somebody for an exclusive mix, yeah, they can make an audio one for me because they’re just going to record it in their bedroom on a flash drive and send it over as a WAV file. Cool.

Not too hard to do. But, you know, I would have never asked anyone to make a video mix and send it in. But because of Pandy, everyone kind of understands, oh, I upgraded or I’m doing a live show.

I’ve spent some more live or somebody I know has a little studio set up. I can go over to their house, plug in on an off day, just record it, not stream it, send it over to the DJ session. So that makes it a lot more interesting.

Since by our T’s and C’s with Twitch, we have to have video content. It can’t just be audio only. So that’s kind of our thing there.

But super excited to see. I mean, I’ve had some people I had a guy once, Sebastian Braun, took an entire DJ booth up the side of a mountain on a ski lodge, up the mountain, carved a whole space out, put the thing up there and did his whole set multi-cam up on this mountaintop. Dude, I was like, damn.

I had another dude, I think Carlos Latusi, I think he went out on a boat and they had flames on the back of the boat. And it’s like out the middle of the ocean with drone shots and shit. I had Stevan come in and I’m not trying to upstage you with anything here.

I’m just saying the production I’ve seen some of these exclusive mixes come in with the show are just like phenomenal. So I’m super excited to see yours. That’s going to be in our new rotation as well.

We rotate and we’re going to load it up and every three months that gets changed out, but the videos will stay on our site forever. And so that’ll be awesome stuff. And super excited to see that.

You also release music. You’ve had some releases up. We were talking about that pre-show.

Anything that’s going to be being released soon you want to let our DJ Sessions fans know about?

[Tavian]
Yes, I have a Lil Wayne remix coming out next week. That’s going to be available on SoundCloud. Fingers crossed it doesn’t get taken down.

But yeah, I definitely have a good balance of like remixes and originals that I’m alternating between just because, you know, when you’re performing a remix, it’s a very good opportunity to put your own flavor onto something that people can sing along to. And, you know, of course, the original is what it’s really all about, you know, getting your own vocals or someone else’s vocals on a track and just really building this thing from the ground up. But yeah, stay tuned for the Lil Wayne remix.

I’ve been dabbling a little bit more in the UK Garage as well as the Tech House stuff. So this one is the UK Garage track.

[Darran]
All right. And, you know, speaking of remixes, are you looking, I rarely get to ask artists, DJs, people to come on the show this question, just because I don’t know if it’s something that’s really done that much anymore. But it was big back in the day.

Maybe it is still as huge now. But do you look to participate in any remix competitions? Or do you think that’s a good avenue?

Or do they, is that still heard of out there? And like, here you go and climb the charts? And I should know more about this, but I don’t I’m not a music producer or a DJ.

Yeah, I should launch one of my own.

[Tavian]
Yeah, it’s for sure still a thing. I don’t have any producer friends that are actively participating in any but the school I was in, they definitely make a point to try and get involved in some of these programs and these competitions because it is one of the best ways to get noticed as an EDM artist is can you take this song that a lot of people already know and create a remix and the original creator is going to hear those remixes.

So it’s a way to be on their radar. And then who knows if it’s good enough, they might release it on their Spotify or SoundCloud, or they might invite you to perform as like an opener for them. And so it’s something that I’m looking more into.

And it’ll probably be the next release that I do probably around like November will be one of these competitions because I think it’ll be a good way to really push myself.

[Darran]
Nice. You know, I’m excited. We’re working on always working on new stuff over here at the DJ sessions.

And one of the things we’re going to do is we have our site wide player right now that is awesome, and plays tracks as you’re surfing through the site. But we’re looking to add our radio player radio station, basically in there as well have a 24 seven music. But I think what we’re also building into that should be built into it is a rating system.

So when tracks come on, people can thumbs it up or thumbs it. I don’t think it’s thumbs it up and thumbs it down. But I think they can like click I like this.

I like this. And it’ll pump it up to let people know what’s the most light track that’s playing on our stations. And then that’ll be 24 seven.

And we’ll take artists and put them in there as we build out our new music section as well. Like I said, lots of stuff going on over here at the DJ sessions. But congratulations on all the success and moving forward with the pathway you want to do is a in a career with in the music industry, and looking forward to seeing a lot of new stuff coming from you.

Thank you. You’re welcome. Is there anything else you want to let our DJ sessions fans know about before we let you go?

[Tavian]
Honestly, there’s nothing that comes to mind right off the bat. I mean, you know, Jvst Breathe and take it easy and all that and I look forward to producing as much music as I can. It’s definitely a goal of mine not just to produce as much of my own stuff as I possibly can that touches as many people as possible.

But you know, as someone who has this like software technical background, I’d love to be able to create my own tools one day to help produce music in a way that that suits me and hopefully other people do. So yeah, lots to come and great talking with you and meeting everyone.

[Darran]
Absolutely. Where’s the best place people can go find out more information about you and what you do? Instagram.

It’s going to be Jvst Breathe music. And that’s JVST breathe music at JVST breathe music. Awesome.

Well, Tavian, thank you very much for coming on the show today. I’m sure we’re going to be following up in the future and following your career in this industry for a while to come. Thank you for coming on the show today.

[Tavian]
Awesome. Thank you, Darran.

[Darran]
You’re welcome. On that note, don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com. Find us there on all our socials, our 2700 plus past episodes, live interviews like this one here, and exclusive mixes, our new music section being launched soon.

We have a VR nightclub and VR chat. Check us out there. It’s pretty cool.

Our mobile app 2.0 will be coming out here shortly. Had to do some back encoding and stuff. Maybe I’ll talk to you about Tavian.

Being a software engineer, help out there. But all that and more is at thedjsessions.com. Oh, there’s over 700 news stories a month published there as well.

Like I said, always something new at thedjsessions.com. Our new revamped store will be there too. So you can get some really dope merch.

Check that out at thedjsessions.com. I’m your host, Darran, coming to you from the in Seattle, Washington. And that’s Tavian, aka Jvst Breathe.

Remember, J-V-S-T, Breathe. He’s coming in from LA for the DJ Sessions. And remember, on the DJ Sessions, the music never stops.