DJ SKT: Constellations, Creativity, and the Future of Club Culture on the Virtual Sessions 10/2/23

DJ SKT: Constellations, Creativity, and the Future of Club Culture

In this insightful Virtual Session, The DJ Sessions host Darran Bruce connects with London-based DJ, producer, and Kiss FM UK resident DJ SKT to explore his journey, latest projects, and perspectives on today’s evolving music scene. Known for his deep house and UK garage roots, SKT recalls starting his career at age 12 with a pair of belt-drive decks before moving into production at 13. Since then, he has grown into one of the UK’s most versatile talents, producing hit remixes, charting singles, and regularly championing underground sounds on his Kiss FM residency.

DJ SKT discusses his recent release Constellation with Stevie Appleton, a track written and produced in just a few hours that quickly found international support and is now being remixed by a range of artists. He also teases his darker, club-driven track Molly on Lee Foss’ South of Saturn label, highlighting his ability to evolve across styles while staying true to his passion for music.

The conversation covers the impact of technology on DJing and production, from hardware’s tactile roots to software’s accessibility, and reflects on how social media has transformed the industry. SKT candidly addresses how follower counts often outweigh raw talent in bookings and label deals today, but emphasizes that authenticity and quality music remain at the core of his career.

From Ibiza Rocks to his Kiss FM residency, DJ SKT continues to push boundaries while staying grounded in his love for music. His story highlights both the challenges and opportunities of navigating a constantly changing electronic music landscape.

Show Notes – The DJ Sessions: Virtual Sessions with DJ SKT

Host: Darran Bruce
Guest: DJ SKT
Location: Virtual Studios, Seattle WA & London, UK

Overview:
Darran Bruce sits down with DJ SKT to discuss his career beginnings, recent releases, the changing role of social media in music, and his vision for the future of DJing and club culture.

Topics Covered:

• Starting as a DJ at 12 and producing by 13
• First decks and early vinyl collection of trance and garage records
• Creating Constellation with Stevie Appleton and its growing success
• Upcoming darker club record Molly on South of Saturn
• Reflections on hardware vs. software in music production
• Meeting Marshall Jefferson and stories of iconic house tracks
• Shifts in DJ culture from physical products to personal branding
• Social media’s impact on bookings, promoters, and labels
• The role of Kiss FM UK residency in promoting quality music
• Perspectives on guest mixes, show curation, and staying consistent
• Thoughts on VR, AR, and the future of virtual clubbing experiences
• Balancing touring, Ibiza Rocks shows, and studio production
• Defining personal success beyond charts or awards
• Advice for new producers: love what you do and let it resonate

Call to Action:
Follow DJ SKT on Instagram @djskt and stream his latest releases including Constellation and Molly.
Discover more exclusive interviews and live sessions at thedjsessions.com.

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ sessions presents the virtual sessions. I’m your host there and right now I’m sitting in the virtual studio in Seattle, Washington and coming in all the way from London. We have DJ SKT DJ SKT.

How you doing today? Hey, how’s it going? Good.

I’m doing good. I’m doing good You know, we had a very very hot summer over here and now we’re getting into our drizzle season. So I’m sure you know Exactly the same here.

[DJ SKT]
It’s like the minute it hits the middle of September it goes from t-shirts shorts like really nice weather to Freezing cold and thunderstorms today. So yeah.

[Darran]
Yeah, it’s a little gray out today. We had an awesome day last night But you know a place where I’m at where the studios are out I have a very beautiful view of the whole like south of Seattle and Mount Rainier and the mountains and water It’s an awesome place have to get you out of here sometime soon Anyways, you have been quite busy. You had a recent release about a couple weeks ago Constellation tell us all about that.

[DJ SKT]
Yeah, it was a track that me and Stevie Appleton wrote Probably last summer. I think it was And I mean we did it in Literally a couple of hours. It just kind of all came together and just incredible Stevie’s voice is amazing So, yeah that came out a few weeks ago and we’ve got some remixes drop in of it And yeah, it’s going down really well getting loads of support.

[Darran]
So exciting nice now Are you a hardware or software producer or both?

[DJ SKT]
Um, I think I started off on hardware And then I found software just made things a lot easier It was a lot easier to travel be portable and also as a kid I started producing at 13 a lot of the analog equipment was very very expensive so I could only kind of afford to get digital replicas of old school vintage kind of compressors and Limiters so I do play around with with artboard stuff, but I just never really built Uh too much of a crazy collection just because of the expense

[Darran]
Yeah Back in the day. I got a little just dabbled a little bit into stuff and this is like 23 years ago.

I bought a MC 505 and an SP 808 and there were two cool little Roland products that uh You know You can see me at medium together and one was a sequencer and one was a sampler You know because at that time to get a computer with that kind of stuff you’re looking at four or five thousand dollars Get a decent computer with the decent software And there was no garage band to play with, you know that came on every Apple computer, you know So, you know I’d sit there with bring it over to my friend’s house and set it up on his coffee table and pour a few drinks and he’d like light a couple up and we just be making beats on it because he was a DJ vinyl DJ only but uh, you know, we just have some fun playing around with that gear and I always felt at the tactile You know being able to touch it was yeah I wonder than like going into a computer and moving around and after working for Apple for years I you know, I was certified to train people in logic. So kind of fell in love with that software right there logic logic 10 Was just phenomenal And so yeah software hardware, you know, I had a I met

[DJ SKT]
Marshall Jefferson over in Amsterdam last year and he was telling me the story of how he how move your body came together and He said basically he went to this hardware music store that had all this old equipment like the TV 909 808 it’s basically all that equipment back then no one used The shop was trying to get rid of like loads of equipment. So he said hey, listen, we’ll give you a $15,000 Credit have this have this And they gave him all these all these like samplers and like now legendary pieces of equipment that back then were basically redundant and First track he made on all that equipment was move your body

[Darran]
crazy now you mentioned that you started at the age of 13 I was reading your Wikipedia and it said you started at the age of 12 Was that DJing at the age of 12 and then producing at the age of 13 or was that was the Wikipedia wrong?

[DJ SKT]
Yeah, so at the age of 12, I bought my first set of decks which were off Teacher a PE teacher. I don’t know. Do you say PE?

Okay, cool Yeah, my PE teacher for like a hundred pounds about $150 and he gave me his old sound lab belt drive citronic mixer and Maybe 50 vinyls of all like old-school trance So I started DJing and then after like a year of doing that I was like I want to play my own records So then I went on the kind of journey of learning How to produce music as well

[Darran]
Nice, and it was the first record you ever bought. Is it worth mentioning or is it embarrassing the first record?

[DJ SKT]
I bought that’s a really good question. There’s probably such a mix of like Repressed stuff that I bought like old-school trance records like labels like positiva and Then a lot of UK garage at the time because that that’s what our sound was in. The UK was like the garage so kind of a mix of Different genres and records because I just loved music.

So I just really wanted to be able to play my favorite records Rather than the mixing side at the beginning, you know Now, would you recommend a career as a DJ to young kids What are the pros and cons about that?

[Darran]
I mean you started such an early age, but you know What about now? Would you recommend it?

[DJ SKT]
I Would yeah, I think I think things have changed Like so much over the last 15 years from where I started to today back then my product was something physical like This was my product my my music my CD my vinyl Whereas nowadays it feels like the product is more me You know people have to know me like me Engage with me and that comes kind of first now not first in my eyes But the way that I see it It seems like people have to have that connection with you before they then have that connection with the music You know a bit more nowadays than back in Back 15 years ago I feel the it was all about the music and the only thing that did the talking was the music if you were On marketable or this or that there was it was just hey, this is a great record.

Let’s go. So That’s definitely changed a lot And I think the whole back when I started there was no David Guetta. There was no Calvin Harris, there was no big DJs like the biggest DJ Probably earned like a thousand dollars a set, you know, so When I was a kid everyone growing up wanted to be like soccer players that was like thing that all the kids wanted to be and Then it after the whole DJ thing happened and the Calvin Harris’s and all these people then everyone kind of wanted to be DJs for like a good few couple of years Whereas now it feels like the focus has changed to influencer, you know, and that’s what every kid wants to be now and I guess you can be once you become an influencer then you can sell your perfume your music like all of your products, so It’s very weird having to compete in that space, you know, because naturally I’ve never had to wanted to I Just love making music

[Darran]
You mentioned the term influencer, you know, how important is social media to you?

[DJ SKT]
Unfortunately now It’s everything, you know, I’ll give you an example. I last summer I started a tick-tock account because you have to okay, cool, I’ll put up some clips of playing stuff and For instance one of the venues that I played at over the summer. There was probably you know full capacity 600 people in the club We filmed a clip from there put it online and it ended up doing like over half a million views So it’s like what’s more important the 600 people in the club or the half a million views online?

Yeah, unfortunately, you know, whereas before that wasn’t even an aspect You know, so it’s it’s definitely changed and also having a massive plat if you have a massive platform two three 100,000 Subscribers I Think a lot of the promoters are getting very lazy where they’re then looking at Well, who do we want to pay because if we pay this guy we’re gonna get the marketing and promotion and it’s gonna reach Hundreds of thousands of people are gonna know about our brand and our event. Whereas if we go with this guy It’s gonna be tens of thousands.

[Darran]
So You’re having to compete against that and it’s not really the talent that is is the the the main thing No, I’ve heard that a lot that you know back in the day social media has kind of become this bane of The entertainment world where you have to be on your socials if you’re not you’re yeah The promoter will look and say okay. This guy has a hundred and fifty thousand followers and this person has ten thousand followers Who am I gonna go with even if the 10,000 person artists may be a better?

[DJ SKT]
DJ producer a musician, you know, it just is He could be more You know, it’s just I think even with the record labels now, they are lazy. So, you know to You know main job would be to market and promote records now. They’re citing influences and giving the music It’s the whole game has like changed well I’m sure having a residency at kiss FM UK helps a little bit, correct?

Yeah, for sure for sure. I love having that and it keeps me on top of music every week I listen to hundreds of records for the show and for me again That platform is just to be able to play and showcase the best music that’s coming out regardless of who you are How big your socials are or anything like that, so I’m grateful that I’ve got that opportunity, you know that kind of unique opportunity to really Get good music out there Push people. I think it’s as well.

[Darran]
And did I see that you actually have guests that come on the show as well?

[DJ SKT]
I Do yeah, I think because this summer’s been so busy. I’ve kind of been like, all right Let me just do the show because trying to then organize getting guests and to be honest DJs Producers and artists aren’t the most easiest people to organize sometimes So it’s like trying to put a show together and then This guy has delivered the mix yet and then your producers calling you and so I just thought let me just do it myself For now while there’s so much other stuff Kind of in the mix and going on and then once I get a bit more time Then then I can I can focus more get guests on do guest mixes

[Darran]
Yeah, I definitely know about having to having to wrangle the cats It’s fun, you know We got a we got our pretty well-oiled machine over here at the DJ sessions Um what in addition to you producing and doing that that residency with kiss FM UK. What are the top three?

[DJ SKT]
Podcasts live streams or radio shows you listen to or would recommend Music-based or just generally just general whatever whatever what top three things you listen to I Mean, I’ve been listening to a guy called sad guru a lot while I’ve been traveling I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but he’s like some mystic guru guy. That’s just very Very interesting and very logical as well Have you done a lot of that a meditation? There’s another podcast.

I listen to quite a lot called pens are those place which is a Member his first name. He’s very very well known and very well established as a producer Mike. I think his first name is I watched that a lot and then just to chill out and have fun I’ll watch the milk boys and like all those kind of fun fun youtubers So yeah, I said to be honest, I spent quite a lot of time on YouTube Who’s been your biggest influence when it comes to your career as an artist and why You know what?

It’s a good question because like growing up. There wasn’t really anyone Doing things on such a massive level. So I Really just I really just had a love for the the music and the sounds in the UK We had like UK garage that was massive in like the 90s and the early 2000s And there were a lot of kind of UK producers from that DJs like DJ ease ads Carl Cox Tiesto was about but wasn’t really It’s kind of a different style and sound like way more European, but he was kind of massive in Europe, but Yeah, so I I kind of feel that I’ve taken inspiration Just from loads of different places rather than one or two sources like when people always ask me usual biggest inspiration In a weird way I don’t know because I just get inspired from so many different places and it could be an advert on TV or a bus drives past with something.

I’m like, oh Do you know what I mean?

[Darran]
Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of the the movie. It was a movie I’m not sure if it came out of the 80s or early 90s but it was called tap and it was great with Gregory Hines and he was a tap dancer and Basically there was a scene where they were talking about his father who was supposed to be this great tap dancer and He would go out on the street and he would listen to the sounds of the street and then build his tap routine off of what he heard driving around or a Pipe rattled or a bus drove by or a car went by or car honk He would kind of just get into the rhythm of the city It was this natural organic process that he had and that’s kind of when you’re saying that you what you’re saying They’re kind of reminds me of how organically, you know, you could create something like oh something.

[DJ SKT]
Okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna sample that I’m gonna use that or that reminded me of this kind of a process Yeah, I find that I’ll take the inspiration from my surroundings so You know by just just kind of being switched on to whatever’s going on around me and also Being in different cities You can pick up different energies for how places are and that can help feed into kind of what you’re doing. So Yeah, I just I just try and just try and get all that stuff from life if that makes sense Mm-hmm, and how would you define success as a DJ producer?

[Darran]
Is it a beat board top 10 hit sold-out tour? What are your thoughts on this?

[DJ SKT]
I think it’s got to be personal to you and what you want to achieve I can look at I Can look at things have been really successful in one way, but maybe in other ways to other people they might not have been successful to me sometimes just creating a track finishing it and Loving it is success in a sense, you know and Focusing on that rather than where’s it gonna go on that side of things the kind of projection So, yeah, I’d say You can judge I can judge my success externally by looking at like awards Platinum selling or you know, whatever it is that then is like, okay cool Like I guess I’m doing all right But like to me it’s very personal and in a way like I never I never did music for like fame or attention or like success like the only The only objective was to make people dance or to change to change that You know if you’re sitting in your car and I can play you something where suddenly I’ve got you That’s that’s what I love, you know, and if it the bigger the scale that that’s on obviously the better

[Darran]
If you could give one production Tip insight to new producers out there. What would that be?

[DJ SKT]
Love what you’re doing because I think it’s very easy to get into a space of I want to make something like that or I want to do what He’s doing, you know, and that’s that’s good And sometimes it’s a good start point to be like right this is inspiring inspiring me right now Let me see what I can do but I think having that having that real love for what you’re doing just resonates so much in terms of like the End-product and people can feel it as well Feel the genuineness in the production

[Darran]
And you have another single being released this month, correct, can you tell us a little bit about that?

[DJ SKT]
Yeah, I’ve got a new record called Molly coming out on Leaf losses label south of Saturn that’s coming out. I think it’s a 20th or 21st Friday 20th. Yes.

I’m really pumped about that being a big fan of leave for years Obviously six it guy with everything. He’s done with hot nature and all those tracks from a couple of years ago absolutely amazing so Really honored to to be on board with his label and yet excited for the record to come out It’s a lot more club. Very dark compared to maybe some of the other records that have come out this summer What’s the longest time you’ve ever Consecutively spent working in the studio on a track.

Um, I remember I did a remix for clean bandit and Jess Glynn About five six years ago, and I spent a week just on this mix It drove me crazy just because for some reason I just couldn’t But if it was any other project that would have just thrown it away But where I had the commitment to finish it and the label are on my back going. Hey, can we hear a preview? I had to really push push through and in the end I Think it was more of a mental thing because the the mix came out really really good but I think for some reason I just got myself so maybe it was the the the kind of The pressure or oh my god.

I’m working with these. I’m remixing these big artists. So, you know, but Usually as a rule and I heard Calvin Harris say this recently in in an interview as well that he says he’ll just make ideas All day, and if something’s doesn’t flow, okay, cool next Next so he just keeps keeps flowing until Sunday.

Oh, wow. Hold on. This is now coming together So I try if something’s not working sometimes it’s easy to be like, alright, let’s put this aside and try something else, you know Have you ever experimented with mixing audio and video at the same time and if not Would that be something that you might look to do in the future?

I think so yeah, I remember when like CDs first became CDJs first became a thing and started taking over from vinyl. There were also VG V DJs Which were the video DJs where they were I used to buy CDs like 10 years ago And I had like a DVD player in my car So you could play the mixes and then like the DJs would be scratching and the music videos and it was really really cool But it’s just never it never really caught on So I think as things go on I definitely want to sync more of my Audio visual on big stages so that for certain tracks. There’s certain artwork or features certain moments like that, but I Haven’t really I haven’t really known apart from that

[Darran]
Mm-hmm, you know and technology as you mentioned the switch from vinyl to CDJs to now basically flash drives They still pioneer still calls them CDJs, but there’s no CD players in him anymore You know technology moves pretty fast in DJ land if you could think of something that’s not on the market today But in your vision would be really In the future vision would be really amazing What would that be if you could think of a device or something that is needed but doesn’t exist yet?

What would that be?

[DJ SKT]
I think the way everything’s going it will be like virtual shows and virtual and I watched an interview actually with Lex Friedman and Facebook guy What’s his name? Mark Zuckerberg Zuckerberg Zuckerberg and they did the whole interview in an augmented reality spatial audio and it looked insane and Lex was saying I feel like I’m here like Lex you call him Lex Luthor Lex Friedman Oh Lex Friedman Lex Friedman, okay so That was really interesting. And I think the way that technology is going and so you could have subscriptions Because what I found is like people aren’t going out as much anymore Like the new generation are not going clubbing like when I was younger on a Friday Saturday night You’d be out on the streets or you’d be down the town center or the youth club like everyone was out you know, whereas today I think it’s like 50% of kids in the UK like 18 to 23 just don’t really go out and if they do they go to house parties or All big events that they’ve saved up for like monthly events whereas the kind of every week Kind of clubs places like Ministry of Sound I think are really Really finding it tough at the moment and it gonna have to look at ways of how can we you know get money in?

Because the kids aren’t coming out And I think that will go into more of a augmented reality live stream space So I think that’s gonna that will be the next thing and also building Ways of making money kind of online through subscription services It’s definitely interesting that you bring that up because we recently well last year we launched our Virtuality nightclub.

[Darran]
So we have a VR nightclub. We actually launched an alt space and then Microsoft Slated to shut down alt space a month and a half later. Oh Like we had this huge launch everything was ready to go kind of just burst our bubble But we quickly ported everything over to VR chat and that’s where like right now you can watch this interview Live in our nightclub on a big stage.

It’s a multi-room nightclub Still still under construction, but it’s up and running It’s we call it beta nightclub in the VR chat and you’re right That is gonna be something that I think will be new or the augmented reality experience You know, I’ve talked to some nightclubs here in the States About coming in and building their augmented reality experience, you know where you could actually do, you know Something where it’s interactive for the crowd or or you know, they’re there but it’ll really come into play. I think when the glasses come out Yeah, because then you’re gonna be able to put those on and be able to look around You won’t have to hold a phone up and kind of like do the Pokemon experience, which is what you know Even with the headsets. Yeah Oculus is a in the same.

Yeah. I mean I have I have a Oculus 2 that I got years ago and It was a 2021. I think when it took us a while to build our build and roll out our nightclub You know, we got it late late late 2022 No late 2021 and I didn’t even I mean after developing it and put it all together and How the kinks worked out and everything it took a couple years But I think you’re right we’re super excited because we could do record release parties in there we could do listening parties in there We can block it off and and so, you know, you come to the front door But you can’t get through unless we let you in you can do a subscription based model where you know People pay to subscribe and you have a moderator that can let people in and out of the club you know, I think and Go ahead. I was gonna say you’ve got no capacity.

There’s no capacity limit either. Well, that’s an interesting thing Okay, when you go to platforms like VR say let’s say VR chat You can have 50 people in what’s called one instance How about and then once you get a 51st person it makes a creates a new instance one of the things that I’m not particularly fond of VR chat is that you could go and make take my nightclub and make your own instance of it and Invite only you and your friends inside that instance, right? Which is like with all space it was all in one You’re in the room and when you hit that when you go over one person it creates a new instance and it creates a new Instance it creates a new instance, you know So you could have 500 people but you could only have 50 people in one instance now when you go to build your own app That’s a whole different scenario.

You can scale that and have 500,000 people in there, you know, but that’s a whole different ballgame I think you’ll see somebody like Ministry of Sound Developing that online In-person performance because when you think about it, let’s say your nightclub only holds a thousand people But if you can get 50,000 people to tune in for five bucks It’s an extra quarter million right there.

[DJ SKT]
But not only that how cool would it to you? How would it be to be like? All right There’s an option to go and visit Ministry of Sound Club where I can walk around and feel like wow I’m in even if there’s no events going on just as a tourist Yeah, exactly Subscription fee of I don’t know $20 a month and then you can access the club at any time You know the events that are going on and there’s no limit to how many events you can hold how many rooms?

[Darran]
I mean, I wouldn’t fly necessarily fly over to Ministry of Sound. I mean if I went to London I’m going to Ministry of Sound Yeah, I’m here and I’m like, I want to jump in VR and go watch the Ministry of Sound concert I probably do that once a month twice a month No, I mean you get a million people doing that that’s an extra 20 million a year in your pocket, you know that then you can use to Reinvest in that platform and make it even better our nightclub right now is still the traditional I had a friend of mine asked me goes Darran.

Why do you have these pillars in your nightclub? There’s no gravity in VR And I’m like, I don’t know but I still want to keep it the four walls and kind of walk up and down series But if you see what we really want to get slated and when we really build out I think it’s just it users aren’t they’re expecting that kind of virtuality I’m walking into a room or I’m walking around this hallway to get there rather than Flying up to the nightclub and getting you know into this zone I mean, I was talking people that won awards that can for virtual reality design and you know They’re built for the club.

They want to charge me is 10 grand, you know, it’s like, okay You know, I built what I built for a hundred bucks But and a lot of blood sweat and tears and hiring developers and stuff probably about two three grand after all But you know these clubs are yeah, I mean even even if they just go to a pay-per-view model You know a subscription based pay-per-view model I was talking with the Somebody of the day and they they want to step back on board and get into live streaming So we’ve been doing it for so long and I said, you know, you could do your sellout parties with 300 people But you should be once you hit 95% and ticket sales you should automatically go to doing a pay-per-view option Yeah And it’s only at a certain threshold you would do that I like you wouldn’t do it until you hit 95% of sales or if the show goes sold out We will start going online and it could be that too and then there’s your residual But you have to now work that out on the back end of the writer With the artists that’s playing is what does the cut look like and then you have to think of the production costs of hiring the video production team to come in Well, you know if I was somewhere like ministry

[DJ SKT]
338 fabric I would have a four camera set up in the main room audio already Coming out independently or going to one video guy Who’s got three or four live cameras live switch deck? Which is outputting directly to all their social media platforms Problem with that is the licensing and the music and the Monetizing and I think that is holding a lot of stuff back at the moment well, as long as it I Had a lot of talks about this early 2020 when everyone jumped online and like you’re the guy that’s been doing this for 10 years How do you get around it?

[Darran]
How does this work? And how come Facebook and Amazon just don’t pay for the rights and in Google pay for the rights? And how come they got a red flag is I bought the song I own the rights to it It’s like no, that’s not how this works, you know, but um, you know For Merrill f from Merrill f from Merrill.

I don’t I hope I’m saying that right Affirmal or f from Merrill use is what twitch uses as their platform as long as it’s live And it’s not recorded and it’s never gonna be put on a server and it’s a one-time broadcast You don’t have to get licensing for it because it’s only gonna exist in that one live instance Facebook and YouTube do have active monitoring So they will detect and say you’re using copyright and use it because what they don’t want to do is the moment you hit stop It goes and sits on their server Yeah, whereas twitch you can turn that button off and say do not store a recording of my stream So where we have it You know, we stream live on twitch love twitch, but our back-end is hosted on our servers, which are you know Which are all licensed and ready to go which are our servers, you know So we don’t have to really worry about that issue as much as other people do But yeah, you could have somebody coming in and saying hey you stream my show you charge you have 50,000 users Use my song to make money and I didn’t get dick for it. Like, you know, how do you clear that?

You know and

[DJ SKT]
That’s an interesting ride Yeah, because we’ve got PRS which is a performing rights society over here which collect all the royalties and performances for all the artists So I think they’re in talks with YouTube trying to work out a deal and some kind of blanket license thing but then how do we work out what’s played and how we then distribute the royalties to the artists because What they tend to do is if they haven’t got that much data Then what they do is go right online We’ve had X amount of usage So we’ll just give it to Beyonce Ed Sheeran and the top top artists will give them 97% because it was probably their music

[Darran]
Absolutely, and that’s the it’s like isn’t it like only I think in the States here It’s like only the top 400 artists are getting payouts really Track because it’s it’s just it’s just crazy out there in the music world and you know, the thing is is if somebody would say somebody makes a YouTube video uses Somebody’s song and it gets 10 downloads. How do you pay them for that?

But if all of a sudden that video goes viral and it gets a million downloads Now you’re being hit with the copyright and it’s like take this down or you’re not able to monetize this video because you don’t have The rights to the song You know and you never a DJ I mean unless a DJ is playing a pre-planned set There’s no way you’re gonna get in it in a one-hour set. What do they put? Let’s say is there three minute tracks?

You know, you got what? 20 20 some odd tracks and you’d have to get clearance for all of those Yeah before you do the show and if one person says no then you got to find another song Or if you can get just access to like say the whole monster cat library or something like that You know, I say hey, whatever’s whatever’s here is clear to play. So that’s always interesting on how How that’s gonna dial out in this virtual world, you know something I saw.

Are you going to 80 this year, by the way?

[DJ SKT]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Darran]
Okay. We definitely got a hook up at 80. We got a really badass on location set up I’ll send you the link after the interview, but we’ll be at 80 this year.

I’d love to get an on-site interview with you But we as a 80 last year and the only conference part that I got to go to Was we kind of got in last minute to the Carl Cox? presentation like I think it was on Friday and He was explaining about how? Carl Cox is once again reinventing himself and he had one CDJ and he had a laptop and he was basically making music on the fly Had the CDJ so he could play tracks off the CDJ as well, but he goes Now if I do this, I will never have the same performance ever.

It’ll be even though it’s unique. He doesn’t record It’s not preset He’s gonna change it up and do how he’s feeling it like on the fly like with almost it was basically hardware as software Yeah Manipulating it with the sequencers and everything live I can’t remember what the program was that he was using but he’s like This is where I think the future of music is going because any Buddy can grab a track list pop in some flash drives sync button and go.

Okay, let’s play and that’s great You’re playing other people’s music, but he wants to make music on the fly and make it different So this is the set that he plays in Ibiza, you know It’s not the set that he plays in London not the set that he plays in this Australia Not the set that he plays when he comes to the States It may sound similar, but it’s not gonna be the exact same thing every time he plays That was kind of cool if he could kind of push that Envelope and have more DJs willing to do more live performance with CD, you know with the with the tracks are private That would be awesome.

I mean, it’s gonna be an interesting world and I think virtual reality and augmented reality really have a it’s in its infancy right now is when it comes to music production and Production and their performance a hundred percent.

[DJ SKT]
The other thing that’s been lost over the years is mechanical royalties There’s no physical sales now. Yeah, I feel like that kind of virtual world will compensate for the the more physical royalty Stream that was kind of there before and a really big part of income, I guess Yeah, yeah, it’s uh, they’re there I saw somebody post on Facebook the other day saying hopefully out of this writer strike that’s going on in the States right now I don’t know if you’ve heard about that.

[Darran]
Yeah Crazy, it’s crazy. It’s that something comes out with better digital music rights management But I don’t think that that doesn’t really fall into their realm But it’s kind of low-hanging totem pole stuff right now that copyright law does not even though it was written in 1997 it was not ready for the internet as it is today Yeah, fortunately, you know, they were still looking at physical product and not really electronic downloads and that was the whole Napster debacle, you know that the Lars Ulrich and spoke out about Napster is this Napster’s devil? And then you got in a bit torrents and it’s like, okay

[DJ SKT]
It’s funny because Napster went to all the major labels and they were like yo This is never gonna stop like we’ll give you a share of the company a bit like Spotify ended up doing Yeah, it’s the try to do it before with the majors and to say hey look this is gonna happen if we shut down tomorrow There’ll be another copycat You know file sharing torrent site Program like ours within 10 minutes.

Yeah, the limewire came out right after it.

[Darran]
Yeah Okay, that was peer-to-peer and then all of a sudden you had Pirate Bay and it’s like trace my torrent like you can’t trace a Torrent like yeah, it’s downloaded, you know, um, anyways back to music and stuff like that.

[DJ SKT]
Tell us about Ibiza rocks Yeah, Ibiza has been amazing this summer I played that Ibiza rocks a few times for Joel Corey for a party out there called love juice and then Beach club as well for defected and For kiss as well for the radio station, which was really fun. So I’ve been out there More or less every other week for gigs, which is um, which has been fun Really really good crowds have been amazing and it’s nice as well because you tend to spend a lot of time Between September October I do anyway I find that I I not I isolate and I’m very focused on studio Production. I’m not really bothered about seeing anyone like I’m just very in my zone.

So So then kind of get to go out and people are oh, hey, I’ve been listening to your music is like, oh cool You know like it It’s fun, it’s a really fun element that that that is rewarded it’s like the rewarding part I guess What’s your favorite restaurant there? That is a good question. There’s one To be honest see a lot of the time I’m in and out Mambos is lovely for food cafe Mambo There is another place I have to find the name I think it’s called tapas and it’s in It’s Just opposite Oh Beach and it’s it’s like down this kind of alleyway so unless you knew where it was, you wouldn’t stumble across it and This like dirt track just leads to this old beautiful like really traditional Spanish looking house and they’ve got all this like Outside area with like IV and lights and the foods just unreal like the I like my meat So the fish and and beef and lamb just incredible

[Darran]
Now you’re making my mouth water Awesome, I haven’t been to Ibiza yet, but I’m looking forward to going there here in the near future Now with all this guy got going on How do you balance your career your DJ producer career with other the other obligations in your life? Do you have a set schedule like I’m only in the studio from 9 a.m. To 5 p.m I’m done or is it 24-7 I just put my nose to the grind and how do you balance your your career with the other obligations you have in life?

[DJ SKT]
See, I feel from a really young age where all my friends might have been playing football in the park on a Saturday. I Was kind of in my room on my computer like wow, I can make music. So it was always like this very personal but almost like Thing that I loved doing more than anything else So, I Don’t know if I really have balance at the moment, you know because work is kind of non-stop that I just end up focusing on that and then when I can have a break or you know, chill out then And then I will but like I’ve got got a little French French bulldog called capo That I got at the beginning of lockdown. So he’s always with me so I spend a lot of time with him walking like going to the park and Yeah, but really it’s kind of my life is music Nice, and what do you do?

[Darran]
What do you prefer doing when you’re taking a break from music? What what are your kind of go-to releases or when you’re taking a break?

[DJ SKT]
Again, like literally I’ll do music for work and then I’ll do it for fun and then I’ll do it because it’s Sunday night There’s not much going I’ll go studio or just the idea of going through samples or Synths and just messing about with sounds and all of that stuff like almost like prep Stuff where I don’t want to make a song but I want to find some really cool sounds And so I’m kind of always Being productive in that way and in my old My old place. I had a massive I turned like the dining room into a like Amazing custom-built studio.

So I just lived in that of the house and you know, I had a big sofa I had a TV. So even if I wasn’t doing music, I’d still be in the studio But then a lot of my friends as well all music heads on like music nerds, you know So it’s like even if it’s like hey, let’s just go out and chill get some drinks the conversation starts going into sample rate 44 48 Hertz versus 44.1 and stuff like that.

[Darran]
So Totally I know how that goes I have my video people that I hang around with and get a talk shop and talk gear and talk equipment It’s having not non-stop conversation for two weeks and be like, oh, this is cool.

[DJ SKT]
This is cool What’d you find out this and this, you know, it’s always always the new new toys coming out to play with Yeah Like I kind of live it like I live what I do just because I love it You know And I kind of want to be the best of what I do as well Mm-hmm.

[Darran]
So if you could take put take or put one Non-famous person in the spotlight who means a lot to you other than your direct family or friends Who would that be and why I don’t think I’d do it to them Is there anyone you have in mind though Someone that would deserves recognition.

[DJ SKT]
Yeah, that isn’t in the spotlight right now that maybe is like Up and coming but needs to be identified there’s a lot of amazing writers and Vocalists that I work with Stevie Appleton from my new single constellation is amazing like and he’s doing loads of stuff at the moment working with loads of big like EDM and You know on some really cool projects Who else have I been working with recently? I’m kind of out of studio mode at the moment just because I’ve been on tour mode. So I haven’t really Been in the studio that much I’m working on another project actually with a good friend of mine Who’s on kiss as well called Tyler West?

And I guess he’s more of Like a mainstream celebrity type of guy, but we’ve got a really really cool music project going with him that Will be his projects that I’m kind of helping him with And that I think that that would be really really exciting as well Awesome.

[Darran]
Well, you know, we’re gonna wrap it up here You know, is there anything else you’d like to let our DJ sessions fans know about?

[DJ SKT]
And just follow me on my socials I’ve got some new just in the middle of finishing an edit of my set at Ministry of Sound From Saturday night the two-hour set like a full camera hopefully all the cameras have come out, but we’ll definitely at least have three or maybe two so Just going through the edit for that now to get that up this week On my youtube channel and we’ll have clips across Instagram tick-tock and just all at DJS Katie

[Darran]
There it is right there on the screen in the lower left for you folks DJ at DJ SK T on Instagram All right.

Well on that note, don’t forget to go to our website the DJ sessions calm Oh, first of all, thanks for coming on the show DJ SKT. Oh, thanks for having me man Yeah, we’ll definitely follow up with you I already sent you that email with the link to book for the 80 interviews as well. That should be in your inbox I did that while we’re in the interview, but thank you again for coming on the show.

It was a pleasure having you We’ll definitely catch up with you in a couple weeks at 80. He’s super excited to go there. You’re gonna you’re gonna totally Be blown away by our on location where we’re gonna be set up this year We were going to the press area last year, but now we uh, we have a very special location This year still still see the city central to the city close enough to get there walking around and close to everything But we’re super excited to be there this year.

Hopefully the weather holds it’s not gonna rain so we can do them outside Which would be even better and awesomer That’s a word, but I look forward to seeing you again having you on the show and seeing you at 80 as well Definitely mom. All right on that note. Don’t forget to go to our website the DJ sessions calm find us on Twitter Tick-tock.

Oh wait, I should say X. It’s no longer Twitter anymore Tick-tock Instagram. All the socials are right up there.

Download our mobile app. Check us out in virtual reality of VR chat We’re gonna have tons of interviews coming your way more guest mixes exclusive stories We have over 600 news stories published every month to our website. So there’s always something new at the DJ sessions calm I’m your host Darran coming to you live from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington That’s DJ SKT coming in from London.

Remember on the DJ sessions music never stops