KHAG3: Tech House Energy, Label Partnerships, and Breakout Podcast Legacy on the Virtual Sessions 10/12/23

KHAG3: Tech House Energy, Label Partnerships, and Breakout Podcast Legacy

In this Virtual Session, The DJ Sessions host Darran Bruce reconnects with Stuttgart-based DJ and producer KHAG3 to discuss his latest releases, creative philosophy, and future ambitions. Known for his energetic blend of tech house and bass house, KHAG3’s recent single Wannabe showcases his desire to craft tracks that grow in intensity, with second drops designed to ignite the dance floor. Released on 2Dutch Records, the track reflects his commitment to working with labels that not only release music but actively promote it to the right networks.

 

KHAG3 shares his thoughts on the importance of strong label support, noting how 2Dutch helped his tracks reach industry heavyweights like KSHMR, R3HAB, and Curbi. He also teases his first EP, featuring three new tracks that mark a milestone in his career and highlight his evolving sound.

 

Beyond production, KHAG3 opens up about his long-running Breakout Podcast, a monthly mix series he has hosted for eight years. By blending genres from tech house to hardstyle, the podcast has built a loyal following and reflects his dedication to variety and authenticity.

 

The conversation explores his workflow in FL Studio, his views on AI’s growing role in music production, and his perspective on Germany’s club scene compared to collaborative cultures in France and Scandinavia. With stories of producing tracks during family trips to Denmark, reflections on his early Fruity Loops experiments, and plans for future live sets, KHAG3 emphasizes passion, persistence, and staying true to his creative vision.

 

Show Notes – 

Host: Darran Bruce
Guest: KHAG3
Location: Virtual Studios, Seattle WA & Stuttgart, Germany

 

Overview:
Darran Bruce speaks with KHAG3 about his new release Wannabe, his upcoming EP on 2Dutch, his long-running Breakout Podcast, and the importance of strong label partnerships.

Topics Covered:

• Release of Wannabe on 2Dutch and crafting powerful second drops 
• Label support and promotion as keys to artist growth 
• Upcoming EP featuring three new tracks 
• Breakout Podcast: eight years of monthly mixes across genres 
• Favorite track Let You Go created during a trip to Denmark 
• Using FL Studio and reflections on starting with Fruity Loops 
• Thoughts on AI in music production and its future role 
• Germany’s music scene vs. collaborative cultures in France and Scandinavia 
• Views on banning phones at shows and focusing on the moment 
• Importance of persistence during early years with low streaming numbers 
• Best business decision: starting production and connecting with local promoters 
• Live sets including unique pool party and scenic recordings 

Call to Action:
Follow KHAG3 on Instagram @khag3official and listen to the Breakout Podcast on Apple and Amazon.
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, Darran, coming all the way in from Seattle, Washington. And I got KHAG3, that’s right?

I said it right? That’s right. I said it right, I said it right.

KHAG3 coming in all the way. Now this is gonna be a hard one for me. Stuttgart, Germany?

Yeah, right. Okay. From the south of Germany, yeah.

I got it right, I got it right. Hey, well you’ve been on the show before and thanks for coming back on the show again. It’s a pleasure to have you here.

We’re gonna go through some questions here, you know, do the typical virtual sessions, you know, thing that we do here over at the DJ Sessions. So again, thanks for coming on the show again. Thank you for having me again.

Yeah, we’re gonna jump right in to the stuff. You have some upcoming releases and we’ll be talking about those shortly. But your recent release that I was listening to right before the show, Wannabe, tell us all about that.

I was kind of hearing the lyrics and I want you to explain what Wannabe is all about.

[KHAG3]
Yeah, with Wannabe, I wanted to create a tech house, bass house track, which is getting more power to the second drop. So it starts like a typical tech house, bass house track with a nice first drop, bass house drop with nice vocals. I found it on a Splice sample pack, which I thought it would fit very well to this track.

But in the second drop, I don’t want to do the same drop again. And I started to get a lift up in the pre-drop. And with the lead, which is very loud in the second drop, it will get more power on the dance floor.

And then it gets a little bit noisier, quieter. So I tried to play a little bit with the frequencies of the volume. So that was the thing I wanted to do with this track.

And I’m very happy that 2Dutch wanted to release it. A label I’ve worked before, I think half a year before, would let you go on a more easier track, smoother track, not so party, more deeper track, also with the meaning for me. And yes, so I’m happy that 2Dutch released it.

And also my upcoming releases will be on 2Dutch in the next month. So yeah, really nice.

[Darran]
Well, tell us about the lyrics behind Wannabe itself. I mean, I know it’s a wannabe, is it wanna be your girlfriend, wanna be your mother? There was all these wannabes in there.

Tell us about how you came up with the lyrics for that. Did you collaborate with anyone on that? Or was that something you put together?

Not on that one.

[KHAG3]
I collaborated with a lot of singer the last month, but not on that one. Because collaborating with a singer and doing exclusive vocals and such things are also a money thing. So if you, yeah, because of course, if you want an exclusive vocal from a singer, which is well known or something like that, you have to pay these vocals.

So you can’t afford every time you’re doing a new track. This one was made with a sample pack, a vocal, but I think it fitted well. It doesn’t have this deep meaning.

It’s more a party track. Yeah, it’s made for the dance floors, let you go. The track before was a little bit deeper with a deeper meaning.

It was about you losing a girlfriend and don’t want to let her go and something like this. But this one is more a dance floor trick.

[Darran]
And you have some upcoming releases as well. Can we talk about those? Are they secret, secret?

You can’t tell anyone about who you’re working with or what they’re about? Or are you able to talk about those as well?

[KHAG3]
Yeah, yeah, of course. I will release two tracks in the next four weeks, I think, or six weeks. Also on two Dutch records again.

And these will be together in an EP in November. So I released my first EP. And that’s very special for me because it’s the first little album I’m doing with three tracks.

But it’s an EP, but it’s really special for me. So in a week, in two weeks, I’m releasing a track and in six weeks, the third exclusive track will be part of the EP I’m releasing. So that if you are listening to this new EP that you are listening to new tracks, not only a compilation of the older tracks, yeah.

Awesome.

[Darran]
You know, what is the most important thing that record labels should be doing for their artists? And are they doing a good job of that?

[KHAG3]
It’s really hard to find some good labels, especially in the beginning. You will release tracks on labels who are only doing the artwork, or which are only doing the artwork and bringing it to Spotify and this stuff. But the main thing for me as a label is to publish it to the right people, promote it to the right people.

A label should have a promotion network, not only doing the artwork or saying, yeah, it’s out now, but nothing happened. Because you are putting a lot of time and money into your tracks, also with mix and mastering and such things like that. And when the label doesn’t do anything for this track when it’s released, it’s very disappointing.

So yeah, I think the important thing is that they are giving it to the right people. And 2Dutch does a really good work with that. Because with this label, I reached support from Kashmir or Rehab, Going Deeper, Kirby, that are really well-known DJ and producers.

And with my own network, I wouldn’t reach them. So I’m very happy with collaborating with 2Dutch. Yeah, I think that’s the main thing.

[Darran]
Awesome. Yeah, I think that’s a lot of people can say, hey, I have my own label, or I have a label and I wanna sign artists and I wanna get them on. But then they have no outreach, they have no connections, and it doesn’t go anywhere.

And now you signed your track off to somebody who might have rights to it. And it’s like, what do you do? And that’s a very interesting world that I have not plunged into yet.

We were in talks a few years ago, and it’s still on our plate that we wanted to create a label over here at the DJ Sessions. And I have a partner that’s gonna help me do all that. It’s just the process of getting it all up and running.

What’s our sound gonna be? Who we’re gonna be connected with? How we’re gonna get things out there?

How are we gonna sign tracks on? All that stuff that just became a whole nother business side of things, to adding on already what the DJ Sessions does. I know that’s a big part of the game, but we’re still looking to tackle it.

It’ll be good when we do it. Looking at your productions that you’ve done so far, which has been your most favorite one, your most memorable one or favorite one that you like? And which one would that be?

And what are your thoughts on why it would be your most favorite?

[KHAG3]
Okay, my absolute favorite one isn’t out yet, and it isn’t signed. And I’m sitting on this track, I think, over a year. Oh yeah, that’s really crazy.

I really love it, but the labels don’t take it. Sometimes you don’t know why. I think it’s my most original and most commercial track I’ve made, which could work really, really nice on the radio stations or big Spotify playlists.

But I don’t get it signed. But my favorite track, which is out, I think is Let You Go, which I released six months ago. It was a track I’ve made in Denmark, a country I’ve been every year because I have relatives there.

And I really have a connection to this track. I know I was in this summer house and looking outside on the, it sounds like cliche, but it really was like that, and looking at the sea. And I made some tunes and Let You Go was the tune which came out.

And yes, I think that is my favorite one.

[Darran]
And are you a hardware producer or software producer or both?

[KHAG3]
Yeah, mostly software. FL Studio, I’m using FL Studio since I think three years now. I had a deep connection to music since I can think back, but there was a time I thought I have to do my own music.

And FL Studio is a really nice software to begin with. It’s really friendly how it works. And there are a lot of YouTube tutorials where you can learn it.

Yes, and it’s always a battle between FL Studio and how does it call the other one, which everyone is using. Ableton? Ableton, right, yes.

But for me, it’s FL Studio, which I really like, yeah.

[Darran]
Yeah, it’s funny you mentioned FL. I was playing with FL3. Well, back then it was known as Fruity Loops 3.

Back in 99, 2000, I had it on my laptop. And I always thought that was a really fun little program to play sequencer. I would just play around with it and be like, oh, this is cool.

I was never into music production per se, but definitely thought that was a cool little program. And it’s definitely stood the test of time, as you could say.

[KHAG3]
I remember at the time when it called Fruity Loops, when I was, I think, 10 or so at this age, I looked for hip hop beats because I wanted to rap. And I saw on YouTube a lot of people who are using Fruity Loops to do this hip hop beats. It’s funny because if I note there that I’m doing my own beats 60 years later or something, that’s cool, yeah.

[Darran]
Now, technology moves pretty fast in DJ producer land. If you could think of something that’s not on the market today, but in your vision would be really amazing, a piece of gear, a software program, something that isn’t there, but would be really awesome to be created, what would that be?

[KHAG3]
I think the future is these AI sounds or AI programs. And I think, but it’s also a real big problem because in the future, you can’t see the difference or yet between an AI generated song and self-produced song. And I think in the future, you will have more focus on the artists than the music because music will made by AI programs.

It’s already in the beginning. And the person behind the music will be more important. But if I don’t know any program, I would absolutely need now.

So I think Splice is a really nice program I’m using because you pay a monthly bill and you get so many sounds and they are really good categories where you can find the sounds. And yes, I think Splice is really nice. Maybe you can make that better.

[Darran]
Yeah, I just pulled it up online. Give them a little plug here. It’s only 12.99 a month, 13 bucks a month. That’s pennies on the dollar when you’re getting access to millions of samples. I remember back in the day, you’d go to the, well, we’d have a guitar center here and you’d buy sample discs. And that’s what you got your samples.

I mean, you might’ve find stuff online, but this is 99, 2000. I mean, YouTube wasn’t even created yet. You might find, like I said, you might be able to buy something online, but downloading, you might’ve had, if somebody had high-speed internet, you were pretty much considered a nerd.

I think I might’ve had high-speed internet at like one megabit download, like woo, but everyone else was on 56K dial-up or something. So it was like, it wasn’t possible to download sounds off the internet. So you’d have to go to the store and buy those sample discs.

Now, funny enough, the sample disc would say, these are for personal use only. They were not licensed for commercial use. Now, is Splice licensed for commercial use or is it, I would assume now that nowadays it would be, yes, you can use these, they’re cleared for samples.

You’re not gonna- Royalty-free. Royalty-free, exactly. Royalty-free loops.

That was not the case with this. Sample packs from Guitar Center that you’d buy. It was kind of crazy because you’d add the hip hop ones, the electronic music ones, and you’d have people making beats.

And it’d be like, when you read the fine print, your song isn’t gonna go anywhere because you don’t have the rights cleared for that. So that’s always, that’s a rabbit hole we can go down at some other point.

[KHAG3]
Yeah, but I think that’s really nice that you don’t have to think about, is this sample now for commercial use or private use? And it’s, so Splice is a really nice program. Yeah, it’s good to have it now when you talk about how it was in the past.

Definitely.

[Darran]
Now, what was your strongest motivation to pursue a career in music? You’ve been doing this, you said since the age of 10, you started playing around with Fruity Loops or you wanted to be a hip hop person. Were you doing anything in music before that or were you, what was your strongest motivation to pursue a career in music?

[KHAG3]
No, I didn’t play any instrument or something like that. I just listened a lot to music and I had the feeling that music is much more important for me than for other persons or people. And that’s, every time I’m looking back into my past, I have a connection to music.

When I was 10, it was the hip hop thing. When I was, I think 15, I managed a band in my school. And with 18, I started as a DJ, not producing, just only DJing in Stuttgart.

And yeah, so the music is, is really important. Music is also very important for me to calm down, to sort my feelings and my mind. Yes, that’s very important for me.

That’s why I really love Fred again today. Fred again is such a nice producer and I really love listening to him and walking through the park and just sort my mind and so yeah, so music is very important. Yes.

[Darran]
How many hours a day, a week, a month do you spend in the studio? If you could break down daily, weekly and then monthly as a total, how many hours a day do you spend in the studio? All right, how many hours do you spend as like in a month total, breaking it down by day, week and then the whole month?

[KHAG3]
It really depends. There are, I have to be honest, there are some one, two, three weeks where I don’t produce anything, but that’s okay for me. I have, you don’t are creative anytime.

So, but sometimes I start, I just think about to change a bit at my actual track and I started to do something on this, on FL Studio and 10 hours later, I’m sitting there and doing a new track. And so sometimes there’s, I don’t know how to say it in English, phases, where you do more and some way do less. Yeah, so I think in a month, hours in a month, yeah, it’s hard to say.

I’m also doing my podcast, which I’m doing since eight years, music podcast. And that’s also a lot of time, which goes into the podcast, into the mixes. So I think in a week, there are 10 hours or something like that.

And a month, yeah, up to 50 hours.

[Darran]
So a lot of time, yeah. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off there. I wanted to talk about, I like it when guests almost preemptively, they don’t know the questions I’m gonna ask them beforehand, but one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was your monthly podcast called Breakout.

Tell us all about that.

[KHAG3]
Yeah, this Breakout podcast is a very important thing for me because I really started this one many, many years ago when I don’t thought about producing and it just started when I wanted to make my own mixes because I thought I can do that better than the mixes I hear. And I wanted to do mixes for my friends when we are on parties or just chilling or something like that. And more time or it got more serious every year because it got more listeners.

Because I think it’s also a thing that I started this podcast eight year ago when there was not so many podcasts on the market. Like today, I think the most people or a lot of people have an own podcast or a live mix series and you don’t have the time to listen to all of them. That’s not possible.

But so I think it was a good time to start with a podcast eight years ago. So I have a lot of people listening to the podcast years ago, every month. And also I think it’s very good for the podcast that I’m not doing a specific genre in any mix.

So some mixes are tech house, bass house, I’m mixing the genres together in one mix. And I have hardstyle mixes. So when you are listening to my podcast, you never know which live mix will be there.

[Darran]
Yeah, no, I mean, I’ve been podcasting since 2005. We were one of the first video podcasts in the iTunes store, listed in iTunes. So I worked for Apple at the time and the video iPod had just come out and I said, how do I get my broadcast television series?

How do I get that onto the video iPod? And we figured it out, got it in there. And then I contacted the Apple team, the Apple dev team over at iTunes team.

And we debuted our podcast at number 48 in the video podcast section in iTunes, which was huge. I mean, we went from a thousand downloads a week to 10,000 downloads a week at $50,000 a week. At one point we’re doing 300,000 downloads a week.

And I’m like, this is crazy insane. And the thing is, is we didn’t know how to monetize it because audio podcasting had been there for a while, but video podcasting hadn’t been there. So you might be able to figure out a way to charge somebody for an audio plug commercial, but what do you charge for a video commercial?

It’s this whole debacle. And so the whole thing is our show has actually, why we do live streaming, which was the progression of podcasting into live streaming, our whole backbone of our show is a podcast, distributed to all the platforms out there that you can be on. And so I find podcasting to be, it’s still a wild, wild west frontier.

If you talk to some of the top podcasters out there, obviously what happened in 2020, a lot of people jumped online and started doing podcasts. I think it was a double or triple growth is what the numbers were saying. But if you look at it now, how many people are still doing podcasts?

And I’ve given a lot of advice to people over the years for doing podcasts and starting podcasts. I love helping people out and giving them any help that I can. And I still think that’s an untapped medium that is underutilized.

A lot of people, they’ll start a YouTube channel or they’ll start a Twitch channel. And it’s like, you got to understand YouTube’s monetizing and making money off the content that you’re doing and you’re not getting anything for it. Twitch is taking money from you.

You do a podcast and you set it up where you’re doing like a Patreon or something or PayPal donation, you’re getting all that money. And that money can help support your podcast to buy better gear, those kinds of things or pay for some marketing or pay for your website costs or pay for your hosting costs. You know, it’s just, I’ve been, oh, I have a lot of stories I could go over the last 18 years of, wow, has it been 18 years of podcasting?

Yeah. But it’s been a fun ride. I think podcasting is definitely a huge medium and congratulations on keeping that going because that’s an endeavor to keep something going for eight years.

It’s one thing to say you’re a DJ for eight years. You know, or you’re a producer for eight years, but to produce a show, that’s dedication and congratulations on that. Yeah, thank you.

Here’s a question. Do you have any secret aliases under which you release music?

[KHAG3]
No, no, no, no. I don’t have, you won’t find anything. And my hip hop rap beats you won’t hear when I was 10, no chance.

[Darran]
You should do a podcast series just on that, just a throwback episode. It’s like, okay, this isn’t gonna be electronic music. This is something I did when I was 10 years, just to throw it in there as a mix to, I don’t know, that’s just a suggestion.

I think it would be awesome for people to kind of, it’s kind of like when I keep up all the old episodes, you can go back and watch the first episodes of the DJ sessions from 2009. And you look at the quality, you look at the improv, you look at the screw ups and the mess ups, and it’s almost like, did we even know what we were doing? But I’ll keep those episodes live because that’s history.

And I think that tells a story of a transition. I think that’d be awesome.

[KHAG3]
It’s the same for me when I, my first episode, when you hear it, the beginning, the intro, it’s wild mix. There are some sounds doesn’t fit. And yeah, but it documents the progression on the podcast.

Yeah, that’s nice.

[Darran]
Yeah, like I said, I was talking about the transition of going from podcasting to live streaming. When you’re doing a live stream, anything goes. Like there could be a mess up or screw up.

I could say your name wrong or, and it’s there, it’s there forever. With a podcast, you can go back and edit it and change it. Oh, hey, let’s do another take.

Let’s make this happen. So I liked the on the fly production. Like right now, what we’re doing is, this is streamed live to our website, to our socials, to Twitch, to YouTube, and we’re out there and people can ask questions live in real time right now as well.

I think that was something that really made a, made a huge transition for me was that when I was producing broadcast television shows, I wanted to have my shows on TV, but then I wanted to have a chat room online that people could go on the web and chat with us live when our shows were on broadcast television. Set the way forward clock nine years, and that was made possible through the internet. We could do that online.

So I’ve just seen technology progress, where it’s gonna go. I think you also hit the hammer on the nail earlier with AI music production. I think that’s gonna be huge.

But the one thing I’ve heard from a lot of people though, with AI music production is that it won’t have a soul. And it won’t have that human element touch. But could you get the groundwork done and then add the human element touch to it?

We’ll see where it goes.

[KHAG3]
Yeah, I think that’s it. Now it don’t have a soul, but what’s in two years or three years, these AI programs will get better. And maybe there will be a time where you can’t hear the difference.

[Darran]
Exactly, I hear that. What has been the best business decision in favor of your artist career that you can think of? What’s been the best decision you’ve ever made?

[KHAG3]
Hard question. I think to start this whole thing, it’s a big thing to get from just thinking about producing and really start with it. That was a good thing that I started.

And I know there was times in the beginning when I produced one year for one year and my music didn’t get heard from the right people or just have 10 monthly listeners on Spotify. There was a time where I really thought I will give up and it’s too much time I have to put into this project as a main job. And sometimes it’s hard to get this all together.

But yeah, and just connecting with right people. I have a good friend now. He’s also living near Stuttgart.

I just wrote him on Instagram that he… I saw that this guy launching a new club show in Stuttgart and just wrote him on Instagram and just introduced me what I made the last years and what is my biography. And said, can I be part of your new show?

And because of him, I played great shows in Stuttgart with Michael Velo or Destik who are well-known in the industry. And for me, it’s crazy to connect with these people I looked up years ago and just see the progress.

[Darran]
Yeah, collaborations like that when reaching out to people, you never know. I think there’s the saying, and I don’t know who I should quote for this, but you miss 100% of the shots you never take.

[KHAG3]
Yeah.

[Darran]
And you never know when you just reach out to that person, they might be really cool and say, hey, come on over, let’s talk. And they might be being hit up by a million people. Maybe they’re being hit up by 10,000.

Maybe they’re being hit up by a hundred. But just that one time and they’re like, yeah, sure, I’ll give you some feedback. Or yeah, let’s collab.

Or yeah, I’m doing a show and I’d love to have you on it. Or hey, would you wanna help me produce this show? And all of a sudden it turns into a bigger thing where you’re now producing this show with somebody and doing a weekly or monthly show with them.

And you never know in this day and age. I don’t know how often, have you ever played the States before? Have you ever played in the United States?

[KHAG3]
No, no, no.

[Darran]
So if you’ve never played in the United States and I was doing the traditional way that I did the show and only talked and interviewed people that came to Seattle, Washington, or maybe came to the States, how about going to Amsterdam? We never would have had this interview if it wasn’t for the technology we have today. And reaching out via email and saying, hey, would you like to be a guest on our show?

Absolutely, yes. And you say, yes. And here we are.

I’m in Seattle and you’re in Germany. And that’s kind of crazy. Speaking of, it leads right into my next question.

You’re from Germany, one of the most important countries for electronic music worldwide. Is there another country that stands in high regard or stands out to you for your type of music or for electronic music that you think is also top out there?

[KHAG3]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think for bass house, really France is a country who made big steps to the house movement with artists like Charmy or Mala. France have really nice artists who invented new genres.

I think bass house is a new genre because the first bass house track of Future House also from Charmy were invented in eight years ago. So yeah, I think France is very, very important for the house music scene. And in countries like Sweden or Norway or Dutch, it’s very important because the people are really supporting each other in this countries.

And that’s a thing we in Germany should more learn from it because here’s everyone is a little bit egoism or yeah. Egoist and yeah, that’s, it’s hard to find real people who really want to be, who really interested to do, to bring your career further together in Germany because there’s a lot, yeah.

[Darran]
It’s not just Germany.

[KHAG3]
Yeah, okay, okay, okay.

[Darran]
There was a meme the other day that I saw and it says European DJs and they’re all kind of pushing each other up the ladder. And it’s like American DJs and they’re kicking them off the hill and knocking them down and knocking them out. So you have the same problem, yeah.

It’s the same problem. It happens, competition’s competition and people are trying to climb that ladder. And I’ve always had a philosophy here at the DJ sessions and previously when it was ITV, my broadcast television series that I will give anyone information 98%, now it’s 99% because I got hit up for a lot of information in 2020 on how to produce live streaming shows.

And a lot of DJs and a lot of producers were wanting to do their own thing. And I’m like, why are you wanting to do your own thing? Why don’t you just work with me?

Because we already have the infrastructure and everything ready to go. So now I shortened it to 99%, no, I’m sorry, 97% I’ll give away. The only thing I won’t give away is my Rolodex, my contact database, anything of that or free promotions necessarily.

Because it’s like, no, you wanna go do your own thing, you go through the trials and tribulations and the pitfalls that I would do. If you need technical information on what kind of camera to get, what kind of microphone to buy, what kind of software to use, I’ll give that away all day long. But if you wanna like, hey Darran, can you help promote my show to your 5,000 contacts or to your 10,000 contact email database?

And he’s like, no, no, can I get access to that? No, and I don’t sell off my database to anyone. I don’t trade that off to anyone.

That’s been a hard labor of love to put all that together. But here’s something, this leads right into my next question is if you could change one thing that bothers you from the electronic music scene, what would that be and how would you go around it?

[KHAG3]
Yeah, that thing I mentioned before, I think that’s a big problem. And maybe that everything is so, sometimes it’s so exclusive. Everything is more, gets more distant to the music.

It’s more show. And yesterday I saw on post from DJ Mag Germany, I think, where this, which said that, who was it? A big DJ will ban smartphones from shows so you can’t film.

James Hype. Yeah, I think it was James Hype. And that’s also a thing I really don’t like that everyone is consuming the show through the life, through their smartphones.

Yeah, I think that more focus on the music and less on the parts besides that.

[Darran]
So they’ve done a couple shows here. I’ve heard them doing it at other nightclubs that they’ll put your phone in a sealed bag and you come into the club, you’re not allowed to have a cell phone in the club. They’ve done a few shows.

They’ve been successful. And you’re right, but you get a lot of people that are doing this. And they’re filming the show and it’s not an accurate representation of the sound quality.

It’s not an accurate representation. The lighting is poor. It’s not good to film in.

And they’re sharing this online. But the biggest one that I’ve heard is when all the people are pulling out their phones and they’re taking pictures of the DJ. And imagine if I go something like this and somebody gets a picture of me from this side and it may look like I’m scratching my nose up on stage, but from this angle, it may be look like I’m picking my nose.

And they say, oh my God, I caught a picture of this DJ picking their nose on stage. And that picture goes viral with 10,000 people talking about the DJ. It’s like, I was scratching my nose on stage.

You know, I just happened to go like this or something, you know, or just that candid look. And so, you know, I’m on the fence. Let the phones in or let them in or don’t let them in.

And, you know, I think what a really cool thing would be if they still have those disposable cameras, I don’t know if they even sell those anymore, but if you let everyone check their phones in and sold disposable cameras and let those people develop the film from the disposable cameras, you know, I think that would kind of be really cool because you’re capturing that one picture and they might get some good pictures out of it. They might get some bad pictures out of it or even make it part of the ticket price that you get a disposable camera as you come in and then you turn that camera in and it maybe has a number on it. And then all the pictures from the good pictures from all those get uploaded to the site.

Maybe you also get a downloaded copy of all the pictures that you took. I think that could be a very interesting thing. It reminds me that the Beastie Boys did an experiment.

I don’t think it was an experiment. It was planned. They were doing a concert.

The concert was in the round and they handed out, I can’t remember how many video cameras they handed out, but I think it was something like 25 or 30 video cameras. They handed out to different audience members and they let those audience members film the show with their video cameras. This is way before I think iPhones even were out.

And then they came back, got the footage from those people and then made the music video of the audience perspective of all these cameras from all over the arena. That was kind of really a cool experiment. It would be interesting to see more things like that happening.

I’ll take a picture or two here or there of a big concert, like the stage. But when I’m at a show, I’m at a club, I’m not pulling out my phone to take a picture of the DJ or try to get up the booth and be like, yo, take a selfie. I respect the artists in that fashion.

Yeah, absolutely.

[KHAG3]
I think if you’re doing a picture or a short video or something like this, no problem. But today there are people who are filming the whole show from the beginning to the end and just watching it through their smartphone and don’t really enjoying the moment and the whole show. And I don’t know how often do they really watch the videos they made.

I don’t think it’s that much.

[Darran]
That you couldn’t have said it better. It’s like going back and, I’m gonna film the fireworks show on my phone. You’re gonna go back and watch the fireworks show on your phone and be like, or you’re gonna share it online and somebody’s gonna go, okay, let me watch the whole 45 minute fireworks show.

Yeah, that just doesn’t happen and people don’t think that they think. And I come from a world of playing with video cameras since the age of six. I’ve been doing this for 42 years of video in my life.

And people didn’t start doing this until you got smartphones. I mean, unless you had a video camera, but even if you had the video camera, you’re filming it, you’re filming it, you’re filming it. You’re gonna bring it back home and put the tape in the VCR and hit play and say, this is the fireworks show that I watched.

Everyone’s gonna be sitting there going, okay, okay, you’re watching home movies. It wasn’t until Apple really came out. I mean, once the industry went digital in the sense of things, I mean, even mini DV, you could put stuff into iMovie or you could put stuff in the Final Cut Pro and edit it.

That was a huge transformation as well because it gave that home movie enthusiast the way to shorten their movies down. So it wasn’t this big, long 45 minute, look what we did in France or look what we did in Germany. They could say, here are some highlights from France.

Here are some highlights from Germany. Here’s gonna make a nice little short presentation. People go, hey, that’s really cool.

Also distribution was key. Back when I was doing this, you couldn’t distribute to broadcast television. We had public access, but there was no YouTube.

YouTube came out and people had cameras like, look, I got a TV show now. I’m on YouTube. I got a podcast.

And it’s like, but where’s your quality? What’s your distribution? What’s your plan?

What are you doing here? So all that was interesting to see come out. But moving along here, what’s the weirdest moment you’ve ever heard one of your own tunes play?

[KHAG3]
You mean when a weird moment when the song came up or something like that?

[Darran]
Like if you were out and about or in another country or walking around, what’s the weirdest moment you’ve ever heard one of your songs play? Maybe you were in a club and a DJ dropped it or you weren’t expecting to hear it.

[KHAG3]
I don’t have a good story for that. I don’t know. No, there wasn’t any moment I thought just in clubs and on other mixes from other DJs, get a lot of support from other podcasts.

But yeah, now I didn’t have a moment where I thought, oh, that’s crazy or something like that. But I think if the first time when I’m sitting in a bar in another country and my track will come up, there will be a special moment.

[Darran]
Nice, nice. And now when you’re putting sets together, do you follow the charts or what’s hot? Like, oh, I’m listening to Beatport.

I’m gonna grab the top three songs off Beatport and put those in your mix or do you follow your heart?

[KHAG3]
Yeah, absolutely follow my heart. It depends on what music I hear in this moment on the last days or in which feeling I am. Oh yeah, I think that’s a special thing when you come to my sets, you never know which set will await you.

It really depends on how I feel when I made the set. There are sets who are more aggressive, but also more, I really like to put a break into my set where 10 or 15 minutes slow music will come up and you can really enjoy the whole club, the lights, the people around you. Yeah, so, but Beatport is a good thing.

You can get inspiration from that source, but I will never do a mix where I just mix the 10 best bass house tracks. That’s not what a DJ should do, but maybe that’s something a lot of people think you should do when you are DJing. I think a lot of people just think, okay, I’m going to listen to the charts and when I play the first 10 tracks, it will be the best set people ever heard, but it doesn’t work like that.

[Darran]
That’s probably what I would do, because I’m not a DJ. I just play one on TV. Okay.

What would you say is an essential track that is out right now that no one should miss out on and why? Something that you might say, I am playing this right now. This is the top number one track.

It’s awesome. What track would that be?

[KHAG3]
I really love to play the tracks from Chime’s last album, Year Zero. It’s already two years out, but the tracks are still insane and I love to play them on my sets. And of course for now, it’s Fred again, like the track Delilah, Pull Me Out of This.

These are really tracks who really working really nice on the dance floor because everyone knows them and everyone connecting own story to them, to these tracks. Yes, I really, and I’m not only playing the newer tracks when I do my sets. I also play older tracks because I think that’s also a problem in the music, in the house music industry or in the EDM industry.

You’re doing a new, you’re releasing a new track and two weeks later, it’s old. So I like to break this thing and I want to play tracks where released two, three, four years ago, because a lot of people have more feelings to this track because they are grown with this track or had stories to this track, yeah.

[Darran]
Awesome. Okay, here’s the question I ask everyone. And this is, we were talking about technology earlier.

It’s a little off of top, but have you looked at doing anything in virtual reality? No, not bad.

[KHAG3]
I know that you are doing something like that.

[Darran]
I got to do that shameless self plug there. No, I mean, I think that’s gonna be a very, that’s an untapped medium. If you look at podcasting and you look at live streaming, virtual reality, if you’re not looking at doing something in VR now or even just exploring it, I think a lot of people are gonna be left behind when it goes and blows up.

You know, obviously we have our VR nightclub. We had to move our VR nightclub over to VR chat. It’s called Beta nightclub in VR chat.

Go check it out. This interview is being streamed live in that nightclub right now. Okay.

Yeah, so I mean, we can, all our live streams, our exclusive mixes, all go up in there. We’re super excited to be launching that. As a matter of fact, I have my Oculus sitting right here.

I got to get the Oculus 3 when it comes out. Super excited for that. And then where VR is gonna go and what you’re gonna be able to do and collaborate in VR, what music creation is gonna look like in VR, because you can do kind of what’s spatial audio.

So you can have one sound come over here and then another sound come over here. You can basically play around and have everything going around. Like make your own music, like you’re running a symphony, but there’s so much potential that I think that VR is gonna have.

Even augmented reality or AR, once the glasses come out, whenever Apple releases their glasses and you could go to a concert and you’re on or go to a show and you’re on stage and you’ve programmed that stage with an AR experience that transforms the room. But if I’m not wearing the glasses, I can’t see it. If I put those on and now there’s birds flying through the air and dolphins going in there, the roof is like the Milky Way galaxy.

You can hit this button here to buy my T-shirt or hit this button here to download this album and buy it. That’s gonna be AR, which I think is gonna be really, really awesome in that sense. Or XR too, which is crossover, but we won’t go down that rabbit hole.

Just wanted to see if you ever had anything to do in VR. We’d love to have you play in the club. Speaking of, you just played a live set from a pool party that we’re gonna use as an exclusive mix.

Tell us about that.

[KHAG3]
Yeah. I was on Rodas Greece weeks ago and with my friends and we started a pool party and we had a really nice villa where we lived there. And this villa really had a really nice view over the sea, over the Faleeraki city.

And I wanted to use it for a special live set. And you wrote some weeks ago, mailed me that you would like to play interview me again and maybe have a mix again. And this was a perfect timing for me to record that.

And I think the special thing at this live set is that we have filmed it from two cameras, two perspectives. One is just filming me and the other one is filming the pool area and where people are drinking and having fun and going to the pool, jumping into the pool. So I think just doing another mix.

Last time I did it from South Tarot, but just doing another live mix where you only see me could be a bit boring. It would be more interesting to see what is going around the area. So I think this one is really special, really, really nice to watch.

And yeah, I hope it will be out soon.

[Darran]
Awesome. A couple last follow-up questions. How do you envision your life 10 years from now?

Where do you see KHAG3 10 years from now?

[KHAG3]
From now. I hope playing a lot of different countries, different shows in different clubs. For me, it’s not important to be the number one DJ Mac, DJ or something like that.

For me, it’s more important just to bring the music to a lot of people in different areas to spread my music more to other countries, to other people. Yeah, that would be amazing if I play in 10 or just can live from the music in 10 years and make my money with the music. That would be amazing.

[Darran]
Awesome. Well, I wish you all the best of luck in doing that. Is there anything else you wanna say to our DJ Sessions fans before we let you go?

[KHAG3]
Just to check out my new EP, which is coming out next month. It’s really a special one. Check out my last tracks, of course.

And if you like good music, follow my podcast, The Breakout. You will find it on Apple Podcast, Amazon Podcast and other sources. And yeah, it was really nice to talk to you again now.

[Darran]
Absolutely, KHAG3. We’ll definitely be following up with you, staying in touch with you. It was a pleasure having you on the show again.

Where’s the best places that people can find out more information about KHAG3?

[KHAG3]
On my website, KHAG3.com, or on Instagram, KHAG3 Official, or just type in KHAG3, yeah, K-H-A-G-3, yeah.

[Darran]
Well, we dropped those links there right below you. There’s the website again, and the Instagram. Thank you so much, KHAG3, for coming on the show.

It was a pleasure having you. Thank you, Darran. Talking to you again in the future.

Okay, thank you, Darran. Thank you. You’re welcome.

On that note, don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com, where you can follow us on Twitter, Twitch, TikTok, X, no, sorry, I can’t say Twitter anymore. It’s X. Instagram, it’s all there.

Amazon, subscribe to our podcast at Apple iTunes. Everything we do is at thedjsessions.com. Go there.

Over 600 news stories published every month related to the electronic music industry. Exclusive mixes from DJs like KHAG3. Live interviews.

Everything is there at thedjsessions.com. Go there and get some merch while you’re at it. We always use the donations.

This is Darran coming to you from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington. That’s KHAG3 coming to you from Stuttgart, Germany for the virtual sessions. And remember, on the DJ sessions, the music never stops.