Martin Eyerer on the Virtual Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions 7/16/24

In this captivating Virtual Session, Darran Bruce reconnects with Berlin-based DJ, producer, label owner, and entrepreneur Martin Eyerer. With a career spanning over three decades, Martin shares his journey through the evolving electronic music scene, from producing soulful organic tech house to running the renowned Kling Klong Records. He discusses his early days of starting the label to maintain creative control, its catalog of over 140 releases, and the relaunch that’s brought renewed momentum.

 

Martin offers a deep look into Riverside Studios, the collaborative Berlin music hub he co-founded. Home to 60 artists across 27 studios, Riverside fosters creativity by mixing genres, connecting talent, and partnering with industry heavyweights like Native Instruments. He explains how this environment sparks spontaneous collaborations—like his latest release with Namito—and how they’re expanding into streaming and live events.

 

The conversation moves into industry insights, from the shift in DJ bookings toward social media engagement over chart success, to the importance of networking and maintaining artistic authenticity. Martin also reveals his work on Fanbase, a B2B platform empowering artists to control their own communities and data.

 

Balancing his seven companies with selective DJ performances, Martin shares his love for intimate club sets, his views on keeping productions simple, and his passion for fostering innovation beyond music. His advice for aspiring artists: never give up, nurture your network, and split your focus equally between creating and marketing your music.

 

Host: Darran Bruce
Guest: Martin Eyerer
Location: Virtual Studios, Seattle WA & Berlin, Germany

Overview:
Darran Bruce sits down with Martin Eyerer to explore his multi-faceted career as a DJ, producer, label owner, studio founder, and tech entrepreneur.

Topics Covered:

• Organic Tech House: Defining his sound and creative approach
• Collaboration with Namito: Origins of their latest release with Emil Roma
• Riverside Studios: 27-studio creative hub with diverse artists and industry partners
• Event Expansion: Plans for streaming setups, showcases, and live concerts
• Kling Klong Records: 20-year history, 140+ releases, and recent relaunch
• The Plink Plonk Show: Weekly radio program featuring fresh mixes
• Fanbase Platform: Giving artists control over their communities and data
• Industry Shift: From chart-driven bookings to social media engagement metrics
• DJ Preferences: Love for 500-capacity clubs and select festival appearances
• Global Highlights: Berlin’s 108 clubs, gigs in Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo
• Production Philosophy: Keeping music simple and soulful
• Tech Setup: Primarily software-based with Ableton Live
• VR & Innovation: Thoughts on virtual events and Ravespace.io
• Networking: Building trusted connections as the key to long-term success
• Advice to Artists: Never give up, focus on both music and marketing equally

Call to Action:
Follow Martin Eyerer on Instagram @martineyerer and visit riversidestudios.de for more.
Discover more interviews at thedjsessions.com

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions Presents, The Virtual Sessions. Hi, I’m your host, Darran, and right now I’m sitting in the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington on a beautiful sunny day, looking out of the south side of Seattle. And now I gotta always remember to turn off my video chat platforms that I’m monitoring on because we are now streaming live to Instagram and that was from my phone monitoring Instagram thing if you heard that in the background.

Anyways, coming to you from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington with none other than Martin Eyerer coming in from Berlin, Germany. I got that right, didn’t I, Martin?

[Martin Eyerer]
Absolutely, what an introduction. Thanks to be back again there, Darran.

[Darran]
Yeah, we haven’t talked since I think June of 2022. I was looking it up. You know, things are just starting to kind of get back out there in the world and now we’re catching up again.

I’m glad to have you on the show. I still wanna make it over to Germany and come tour your studio facility. We’ll be talking a little bit about that.

I remember when I was looking up doing the research on you online today and I pulled up Riverside Studios and I was like, oh, my next dream vacation. I wanna get there and come back.

[Martin Eyerer]
You said that last time already, but you didn’t show up yet.

[Darran]
I didn’t show up, no, we went, I think ADE was the first time we went. We went in 2022 and we went in 2023. So I may or may not do ADE this year, but I am looking to go other places in Europe.

Riverside would be one of the first places I stop by. I wanna do France, Germany, Italy is probably what I’ll do and probably go over to, you know, I have never been to Ibiza, so I definitely want to try to get there.

[Martin Eyerer]
I know it’s summertime right now. But I’ll tell you something, there is no other city like Berlin when it comes to electronic music. You know that, and club culture.

108 clubs, music techno clubs here in that city.

[Darran]
Wow.

[Martin Eyerer]
Yeah, you heard the number. It’s 108.

[Darran]
Wow, we have 10. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

[Martin Eyerer]
There is 30, that’s an official number actually. It’s interesting. 30% of the tourists coming to Berlin.

And that’s like, we constantly have 1 million tourists in the city coming because of the club life and the club scene and the culture here.

[Darran]
Wow, how big is Berlin actually? What’s the population there?

[Martin Eyerer]
It’s four US cities. It’s small, it’s 4 million people.

[Darran]
Okay.

[Martin Eyerer]
Not that big, but by size, like not by inhabitants or citizens, it’s the largest city after London and all over Europe.

[Darran]
Wow, okay, okay.

[Martin Eyerer]
And it’s growing fast. But for, you know, if you look at the US cities, 4 million is nothing.

[Darran]
Is there a better time to go to Berlin of the year? Is summertime better than wintertime? Or is it like, I mean, is there a moderate time?

[Martin Eyerer]
Spring and autumn. Spring and autumn, the thing is, summer can be hard too. This summer, not so much actually, it’s weird.

[Darran]
Okay.

[Martin Eyerer]
But it’s really hot. And Berlin, the nice thing is we’re pretty far east. That means in summer, the day starts at 4.30 and ends at 11, so there’s really long days. Okay. So it’s the opposite in winter where it’s dark and reminds me kind of, I don’t know, New York. But even worse actually, it’s dark.

But summer, spring, autumn, beautiful.

[Darran]
Nice, yeah, that’s what I’d wanna get. Probably maybe this autumn then. I’ll look forward to setting something out because I’d love to get out there and maybe even do some onsite interviews at the studios with you.

[Martin Eyerer]
Absolutely, absolutely. We have 60 artists in our community. So there should be enough people to do proper interviews for you.

[Darran]
That would be awesome. And maybe we can set up, if you have some nightclub contacts, get out there and get behind the scenes, out in the street. I’d love to plan a week out there and come.

You know what, that might be my trip this year. Maybe I’ll skip ADE and just come out to Riverside. Or are you gonna do ADE this year?

[Martin Eyerer]
No, I don’t think so. Actually, I haven’t done ADE since a while. I have to say that.

I mean, it’s always nice. Don’t get me wrong. It’s cool to show up.

But on the other hand, it’s always like, you know, all these people, I meet them frequently, I speak to them. And yeah, again, it’s nice to have some party and refresh personal connections other than calls, definitely. But then there’s so much to do and I’m doing so many things.

So every year I’m like, okay, this year I’m gonna go and then there’s other stuff around. So let’s see.

[Darran]
Yeah, I hear you. No, I hear you. Like I said, I need to put some more stamps in my passport anyway.

So I’d probably just love to come out to Germany and then go to Berlin and then hop, skip and jump over to France, Paris or something and then maybe get to Spain or Italy and one of those two and do like a good two, two and a half weeks trip over there doing some onsite on the ground international interviews. I love doing those. Anyways, we’re not here about my travel plans.

We’re here to talk to you about what you got going on. If we’re gonna start out, if you could describe the music that you produce in three words, what would you call it?

[Martin Eyerer]
Organic tech house. That’s three words, right?

[Darran]
Yeah, organic tech house. I love it.

[Martin Eyerer]
Yeah, it’s a, I think I’ve been doing tech house all my life. You know, the thing is, how do you define tech house? If you go to people and look under tech house is not what I’m doing.

I mean, with tech house, it’s really literally a mix between techno music and house and house stands for the more groovy side of things, has to have a little bit soul and techno stands for bit more uptempo, bit more minimalistic in terms of what happens within the track by a progression or by, yeah, like music as a tool. So I’m always moving in between, let’s say the two poles. Sometimes I could be more on the techy side of things and I did releases on, I don’t know, PanPops label and so forth, but then I could be really on the groovy side with some melodic stuff.

So I’m always moving in between these, but there’s one thing in common. I try to make music and also to play music that always has kind of some soul inside, you know, not just average, whatever, fast foodie, big impact stuff. I try to really, yeah, I love stuff that has soul.

That’s actually it.

[Darran]
And your recent release, that just came out of the first of the month, a collaboration with you and is it Namito? Or Namito?

[Martin Eyerer]
Yeah, it’s Namito, Namito, which, Yeah. Yeah, that’s, you could call it a bit more commercial, but not in a negative way, I think. It’s a typical track.

And Namito is one of my oldest friends. He’s a Berlin legend DJ. And we’ve been doing for, I don’t know, two decades music together.

He recently became actually really, really successful in the Iranian community. Meanwhile, he plays a lot of US, Canada shows. He sells really, like he sells out.

You can tell a lot of people from that, yeah, community come. And he stands lately for more, a little bit more for the groovy stuff and super successful. And yeah, we did a studio session as we do since ages from time to time.

We came up with a nice baseline and that was a moment where a singer came across in Riverside and Riverside Studios is a community of 60 people. So there’s sometimes people even hanging out who are in the community, but they’re not running a studio with us. And there was a singer, Emil Roma, and we said, hey man, maybe you have an idea.

And he wrote something. And so that one thing came after the other. We actually literally, when we produced the track in the morning, I ran out of the studio 6 a.m. And one level above, there’s a pretty good label, which is Embassy Record, Embassy One. And the founder just came across to start working in the morning and said, hey man, what’s up? I said, I’ve just come from a really cool session. Let me hear it.

So I played him on the phone and he kind of signed it. So that’s that release actually.

[Darran]
Awesome, and that’s what’s cool about such, having such an awesome studio space and being able to have artists just walk through, hang out, and it looks like that kind of space where you can just grab somebody. Somebody can be out in one of the rooms doing some vocal practicing and go, get in here, we want you on a track. Is that kind of the synergy that happens at Riverside?

[Martin Eyerer]
Riverside Studios is really about from day one, if you classically think of studios, you might think of all these Abbey Roads and all the big guys in LA and wherever. But the thing is, what we built is a music community with, well, it was first about the people, our friends. We were three friends who just wanted to build a studio for ourselves.

And then everyone would call us and ask, hey, do you have more space? And that’s why I was like, why not having more cool people around us? Just because we like to be with a lot of cool people and something, yeah, like something started in this 12 years ago.

And meanwhile, we have these 27 music studios, but we far more than music plays. We have a collaboration with the New York University, with SAE Institute. We have the GEMA, that’s the publishing, the rights company for authors in Germany, the association that have their first studio with us.

We have collaborations, music tech industry, like Native Instruments, or Moog had sometime a studio with us. So we are far more than just a studio location, but at the end, it’s more about the people and the curation we put in. So we wanna have first people who we really like personally, but then we want to have a diverse community, which we have, there’s people, they do film, people, they do hip hop, but we have also someone like Richie Hawtin in the studio.

So it’s across the board, across all genres. We have female producers who really look like to have some more female artists with us. So the mix makes it.

And then when you have this community and people have trust, then these collaborations that was you asked me, that starts because everyone trusts each other. It doesn’t matter if you’re a jazz musician or a techno DJ, everyone is open to check what you do. Maybe you have a cool idea and that’s what we all love about that place.

[Darran]
Yeah, I mean, that would be always the dream that I wanted was to have a studio space with multiple studios that could be doing multiple live streaming shows as like a place where people could come and have their works, their shows produced and do something everyone could collaborate kind of together whether it’s a DJ show, prediction show, a cooking show, a band show, a variety shows and basically make our own live streaming studios where people could disseminate their work. I mean, now everyone kind of got the bid and during Pandy started doing it from home, but I would love to come down and like I said, come visit you someday to see the inner workings of Riverside. That seems like such an amazing creative space and congratulations on keeping that going.

How long has that been around for?

[Martin Eyerer]
We’re 12 years, but just let me add something. We have this one bigger space which can be used as a bigger recording room, but we use it for a certain event like listening sessions with the industry. We had lately a listening session with the Gorillaz where was Ed O’Brien guitarist from Radiohead did a mini show.

We had a Spotify showcase with streaming with Katy Perry, stuff like that. So what we just think into, it’s not just thinking, we actually plan it. Hit it out with a proper streaming setup so people could exactly do what you’re saying.

They could book us also to stream a mini show with up to maybe 100 people as a mini concert or interview situation or podcast stuff. But it’s actually what we’re looking into.

[Darran]
And to find out more information about that, they just go to riversidesstudios.de, find out more information about that. We’ll bring that back up on the show in a little bit, but let’s get back to talking about Martin and what Martin does. We can talk about Riverside, its own show on its own all day long.

Do you ever make music completely out of your own genre that never gets released?

[Martin Eyerer]
That’s a good question. The question is not if it gets released, the question is when does it get released? Because sometimes I go to my studio and meanwhile I’m running seven different companies.

So I’m not at the core living just for music anymore. I do other things because I was curious on other things and music play a role in there, but I do other things and I have people working for me. So there’s a lot of time in my life that goes, I’m also involved in a political party here.

So I do a lot of things. But I figured that making music is something that is really such a part of myself that I should not forget it. And there was a time I kind of forgot it a little bit, did not do much, but since, I don’t know, eight, nine months, I’m heavily going or try to go at least two times a week into the studio and I’m just starting stuff or working on stuff.

And I found a lot of stuff on my hard drive that I want to start and think, oh, wow, it’s really not bad, let’s work on that. And I think once I could focus on it, I get it somehow released because first I have one label I own, it’s King Kong Records, but then I’m involved in two other labels. One is the Ackermann Ignite Records.

And yeah, then I have other friends who run labels. So I think usually if I’m happy with the track, I either find someone who likes the track and say, yeah, let’s release it, or I could always release it by myself. So there is not that much what I have that is not released actually.

Or I work as long as it gets there.

[Darran]
What’s the longest time you’ve ever consecutively spent working in the studio on a track?

[Martin Eyerer]
I never work, I never overdo tracks actually. I have to say that because I believe if you over-engineer music, it becomes mainly not better. There might be people who are good at that, but I personally figured out sometimes keep things simple is actually the hardest part.

And I think the more advanced producer you are, the more you master that challenge, keep things simple. It’s not a general thing to everything, but mainly if you look into really good, successful electronic music tracks, they appear simple. It doesn’t mean that they’re really simple, but I see when you work and work on music, you tend to add stuff and add stuff, and that doesn’t make tracks better.

You can work long time on vocal editing, and that is something that just consumes time, right? And I’m usually working sometimes with partners and people, not always by myself because I like collaboration and I have friends that say, I don’t know if you know Jiggler. Jiggler is a really, really cool tech house producer too.

I love the way he works. He’s an amazing producer, and we work a track together at the moment, and he’s so much into details that sometimes even it clashes between him and me in a positive way, and he just wants to work and work on this small thing and this small thing, but usually I don’t do that. So to answer your question, I don’t know.

If you ask me really into hours and days since I’m 35 years producer, I’m way faster in things that I know in my head. I want to sound like X, Y, Z, and I can twist and turn the synth, and I know where to get, let’s say 10 years ago, that would have taken double the amount of time. So I would say by average, I work on a track maximum four days, five days maximum.

That’s the maximum, but that could be, there is a week in between or three because I just keep the thing. That’s also something by the way, that is really good. You start something, you feel the energy, and then maybe leave it somewhere because if you come back with a fresh mind, and I’m not meaning next day, four weeks later, two months later, you can charge it better actually, and I personally tend to, I don’t like the stuff so much anymore if I work three days in a row, but sometimes you do that, but that’s okay.

[Darran]
Now, you mentioned a little bit, we’ll talk about this, Kling Klong Records. And Kling Klong Records is obviously labeled, but you also have a show. We’re gonna talk about those in two separate parts here.

Tell us about Kling Klong Records and what one can expect. Is there a specific genre that Kling Klong Records is known for or what? When did you start Kling Klong and what is that all about?

[Martin Eyerer]
I started Kling Klong Records around 20 years ago actually. The reason was I was a bit tired of sending to people demos and then I get feedback, which is always fair to give feedback, but when I thought or think a track is right and I play it, I would love not to change it, you know? So you have to release it by yourself and take the risk also of running a label because everyone has their point when they run a label that they have an idea of what has been released there, but it clashes when you think as a producer, I believe in the track as it is.

So I started the track and there was a time where there was label Great Stuff Records that had a really successful period and it was around 2001, 2002, they had like proper worldwide club hits and they were friends also, the guys who ran that label. So I decided to run a label and ask them to be my partner and that’s how I partnered up, teamed up with them because they were really experienced in distribution, marketing, bringing the music to the right, into the right channels and yeah, making it successful and we started a really successful collaboration. We had really proper, successful tracks on Plink Plonk Records in the last 20 years.

I think the most selling record still is from Ninetoes, Finder, if you Google the track, it is every year the most played Ibiza record. Like really, there’s even Celtic, I think Celtic Glasgow Football Club, they sing the song in the stadium as their football chant, it’s crazy. Hal Cox plays the track Up and Down since years, that’s maybe the most successful track we had on Plink Plonk, sorry there’s a doorbell.

If you ask me actually what’s the sound, it is tech house, what I said before. Actually, it’s exactly the same explanation. It’s tech house music and I did a break with the label because I was a bit of uninspired to release music and around six months ago, I mean, I did some releases of my own stuff but we were not really putting out a lot of records.

We have more than 100 releases. Meanwhile, I don’t know, we have 130 or 140 releases and I reset up the label six or seven months ago because Great Stuff Records, the old team, kind of they stopped the label, they sold everything. So I did that with another partner and yeah, like six to seven months ago, I decided to restart the label and I did that and so we had since then seven or eight proper releases, doing well, we received some nice Spotify playlists, nice DJ feedback, so it’s fun.

[Darran]
And you know, in addition to the Plink Plonk records, there’s also a show that you produce. Is that a podcast series? I think I saw you had, earlier this year, had episode 389, is that correct?

[Martin Eyerer]
It’s actually a radio show. I started in a FM station. It used to be Germany’s largest private FM station, definitely in dance music.

The show used to have 200,000 listeners, always per show live and I did this 10 years in a row. I drove my car to another city where the station was, South Germany and Sunday evening, I had guests, all the DJs but then I became really busy by flying as a DJ around the globe and I couldn’t do it live anymore so I switched to a recorded setup in the beginning with a lot of talks and moderation like you do but also I had to skip that part because I was simply not able to serve it but I still do the show, present every week, a fresh DJ mix, look into, and you know it, it’s a lot of preparation to look into the tracks. I never play tracks twice. Always wanna present new stuff, maybe unreleased so there’s a lot of editorial work before I do a mix of one hour and I still have that show so why I called it Plink Plonk Show because naturally I wanted to connect it to the label I do.

[Darran]
Absolutely. You know, outside of Plink Plonk Records, what are your current top five record labels that are pushing out quality releases? If you could go to outside of your own, say, I like what these top five are doing.

Do you have five you can name off?

[Martin Eyerer]
That’s a really tough question because You don’t wanna make any enemies. You know, it’s always a hard question. What are your top five gigs?

What are your top most played tracks? I mean, that’s easy, you can look in your statistics but you know, stuff like that because when you name one or two, you forget or it looks like you don’t give the appreciation to a few others. So I could not really name these five.

I have like a lot of producers I like so much like Jiggler was the one I just mentioned because they do this kind of amazing production quality which I personally love. I love to have great production sound when you play in the studio or should you listen to it. But there’s a few other people and I find it really hard these days to really find new music because you could miss a lot of music because there’s so much out and to find in this incredible amount of even already promos I’m receiving and then if I would go to Beatport or to other track stores or whatever, it’s really hard to find your way through.

So I guess the way how you ask about your favorite labels, it makes it easier because that’s kind of a curation you could give to but I’m trying to listen to a lot of promos I’m receiving every week, skip them through a little bit. If something talks to me, I would pick it up but there’s all time producers like Radio Slave or I don’t know, there’s maybe Masioplex or like really, really good producers on top level. I always like what they do, I have to say that.

[Darran]
Fair enough, I didn’t mean to put you in the hot seat there and get you in trouble with anyone.

[Martin Eyerer]
You know, I name five and then I receive 20 calls, hey, what did you say here, where’s my label?

[Darran]
I know what you mean, I know what you mean. It’s so hard for me because people obviously over the years have asked me, what is your favorite or most memorable episode of the DJ sessions? And it’s like, I have 2,500 episodes plus, when can I ever pick which is my favorite?

I go, every single one of them is my favorite episode. And again, if I had to choose what are my other top shows I listen to, that’d be really tough because you’re right, my goal as an executive producer producing an online stream, I give respect to anyone who’s out there attempting to do a live streaming show. Doesn’t have to be top level production, it could be just you’re starting to do it and being there as part of the community to help support them if they reached out and said, hey, what kind of cameras are you using?

What kind of microphone are you using? How do I get more audience or what do I do to this? I’m always there to help support whether they’re just starting out or if they’re way up at the top.

So again, I can understand how it’d be definitely hard to choose that. I wanna shift the issue.

[Martin Eyerer]
You know, Darran, just rethinking, so to interrupt you, if I think 35 years playing music, there’s so much good music out there and a lot of great producers just disappeared. I don’t know, Patrick Chardonnay, Guido Schneider, Martin Lansky, and I could name like, I don’t know, a big role for, they just disappeared or they do something else that didn’t disappear. But if I look back, there’s so much of great music and great production and also like times where you have a little bit more focus on that kind of music, but producers also maybe change the way how they, where they’re now, some get more melodic.

So yeah, it’s just too much to really pick five out of them. Sorry for that.

[Darran]
There may be something here. Am I gonna go right into our next question? The next question I’m gonna ask you here is tell our DJ Sessions fans about Fanbase, the community app.

What’s that all about?

[Martin Eyerer]
I figured more and more out one thing is we artists, and I remember when there was MySpace, maybe not a lot of you here in the stream remember that. It’s long time ago. Was the beginning of social media.

Yeah, of course you do. And I remember then something like Facebook came up, right? And I missed the point because to switch all my fans to Facebook in the beginning, and I came late to the show because there is, well, there’s no way not to do it as we all know, right?

But it was not clear in that moment. So after some time you bring, I think now I have a couple of, I don’t know, 100,000, I have 100,000 followers on Facebook. So I brought my fans to another platform and suddenly this platform finds their business model.

They make me pay for reaching out to my own fans. And there’s something wrong in this system, right? It’s like, wow, how, why should I pay you money?

And then you show 10% or 5% of the people I brought to you as new customers and new clients, then my content goes to them. And I have a business partner who runs one of the biggest education platforms in Europe at least. And we sat down and said, can we turn this around?

Because we artists, we still can bring our super fans to any platform. Why could it not be our own platform? Because actually that’s what we want to do.

And our own platform means we control the data insights. We own the data and no one makes us pay for it. So we developed Fanbase as a curated software solution that you bring your own app under your name.

We have a few clients like Paul Kalkbrenner. He uses our app. He can bring his own app to the app store and provide it to his super fans and can then provide his fans whatever he wants.

In his case, he gives them tickets, access to exclusive news or merchandise. But now since we reached the full scope of the product where there is a messaging and community forum functionality inside, actually we were really able to roll it properly out as we always planned, means we connect super fans in a curated way. So it’s not like you would go to the Martin Aira app if I ever would have one and you expect be entertained by content because that’s what you find on social media.

You are entertained by content. In my Fanbase app, which would be the Martin Aira app or the Riverside Studios space where we’re just working on, you find a community of other people that you can access. And that’s the reason why you go there.

That’s a different value proposition. And that’s what we developed. Took us six years to develop it, to code it.

We invested money. And yeah, we have a couple of clients and discussing other clients, not just music related. Anyone who runs a community can use our tool to invite their curated community to their own platform.

[Darran]
What’s the website people would go to to find out more information about that?

[Martin Eyerer]
It’s fanbase.de, but actually it’s a B2B product. It’s not a platform. If you, as a customer, you cannot go to a Fanbase community.

You can go to Paul Kalkbrenner tool, the app store and download his app. And that’s his Fanbase. We are just a technical solution.

We give artists and other people their platform. So if you want to do a DJ sessions platform, you would be our client. We give you the app and you find the app store.

[Darran]
Okay, that makes sense then. So B2B, not B2C, I got it. That’s awesome because that was a hangup that years ago, a lot of people built those pages on meta Facebook and then they started charging to reach your own client, to reach your own Fanbase.

And it’s like, wait a second here. I just, you know, that was just not, that wasn’t a cool move.

[Martin Eyerer]
There’s two things. What’s the difference? You know, if you do that on Facebook and you open your group, you still have no insights in the data.

Once more, you don’t know really who’s your super fan. And once more, if you want to reach out to these people, Facebook later makes you pay for it. And the second thing is, Facebook is not meant to connect these people in between them.

Like actively, why? Because you have the data and you know who lives where, who has which interests, you make trusted introductions, say, hey, you’re a fan of Darran and we know you live in Vermont. We connect these three people and you have same interests.

And that makes something and give you a forum where other people have no access because it needs a safe space. That’s actually a different offering than what Facebook does or what any social media does. Social media offers you entertainment by content.

It’s fair, that’s the product, but that’s not what we do.

[Darran]
Yeah, yeah, it’s just interesting how social media has taken that turn. You know, like you mentioned MySpace and then it was Facebook and then it got to Instagram and now there’s Snapchat and TikTok and, you know, and LinkedIn out there for business professionals. It’s just, it’s a whole mix of tools out there.

You know, I use a tool to help manage on mine called Hello Wolfie, but that’s just for social posts, you know, to get stuff out there and scheduling stuff. But that’s a whole new essence to the game. You know, I saw a pie chart of months ago, six months ago, I’ve seen a few types.

It was like a diagram that said, it was a pie chart that said how much time DJs spent on networking and how much time they spent on music production. And it was like 70% music production, 30% networking. And now I did flip the script and it’s like, how much time do DJs have to spend on social media?

And how much time do they spend producing? 70% on social media, 30% on actually producing, because they have to be out there.

[Martin Eyerer]
But you know what the point is about it? The point is, in the past, music production has been your marketing. You release records and that’s why people booked you, but that changed.

No one books you for any record anymore. We have, because I was involved in the artist agency also, we had some artists, I don’t name them, they had Beatport’s number ones a lot. Like really, they don’t get any bookings because 10 years ago, your calendar would be full, Beatport number ones.

Now, they’re not booking you because of that. Why? They say, how much is your social reach?

What’s the engagement of your fans? How many tickets will I sell? That means you need to be a professional in online marketing, social media marketing, which is the new logic that it works.

I’m not judging that. Some people do it great and it can be something people love to do. I personally don’t like it to do it, but if you don’t do it, you will not be successful anymore.

I don’t think that you can just be successful with great music. That’s not enough.

[Darran]
Yeah, and speaking of social media, I was looking at your Instagram here recently, doing the research on you before the interview and I’m gonna switch gears here just a little bit. I saw that you were behind the scenes in the studio on IG just a few weeks ago, this past video. Is that your personal studio that we saw or is that one of the Riverside studios?

[Martin Eyerer]
It’s my personal studio. I used to have 10 years, the largest studio at Riverside Studios with all the analog setup. I had mixing desk owned by Pink Floyd and analog gears and this water view, I still have it in the new studio.

And you would come and say, wow, this is a proper music studio. And then when I started to focus on other businesses, I figured out one thing, the studio most is not used, which is a pity. Second thing is I want a different setup, which is smaller and provides me what I need and I don’t need to have, because I’m not working with all these music clients anymore.

I was another reason. So I gave the studio to someone. I rented out actually.

And I decided to share the studio with two other friends. The one is Tesla from Pampod and the third one is my new partner at Riverside Studios. Because I said, you know, I’m fine to have two days a week in the studio.

I don’t need more because otherwise it would be a shame the studio is empty. So let’s throw the things together. In my case, I kept all my software, all my plugins.

I got latest MacBook Pro. I got one guitar, one microphone and one synthesizer. And that’s it.

And I took this in the new setup, which looks very clean, slick, super cool. We have still the water view, but that’s a different setup. And it feels well actually to reduce sometimes.

And that’s, yeah, it’s my studio.

[Darran]
Yeah, I was gonna ask, do you lean still in this day and age, 2024, do you use more hardware or more software in your productions or is that 50-50 still or mix?

[Martin Eyerer]
I use hardly any hardware, nearly zero. My favorite synth is Innovation Peak synthesizer, which is a, just has a hardware filter inside it. The rest is digital, just like, I like it because I know it so much.

It’s a synth that’s super versatile. I can just turn the knobs and I know exactly what will come out. But I think also the quality of software is so good and the advantage of taking this MacBook sometimes with me.

I went to Dubai for a business trip. I built my hotel studio. I love it, man.

It’s really cool. You can work really well on it. And then the most important thing in the studio, what I have is the listening situation that needs to really sound proper, gives me proper feeling.

And that is clear. You cannot save money on that. But the rest, I have to say, if you have a great audio card, I really, really think for what I’m doing, and I’m not doing this big production, mixing analog for big clients, which I did before.

It’s a perfect setup and I love the flexibility. And yeah, it’s more lean. I love that.

[Darran]
Awesome. What are some of your favorite DAW? What’s your DAW you use right now?

[Martin Eyerer]
I’ve worked with Ableton Live since, I think 10 years before I was a Cubase person. But I think Cubase has its points when it comes to mixing bigger projects. I would always choose more Cubase.

I think the way how Ableton, the approach, how the DAW is set up is more a intuitive, creative workflow I can use. But yeah, let’s say I’m 90% Ableton guy, but I also like another DAW, which is Bitwig. I don’t know if you know about Bitwig.

Bitwig is a small company that was founded by one of the original co-founders from Ableton. That’s why it’s very compatible with Ableton. You can even open Ableton projects into Bitwig.

And I think Bitwig might be even the better DAW, to be honest. The only reason why I stick to Ableton is that I’m compatible with other producers. You know, when they come and work with me, you need to be on one platform so everyone has their hands on the same DAW.

But I think Ableton is the one of my choice.

[Darran]
Now, are you still out there DJing? Are you looking to book tours and get out there? In addition to all the production work?

I mean, you got seven different companies you run. Do you find time to actually get out and book tours, not just in your own city, but throughout Europe? Or are you looking for anything in the US?

[Martin Eyerer]
You know, the best city to play techno at is Berlin. Everyone comes to play here. It’s really true, I have to tell you.

Of course, there’s great parties out there. I will not say that now. But in Berlin, it’s some of the best clubs in the world.

I can grab a cab, go to the club, play in some of the best venues in the world, and go back home. I don’t need to fly anywhere. There’s the best international crowd.

People come from all over the place, like for real. And that is why I love to play here, and I play frequently here. I have a residency at Sisyphus, which is maybe after Berghain, one of the most known techno clubs out there.

And I play like three shows per year. Then there’s a few venues I play here, open air clubs, and then sometimes there is a gig here and there. I will play a festival in two weeks, which is in Germany, a really cool festival.

It’s called Field Festival. It’s a 25,000 people festival. Then there was some inquiries now in Mexico and Colombia.

So if something comes in, and from time to time some shows come in, I will definitely look into these. But I’m not taking everything as I did in the past, because I simply don’t have the time. Because when I, you know, I lately had some really nice opportunity to play in the mountains of France, but I figured the traveling would be absolutely crazy, and it would have killed me nearly, actually two and a half days.

So I can’t just not afford that. So I look into, okay, what makes sense, and what is really pure fun. And when it comes to US, I don’t have a work permit.

I said, don’t play so often. So I could not take these opportunities anymore. But yeah, I play, let’s say per year, maybe 15 shows, which is one and a half per month.

Maybe it can be 20, but not more. But it’s absolutely perfect. I love playing, but I have so much going on.

So you have to choose in life, you know.

[Darran]
Do you prefer large scale festivals, or would you rather DJ at more intimate clubs? What is your choice between the two?

[Martin Eyerer]
I always was a club DJ. I mean, I think playing festivals is easy, because when you have a big crowd, you can more or less play energetic stuff, and it will always work. The smaller the crowd, the higher the challenge, actually, to really figure a set of, I don’t know, two, three, four hours, get the journey in where people really are in, and it gets intimate.

I would say ideal size is maybe 500 people club, with proper music lovers, and people who are really into music. I think that’s the ideal scenario, if you ask me.

[Darran]
Yeah, and outside of Berlin, what is your favorite city to play in?

[Martin Eyerer]
I think there’s a few cities globally where they have this vibe. It used to be Moscow, which for some people is surprising, because now they have Russia really on their radar. I mean, lately, I don’t know if anyone plays there.

Since there’s this war with Ukraine, it’s even dangerous to go to. But Moscow had, at least before the pandemic, that was the last time I’ve been there, it had also like really couple of really, really cool clubs. Then I would name as well some South American, Latin American cities, which is Mexico City, which is Buenos Aires, which is maybe Sao Paulo, Colombia, there’s a few like in Bogota.

So that’s maybe the spot. And definitely also Australia, there was always really great parties. The other cities like in Asia, I played a lot, I had great parties, but that is more like, they’re not coming from this electronic music culture, they’re coming more for R&B culture.

So it’s like in the United States, there’s this huge, let’s say R&B culture, doesn’t mean that there are great techno parties or venues, but there is not this majority of like, I would say there’s a lot of, especially in Asia, expats, they go to these clubs and you could have really nice parties. But yeah, the cities I named are maybe the ones where you always know great parties.

[Darran]
Have you ever visited a faraway country, a faraway city from Berlin, where you actually were surprised that people knew your music, knew who you were when you got there and like went crazy when you dropped a track or like they knew you when you got there? Has that ever happened to you before?

[Martin Eyerer]
Yeah, actually a lot, because when people booked me in these clubs, then it is actually, it used to be really because of exactly what I produced. And then there were people who came for the music and the game changer was when there was the switch from physical, let’s say vinyl to digital DJing, because you could see, and I had one of, I had a few main markets where I was really had my name and were flying a lot. Mexico was one of these countries.

And suddenly you play, I don’t know, somewhere in the middle of the jungle. And because these people had access to your releases because they were digital, also available. And that’s why I always remind people and they say, ah, vinyl is so cool.

Yeah, there’s something, but to be honest, not everyone in the world had access on vinyls, you know, and could play with vinyls. So I would say, yeah, definitely a lot when I came somewhere, because I had this so many releases in my life and the music was more the fact that promoted me. And even till today, people book me, mostly they book me because there were some promoters, they were fans of my music.

So there are usually are people, they come actually also for the tracks. And I’m maybe to add that I was lucky in my life. I had a few records, they did really well.

Not every, all of these releases, but there were a few, one with Chopstick. We did Haunting with a singer, whether it was Philippe Starr from Paris. That sold 100,000 vinyls and it hit even the sales charts in Australia and a few countries.

But I had two, three records like that where really people knew and they booked me really for these records.

[Darran]
Nice. Now, have you ever experimented with mixing audio and video at the same time? And if not, is that something you do in the future?

And I’m not necessarily saying you’re mixing or producing music to go along with video, like a VJ comes in and does something live, but something that would maybe be part of a audio visual experience for your listeners or your attendees to your shows. Have you ever done anything like that before?

[Martin Eyerer]
No, actually not really. I think there’s a couple of reasons. First, I’m so much into audio all my life.

And maybe I’m kind of some expert in that. And I think if I would go into another field like that, I think it’s too crazy for me to think about that because I deep dived so much into music and engineering and I read books, I worked with people and I tried always to improve, to improve, to improve. And if I don’t think I deep dive into another topic and I’m this kind of guy, I want to really deep dive that this is kind of, okay, I can’t do that.

What I did is I went into photography. When I was on tour, I started a couple of years ago really to photograph, sorry, all the tours and went into like photo editing and stuff like that. But then to go into motion picture and combine it with audio, I think I would like it but I just don’t think I can invest in time anymore.

[Darran]
Have you looked into anything and doing anything in virtual reality yet or been asked to be part of anything in virtual reality?

[Martin Eyerer]
I got some touch points because I have some friends, they do Web 3.0 experiences and there is really, really good stuff, like amazing stuff there, I have to say. And I have one friend, you could check out Ravespace. I think it’s ravespace.io. He came up with a virtual club experience within the pandemic. And the nice thinking about it is that it’s not about trying to replace club experience by the sound and the music, it’s more like, what actually is also part of the experience, it brings people together. So what you could do at Ravespace, you have an avatar and it’s browser-based which makes it actually pretty accessible for anyone. That was the good thing about it.

You met really people in his Ravespace, random people or people you knew by avatar and that was actually a cool experience. I liked it a lot and he recorded DJ sets in a green screen room and put it as a live experience inside his club and I liked it very much. But that was in the pandemic.

And yeah, I’m in touch with a few people who create virtual or augmented reality experiences. There’s two, three amazing agencies, they do big, large shows. One company, they also work, besides with many companies in Las Vegas for this really crazy thing I need to see once.

And so what I want to say is I have touch points, I see the potential, I believe also in something great there but it’s also not, again, a field I’m like really going into right now. But I would not say that this could not happen.

[Darran]
Is your buddy, doesn’t have to be Frank Khan over there, is it? I know him, yeah. I don’t know, I’m on the website right now.

I’d love to get him on for an interview, I’d love to talk with that company.

[Martin Eyerer]
Yeah, you should do that, you definitely, this guy has a lot to tell. He worked for Music Tech Industry, Akai and all these like companies. So he has a lot to tell already from that side.

And now he is really successful. When he started Ravespace, he tapped into a new field. Meanwhile, his agency still called Ravespace, they produce, yeah, like Web 3.0 and interactives in spaces like Universal Music, your headquarters and stuff, really interesting. You should invite him, he has a lot to tell.

[Darran]
I definitely want to reach out to them because we do have our virtual reality nightclub that we launched early last year. We launched it on a platform but unfortunately that platform got shut down. It was a pretty awesome platform but we had to move over to VRChat, VRC.

And so we have our nightclub. This interview is actually broadcasting live in our virtual reality nightclub right now. And it’s a pretty awesome nightclub.

We’re super excited to get things up and running there with our live interviews, our exclusive mixes and more content in VR. And I’m looking for a solution. Right now VR has its limitations with some of these platforms but I wanna get to that level where we’re being able to do something like Fortnite did with Marshmallow and have 12 million people.

Well, I don’t know, 12 million people, that’s a lot of people but where we can have an interactive community room where it’s, a lot of these platforms they limit it to 40 to 80 people. And if it starts getting glitchy if you have too many people and it creates another instance. So at that 41st person, that 41st person is now alone in the room by themselves until more people join in.

And that’s just a limitation of the platform.

[Martin Eyerer]
You should definitely look into RaveSpace because that is something they solved because they have this browser experience based thing which doesn’t send all the data through the web. It’s really, that makes a lot of sense. You should look into it.

[Darran]
I will, I will. Well, I’ll talk with you after the show about getting in touch with Frank. That’d be awesome.

But I’m all about VR. I think that’s gonna be the next thing. People thought I was crazy when I talked about QR codes back in 2010.

They thought, what are you talking about? This is crazy. Now they’re everywhere.

And I’m like, this is gonna be the most awesome thing in the world for so many reasons. And even live streaming, live streaming DJs. Who wants to watch a DJ live streaming?

Then all of a sudden Pandy hit. And now everyone knew it. Like people didn’t know what Twitch was.

I’d have to explain to them, you know what YouTube is and Google owns YouTube. Well, Amazon kind of backs Twitch, you know, in the sense of things. And they’re like, oh, it’s that big?

[Martin Eyerer]
I mean, I, you know, I would say if we look at into a Vision Pro, which is the first, first, first iteration of a new product, which is too expensive, maybe it’s a bit too heavy and all of that. But you can see where that goes. And I’m very sure once this gets accessible, affordable, that can be a game changer actually, you know?

[Darran]
Yeah. You know, when you’re not listening to dance music, back to the music though, when you’re not listening to the dance music or producing dance music, DJing dance music, what do you listen to?

[Martin Eyerer]
My favorite band is Radiohead. I love Massive Attack. I like, yeah, this kind of super complex produced music, not easy, but yeah, like deep.

I did a lot of collaborations with Craig Walker, who is a singer from a band called Archive. And this band was pretty successful like 20 years ago and they reunited just recently. The stuff they just produced, he’s now living in Miami, it’s amazing actually.

So yeah, I don’t ever listen actually to dance music because I believe dance music is not really music to listen, it’s to dance to and to feel it in clubs. But yeah, I would usually not really listen to dance music.

[Darran]
And now you run seven different companies, your production, your DJ. What do you do when you’re taking a break from all that? What are some of the things, what are the activities that Martin likes to do outside of all this business?

And I mean, people don’t know, guys like you and I, what we do behind the scenes. They see what we put out, like our product, but they don’t know what goes on behind the scenes, the meetings, the collaborations, the phone calls, all that stuff to make the magic happen. When you take a break from that, what do you enjoy doing with your life?

[Martin Eyerer]
I have a lot of stuff. I have a family, so I have three kids. They’re like in a really great age, 25, 22 and 14.

So I love to meet my kids and do with them things, you know. Then I do a lot of sports too, which is something I really, really need. That’s actually my most important thing.

I run around four times a week and I do once a week, like a boxing meeting in a boxing class. And this gives me really a moment to think of brainstorm and think of things. And I see like when I have a speech somewhere or something, I always run in the morning and I know, okay, I got the right idea how to intro, how to open the speech, stuff like that.

So that is really the thing I love. But then I also have a lot of interests, but I don’t have the time for it. So I try to combine them.

I love motorbike riding for my life, but I don’t have time to do tours, you know. But one of my dreams would be to go to US and do this like big turnaround, started in like in Vegas and then go to the coast, go down, the Death Valley, make this big circle. I have to do this once in my life.

But what I mean is I use the bicycle to commute every day from my house downtown and I enjoy already these rides, which is 45 minutes drive in every direction. But still I have to do my meetings on my headset because I cannot miss this one and a half hours by day just by riding. So I’m trying to combine these things.

So yeah, I have a lot of other interests, but you know, there’s a limit of time and I moved away from living for music, which is actually a nice thing because suddenly you don’t have the pressure of being commercially successful with music and you can just do easy music and that is so much fun. And, but I’m living mainly now from, we transformed with our company industrial, former industrial areas into creative and innovation districts. Like we’re building in one big asset, like a concert hall for 10,000 people.

There will be startups, there will be sports. So that is something, and I’m mentioning that because I moved away from 30 years doing always the same, even though it’s a pleasure to make music, but I try always to dive into new topics and that gives me also a lot of reward and feedback. So yes, part of it is always work because you need to work all your emails off and stuff, but you always meet new people, you get new input, you learn and that keeps me like excited.

And I think the combination of all of that, that’s the interesting thing for me.

[Darran]
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given and that you still stick to, to this day after 35 years of being in the industry?

[Martin Eyerer]
It’s an advice I give and some people give it to you. If you look into what makes people successful, never give up, it’s really that. Stay on, that’s the thing.

This is actually the one thing that unites every successful person from not successful. Successful people, they believed and they went forward and forward and forward. There’s problems, you solve them, but you don’t change.

You stay on and that is actually the one thing. And the other thing is what I give people, think into your network. People, it happens to me sometimes even, they don’t think in their network.

When you have a challenge, you might not know the one person that helps you, but you know maybe one person that knows the person that can help you. And sometimes we forget our networks. It’s, of course, not abusing them.

We have trusted networks, means we’re not just calling when we want something. But if we have built a good network, then we can, of course, from time to time use it and we sometimes should not forget to throw something into the network. And the last thing about this network is, and I could speak a long time about networking, is that when my son told me, when we spoke about it, but he said, but yeah, Dad, but you have a network, but I haven’t.

I said, my network is your network because you are within that network. So that’s what we should not forget. And that’s actually maybe the two things I speak to people and maybe other people would have told me too.

[Darran]
And if you can give one production tip or insight to new producers out there, obviously, never give up is one of the key things. I can really, that resonates with me a lot with the DJ sessions. After doing this show for almost 14 years, but I’ve been in film and television, internet production for over half my life, for almost 32 years.

Even if you go back to when I started playing with a video camera at the age of six and I turned 50 next month. So I’ve been playing around with this technology news for 44 years, never giving up, always progressing, always looking to the new things that are coming up. But if you could give one production tip or insight to new producers out there, what would that be?

[Martin Eyerer]
Try to keep things simple. I said in the beginning, but if you’re starting new, there’s some techniques you need to learn. And the best way to learn them is to take your favorite track and try to reproduce it.

Try really to copy it. And that’s not in a bad way, in a good way to learn because you will start to listen exactly into the track and you will figure out things that you didn’t hear and then try to redo them. That’s the one thing for beginners where you learn most, I believe.

And the second thing, when you’re like a little bit advanced, a little bit just don’t overdo the tracks, keep them simple because when you have a feeling that there’s something missing, it doesn’t work, then you’re on the wrong way because the good stuff works already. You have one great baseline and a little bit of groove. And if that is already good, that’s why I have bass tattoo here.

Then there’s something and sometimes we then, and it happens to me too, you produce something and the magic is not there. You don’t feel it and then you look for new stuff and you add it, but then there’s the moment, wow, it’s cool. And you look for more stuff and you will lose it and forget that you had this great moment before.

So go back there, throw the stuff away, no matter how good it is. I know it’s hard, kill your baby, kill your darling. That’s what they say.

And go back two steps back makes sometimes three steps forward, but keep it simple. It’s actually the thing.

[Darran]
Keep it simple. Totally understand. A good piece of advice out there.

One last, a couple of last questions we got before we let you go, Martin, is 35 years in the industry. If somebody wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?

[Martin Eyerer]
It was all about the network.

[Darran]
It was all about the network. Yeah.

[Martin Eyerer]
Because the whole life is about, and if we look into it, it’s a trusted network, right? And it’s not just any network. Any network is Facebook, it’s a network.

A trusted network is a curated network. That means, and I don’t wanna repeat myself, but I think we should be really aware of how we treat connections we have, treat them with respect, and what can we do to help others within that network. And if you make music, whatever business you do on the network, actually in my life is about that because that’s what the question was.

And that’s why after, I don’t know, this 30 years music industry, I started to be engaged in politics and I started to lobby for creative economy, and especially in Berlin. And people ask me, wow, it’s crazy how fast you move in politics because I am meanwhile in the conservative party on the state’s board. And I made it there within eight years.

And they said, why is that? Yeah, because I know how to network for music industry. It’s the same thing.

Yeah, if you wanna play on those festivals, those clubs, you’ll be on the labels. It’s about network. It’s not about just the music that you do.

When people send out these promos and demos, you think a label these days will not sign you because the track is so amazing. They receive crazy amount of demos. It’s about, they look into who is this person?

Would it fit into our community, into our network? Do you have right introductions to make them listen to your track because the music plays a role, but it’s not maybe the key role. It’s the person behind.

It has everything to do with the networking. And as I said, also the DJing, the shows you wanna play, it’s very much related of how can I get the connection there because the thing is, when you have a need, there’s always at least one person on this globe who could help you with that need. So the question is not how do I get the money to pay for it?

The question is how do I get this person to help me with that need and how to find the person? And that’s about networking and that’s about success in music industry too.

[Darran]
Absolutely, absolutely. Networking, I think that’s definitely one of the things I try to tell people. Get out there, meet people, talk to people, network.

You never know who you’re gonna find and there’s like-minded people out there. I remember Alan Watts, definitely one of these videos I watched, an inspirational video, is you look up What Do I Desire by Alan Watts and he does this little monologue and it’s about doing something and then eventually if you do it, you’ll go out there and doing it long enough, you’ll find other people that are doing the same thing and then you can collaborate and grow and become better and find that community, find that network of people to really further yourself.

I think that’s just something, never giving up and networking is key.

[Martin Eyerer]
And you know, Darran, when you’re a young producer, of course you wanna be in those five top labels you wanted me to name, right? That’s the thing. But the question is how did they start?

They started, all of them, all of them, as a small group of people, usually not successful yet, and they grew and then they became successful and suddenly everyone wants to be there but you should maybe look into starting a network and be part of that and be part of the growth story instead of trying to get there when they’re like on the high fly which they would either way not look into you. And that is sometimes the thinking we forget. These people, they invested all of their time in a group of friends usually, so let’s build this together and I think that’s the best advice you can give when it comes to these kind of labels and stuff.

Find like-minded people, friends, cool music producers, start something and grow it there and then maybe the other people will apply to be on your platform.

[Darran]
That’s exactly, you know, we’re looking at, we’ve been toying with the idea of starting a label over here at the DJ Sessions. Might have to pick your brain a little bit on that in the near future but you know, always a pleasure having you on the show. You know, we’re definitely gonna follow up with you, definitely wanna reach out to some of those other residents from Riverside as well and get them on the series.

Is there anything else you wanna let our DJ Sessions fans know about before we let you go?

[Martin Eyerer]
Maybe I just wanted to say that since you have that Mackie T-shirt, that was my first mixer and I love it.

[Darran]
Yeah, we love our partnership with Mackie.

[Martin Eyerer]
No, that was off topic but yeah, what do I wanna let you know? I think a real advice is and everyone knows it already but it’s sometimes good to hear it twice. You wanna make a career in music, you have to and now it’s the 70-30 thing, you have to really focus on the marketing from day one and with the same amount of time as the music because you don’t wanna end up with the perfect tracks but no one will release them and you will then end up having no, how you say, reach out with your music because that’s the same thing, right?

There’s good music you have but then you want people to listen to it so focus from day one also on that. Build it proper, think smart. I mean, the nice thing about today is on YouTube, wherever, your channel, you can learn from others, get your tips on and build it properly but 50% is music, 50% is the marketing.

[Darran]
Yeah, I try to tell people that all the time. You can have the best product in the world but if nobody knows about it, nobody knows about it. So again, Martin, thank you for coming on the show.

Where can people find out more information about you? Where’s the best place to go to send people?

[Martin Eyerer]
It could be either Riverside community, that is a good one because we have our social, it’s pretty active, we can learn what is going on there. Second, we will build an announcement actually, a professional artist base called RSBase based on Fanbase as technology but it’s gonna be a professional music community, global one, so we will announce it on Riverside Studios. Will be launched soon, we’re in preparation since half a year but then of course there’s my Instagram.

It’s always martinaira, Instagram slash martinaira, one word, same as Facebook, Insta. LinkedIn is more the professional side I’m using. That is more not so much my music-related projects, more like the innovation and other topics.

So yeah, you’re gonna find me on Spotify of course. That’s maybe the most important channel to listen to my music or my releases. I have my account there, same name of course, and SoundCloud, you will find the weekly radio show I’m doing for download as well.

[Darran]
Awesome, well thank you again for coming on the show. Again, I know it’s been a while since we caught up and I’m glad, you know, a little skips and bumps and things that happened, scheduling got you on the show. I definitely wanna plan that trip out this year and I’m sure to come to Berlin.

I think that’s gonna be my go-to. We’ll talk after the show about that because with 108 clubs, I wouldn’t be able to visit them all in a couple weeks, but you know, definitely with the rush.

[Martin Eyerer]
There’s one thing, Darran, I nearly forgot. Sorry to interrupt you.

[Darran]
No, it’s okay.

[Martin Eyerer]
It’s another call out. I think that’s a good one. We have, maybe you might remember the Love Parade back in those days, right?

In the peak we had more than 1 million, 1.2 million people dancing on the streets. Now there is this Rave the Planet Parade which they started. It’s actually the original founder of Love Parade.

He started a new parade three years ago and they expect 500,000 people this year dancing in this big parade. And we, Riverside Studios, we have a truck there afloat where there is 100 people on dancing and there’s all these trucks going. So if you’re in Berlin, go to Riverside Studios.

We still have a few tickets left to be on our float. We have great lineup. We have 8Ks from Afterlife Records.

We have Speaker Honey from Los Angeles. I will play, Toby Norman will play. And you will dance on the truck between 500,000 people.

And it’s on August 17 in Berlin, which is a Saturday. You should check it out. Maybe they could do it for you as well.

[Darran]
My birthday month, I was gonna go to New York for my birthday in September. Maybe I’ll just have to go to Berlin and come out there. And let’s talk after the show about that because I got some ideas and I’d love to get a ticket and come out there.

I don’t know, have to find an Airbnb or something quickly. Maybe they’re all booked up, but I can arrange it. I’ll make it happen.

Let’s talk after the show about that because I got some ideas. I got some really great ideas for that part. I’d love to be a part of that.

Okay, awesome. Well, thank you again for coming on the DJ sessions. Again, always a pleasure.

Looking forward to talking with you again. Catch up with you in maybe six, well, catch up with you next month, maybe in Berlin on the ground. But I definitely wanna stay in touch with you and find out all the more that’s going on with Kling Klong and Riverside over there as well.

[Martin Eyerer]
Thanks a lot for having me, Darran. Always a pleasure. Great talk with you.

And looking forward to the next one, which is maybe in Berlin or maybe in US.

[Darran]
I’m looking forward to that. I’m gonna see if I can make that happen. On that note, don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com.

Find us on all the socials there, right up in the top right hand corner. You can download our mobile app. New version of it’s coming out here soon.

We have over 600 news stories a month. We have live interviews, exclusive mixes, our merch store, everything, information on our virtual reality nightclub, our events that we do, contests, giveaways, and more at thedjsessions.com. I’m your host, Darran, coming to you from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington.

And that’s Martin and I are coming in from Berlin, Germany for the virtual sessions. And remember, on the DJ sessions, the music never stops.