Andrea Casta – The Lightning Bow, Space Violin, and the Future of Live Performance on the Virtual Sessions 10/29/25

From Verona, Italy, Andrea Casta joins to share his extraordinary musical journey blending electronic production, storytelling, and futuristic performance. Known as “The Violinist with the Lightsaber Bow,” Andrea has built a global career by merging technology and artistry. His performances combine live violin with electronic music and visual experiences, creating a captivating show that bridges the human and digital worlds.

 

He discusses his groundbreaking Space Violin Project, a multimedia saga that fuses music, narrative, and visuals into an immersive performance series. Each chapter of the project tells part of a larger story, a futuristic mission to save humanity through music. With shows across more than 30 countries and 200 performances per year, Andrea shares how his creative process evolved from classical training to producing his own tracks and cinematic soundscapes like Visions and A Way to Space.

 

Casta also dives into the balance between technology and emotion, stressing the importance of maintaining humanity in an increasingly digital world. He envisions future innovations that will allow artists to connect biometric data, heart rate, energy, emotion, directly to sound creation. Beyond his futuristic concepts, he stays grounded through simple joys: cooking, gardening, and spending time with his wife and dog, Rocket.

 

Whether performing underwater, in the Alps, or in front of 90,000 people at Circus Maximus, Andrea’s message remains the same, music is energy, and connection is everything.

 

Topics

0:12 – The lightning bow and defining his energetic, inspiring sound
3:35 – Blending live violin with EDM and developing his visual stage show
7:15 – Creating and evolving the Space Violin Project
9:44 – Merging music, storytelling, and performance into immersive art
14:06 – Touring 200 shows a year across 32 countries
18:01 – Balancing technology and humanity in musical innovation
21:00 – Experimenting with haptic sound and silent disco formats
24:55 – Latest release Visions and his Italian tour concept
28:20 – Performing for 90,000 fans at Circus Maximus in Rome
45:58 – Staying grounded through nature, balance, and gratitude

Connect with Andrea Casta

• Instagram: @andreacasta 

Website: andreacasta.com

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions Presents the Virtual Sessions. I’m your host Darran and right now, I’m sitting in the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington and coming in all the way from Verona, Italy. We have Andrea Casta today on the show.

Andrea, how are you doing today?

[Andrea Casta]
Hi Darran, what’s up? I’m good, and you?

[Darran]
Awesome, well I wanna give a shout out and welcome to all of your fans. We’re tying this in, not only on our website, thedjsessions.com, but also tapped into your Facebook and Instagram as well. So to all those fans out there, come by and say hi.

In the show, we’re gonna be here for a little while talking with Andrea and getting to know him a little bit better. You know, you, I would say, went to your website, your social media today. You know, we interview a lot of DJs on the show, but you know, you’re an electronic musician of a different sort.

And I was like, you know, the coolest thing is, is I play Beat Saber in VR, but you actually have a, like, technically a lightsaber that you use when you do your shows and everything. You know, that, what did you, what do you call it? You call it a lightning bow, a lightning bow.

[Andrea Casta]
I can show you because the lightsaber roots, of course, live inside my ear. That is awesome.

[Darran]
We’re gonna talk a little bit about that in just a minute here, but you know, for our viewers, if you could describe your music in three words, what three words would you use to describe your music?

[Andrea Casta]
Energetic, inspirationally, and breathtaking.

[Darran]
You know, I’m sure you are, I’m a huge fan of a young woman by the name of Lindsey Stirling.

[Andrea Casta]
Yeah, Lindsey was one of the pioneer of the crossover stuff around the violin, even if she became a star from the YouTube stuff and other kinds of music like double step or different kind of music. I think I’m focused on the live performance and on the EDM and house scene. So that’s why I’m quite a different artist, but talking about violinists, she is amazing.

[Darran]
Well, that’s what I think the way that I could see the future of music going away from, I just put a post on Facebook the other day that the original term DJ stood for disc jockey or, you know, albums. You’re putting a record on that was called a disc. And nowadays the records are, they’re gone.

Vinyl, I mean, vinyl’s there, it’s made, but it’s not the predominant form of how people are playing this music. So should the D in disc jockey be changed to something else as digital jockey, you know, and that’s for a DJ standpoint, but you’re integrating the music with live performance as well, rather than just being up behind two turntables or four turntables and doing, you know, playing other people’s music in a sense and creating the show through that medium for audience participation. And you write and perform.

Who does your choreography? First of all, do you do all your choreography? Do you work with somebody else that does choreography or is it just made up on the go?

[Andrea Casta]
No, I made on the go also because I keep the focus on the music that I play. And I’m not a dancer properly as Lindsey is, but, you know, I think we can express better my point of view and my effort in create arts, talking of communication. So music is a very powerful communication and during the performance, you must give something to the audience that nowadays is not only the music.

So you can give them much more if you match the visuals, the full experience that you can create when you are on stage. And in my experience, I started as a violinist standing with other DJs, and then I go deeper and deeper into the electronic music scene, creating my own tracks, trying to have a better connection between the violin used as a tool production and violin used as a live performance. So you know what I mean?

Because if you talk about saxophone or you talk about trumpet, or you talk about any other solo instruments that has been used through the years in the dance music scene, you have every time a fracture, a break between what is used in production and what is used live.

[Darran]
You know, and that’s what I think is gonna be so phenomenal is with the advancement of technology. It always takes me back to this movie that I bring up from time to time called Virtuosity. And it was Russell Crowe in Denzel, Washington.

And there’s this nightclub scene that Russell Crowe’s character gets up into the DJ booth, but you can tell that’s where the music’s coming from. But what he’s doing is he takes samples from the audience and starts putting their hands like, do, do, do, do, do, do, you know, and does this whole thing and creates like music. And it’s like that kind of interaction.

I used to play with some Roland gear long, long time ago. Had an MC-505 and an SP-808 sequencer sampler combination. And they had that V, the way you could use your hands and play with and trigger, you know, sensors, which was really awesome.

You know, and then I saw Fleetwood Mac concert even before that. And the drummer for Fleetwood Mac was playing the drums. Mick was playing the drums.

I think it’s Mick and he’s playing the drums. Then all of a sudden he gets up from the drums and he starts going, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, and the bass drum and starts playing the drums and gets up in front of the stage and starts playing the whole drum section off of his body while he’s dancing around the stage. It’s like, oh, this is cool.

That was like 97. So gosh, I’m dating myself now. But you know, I’m just really excited to see what artists are gonna do to have more live performance, more interactive performance than just behind the decks or playing the music and jumping up on the decks and doing that type of stuff.

So congratulations on that. I’m also interested to hear, when I was at your website though, the Space Violin Project. I mean, I saw it, I was like, okay, I didn’t know where this was going, but then I read the whole thing on it.

I’m like, this is really cool. Tell us about the Space Violin Project.

[Andrea Casta]
Yeah, the Space Violin Project was started in 2017. So eight years ago, after a long creative path with my team, because nowadays, those days, I had a couple of guys that worked with me, but nowadays we are seventh in the team. So we are seven guys that follow me from social media to management and production and video and content creation.

So a lot of guys that are involved in the process. But the Space Violin Project was meant to be a story that can be told through different episodes in which every episode was related to a specific song. So each track narrates a part of the story like a TV show, like a series.

And I saw myself as a musician in the future in 2235 that travels through the universe to save the planet with the energy and the power of the music as well. Because after technological revolution where the machines take the role, the man lost his knowledge of feelings and empathic, is it correct? Empathic possibilities to get in connection with other humans.

And the only way to save the planet is to send a musician that keeps in the music this whole humanity to the universe.

[Darran]
Now, I see right now there’s three chapters or are there more? I see Double Sun, Black Hole and Warp Six. Are there more expected to be coming out of these released once a quarter or how frequently are these coming out with the new chapters?

Are those the names of the songs?

[Andrea Casta]
The names of the songs, yeah.

[Darran]
And there’s 12 songs.

[Andrea Casta]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Actually, I made seven chapters.

During the whole period. But after we made a full visuals contents that can be used during festivals and DJ sets, we stopped because now we want to merge the space violin with other topics that I used to use during my musical creations like the relation with the planet, nature. So if you follow me around my performance, you can see a lot of videos shooting in the mountains, in the snow.

Or like we made during the summer visions that was filmed underwater. I was able to play my violin underwater, yeah. I got to see that.

That’s awesome. It’s an adventure, it’s a special experience that after that you can use as a bigger content and inspirational thing during your live set.

[Darran]
Now, do you collaborate? You mentioned you work with a number of different artists and creators on that project. Is the storyline gonna develop to create other collaborated artists in that as well as the character kind of goes on this journey through space?

[Andrea Casta]
Yes, well, it’s like an open source platform. Was meant to be like that. You know, for example, if we talk about Star Wars, Star Wars started in the 70s and after 55 years, we still are into there because the plot, the storytelling was so powerful that as you said, if you find a new collaborators, a new character, new staff that can get the inspiration from the original storyline, you can come in and play with me and do something about the space violin.

[Darran]
Well, I’d love to get you in touch with Avian Invasion. I think there’s a definite, I could see a collaboration there between you. He’s one of our resident DJs, artists, producers, really awesome, really awesome guy.

It sounds something sort of like that would be a really awesome, but I don’t know if you’re looking to take on other collaborators or other people, but I can see. I’m always open to those collaborations. I will definitely put you in contact with him.

You know, where has been one of the weirdest moments you’ve ever heard one of your own songs play? Ooh, weirdest?

[Andrea Casta]
Few weeks ago, a guy tagged me in an Instagram story playing A Way to Space, that is a song of mine from the last year, going through, riding his motorbike during a race. Yeah, another one. Free going roaming around, but in the circuit.

Yeah, yeah, you know. I can’t understand how, but with his GoPro in the circuit during the race, listen to my music to keep him motivated.

[Darran]
Nice, nice. You know, it’s always interesting to see how artists, how other people view other artists’ songs or how they use them or how they make them feel and how they share those experiences. And it’s, I guess that would be an honor.

If somebody’s using your track, they say, this is what’s keeping me up and running. You know, keeping the gas in the engine per se, helping me win the race, that’s awesome. You know, and you play so many shows per year, 200 shows.

Is that right? 200 shows per year, 200 concerts. And over 32 nations.

[Andrea Casta]
Yeah.

[Darran]
I mean, this is like, what?

[Andrea Casta]
It’s a lot of work. Now, from this year to the future, we are trying to concentrate the tour because I want to produce more music. And also this brand new studio means a lot for me because it’s the place where I want to develop a new chapter of my career.

But from the 2018, since last year, I played an average of 200 shows. I made a lot of shows in the Middle East. I visited a lot of Asia.

I never had a proper tour in US. And that’s a thing that I want to organize in the future because I played gigs in Miami. I played a couple of gigs in New York City, but now it’s time to have a proper show.

But you know, in US, I think that my music must come before my performance. So if I will get a good collaboration, an average hit, not a proper hit because I want to keep the low profile for my expectations, but in the future, if the music that I will produce reach a good popularity and goes in hype, I can manage a US tour.

[Darran]
You know, and speaking of releasing music, I mean, with 200 shows a year, that’s an average of four per week. Okay, and where do you find time to make, because we’re going to talk a little bit about some of your latest releases and upcoming releases, but where do you get time? Sounds like you’re going to kind of start, I don’t want to say slowing down, but maybe spending a lot more time in your new studio, which looks fabulous, by the way.

I’d love to get a tour of that sometime when I visit Italy, because I spoke with you a little bit about what my European plans are for next year.

[Andrea Casta]
Must come here also because my new studio is surrounded by vineyards. Great vines.

[Darran]
This is what got me into trouble last year, and you just invited me basically to come to Italy, and that’s how I ended up in Berlin last year with Riverside Studios doing an interview with Martin Nairi. He’s like, come over for Rave the Planet. And I’m like, did you just invite me to come over?

He’s like, yes, you got to come over and check this out and be on our double-decker bus with a double-decker semi with us and stream live. I’m like, two days later, I booked my ticket to Berlin. I’m like, I’m done.

Yeah, I’m going, this is awesome. But I’m a huge foodie myself, and I’ve been told that you’ve got to get, and I’m Italian, so you’ve got to get the best Italian food. It’s got to go to Italy, you know?

And so, and the wine, you know? I definitely, I think I’m going to make a stop over there, especially working with Origami Management and give them a shout out. Super excited to get the exclusive mixes from ADE this year up on our site from them, but definitely be in a lot of talks with Origami and probably make a fifth trip over that way.

Do something in Berlin and then come over to Italy and visit all y’all and do something on the ground. That’d be super awesome. You know, my next question is going into, you know, technology, speaking about building your studio and putting everything together, even learning how to violin, do your performance underwater.

You know, technology moves very fast in the electronic music range land of things. Is there something you think that’s not on the market today, but in your vision would be really amazing to have out there for musicians alike to have access to? Is there something that’s like, I wish this existed, but it doesn’t today, but it would be really awesome if it did.

Anything that comes to mind in that?

[Andrea Casta]
Wow. You know, it’s hard work today to find the balance between the willing to use the technology and the idea to keep humanity into your music, into your performance. And this is a key point from my point of view, because if you are too much of a geeky, you lose the connection with the human feelings.

And so you, the ability to, and I think also the key of success is to find the correct balance. So to use the technology as a equipment, as a gear, as something that can help your creativity, your ideas to save that communication that I was talking about before. And coming to something specific, I think that maybe in the future to create music, there will be, we can have much more connection with the, you know, like iWatch or Apple Watch or something like that, that helps you go inside the body, the blood, the heart, the mind energy, something that can read through technology what your body and our feelings, chemicals, chemicals, you know what I mean?

[Darran]
You know, it’s interesting you bring that up. I was just reading an article and I’ve seen it come up from time to time about how our ears can only hear a certain frequency range. Our eyes can only see a certain frequency range, but there’s a bunch of stuff going on at all times that we just are cannot see or cannot hear, you know, and to have something tune in like that, you know, to that body rhythm, I almost would say what you’re calling it, you know, that biometric, biometric, you know.

[Andrea Casta]
Body rhythm and as an artist, you don’t have to lose the arts point of view that means to read this data. You, we are not technicians. We are not, we, of course we are sound engineering.

We are producers. We have skills in the tech area, but we don’t have to lose the connection to what our arts and our music must be as an inspiration for audience and for our net, for our communities.

[Darran]
You know, and I’m sure that is one of the key focal points of your releases, your tracks that come out. You know, have you ever looked at doing anything and working with like a haptic speaker system or something where people can, instead of like having big, big speakers, but I work with a silent disco technology. If you’re, if you’re familiar with that, one of the cool things is our headsets can get the sound into haptic speakers.

So when people say, I can’t feel the music, they can hear it. And a lot of people listen to music and shows through headsets anyways. But now that we can tie it into this haptic feeling, which kind of gives you this feel of the bass is hitting you.

It’s really awesome. But you know, when you take it off, people have that puppy dog effect. Like, no, I want to feel the music and bring it back to me and put it back on.

Have you ever experimented with anything like that in a haptic or a cord?

[Andrea Casta]
Yeah, I experimented, I experimented. Yes, also you talked about a silent disco. We made a lot of this also because it’s a way that you can make a show in the archeological areas into specific venues that can’t be invaded with the sound.

[Darran]
Yeah, no, and that’s one of the reasons I love it. We’ve got the first ever seven channel headsets that nobody, everyone gets three channels. I wanted to go bigger and get seven channel headsets.

And we’re super excited to start some series coming up and different ideas outside of the realm of just doing, we’re trying to brand away from silent disco and go more towards silent events is what we want to call what we do. Because there’s so many different uses for them. And like you said, especially in noise restricted areas, people are still going to hear that music, but being able to tie it in with the haptics and they still be able to feel it without having to have subwoofers and rate arrays and all the stuff that goes into doing the stage performance audio, it’s really cool.

Plus I’m a big, like I mentioned earlier, a big foodie myself. One of my favorite things is a really great all you can eat bar. So I can go into a venue and choose what music I want to listen to and then gravitate and find people that are also listening to that music because I can tell because of the color of the headset.

That’s going to be a very social experience, it’s going to be a very awesome experience. And something that we’re looking to do here in the near future with a venue that I’m possibly going to be working with is we’re going to come in and do a no cell phone policy as well and get people really connected back to each other. They’ll still be able to use their cell phone.

They just won’t be able to video or take pictures with it in the event space. I think that’s going to be a very big thing. It’s not just a one-off or a test.

It’s pretty much almost every event that we’re going to be doing is going to be, your cell phone goes into a bag and it doesn’t, unless you exit the place, then we snip the lock and you can go out and use it. And because one of the things is people don’t understand is that we do live streaming events. So we want to control, plus we have so many performers, the artists, the license of the music, all that stuff is going on.

And if people want to watch it online and see a really true great performance of it with multiple cameras and all that, they can go watch our broadcast online, but be immersed in the show while it’s happening to bring that back. And it’s happening at a lot of nightclubs. You see the news stories popping up saying no cell phones on the dance floor.

I was in Berlin last year and they put stickers on both sides of my phone. I was like, that’s really cool. And I could tell it was standard.

They did that there. It wasn’t, we’re doing this just for these artists. So that’s kind of really cool there.

About your releases though, what’s your latest release that you have that just came out? Did you have something just recently come out?

[Andrea Casta]
I released a song that was doing quite well. It’s doing quite well as well. Nowadays it was called Visions and it was released in August.

And the video reached more than 1 million views on YouTube. And also as streams was good around a half million. And, but out of numbers, I’m really happy with the sounds we had on Visions.

Also David Guetta put into his radio show and performed on the Universe Club in Ibiza. So, because with this Visions and with A Way to Space, also with Synthesize that it’s another recent track of mine, I tried to get the soundtrack vibe into the melodic techno with a tech house feel together. So it’s an experiment, but it’s a perimeter of sounds that I want to use for next upcoming releases.

Now I have three ideas that are promoted with big labels all over the world. And I think that before the end of 2025, we are going to release a big track. Nice.

[Darran]
You know, and now you also have an Italian tour that you’re working on on top of all this as well, right? Yep. And so tell us about that tour.

Is that taking themes from your current theme or is it elaborating and then doing something, a whole new setup, new stuff? People are going to see a bunch of new things on that tour?

[Andrea Casta]
The Italian tour was good because the name was Visions. That’s why we focused on a track with the same name of the tour. And Visions was packed with the whole space violin experience and other contents, but was the biggest production I made in my career.

We had 50 meters, 15, sorry, 50 was too much. 15 meters high lead walls, like a pyramid of walls, of lead walls with a very, very, very nice light designs and a lot of guests, other DJs that reached me on stage. We made in 15, no, 16, 16 tour dates during the summer in big venues.

[Darran]
And you played many different festivals, obviously in festivals, concerts, events. Do you have, and I know this is kind of a loaded question, but I never know what this is coming up to be is, do you have a favorite one or one that really has stuck out in your mind that is like, I really love playing here or I love this environment just, or you wanted to play somewhere and finally got to play. Has there been anyone, anything like that that you’ve said, because you’re going to keep climbing this ladder, but let’s, you know, the next goal, but have you hit that?

This was my best. I always wanted to do this place. Is there something that sticks out?

[Andrea Casta]
Yeah, for example, two years ago, I played in Circus Maximum, Circo Maximo in Rome in front of 90,000 people for the opening of Vasco Rossi. That was, Vasco Rossi is the biggest rock star in Italy. And every year, now it’s 70 years old, every year he performed 10, 15 concerts in the biggest Italian stadium.

And it’s like a mess, you know, with all his fandom full packed and they adore him. I’m a Vasco’s fan too, but to image to be the one who opened this concert with a different music, with a different set in that specific place that surrounded by history, by the ancient Rome and the sunset on my left side coming down was an amazing experience. And I think I can parallel it with another experience that I have before COVID in Athens, in the stadium where I played during the Holy Color Festival.

And also there was 60, 70,000 people in the Olympic Stadium in Athens. And I had an incredible experience there too. David Morales was there.

[Darran]
David, yeah, I think I’ve had Dave on the show before. He’s awesome. Have you interviewed him?

I think, let me check really quick here. I think so. I think I’ve had Dave on the show before.

I swear I’ve had him on the show before.

[Andrea Casta]
Okay, no, I think he’s based in Italy. Yeah. Now, the last few years.

By the way, David is one of the big name in the house music scene. And I studied his style and his point of view since I was a young musician interested in the electronic music.

[Darran]
Now, I thought I had Morales on the show before. Oh, well, maybe I haven’t. I’ll have to reach out to him.

Awesome guy. We’ll figure that one out. But have you ever gotten scared when playing an event?

I mean, like when you went and played the Circus Maximus it’s like 90,000 people. What could go wrong? Or did anything ever go wrong?

And like, oh, how did I recuperate from that?

[Andrea Casta]
Yeah, a lot of things happened during my career. But, you know, I’m a lucky guy because I was created step-by-step by myself. So I started singing in the very, very tiny clubs around Italy when I was younger, around 20.

I was singing and played piano. So completely different musical environment and kind of performances. But I started with the violin when I was five, when I was a child.

So during this early part of career, I used to bring the violin, sometimes making a solo, trying to sculpt the sound into that kind of performances. And the funny thing was that during the early 2000s in Italy, the live club was another part of the disco. So you had the main room and then a live club.

So I was able to do my show and then go run to the other room, go with the DJ, listen to the music, ask him, can I play the violin with you a little bit? No. Okay, I come tomorrow.

Can I play with you? No, I come tomorrow. And that made my career, that made my first experiences and how to handle, coming back to your question, how to handle every kind of situation, every emotion from the small club to the big venues, to the big crowd.

[Darran]
You know, it takes that persistence. I mean, I’m not a DJ myself, but when I was a kid growing up, going out to the nightclubs for the first time, I would somehow be able to get my way up into the DJ booth. And this is back when DJ booth, DJs were not the center of attention for shows.

They were up in a corner, they were away, they were off to the side, you know, but I would figure out a way to get up into the DJ booth and hang out with the DJs back there. This is way before I even started. My roots go back of filming DJs in clubs to like 1992, 1993.

I started in public acts and working on shows back when I was right out of high school at 18 years old. But even if I filmed a DJ back then, where was it gonna live? What was it gonna look like?

What was it gonna sound like? You know, we were patched into the board, bringing the audio in. We could have, I guess, at that point, but where was it gonna live?

You know, if I took an hour long DJ set, I’m gonna be able to watch it on my VCR at home. Like, okay, I mean, I could put it on public access, but then I’d need an hour long time slot to do that. And long story short, you know, it just sort of morphed into like, having that confidence though, of most people would say, I don’t have enough confidence to go bother the DJ.

I don’t have enough confidence to go knock on the door and ask to go up in the DJ booth. But you did, you persisted, you persisted. And it just, to me, it’s kind of a natural reaction for me.

I don’t try to sneak backstage or sneak up and try to meet the artist or do anything. I have press credentials for that now. But, you know, just kind of walking in with a little bit of confidence and saying, hey, this is what I’m doing.

This is what we’re here. And people will go, okay. And you miss 100% of the shots you never take.

You know, and that’s kind of a big philosophy of mine. So I’d rather take shots and get told no, and then figure out a way to get around to it, to get a yes.

[Andrea Casta]
And have- No, we, nowadays, in the current mood of artists, content creators, one of the keywords is consistency. And I know that consistency is very important. I think I’m a strong man who try to try hard to make his dream come true, his dream go into the reality.

But you can use consistency if you have good ideas, if you have the possibility to try things that in your project supposed to work. So I try again, make mistakes. And then, for example, when I first used the lightning bow, I saw a lot of guys around the world, not that many, but there was other violinists that used the lightning bow.

But it was only a tech thing. In my point of view, in my project, that was a real lightsaber. That was something that evocate a hero, an adventure, a feeling.

And building my music and my performance on that idea made his worked for 10 years. Because since I started to use the lightning bow in the way that I projected, it made my career go full gas.

[Darran]
Yeah, it’s like, I can relate to that, where we took, if you look at our site and you go to our mobile sessions, and back in 2010, I acquired a mobile billboard glass box truck and turned it into a live streaming studio, one of the first of its kind, that most broadcast television trucks, they cost about $300,000. And here we are, these independent artists to get this big glass box truck that I can pull up to events and interview and have a mobile studio. And now we have a sound system on it and drive it around town with DJs playing and streaming live as we’re driving around.

I’d love to, if you make it to Seattle, get you in the back and do something, driving around the streets of Seattle, I think that would be great. Get some awesome drone shots. Bring my upcoming US tour, I will make it.

Let us know, let us know, that would be awesome. If you could host an event without any limitations, you got the Black American Express card, no budget limit, what are the five things you would wanna have at that event?

[Andrea Casta]
Wow, short and easy. Okay. I will perform the first live show on the moon.

I like that.

[Darran]
I like that.

[Andrea Casta]
Yeah.

[Darran]
The first show on the moon. Cause that’s what I always wanted. I wanted to be the first DJ show on Mars.

[Andrea Casta]
Oh, wow.

[Darran]
So you’re streaming DJing from Mars. Far away, far away. I step on the moon.

I step on the moon. But I mean, I’d have to probably start with the moon first and then be on Mars. So I think the reason I chose Mars is cause that’s kind of where space exploration is going right now.

Maybe make a pit stop, my home base would be on the moon or I’d have a condo on the moon.

[Andrea Casta]
Topic we both are interested in. But I think that one of the first thing when you get people on the moon waiting to go to Mars, even if they are soldiers or scientists or astronauts, they need music, they need performances. They already did something on the space station.

And so when it comes to set a proper base on the moon, I think that music and entertainment must be something important to step into that new, I don’t have the word, new avant-poste of humanity. The new step, new place.

[Darran]
Yeah. Speaking of, I just was checking on something. I actually did have Dave Morales on the show in 2021.

I knew I did. I knew it was in there. I just had to type in David, not Dave.

Anyways, speaking of that, well, did we go over the five things that you would have at your event? We got that, right? The five things that you want to have at an event.

Ah, on my events. And your events. That they want to or that they have or that they need to have.

You would like to have if budget was not a limit.

[Andrea Casta]
Ah, budget not a limit, okay. Before to go to the moon, so.

[Darran]
Before going to the moon, yeah.

[Andrea Casta]
So the moon is the budget, okay.

[Darran]
Okay, okay. That’s one, that’s one thing. An event on the moon.

What would you have at that event on the moon?

[Andrea Casta]
Okay, so the best sound system. Because as you said previously, I want people feel the music in their chest, in their belly, in their head, everywhere. So it doesn’t mean the louder, but it means the best sound system.

Because the science now can create a very specific and unbelievable sounds to be heard from ears to the entire body, first. Second, the best 10 DJs of the world play with me. Because I don’t want to be alone on stage.

I love collaborations and I love to have a triangle between me, other artists and the crowd. So this energy circuit, as I call it, must be running and running and running and flowing. Third thing, of course, one of the best stage artists to set an incredible venue.

Fourth, the videographer, as you made in the 90s with your VCR things. No, I’m not joking, because to have people with the right eye, with the right point of view that filming you and telling your story, understand what you want to put on stage is the best way. Again, like I said before, if you have a too tech-oriented point of view, you can’t get the emotion, you can’t get the feelings and the humanity that must be the base of your success, of your music.

And five, last but not least, my wife backstage.

[Darran]
There you go. Everything. You’re not getting in trouble now.

You’ve got five things and I wasn’t one of them?

[Andrea Casta]
Awesome. I have an amazing wife. She’s my first supporter and fan.

And even in the last few years, she works too much, so she can’t tour with me every time. But for example, three years ago, when I made a big, big theatrical tour in Italy, she came almost the whole tour and was a very strong support. Because as I said to you, I’m a confident guy.

I love to be on stage, but if I have the right mood, that means be surrounded by the right people. I can express myself 100% for the audience. If I don’t have the mood before the show, in creating the show, it’s going to be tough, uncomfortable.

[Darran]
Yeah, I totally understand that. I was talking with a friend of mine this morning about she was in a Zoom call and she let everyone know that her class was going to be moving from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. And there were a bunch of thumbs up. And there was one thumbs down.

I went, that’s kind of rude. She didn’t ask for their approval, but I was explaining to her I was doing a show, just like one of our live interviews, and I didn’t know a lot about the artists that I was interviewing. And one of their viewers came in the chat room and kind of was like, does this guy even know who they are?

And I’m watching that because you know how fast the chat room can blow up. And I was like, I started to get distracted. It was like having a heckler on, if you’re a comedian and having somebody heckle you on stage, and you kind of lose your train of thought.

And I was just like, never has happened to me before. And you got to kind of pick up your pieces because you got to get back to that level of comfortability of what you were saying, of having a stress-free show. Every performance is, people think when I do this for a living, it’s easy.

I’m not acting, but I am cognitively interacting, doing something, like I’m running a show. So it takes the pressure and to have the lowest amount of pressure you can have is better, and it’s gonna make the overall performance come along as well. That leads right into one of my next questions.

What is one of the most difficult things for you to deal with when you’re on tour? 200 shows a year. I mean, that’s one, two, three, four a week, average of four a week.

What is the most difficult thing to deal with when you’re on tour?

[Andrea Casta]
Well, the most difficult thing I think is to don’t be overwhelmed by stimulus, stimulations, because every place you go, every audience you get, every promoter, every driver, everyone you meet, I’m a curious guy, so it’s a new thing in your life that deserves its moment of attention, its moment of focus, you know? So when you have traveled too much, like I do, it’s not that easy to keep your, to keep the attention of everything that’s happening around you. And, but you must keep your attention because I don’t like the artist, maybe bigger than me, that has a closed circle of manager, road manager, different people that keeps the bell on them.

You know what I mean? You know what I mean?

[Darran]
Mm-hmm.

[Andrea Casta]
We say the crystal bell. The copper bell? Anna Di Vetro, the crystal bell, the glass bell.

[Darran]
Oh, gotcha, crystal bell, yeah. Yeah, you know, I was talking with somebody recently and they talked about the dopamine effect that one minute you could be playing in front of tens of thousands of people, the next two hours later, you’re at an airport sitting there by yourself.

[Andrea Casta]
And that rush and down, that up and down of high- But if you avoid it, what I’m trying to say is that I feel the same, but when I first felt, I decided not to close myself to think that when you are alone, you are relaxed and you are breathing and you are focusing. It’s not every time like this, but if you can keep your curiosity to every human you’re going to meet around the world, this can balance the dopamine effect.

[Darran]
And do you take time after your shows to engage with your fans? Is that something that’s in your normal repertoire? What’s the nicest thing a fan has ever said to you that really sticks out?

I know there’s been tens of thousands of people, but is there any one thing that maybe sticks out or has they given you as like a token or your biggest fan?

[Andrea Casta]
I have a lot of fans. I remember a sport girl, a very famous Italian sport girl from the national team that was a fan of mine before to go to the Olympics. And she follows my music and I remember that I was treating her well even six years ago when she was no one.

And when she came two years ago to a concert after the Tokyo Olympic Games, she came in the backstage and during the meet and greet and she thanks me for the motivation that she pulled out of my music. And of course I used to be a sportsman before the musical career because I used to be a skier. That’s why I love the mountains.

I love the snow. I perform a lot in the Alps during the winter time. And I remember the music that I was listening to during when I was a teen, when I was dreaming to go to the Olympics.

And so this mirror effect to that girl experience moved me, moved me a lot.

[Darran]
You know, and you mentioned that’s an awesome story. That is to see somebody, to grow along with somebody and watch them, you’re nice to them here and then you don’t realize where they might’ve been going or they may have said, this is where I’m going with my life. And you kept that moving on and then almost a friendship built there, a camaraderie built there.

That’s awesome. You know, I noticed you though, you said that you went out and you play sometimes in the mountains, in the Alps and do that. I also saw something that I thought was quite interesting.

Do you often go out and play while you mow the lawn or do you just let Ljubljana do all the work? The skiers, instructors. No, I mean, I was watching an Instagram video or a video of you and you were out there and you set the automatic lawnmower on and it was mowing the lawn while you’re out there playing while mowing the lawn.

You don’t remember seeing that? I mean, you had to be there. It’s on your post.

[Andrea Casta]
Well, I didn’t, I didn’t understand. You didn’t what? You’re talking about what?

Sorry, I didn’t get to it.

[Darran]
You were playing on, you went out to go, like, it’s like the video is you and you’re getting ready to play the violin while you’re setting up your lawnmower.

[Andrea Casta]
Ah, okay, okay, okay. I understand.

[Darran]
Here, I’ll pull it up. Let’s see if I can find it on your front page. Yeah, it’s right here.

It’s the chilling in my garden with Ljuba. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that your backyard?

Yeah, it’s my backyard. Oh my gosh. So was this for a commercial or was this like something that you just like, oh, I’m going to go out, I’m going to activate the lawnmower and get ready?

[Andrea Casta]
It’s a half and a half, half and a half. It’s my idea, it’s my idea, but I used to spend time in my garden. So the guy who, the company who produced the Limelighter sent out to me and I tried to make something funny with it, but it’s real.

I play and I practice in my garden.

[Darran]
That’s kind of like a, what do they call them? What’s the vacuum cleaners that run around? The foop, foop.

I should know the name of these things.

[Andrea Casta]
I don’t know the proper English word to say that, but yes, something like that. Something like an automated vacuum cleaner is the automated lawnmower.

[Darran]
That’s awesome. When you’re not entertaining others, what do you like to do to entertain yourself? What do you get into outside of the studio, off the stage, when business is done?

What does Andrea like to go out and do?

[Andrea Casta]
For example, cooking and gardening. I love gardening. Even half the job is made by machines.

No, but other than that, I’m a very simple guy. That’s why with my wife, we decided to renew this house in the countryside because she’s a marketing manager. She works out as me.

And when we are free, we share these very precious and simple moments to connect with the ground, with the planet, with nature, with good food, with friends. And also I love to spend time with my little dog. Oh!

Ciao, Rocket. Rocket, say hi to Seattle. Ciao, darling.

[Darran]
Hi, my mascot is sleeping on the couch over here, my dojo, the disco cat.

[Andrea Casta]
So- Actually, he was sleeping on the studio carpet as well. Rocket is over here. But to entertain myself, I love the things that inspire me.

So I love to go out to cinema, not to watch only Netflix or Prime, but go out and experience the cinema and the theater like we used to. So I’m a simple guy. I try to keep myself inspired and curious on the outside world.

I don’t want to, even if I’m, now I’m closed in my studio, I don’t want to keep too much closed on my project, my ideas. I need energy and I need to breathe the real world.

[Darran]
You know, it’s good to get out and have that. I have to have a very regimented workflow in the sense of Monday through Friday. I have a pattern now that I’m in, but I have to have a good work-life balance.

I burnt myself out. Really just went through a burnout for about eight and a half months from last year, from August of last year to May of this year. I was just stuck in a place.

I couldn’t get out of this funk that I was in in my head. I didn’t sit in this chair for pretty much eight and a half months. No interview, just dropped off the face of the earth.

I was doing a lot of back-end stuff, but nothing on the forefront. So having a good work-life balance, healthy people around, eating healthy, living healthy is huge. And I’m glad you have found that mantra, that road to go down and do that.

[Andrea Casta]
You have to believe in this kind of life. You don’t have to force yourself to get into it because others say to you to eat healthy or something like that, do sports. We all know that it’s good habits.

But the point is that you, in my case, my career, my music, that is my passion, I’m lucky because it helps me listen to the needs of myself or my inner Andrea. And I had the chance to follow this kind of life.

[Darran]
Going back to the music a little bit here, if you could score a Hollywood movie, what director would you like, what director would have your preference? Like if you go, I wanna go work with that director and do the scores for their movies, who would that be? At this moment?

At this moment. I guess we could say- James Gunn. Deceased, but, you know.

[Andrea Casta]
James Gunn. James Gunn because I love the way he transformed the Guardian of the Galaxy and the way that now he’s working on Superman character. I love this kind of talent to are into the mainstream scene, but keep the inspiration to make details working in each and every scene of the movie.

It’s the same, if you ask me, I want to work, and I think in the future we have a chance to do it in the next year with David Guetta, because it’s the same. He’s in the mainstream scene, he’s the godfather of the DJs, but he tried to be there, caring of each detail of the production, of the live show, of the communication, without sitting in his comfort zone.

[Darran]
That’s awesome. You know, if somebody were to write a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?

[Andrea Casta]
I remember that you talked with Martin Jensen and you asked the same question, and you used ChatGPT to find the proper title.

[Darran]
Yeah, thank you for watching my shows.

[Andrea Casta]
I’m well prepared, I studied. No, but I don’t want to use ChatGPT, I want to use my mind this time. So the title can be…

I think that it’s going to be related to my roots. So, from the mountain to the moon. Mountain to the moon.

From the mountain to the moon. That’s awesome. A violin can tell the story, this is a subtitle, a violin can tell the story of a whole life.

[Darran]
Yeah, totally. That’s awesome. Now, is there anything else you want to let our DJ Sessions fans know before we let you go?

[Andrea Casta]
No, Darran, I think we had a good conversation. Thanks for helping me not to stuck in my English, because this summer I made a summer tour in Italy with two or three tour dates in Slovenia, Georgia and Emirates, but not in the English or American speaking countries. So that’s why I have a little bit of rust on my English mindset.

But I hope you get the way that I want to live my career and my music. And also all the DJ Sessions community.

[Darran]
Thank you, yeah. Well, we’re going to definitely be following up with you and doing more with you in the future. Once that studio gets finalized and you get your DJ set up there, I know you’re going to be giving us an exclusive mix, super excited for that.

And if you get back up in the live streaming, we’d like to have you on the show more as well and get you syndicated through our network. But we’re going to be in touch on a lot of stuff and it was great having you here. Where’s the best place people can go to to find out more information about you?

[Andrea Casta]
You can follow me on Instagram, that is the more updated social that I use. But also if you are an old school guy, you can find me on Facebook page and every productions comes with new videos that you can check it out on my YouTube channel.

[Darran]
Awesome. And best place to go is through the Instagram, A-N-D-R-E-A-C-A-S-T-A, Andrea Casta on Instagram. Well, thank you again for being here.

It was a pleasure having you. Like I said, we’re going to definitely be in touch and follow up with you in the future. Thank you, Darran.

It’s been a pleasure. You’re welcome. On that note, don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com.

Find us there and over 700 news stories every month, live interviews just like this one, exclusive mixes. Look for our new music section coming out, syndicated shows. Our new merch store is going to be coming, redeveloped a lot of new stuff at thedjsessions.com.

Just go there, thedjsessions.com, take a second and check it out. I’m your host, Darran, coming to you from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington. That’s Andrea Casta coming in from Verona, Italy for the DJ sessions.

And remember on the DJ sessions, the music never stops.