Darude: Outlaws, Vibing Out, and Staying Grounded on the Mobile Sessions 4/21/23

Darude: Outlaws, Vibing Out, and Staying Grounded

In this special Mobile Session recorded outside Aura Nightclub in Seattle, The DJ Sessions host Darran Bruce reconnects with Finnish DJ and producer Darude to talk about his new single Outlaws, his Vibing Out label, and life beyond the stage. Best known for his global anthem Sandstorm, Darude shares how his latest collaboration with Housebody (Jaakko Manninen) and vocalist Oscar was born out of a playful studio jam that turned into a rave-inspired track full of distorted 909 drums and old-school stabs. Oscar’s heartfelt lyrics brought the project to life, making Outlaws a release that felt successful even before its debut.

The conversation also explores the launch of Vibing Out Records, named after his popular Twitch livestream. Darude explains how the label gives him creative freedom to release both commercial tracks and experimental projects, while also supporting new artists with transparency and intention. Having streamed weekly DJ and production sets since 2015, his Twitch community has grown into a global hub of positivity, which he credits as an important part of his artistic journey.

Off stage, Darude reveals how skateboarding and ice hockey keep him balanced, alongside his role as a father and husband. He speaks about his admiration for YouTube skater Chad Caruso, who inspired him to return to skating after decades away. The discussion rounds out with his views on festivals versus club shows, augmented reality’s potential in music, and the growing importance of branding and merchandise for DJs.

With authenticity, humor, and a grounded perspective, Darude continues to prove why he remains one of electronic music’s most respected and enduring figures.

Show Notes – 

Host: Darran Bruce
Guest: Darude
Location: Mobile Sessions Studio – Aura Nightclub, Seattle WA

Overview:
Darran Bruce speaks with Darude about his latest release Outlaws, the Vibing Out label, livestreaming, and how he balances life as a global DJ with family and personal passions.

Topics Covered:

• Collaboration with Housebody and Oscar on Outlaws
• Inspiration from old-school rave sounds and organic studio fun
• Founding Vibing Out Records to balance creative freedom and artist support
• Twitch livestreaming since 2015 and building a global community
• Skateboarding and ice hockey as personal de-stressors
• Admiration for YouTube skater Chad Caruso and his cross-country journey
• Family life as a grounding force beyond touring
• Reflections on club shows vs. massive festival stages
• Views on augmented and virtual reality in music experiences
• Importance of branding, merchandise, and building a sustainable career

Call to Action:
Follow Darude on Twitch at twitch.tv/darude and on Instagram @darude.
Stream his latest release Outlaws and discover more exclusive content at thedjsessions.com

[Darran]
Welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions presents the Mobile Sessions. We’re sitting out front of Aura nightclub right now in downtown Seattle and we have none other than the man you’ve known him for a very long time, DJ, producer extraordinaire and we’re gonna be diving in deep with some questions to find out what he’s been up to. Darude, Darude, how’s it been going this all this time?

It’s been a while since I’ve had you on the show.

[Darude]
I just, I’ve been, I’ve been, I’ve been wondering what the hell is up with you? That’s, that’s been filling my days. I’m not gonna admit to nights.

So good to be back.

[Darran]
Yeah, thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure having you on the show. I know you’ve been up to a lot of stuff.

We want to get you into the club, out to your fans. And you’re really, you’re on a tour right now. Did that tour start in February?

Is that the official launch date? Because I was looking on your list of dates. I know you had some stuff in January that was going on.

Yeah. But it seems you’ve just been going since February.

[Darude]
Well, on and off. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been spending a good amount of time in the studio at home.

But also, yeah, being on the road, I’ve done a couple of US dates or US weekends this year. Last weekend, I was in Lithuania. Actually, which is interesting, because that was my first time ever.

It’s only like an hour and a bit flight away from Finland. But yeah, played an amazing party at this big arena, like 6,000 people or so. And it was exciting.

[Darran]
Very, very cool. I saw the video from that. Do you prefer larger scale festivals, events to more intimate nightclubs?

I mean, obviously, Aura does not have a 6,000 person capacity to it. But what do you feel is where you really jive with the crowd and get into it?

[Darude]
Well, those are very different things. A club like Aura, I don’t know, there’s a couple of hundred people, probably tops fit in the upper room there. When they’re all just like right there, that’s really cool.

I mean, it’s kind of cliche, but it’s intimate. You can see everybody’s like sweat beads and everything. And that’s nice.

At a festival, the masses bring energy and bring this vibe and the roar and everything. But at the same time, it’s really hard to sort of concentrate on one person and feel personal like that. But I prefer both, definitely.

And then from a business standpoint, you go to a festival and you reach 20,000 people, 50,000 people, whatever, versus a couple of hundred at a club. Business-wise, it’s much, much more productive to reach bigger crowds. But I mean, I think it’s been a while since we last chatted, but I think you know me enough, it’s not exactly about the dollar when I’m at the decks.

It’s about the connection and it’s about just vibes anyway.

[Darran]
And after a month of heavy touring or being on the road, when you get back home, what do you do to de-stress? What’s your number one go-to thing? If you’re not just jumping back in the studio, what do you do to just have that downtime?

[Darude]
That would start with a conclusion that I actually de-stress when I’m home. Fair enough. So I got two kids and a wife.

They keep me grounded and they keep me in a dad and husband mode when I’m not on the road. So no more Mr. Superstar DJ when you step over that threshold of getting home. I’m a nine-to-five dad, so to say.

I take my kids to school and daycare and then I head to the studio. Those hours, they’re gone. I go skateboard.

Skateboarding is my main de-stressor and I play ice hockey as well. Actually, I’ve got something for you. Don’t forget to ask when this is done.

I’ve got these two modes. When I get on the road, I jump on a plane or train, car, whatever. Then it’s sort of business DJ professional mode.

And then there’s definitely this let my beard grow and just be dad kind of mode.

[Darran]
You mentioned that you like to skate. I was going through your socials recently and you spoke about somebody you kind of revered by the name of Chad Caruso. Can you tell me why Chad is so important to you and our fans?

[Darude]
So I skated when I was a kid and then I didn’t decide to stop. I stopped around 19, 20 years old and then I picked it up like five years ago now, so like 2018-ish. Skateboarding world is different now for many, many reasons, but Chad Caruso reasons.

For me, he’s a YouTube skateboarder who was a professional skateboarder back in the day, competed, I guess, and was a skateboarder lifestyle-wise as well and whatnot. I’ve learned a ton from him. YouTube is an amazing asset for anybody wanting to learn anything.

But for me, back then, I had no skateboarding scene. I had crappy videos of Tony Hawk doing amazing errors, but something that I could have never done. We didn’t have skills nor the ramps or anything like that at that time.

So now there are many, but Chad Caruso is one of those who picks apart the tricks. He knows how to do them, but he especially knows how to teach how to do them. Put your weight on the heel, then toes, whatever, turn this way, blah, blah, blah.

I really look up to him. He’s been kind enough to actually answer a couple of questions. I’ve messaged him on socials.

Why I brought him up just recently on my Twitter, for instance, was that he is skating across the US right now. He’s over the halfway mark, so that’s over 1,500 miles in 27 days. I think he would make 1,500 miles, 55 miles averaging every day.

He’s doing it for himself just to try it out, if he can do it. He’s also a former alcoholic. I don’t remember exactly his history, maybe six years ago.

He’s raising awareness and raising money for that cause. Honestly, I don’t remember which organization it is, but you can find it. Just Google skating across the US, Chad Caruso, for instance, you’ll find it.

He’s vlogging every day. I’m following his vlogging. It’s crazy.

He’s a hero.

[Darran]
Would you say that you skateboarding in your younger years that you would consider yourself outlaw?

[Darude]
Wow, I see what you did there. I think I wasn’t because I was too much of a chicken shit. I didn’t want to get in trouble.

For instance, my dad wasn’t really understanding skateboarding at that time. I think I was at least, if not an outlaw, at least a little bit of a rebel doing skateboarding and also inline skating and stuff. The beginning of skating, of course, back in the day, people would sneak into people’s empty pools and actually skate pools and that kind of stuff.

That might have been a little bit on the illegal side.

[Darran]
Speaking of outlaw or doing outlandish behavior, your latest track you just released in three years, Outlaws, collaborating with the likes of Oscar and Housebody. What was the inspiration behind that song, you three coming together and putting that track together?

[Darude]
Housebody, aka Jaakko Manninen, he’s a Finnish guy who I’ve known since early 2000s. With this video now, he’s made eight of my music videos. He’s a music video producer or anything visual arts.

He’s made commercials, this and that, all kinds of stuff, graphic stuff. He’s also a musician and he’s had his own band, for instance, Beats and Styles, pretty big in Finland and some European countries in the early 2000s. He’s also part of a band called Joddy Ranks.

I happened to be in Cali in 2019, actually, touring. I hung out with him a day with his family and hung out in his studio. We were talking about what would it be like if we went to a rave like now, because we were busy dads and husbands and busy professionals, don’t get to let go too much, let our hair down.

This was a track that we started working on. We added distorted 909 drums and some old school rave stabs and house stabs. We’re giggling, having fun.

It was literally two guys just talking crap and having fun. The instrumental was almost exactly like you hear it now, on a track. It stayed on my hard drive for a year and a half, but then I heard Oscar sing live on Finnish national TV, contacted him, turns out he lives 35 minutes from me.

I never knew him. I actually lived in the city earlier. He wanted to work with me.

He liked our story, felt it. He wrote the lyrics. I pretty much got a little teary-eyed when I heard the lyrics.

He nailed them. His deliveries are awesome as well. I’m working on other stuff with him as well.

It just happened so organically. We wanted it to be a big success, billion streams and whatnot, but it was already a success before it came out, because I’m feeling so good about the track.

[Darran]
This was released on your new label. It’s Vibing Out, named after your live streaming show, Vibing Out. You got into live streaming.

When did you get into live streaming, actually?

[Darude]
I think a little after you.

[Darran]
I think everyone got involved in after me.

[Darude]
I know, man. 2015 was when I started streaming with Twitch. I’d done a couple of whatever streams before that.

Honestly, by the way, probably partially because you did stuff, and I started looking into, I don’t even remember, Ustreams and whatever we had back then. But Twitch started the creative side of it back then, and Deadmau5 was one of the first ones as well. I never was a gamer, but the gaming community took me in with open arms.

It was really cool. I did production streams mainly, then I did some chat stuff, but it was very random. But then when the pandemic unfortunately started, I started doing DJ sets once a week.

I had this chatting thing. Actually, I interviewed or chatted with my peers, and people could listen in. And then I had a studio stream where I picked apart whatever of my tracks, or here’s how I tune a kick drum, or whatever it was, or gear reviews and stuff like that.

So since late 2019, and then of course early 2020, and now I’ve been doing it. Every Friday when I’m not on the road, I’m still doing the DJ stream.

[Darran]
That led into vibing out the record label. What can we expect from vibing out coming into the future?

[Darude]
Well, that’s a good question, because we are still planning on some stuff. We have a very clear vision. It’s definitely my outlet.

I haven’t been royally screwed by anybody, exactly. But I also have not always been happy with taking my tracks to a record company A, B, or C, and then having people who sometimes don’t maybe get who I am, what my music is about, or what my music needs, or what my career needs to be successful. And so that’s why I’m just kind of trying to take some of that power back to myself.

So that’s one. And then the point is that we are looking, of course, for commercial hit records from myself. But also, maybe I have an obscure track that I don’t think is going to any sort of money or stream a lot, but then I want to put it out because I feel like it.

That’s one. But then we’re looking for new and existing artists who would fit our ethos, and also who we think we can help. Because we don’t want to be a label who just signs everything and does nothing.

I think we want to be transparent in what we do. And then, like I said, if we get a track that is great, but I don’t think that we know how to push it or where to push it, then we better not take it and have them go somewhere else who knows better. There are certain skill sets or certain networks that we think we have, and maybe some are not.

[Darran]
Switching gears here just a little bit. Have you looked at doing anything in virtual reality yet?

[Darude]
Have I? Yes, for years and years and years and years where that year the goggles were supposed to be great enough and this year this and that. And honestly, I’d lie if I said that I’m not interested, but it’s been so many times that I’ve looked into it for a while.

I’ve talked to some people. We know some people who are into 360 video and VR and AR. And for me, this hasn’t taken yet.

And I have a couple of obvious tracks that I could try and do projects with around, and I’ve talked about those with some people here and there. I personally, I think instead of actual VR, I’m more interested into AR and I don’t even know, like basically wearing glasses that look like glasses and there’s info there and or objects or this and that. I don’t know.

That seems to, for me, be more useful. And I don’t also know that much about VR, but I don’t know when people talk about these terms, they also talk, they overlap and they don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about like I don’t either. But just simple stuff like instead of going to a store, you can check out furniture in your home or clothing or whatever.

And there’s a bazillion applications to AR and XR, something like that. That maybe is more interesting to me.

[Darran]
Awesome. Yeah, we just launched our first VR nightclub and we’re super excited about it. We have a lot of shows, a lot of content going through it.

I’d love to talk to you offline about that and your management. It’s really cool stuff. We’ll give you a tour at least.

[Darude]
Yeah, sure.

[Darran]
It’s cool stuff. Speaking of the branding and getting yourself out there, how important is it for a DJ producer to have merchandise?

[Darude]
It’s more important than what we paid attention to. I mean, the merchandise as a word or concept in itself is one thing, but then the branding is like DJs are not people or DJs today. They are brands.

All the big bands are brands. Sometimes I guess the music and then just what the person is, that develops to the brand. But I think the big business of course is around the brand.

And if partners come in and whatnot, that’s up to that and how that brand is managed.

[Darran]
Well, is there anything else you want to let our DJ session team know before we let you back into our nightclub tonight?

[Darude]
Well, I’m here. It’s a Friday, so I’m not home and streaming, but I do normally every Friday. It’s early in the morning, so 8 a.m. when I start. But I have a lot of people from Seattle area who drink their morning coffees with me every Friday when I’m not on the road, for instance. So if you have a question for me, if you want to hear some great electronic dance music early in the morning on Fridays, check out twitch.tv slash Darude. And our community, by the way, vibing out the name of the community or the stream, it’s just not me and my stream, but it’s the community.

We have an amazing bunch of mods and really open and accepting community. So that’s one thing that you want to check out, not just me yapping all your ears off.

[Darran]
Yep, I know how that goes. I know how that goes, definitely. Got to say hi to David Vincent outside of that mobile studio right now.

He just walked by. I think he’s going to be in the club. We’ll see you soon enough.

He’s going to come over probably at the West. Anyways, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s always a pleasure to have you on.

We’ll stay in touch. We’ll do a follow up. Congratulations on everything you’ve accomplished.

Outlaws, vibing out, all that fun stuff.

[Darude]
Yeah, I heard that Seattle’s doing pretty well with hockey this year.

[Darran]
We are doing really kick ass with our hockey team. Let’s get this up closer to the camera. Darude the Hockey Puck.

And so thank you so much for Darude the Hockey Puck. We’ll stay in touch with you. Awesome stuff.

This is Darren and Darude coming to you from the mobile studio in front of Orrin Nightclub in Seattle, Washington. And remember, on the DJ sessions, the music never stops.