Plastik Funk on the Virtual Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions 7/9/25

🎧 Interview Summary: Plastik Funk on The DJ Sessions

Host: Darren
Guest: Plastik Funk (Rafael Ximenez-Carrillo)
Location: Seattle (virtual studio) ↔ Hamburg/Ibiza
Vibe: Energetic, honest, insightful — packed with touring stories, thoughts on DJ culture, and industry reflections.

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🌍 Global Tour Life

• Nonstop Touring: Since January, Plastik Funk has been playing back-to-back gigs around the globe — from Vietnam, Japan, and Bali, to the U.S., Europe, and now the peak of European summer festivals.

• Touring Philosophy: Touring isn’t seasonal anymore — “there’s always summer somewhere.”

• Tour longevity: He’s been touring internationally for over 15 years, with the last 7–8 years being global, intense, and consistent.

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🌴 Ibiza: His “Happy Place”

• Base of Creativity: Ibiza is home and creative sanctuary.

• Favorite restaurant: La Bodega in Ibiza Old Town — an affordable tapas spot with authentic, non-traditional Spanish flavor (rare in Ibiza’s pricey scene).

• Although he performs worldwide, he prefers to keep Ibiza personal, only playing select shows and hosting boat parties.

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🔊 Music & DJing Style

• No Pre-Recorded Sets: Strongly against fully pre-recorded DJ sets. Believes true DJing is about crowd reading, spontaneity, and live performance.

• Prepping, Not Faking:

  • Builds custom folders (e.g. “Festival Folder”) with 60–70 of his favorite tracks and edits.

  • Shares them with his team in advance to sync fireworks and visuals without sacrificing live mixing.

  • Quote: “You can still have a perfect light show and mix live — you just have to do more work.”

• On Favorite Track Right Now:

  • A Latin house track based on the “NYC” sample (originally from Quijano, now covered on Solid Grooves) — called it the “track of the summer” in Ibiza.

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🎵 “Samba” – Viral Remix Story

• A bootleg remix of “Samba de Janeiro” with Rave Republic went viral.

• Shared it with the original producer Ramon Zenker, who immediately gave Plastik Funk full rights to use the sample.

• Led to:

  • An EDM version: Over 1M streams in 3 months.

  • A tech house version (with Toxic Joe and Leo from Brazil): Over 2M streams, now a massive summer anthem.

• This remix success proves the power of spontaneous creative energy and fan-driven momentum.

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🎤 AI & The Future of DJing

• Initially embraced AI tools for isolating vocals and making edits.

• Now growing concerned about AI’s rapid evolution, calling it “fast food creativity”.

• Warns that AI might eliminate 60–70% of music industry jobs in the coming years.

• Advocates for responsible, creative use — not replacing human ingenuity or artistry.

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🔌 Mental Health & Tour Burnout

• Admitted to experiencing tour burnout before and after COVID.

• Personal crisis included ear issues from stress, lack of sleep, and social media-induced anxiety.

• Now implements regular “off weekends” every 2–3 months to rest, stay grounded, and recover.

• Prioritizes fitness, eating healthy, and mindfulness to sustain longevity.

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🤹 Backstage Stories & Festival Mayhem

• Craziest backstage memory: Cramped into a green room with 38 people (capacity 10) because he couldn’t turn away friends.

• Used to jump into crowds and roll in giant inflatable bubbles during performances. His manager has since banned the crowd dives after a near-hand injury. 😅

• Enjoys the adrenaline and chaos of being surrounded by fans and friends post-show.

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🎚️ Clubs vs Festivals

• Loves both:

  • Festivals = Big energy, massive reach, fireworks.

  • Clubs = Intimate, sweaty, great for testing new music.

• Finds value in both environments and considers the ability to play both a privilege.

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📊 DJ Mag Top 100

• Made the DJ Mag Top 100 five years in a row.

• Emphasizes it’s not about money, but fan connection and a strong campaign.

• Particularly important in Asian markets, where rankings significantly impact bookings.

• Quote: “If your fans don’t vote, you can spend all the money in the world — you won’t get in.”

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🔥 Defining Success

• Not just about money or fame.

• Success = being able to live off music, make people happy, and create freely.

• Grateful to have reached this level: tours worldwide, 95% original music in sets, passionate fanbase.

• Quote: “Seven years ago, I’d say it needs to be bigger. Now, I’ve learned to enjoy where I am.”

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📖 If He Wrote a Biography…

Possible title: “Follow Your Passion”

Why? Because he’s done it all:

• Professional baseball and soccer player

• Near-career as a surfer

• Ultimately followed his passion for music — and never looked back.

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📱 Where to Follow Plastik Funk

• Instagram: @plastikfunk — daily updates, stories, behind-the-scenes.

• TikTok: Same handle, featuring performance clips, fan footage, tour content.

• Website: Up-to-date with new tracks, merch, and tour dates.

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💬 Notable Quotes

“A DJ set doesn’t have to be perfect. A great set has imperfections — those are the magic moments.”

“AI is turning music into fast food. It’s fast, but it’s not healthy.”

“I promised my manager I wouldn’t jump into crowds anymore. I almost broke my hand last year.”

[Darran]
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the DJ Sessions Presents the Virtual Sessions. I’m your host, Darren, and right now I’m sitting in the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington, and coming in all the way from Hamburg and via Ibiza, we have none other than Plastic Funk on the show today.

Plastic Funk, how’s it going?

[Plastik Funk]
Good, good, good. Thanks for having me.

[Darran]
Yeah, I know you are a man about many countries right now. You’re actually on tour. Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.

I wish I was in Ibiza with you yesterday, but, you know, I’m over stateside right now. What’s it like? You’re being on tour.

You were just in the U.S. not too long ago. Saw a video you posted from New York. You were in L.A. You were in Vegas, I believe, too. Tell us all about this tour and what you got going on.

[Plastik Funk]
Yeah, I mean, now we have the European summer, which is actually, it was supposed to be the busiest time of the year, but actually I told a lot of people, like, my summer already started 1st of January because we’ve been on tour nonstop. I mean, there’s summer somewhere in the world. So we started in January with a big Asia tour, headlined a couple festivals in Vietnam.

Then we went to Bali and to Japan. And after that, yeah, it was a couple of U.S. tours and then back to Europe. Been on tour nonstop, which is great.

Now the European summer started. So, yeah, it’s almost, it’s festivals like three, four times a week at the moment.

[Darran]
You know, is this something that’s a natural thing that you do, say, the first of the year, you go and do this every year? Or is this something you’ve been planning for a while to put on this kind of world tour?

[Plastik Funk]
Luckily, I can say that I’ve been on tour worldwide for quite some time. I mean, actually, it really started to get bigger like 10 years ago. And then, I mean, we had this amazing time of COVID, which made us stop everything.

And yeah, no tour at all. But even then, I was trying to make it happen somehow, because to keep me home is very difficult. So I tried to find ways to DJ somewhere safe.

And yeah, no, but I have to say, luckily, and I’m really happy about it. I’m touring for the last seven, eight years worldwide everywhere. But already like 15, 16 years ago, I was playing a lot of shows abroad.

And yeah, now it’s almost a different country every weekend.

[Darran]
Yeah, last year, I had the awesome opportunity of being at Rave the Planet. And it was my first time ever being at something that large of an event. I was with the Riverside Studios crew on their float, on their truck there.

And it was an amazing experience, had a great time streaming live, meeting a lot of people, really overwhelming experience. And it was my 50th birthday the next following weekend. After that, I was this close to bucket listing Ibiza.

And I was like, oh, but it was my flight. I had already made preparations for a birthday party back home. And I was like, I didn’t want to bail on everyone back home.

But I was like, I’m just right there. But it was going to be like a $2,600 ticket to get me home from Ibiza back to Seattle. That was just figuring it out right away, trying to do it rather than flying back into Germany and then flying out again.

But yeah, I definitely got to make it out there sometime. I should have gone there a long time ago in my youth. But I’m still young in my heart.

[Plastik Funk]
It’s paradise for sure. For me, it’s my happy place in Europe, 100%. I mean, I try to be there as much as I can and to be there in our house.

And I really enjoy it. All the creativity and my energy I get from that island. So yeah, I try to be there nonstop if I can.

[Darran]
I’m a little bit of a foodie. I got to ask you a question. Best restaurant to go to in Ibiza?

[Plastik Funk]
My favorite is actually, it’s a very secret tapas bar. But they do not a classic because I’m half Spanish. So to get used as a Spanish person to a new kind of tapas is quite difficult.

Because we follow the rules and the tradition. But we have this tapas bar. It’s called La Bodega.

And it’s in Old Town. And in my opinion, the best tapas you can have in Spain. And decent prices, which is something very special in Ibiza as well.

Because that island is super expensive. But yeah, La Bodega, close to the Old Town. That’s the place to be.

[Darran]
Well, I am looking at putting some stamps on my passport this year. I want to go check that place out. Like I said, a huge foodie there.

You know, when it comes to playing, what – without – this can kind of be – the next question can kind of be a little bit of a tricky question. Because I don’t want you to make any enemies of it. Nothing controversial.

But what’s one track that you currently play right now that you find on your tour that is so hot no matter where you go? And describe to us in detail why it’s such a great track. To play when you’re out there on tour.

Like I said, I don’t want to get you in trouble.

[Plastik Funk]
No, no. It’s a really good question. Because the thing is, I’m playing so much shows at the moment.

And I’m one of those DJs – I hate to play the same sets over and over again. I’m getting so bored. And this is like this whole thing about pre-recorded sets.

I could never do it. Because you would see me crying in a DJ booth. For me, the excitement is to read a crowd and to work with a crowd.

And of course, I have folders of my favorite tracks. I mean, I’m doing every season, or every two months, I do at least 15, 18 of my own edits. Because I want to have different edits compared to the DJ who plays before or after me.

But I would say one of the tracks I really, really enjoy right now, and I think it’s number one on Beatport now, is the NYC with that Latin sample. I would say it’s maybe the track of the summer. In Ibiza, for sure.

I think it’s the Ibiza hit this year. I think the first one who did it was Quijano. And it’s called NYC.

Now, there’s another cover. It’s on Solid Grooves. It’s number one on Beatport.

But that track, I mean, I love the groove. And I’m a house guy. So it has everything that makes a good Latin house track.

[Darran]
There you go. You’re singing in my heart now. I’m a huge house fan.

That’s my go-to genre. Love that. Love that.

Awesome. But thank you for sharing that track with us. And you’re right.

You’ve got to read the crowd. And in this day and age, I’ve seen this happen. I’ve been watching it.

You’ve been watching it. We’ve all been watching it in the industry of these big shows with basically prerecorded tracks. I’m not trying to start any controversy here or get myself in trouble.

Definitely don’t want to get you in trouble. But I saw a Facebook meta video the other day, and the DJ is up there, and he’s just tapping on the board. Hundreds of thousands of people.

And it’s been echoing over in conversation a little bit in the interviews that I do that people are starting to say it’s disenfranchising the DJ culture as a whole. And I get it. The big-name shows, I always say this to preface this, those lighting for the drones, all the effects, those can’t happen unless you have a perfectly timed show.

So if a DJ train wrecks – I mean I guess you could. But if a DJ train wrecked or something happened, the whole lighting show is still going to the music, but something is going down. So I guess you could do it or you can’t do it.

But, you see, all the DJs, the one thing that gets me the most is they’re not wearing any headphones. And how can you be mixing? You could, I guess, if you have the booth monitor going.

You could do it via waveform. I get it all. But it’s like, wait a second.

And people are being seen and cultured to see a DJ playing a major, huge event show but not mix, to not be in the headset, not queuing it up right. So your take on that without getting into too much trouble?

[Plastik Funk]
No, no. I’m brutally honest, and I would tell everyone right in the face if I see he plays like a 100% recorded set. I mean, a DJ set at a festival nowadays became a performance.

So if part of the performance is a light show, fireworks, pyro, visuals, that’s fine with me. It’s OK if you preset a couple of your tracks. But in my opinion, because we do it.

I mean, we have a big visual show. We have fireworks. We have everything.

You name it. On the show, it is possible to play a DJ set and to time it a little bit with your team. So you let them listen to your favorite tracks.

For example, I have a folder for festivals. Because festivals, especially when you play in Asia, you’ve got to mix quite fast. OK?

So I have a folder of like 60, 70 tracks, which are my favorites for the season. And sometimes I take tracks out and I add new tracks. OK?

I mean, because I’m a DJ since day one. I started DJing when I was 16. I have a lot of music with me.

I could play a techno set right now if I want to because I like it. You know? But that’s not plastic fun.

So my main set for the festivals right now is, let’s say, a folder of like 70 tracks. My favorites. Maybe it’s 30, 40 of my own edits because this is only my music I want to play.

And, of course, always like at least 30, 40% of my own productions. So out of that, I have this folder shared with my team nonstop. And I give it a bit of a direction.

So where do I start? Where do I go? But I could never like pre-record this and just stay there and do this.

You know? It would drive me crazy because for me, that’s not a DJ set anymore. Even if you say, OK, it’s a performance, you can still mix your songs.

And I mean, if you say like, OK, it’s difficult to have that kind of performance with a perfect time firework, perfect time visual, no. It’s possible to mix live and to have all that. It’s just a bit more work.

You have to do that extra mile. And your team has to do it as well. And if you’re too lazy to do so and you say like, OK, I want to have it perfect.

This is why I pre-record it. A DJ set not has to be 100% perfect. In my opinion, a good DJ set, you can hear that a DJ maybe has to tip it a little bit that it’s on time.

OK? And nowadays, I mean, you’ve got a goddamn sync button. You can do everything without headphones.

I mean, I can teach my grandma how to DJ. It’s not that difficult anymore. But what makes a good DJ and good performer is the selection.

Right? And if you put this selection in a nice selection when you play what and how you mix this track with this track, I think that makes a good performer and a good DJ. And if you time that perfectly and sometimes spontaneously and when you go on top of the DJ booth, when you go to the front, when you spray some champagne, when you shoot some fireworks, this can happen spontaneously.

And if this works out then and you have this magic moment that it works out and you get the people in the moment, it feels 10 times better than like pre-recording a set. And you know, like, OK, after 42 minutes and 30 seconds, I’m shooting. I don’t know.

I was shooting a camel into the crowd.

[Darran]
Did you say shooting a camel into the crowd?

[Plastik Funk]
Whatever. Shooting an animal. Whatever.

The thing is, you know, it’s getting ridiculous nowadays. This is why I’m always making fun of it. Because people come up with the crazy stuff.

No, but I think it’s a good mix of preparing yourself right, preparing your team right, having your team on point, have a good team around you, but finding a good way of preparing yourself and try to bring and do some stuff spontaneously. Because these are the magic moments, in my opinion. This is what makes me, I mean, I have goosebumps just talking about it, you know, because if you find the right moment and you get the crowd and you’re like, OK, I take a completely different track than I would play right now because the crowd is a little bit different and it works.

Man, this is what makes the job so amazing, you know?

[Darran]
Absolutely. No, I totally hear you on that. It’s just, you know, I just, it always perplexes me on how it’s going to be perceived, though, that is the person really doing something?

Are they using the sync button, the controversy of the sync button? You know, all that fun stuff. And you’re right.

I mean, you said you could teach your grandma how to play. You got six-year-olds that are going out there, seven-year-old kids learning how to DJ, you know, nowadays. And so it brings me to the question is, is what is your take on AI?

It’s the new biggest kind of controversy in the music industry, art industry, art world, you know, all that fun stuff of AI coming in. And, I mean, I saw recently a site you can go to and say, make your best next track list and we’ll make your set list for you as an AI-generated. Tell them who you want to be like.

I actually saw, I know the guys, I met these guys who made this app. Tell them what genre, who you want it to be like, all that. It’ll grab all the tracks for you in the sound of, say, a plastic phone.

Go out there, put it all together and go, now all I got to do is use that sync button and I sound like plastic phone. You know? And is that still DJing?

Is it cheating? Is it going to be used by more non-professional or newcomers as an adapted technology, I guess is what I’m getting at. Where do you see that?

How do you see that influencing the market?

[Plastik Funk]
I have to say my opinion on AI changed a lot in the last five months. Like five months ago, I was like, hey, if you use it right, for example, I’m using a lot of AI tools and websites. If I want to, like, for example, take a vocal out of a track to build an own edit out of it, you know, I take my job, I take the vocal out, I can separate the track in different sounds and I can make a remix out of it much faster than like years ago, you know, which was great.

And I was like, okay, I mean, as long as you use it to make the art of production and producing music and creating music and art of DJing better, why not? You know, now it’s changing so fast and AI is really taking everything from us as a human being, like the creativity, the actual work, the work you have to put in to create a nice track, to create melodies, to create vocals that I think we’re just destroying ourselves here. And it’s actually, it’s very scary because I talked to, we have this group of people who have this AI courses in Ibiza once a month.

And one of my friends is actually leading it. And he also told me, it’s like, man, we destroy ourselves. It’s like, I’m doing it because they’re making good money with it at the moment.

But in the long term, if you think what happens the next three, four years, the world will be completely different. And I mean, what do we do? It’s like, we’re not even thinking anymore.

We’re not working anymore. That reminds me of the Terminator movie. You know, it’s like there’s a website taken over, AI is taken over.

I mean, this is what makes DJing and production so interesting, that a track can be good, a track can be bad. And then you talk about it, you make it better. But if you put everything in a machine and say, like, it should sound like this and that and then make something out of it.

I mean, this is fast food. And fast food is not good for you. Yeah.

[Darran]
And, you know, on that same token, right now, they do have websites where you can take text, drop the text into the website and say, was this AI generated or not? It’d be interesting if somebody came out and made something like that for music going, this is an AI generated tune. Or, hey, and they’re going to be called out and say, we better put a footnote on there saying, this was made using AI.

Timberland just signed the first ever AI artist. I’ve been bringing that up a lot in my interviews. You know, I’ve been talking about just the joke of what I had an AI host, you know, sitting here talking.

It looks like a real person, like asking questions, being able to feedback and go into questions. Not like I’m a little older, so I’ll date myself here. I always use the joke of like, I wouldn’t want Max Headroom coming in and doing, if you remember the 80s show, Max Headroom.

[Plastik Funk]
Yeah, sure enough. I mean, it’s interesting now and we’re like, I mean, me, you, everyone gets excited because like, oh, there’s so many possibilities and there’s so much stuff you can do with it. But if you think it further and if you think like in one, two, three years and how fast it’s evolving at the moment, it really scares me because it will change the world to not only the music industry.

I mean, let’s start with the music industry. We just started ourselves, you know. But what’s going to happen in three, four years, like with every, I mean, like I see a lot of kids.

I’ll see a lot of like, like the new search machine, like people not even like wasting their time anymore to write a concept or to write a PDF or when they try to get a job, they just put it on and I is doing it for them. I mean, this is like, yeah, going in a direction which is I think we have to be very careful.

[Darran]
Yeah. I have people that I know that have done magazines, publications for years and some of their seasoned writers, they’ve caught them and had to kind of scold them for saying, you’re now submitting AI articles. And we can tell because we put them through and these are people who used to really write articles and now they’re just like trying to pass off the AI generated articles.

One of the things I love about…

[Plastik Funk]
We’re killing like 60, 70% of our jobs in the next three years.

[Darran]
And one of the things I love about this environment, like you and I getting on the camera talking, it took a pandemic, took Pandy to basically get people up to speed on doing virtual interviews and knowing how to be comfortable on camera, talk on camera, set up the audio, the light, all that fun stuff. I tried doing this before 2020. Doing a Zoom interview, you could maybe do it, but it wasn’t the best option for people.

And I couldn’t really do it live either. It was a little bit of a setup. But what I like about this live interview is it is real.

I’m asking the questions. I can take that back and the transcription of this is every single word that we said, that I can translate into different languages. It wasn’t sending you a list of…

And you have no idea of the questions I’m going to ask you, which I love that.

[Plastik Funk]
And I like it. Yeah, I think that was my choice. Before the interview, it’s like you want to know what we’re talking about.

It’s like, no, this is what makes it interesting. Because this is a conversation you have with someone in a bar who is from the same industry. This is where it gets interesting for me.

This is where it triggers me because you start thinking about different stuff. And because we’re live, I will get my charger now to charge my phone so we’re not losing the interview. That’s okay.

[Darran]
No worries. No worries. It’s one of the things that I love about doing this.

And I know you can’t hear me, but I’ll keep talking because I can talk. But one of the things that’s awesome is that I wouldn’t be able to get this type of interview from you if I was, say, backstage or in a green room. I might get five minutes.

I might get 10 minutes with you. I might be able to get you on a couch if we’re at the hotel with you and sit down maybe 15, 20 minutes. But now we kind of reformatted our setup.

We’re still about the music over here at the DJ sessions, DJ sets, exclusive mixes, things of that nature. But getting these interviews, these more in-depth interviews and personal interviews, it means so much to us. And again, thank you so much for being here today and taking time out of your day.

I do have some more questions to get to. And I know you’ve got to get out there and talk to people. Well, first of all, before we get into that, tell us about Samba.

I was on your Instagram, and it said Samba, Samba, Samba, Samba, Samba. What is all this stuff about Samba?

[Plastik Funk]
Yeah, I mean, we did a remix of Bellini’s Samba de Janeiro. And just last year, we did a quite EDM-ish kind of version, which we did actually the year before. We just produced it as a bootleg together with my boys from Asia at Rave Republic.

And we just did it together because we wanted to put out a free download, something for the fans, for a DJ campaign. And we just said, you know, let’s give something back. And it became really fast, like the best working track in all our sets.

And I was like, man, the original producer of Bellini was my studio partner like 10 years ago. And I hit him up. I remember I was sitting at Bangkok airport.

I told the boys, like, hey, man, we need to release this officially. This is way too strong to just give it out like that. And we already had it on SoundCloud.

It had already like 2,000 downloads in a couple of weeks. So I sent it to Ramon Senka. Hello to Ramon Senka.

He’s a huge producer from Germany. And he’s the one who produced Samba de Janeiro. So I sent him the version, and I sent him a video of the festival I played the day before in Bangkok, where like 10,000 people were going completely bananas when I played that song.

And he texted me back in five minutes. He was like, dude, oh, shit. Yeah, okay.

You have the rights. You want an original sample? I’ll send it to you.

I was like, oh, damn. Okay. That was fast.

So we took the original vocals. We cleaned it up a little bit, released it. And, yeah, I mean, had a million streams in three months for Club Track.

That’s pretty good. Everyone played it. It was one of the summer tracks.

And then because I’m going a bit back to my house roots at the moment. I go back to my house roots. So I just did with my buddy Toxic Joe, we did a Tech House remix of that with the same sample because I wanted to play it in all my sets when I play Ibiza, when I play in America.

And, yeah, again, it worked so good. So I sent him the video again, and I sent him the mix again. He’s like, man, you got the rights.

Do whatever with it. So we released that one as well together with Leo from Brazil. He added some nice elements in it.

And, yeah, again, two million streams in no time. And, yeah, everyone plays it. Again, for this summer, seems to be one of the biggest tracks.

So I’m happy about it, definitely. Sorry, I think you’re muted right now. I can’t hear you.

[Darran]
I turned off the mute because I had some dinging of text messages on my phone. I was asking. That’s awesome.

Congratulations on the success with Samba and all that. Do you become a different person when you get on stage? Or are you a different person off stage?

[Plastik Funk]
Like a couple of years ago, I thought so. But the thing is, like, sometimes when it kicks me and I have a good show, I become a bit crazy on stage. But I’m really, really focused because I always want, like, especially when it’s the biggest stage, to have everything on point.

So I say, like, my team, they’re all my friends and they’re my family. And I love everyone around me. But I’m being very hard on them when I’m on stage.

And they know it. There’s no, like, can you please or can you now? I’m like, do it, you know, and do it fast.

And everyone talks the same way to me, you know. So this is why we’re fast and this is why we deliver, you know. But I would say I’m more or less the same person.

But, yeah, when I go on stage and I have a good set, yeah, I’m just losing it. I just have a good time. And, yeah, jump into the crowd.

I mean, I promised my manager to not jump into crowds anymore because I almost broke my hand last year. But besides that, I’m doing everything I want to do in that moment. And, yeah, some crazy stuff happens sometimes.

[Darran]
We just got to get you one of those big plastic bubbles that you can jump into and then push you out into the crowd. I did that.

[Plastik Funk]
You did that? I did that. I did the whole festival season.

I brought this bubble for this Color Fest. And at every festival, I jumped into the bubble and I almost disappeared a couple of times. You name it, man.

[Darran]
We did it all. Nice. That’s awesome.

Do you prefer DJing at larger scale festivals or do you prefer more intimate clubs? Or is it a mix between the two?

[Plastik Funk]
Actually, I need both. I mean, festivals are amazing, of course. To play for 5, 10, 20, 30,000 people, 50,000 people, it’s amazing, of course.

But especially because I like to play my house stuff, I need to play in clubs sometimes. I love to be close to people. I love to see the vibe, to feel the vibe, to feel the sweat, to have that intimate clubbing vibe.

I need that sometimes, especially if I want to test music. I think it really gives you the honest opinion of people if they like it or not. So I like both.

And to have the possibility to do both is a privilege and I’m really happy about it.

[Darran]
Do you have any residencies in Ibiza that you play at some of those clubs rather than bigger festivals?

[Plastik Funk]
I play once in another residency. I do my label boat. It’s the FunQ, because my label is called FunQ Music.

So I do my FunQ boat three times every summer. This year we might do five, because we did a boat for IMS, for the music conference. And we do maybe one in September for the closing, because the July and August boat was sold out like this.

So we do maybe two more. And then once in a while I play here and there, but not residencies. I really try to keep Ibiza home.

But it’s a big show, of course. I mean, I did some shows in Ushuaia, did some shows in Pacha. It’s always a good time there.

[Darran]
Yeah, IMS definitely has been on my radar for a number of years. I’ve done ADE a few years. Was it Rave the Planet last year, like I mentioned?

IMS is supposed to be huge. I want to make it out there, but definitely want to make it through Ibiza. Would you ever be interested in streaming live from one of your boat parties, maybe having the DJ sessions come out?

Or is it something that can’t be streamed live?

[Plastik Funk]
Not a problem. You can, for sure. I mean, boat parties are crazy, seriously.

But it’s craziness you want to film. I mean, you maybe have to blur something, but people really go bananas on these boats. But I think the biggest problem would be the internet connection underwater.

[Darran]
You know, I have this backpack that’s supposed to give me internet connection anywhere around the world. So maybe that could be a possibility.

[Plastik Funk]
You’re more than welcome.

[Darran]
If you want to come, anytime. Awesome. Cool.

Well, I’ll talk to you about that in a little bit. You know, you’ve played literally countless large-scale events. We all know what happens on stage.

Can you give us any insight? What’s the craziest moment you’ve ever had backstage? Or is that like, there’s the triple X version, there’s the X version, and then there’s the R version.

Let’s stick with the… You don’t have to go R version. You can do PG-13 if you want.

Like, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen happen backstage?

[Plastik Funk]
I mean, the thing is, like… Everything? Yeah.

I mean, it’s actually… Backstages in the last couple of years are not that crazy anymore. I mean, the only thing what happens is that you meet other DJs, you meet other DJ friends, you have your crew, maybe…

I mean, I’m one of those people who’s like, if you play a good show, I’m hyped up. When I come back to my backstage, it’s not like, oh, I need my piece. No, no, I want people around me.

I want to have a drink with my team. I enjoy this, you know? It’s like you have 100% adrenaline in your body and it just feels good to think and talk about it, you know?

So, yeah. I mean, the craziest… I think this is a couple of years ago because the last couple of years when we were on tour, we were with a team with Inner Circle and we just meet a couple of friends and bring them in.

But we had backstage… I had a green room, which was like maybe a capacity for like 10 people. And we were in there with 38.

So, this was where the promoter came and was like, guys, that’s too much. And I was like, what should I do? You know, it’s all friends.

So, it was like, really, it was like this, you know? But it was the best time ever. It was the best.

[Darran]
I’ve been in some of those before. Who’s been, over your years, in your career, who’s the most inspiring person you’ve ever met backstage? And tell us why this person inspired you.

Backstage, let’s say, because you’re on the road a lot, you know, not necessarily in life, but just backstage, had a quick encounter, close encounter, missed encounter, or possibly a missed encounter that didn’t happen.

[Plastik Funk]
I mean, the good thing is, I mean, there’s a lot of interesting characters in the music industry. Let’s put it that way. But, I mean, I met a couple artists where I was like, performance-wise, for example, and the way he thinks and he works, even his music is really different to my stuff.

We had a call-up together. It’s Timmy Trumpet. Because what’s really interesting, you always see that funny Timmy, that guy who’s on the stage and he’s crazy and he’s jumping left and right.

But everything he does, he works so hard. He, like, we were together for a couple of shows in China, and even when he goes onstage together with someone else, he really, that’s almost like a rehearsal in his green room, that everything is on point. He really, like, he has his team under control.

He’s working nonstop. And that really inspired me because you only see the funny Timmy who’s onstage and everything. Everyone thinks, like, oh, he’s just crazy and he’s drinking.

No, no. He works super, super hard and he’s really on point with everything he does, also his team. So that was very interesting to see it together with him on tour because people think, yeah, everything he does is a party.

No, but it’s more than that. And, I mean, of course, there’s amazing producers I admire because what they do production-wise, for example, I always say, like, Calvin Harris is not human, you know? He, like, once a year, at least he puts out a masterpiece, a hit where you think, like, okay, I thought I’m not bad in the studio, and then you hear this track and you’re like, okay, you know what?

Should I give up? No, that’s definitely people who inspire me every day. David Guetta, I mean, I’m talking about big names now, but, I mean, of course, there’s a lot of people behind the scenes you don’t see, like managers who really know what they’re doing.

And sometimes it’s interesting to see how people combine this party life and business and really make something creative, but, like, really smart business-wise out of it. So it’s always interesting to see, especially some of the younger managers right now, how fast they are and how they put up their artists. Yeah.

[Darran]
You know, do you sometimes get fed up with making and playing music? And how do you deal with that when you’re on tour? I mean, you sound like you’re on the road a lot.

You’re producing a release every four weeks. You got something coming out. How do you deal with that if you’re on tour and you don’t necessarily get the next opportunity to take a break because it’s to the next city to the next city to the next city?

Or do you have something that you have a mantra or a pattern?

[Plastik Funk]
No, I mean, I felt like after COVID, I mean, actually before COVID, I had the same thing, but it was, I mean, I was, this is like five years ago now. It’s crazy. Sometimes we’re like, oh, COVID was just a short phase.

No, COVID was actually three to four years, you know? And sometimes we talk about it just, it was like a short time. It was quite long.

But before COVID, I toured like crazy and I had a couple of moments where I felt like, okay, I have to be careful because I’m a workaholic because what I do, I love it. For me, it’s passion. It’s not work, but I could work seven days a week and sometimes until 2am and I’m getting up at 7.30 because I go for a run at the beach. And that sometimes sounds great, but it can burn out your body really, really fast. And I was younger. I was five, six years younger.

It’s a big difference, you know? So it was still okay, but I had a bit of a problem with my right ear because it was just because of stress and I didn’t realize it until the moment it happened and then I had to get an IV and all that shit. So I was like, okay, you know what?

I have to listen to my body more and more carefully. And two years ago, actually, after COVID, we started DJing like crazy and tried to take everything, tried to DJ seven days a week, wanted to be back on stage, wanted to be connected to people, hug everyone in the club. And I came on that point again where it’s like, okay, I’m human, you know?

So you need breaks. And actually, I figured out for myself that every two, three months, I take a weekend off. And of course, only if it’s, I don’t know, like the biggest festival in the world, of course, I say like, let’s do it, but then it’s the weekend after.

But I take a weekend off and I try to really focus on my mental health, you know? Try to leave my phone for a day, you know, to not check social media. Social media makes you sick.

That was the biggest problem. Sometimes when I took weekends off, social media is the worst thing you can do because you go into your phone and someone who’s doing this with so much passion like me and who loves what he’s doing, he’s like, oh, Timmy Trumpet is there. Oh, this DJ is here.

It’s like, oh, you should be there too, you know? And it makes you think and I started sleeping bad. I was like, dude, this is not normal, you know?

So I try to switch that off and really take a couple of days where I’m home with the family, with my dog and do something completely different. And since I do that, I’m enjoying the weekends so much more and the tours. I mean, of course, I got sick on tour in America, for example.

I had 40 years fever. I was playing my show in New York with fever. I had no voice anymore.

I still enjoyed the show, but after the show, I looked like a zombie, you know? That happens and then you need to find time to recover. And as long as you do that, then it’s good.

If you don’t have time to recover anymore, that’s the moment where it gets tough. And especially, I talked to a friend of mine who’s a doctor and he says like, he read one time that someone told him, actually. He didn’t read it.

Someone told him, it’s like your soul needs three days to arrive at a place. So for us as DJs, if you take that serious, you never really arrive. You’re always up in the air somewhere.

So your soul and your brain needs a couple days to get there. So if you don’t give your body that moment sometimes that you stay in one place for at least three or four days, I think that’s the moment where it gets critical, especially when you get older. So I try to take my crap out once in a while and that helps me a lot.

And especially, you have to do a lot of sports and like for the last two months, I’ve focused more on eating healthy, which helps me a lot too. That’s all this together. Just give your time a little bit.

Yeah, give your body a bit of time to recover. That’s the most important thing.

[Darran]
I can relate to that. I think after doing a show for 16 years, I just took an eight and a half month hiatus recently after coming back from Germany after my 50th birthday party. Well, it was supposed to be a couple weeks to recuperate and kind of get my head back in the game and everything.

I just was like, I don’t want to be in the office. I don’t want to do a video. I don’t want to outreach.

I mean, I wouldn’t even come into my office. I wasn’t doing anything. And then it hit the holiday season and all this other stuff was going on.

But I kind of feel that after 16 years of doing something, I’m allowed to take a break. I know I can start back up and get right back into the mechanism. Sometimes in entertainment, that can be a hard restart, trying to get back in there.

I was still doing enough to keep my ears to the ground on the back end. I wasn’t just completely obliterated or obliterated the scene. But it’s been a little bit, I’m going to jump back into everything and swim back in the pool and get that mechanism running again.

But it was a good break for me. I’m liking the fact that I always like it when a guest answers my questions without knowing what questions are coming up. My next question was going to be, how do you balance your career with your other obligations in life?

You just answered that question. Thank you very much for that. I wanted to touch base on something that’s interesting over the years that has been brought up.

You had made a post about it recently. And that was the DJ Mag Top 100. And you’re out there looking to get into there and all that.

How important is that to you or as an industry? It’s still held as high regard as kind of saying these are the top people in the world. I have a list of over 20,000 DJs that I pull from that get ranked by an outside third-party company.

They use all these data and metrics to determine who’s top and who’s top in what genre, who’s top in what country, all that stuff. But DJ Mag Top 100 has been kind of a subject of debate over the years. But I know you’re out there trying to gun for it.

Congratulations for that. How do you feel about the DJ Mag Top 100? How important is that to you?

[Plastik Funk]
The thing is because I’m DJing for so many years and a lot in Asia and I have a big fan base in Asia, which is great. And the DJ Mag Top 100 list always was something really important in Asia. So it was always a goal for me to make it in there.

But I never really thought it’s going to happen anytime soon because it always looked so hard to really work on that campaign and to make your fans vote. And it’s not that easy. And actually then during COVID where I started doing the Twitch streams and tried to connect more with the community, DJ Mag came up to me and said like, Hey man, your fan base is strong.

You should maybe run a small campaign. So I did that and we made it right away into the Top 100, which was absolutely amazing. And I’m glad I did it.

I’ve invested that money into like banners and tried to work on a smart strategy to make your community vote. And I know, I mean, we always like for the last 20 years discussions were there between DJs it’s like, oh, people just spend money and then they’re there. That’s not possible.

You know, you need a community. You need to have fans. And if the fans are not voting for you, you can spend all the money in the world.

You will not make it in that list. And it’s not like that that list is maybe the best Top 100 DJs. But if you put it together, fan love, the music you put out, your social media, your reach, if you put this all together and you make enough votes to make it into that list, it’s a big honor, man.

I mean, first time it happened five years ago. Now we did it five years in a row. Yeah, of course, man.

I mean, it makes a difference in some markets, but in the end of the day to be in that list of the Top 100 of millions and millions of DJs, it feels great. And I’m really happy that I have that fan base who gives me that vote and supports me there, you know?

[Darran]
Yeah, you know, when I started the DJ sessions back in the day, we were supposed to be a show that just featured our local DJs from Seattle and wanted to show them to the worldwide audience. And it wasn’t until I had this opportunity, it was in 2009, I had met Dave Dresden. I kind of talk about this in the start of the DJ sessions from time to time, but I had Dave Dresden in an interview at Warner Music Conference in 2009.

And we started the DJ sessions a little bit later in 2009. And what I’m getting at is that Dave came and actually played on our show. If you still watch that first episode, he’s actually playing in my bedroom in 2009 in our homemade studio.

But later on, you know, live streaming became what it was. And to rise from being a living room bedroom show to one of the top live streaming DJ shows in the world, it was always my dream, but I never at the time was thinking we were going to be that big, let alone have the caliber of artists that would come on and be guests on the show and all that fun stuff, which is awesome. To do all the work that it takes to get to where you’re at, to be in the DJ Mag 100, to be top rated in the world on a show.

People think that I just pick up a camera, hit record, and go, oh, plastic phone, he’s available. Let me just get an interview with him and talk. And I’m just pulling questions.

No, I got to do research on you. I got to check out the questions. Make sure I’m relevant.

Make sure I’m hip with the times. I got to be engaging. And this is, people don’t know, I take a break after an episode and I’m like, all right, cool.

Because I’m on camera. This is on stage for me, in a sense, you know. But you know, how do you define, how do you define success as a DJ slash producer?

Is it a BeatBoard top 10 hit, sold out tour? What are your thoughts on this?

[Plastik Funk]
I mean, that’s a very good question, actually. I mean, success, you can see that you do something right if you sell tickets. Okay, because that means like, people like what you do and they pay money to see you.

At the same time, there’s amazing producers and DJs who are not getting here because they’re not good at social media. So I think if you’re happy with what you do, like if you’re happy with the productions you put out and you’re happy with the DJ sets and you can make a living out of it, I think that’s already success. Because I mean, there’s not many DJs who can do this full time and live of it and be happy, you know.

Of course, super successful if you make millions with your music and you fill stadiums because you release hit after hit. Okay, that’s success, of course. And it comes with big money and it comes with bigger and bigger and bigger shows.

But I think success for me is already like, if I can live from what I do, I mean, being a musician and being a DJ and I’m making people happy all around the world. I’m traveling from Australia to South America, from South America to Asia and from Asia to Europe. That’s definitely success.

I’ve never dreamed of that like 15 years ago, you know. So that’s something which says Rafael now. Rafael seven years ago would be like, please, it has to be bigger and more and more and more.

Now I see like, if it happens and I’m selling out the stadium, that’s great. But I already achieved a lot and I’m really thankful for what I saw and what I experienced in the last couple of years. But of course, like I said, I’m a workaholic and I’m really passionate in what I do.

And my aim is definitely to do tours where I play 95% of my own music and fill up big places and have a good time with the people who love my music, you know. So yeah, always working on bigger goals. This is what drives me.

This is what gives me the energy. In the same time, I learned to be happy sometimes with what you have. That’s very important to not get sad, depressed.

Because you’re falling into this hole. Sometimes you play a show for 10,000 people and then you come back to a hotel and it’s like, oh, what do you have next weekend? Or next weekend you’re free.

Oh shit, what am I doing? If this happens, that’s already not healthy, you know. It’s like you have to sit in a hotel, you have to drive home or fly home and be like three, four or five days and maybe a week to talk about that show because it was so amazing, you know.

So I think that’s important to appreciate these moments. Absolutely. It sounds so smart right now.

Trust me, sometimes I’m sitting there and it’s like, oh, I’m not tomorrow. Tomorrow’s a big show too. Okay, good.

No, important is to like enjoy every show, live every show and then you enjoy it more than you just take it and run, you know.

[Darran]
Mm-hmm. You know, if somebody were to write a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?

[Plastik Funk]
That’s funny. I don’t know, an idiot making music. I don’t know.

I mean, I was, you know, I always started a professional sports career because I was playing baseball and soccer. I was even playing for the German national team baseball and, you know, I was touring as a baseball player and DJing at the same time. So I was always like trying to follow what makes me happy and then DJing was getting bigger and bigger.

So I think like, yeah, I just, if it’s a biography, like follow your passion, you know, just right away. That’s always what I try to do. I try to follow my passion follow what makes me happy.

And it could have gone in many different directions. Like for a while, I thought like, hey, I’m going to be a professional surfer. Then it was like, I play professional baseball and I did.

I want to play professional soccer and I did also. But yeah, I mean, music was definitely what’s, what made me happy and kept me going until today.

[Darran]
Nice. Well, you know, on that note, we’re going to let you get going. I know you’re a busy guy.

Got to get back out there on the tour. Got to talk to people, sit on couches, talking to microphones and make people dance. Where’s the best place people can go to find out more about you?

[Plastik Funk]
I mean, I really try to keep my Instagram up to date every day. Try to, like, I mean, for a couple of years now, I talk to, in the Instagram stories and tell them about my days and what’s going on. And even like sometimes if I don’t feel good, I try to share it, you know?

So Instagram is definitely something where you every day you know where I am, what I’m doing, where I’m playing next and how I feel if someone cares. And TikTok is more about like the shows we play. It’s like every day is a show video from all the tours because there’s so much footage.

We try to put it out there and people like it. And on the website, the website is up to date with music and merchandise and everything we put out for the fans and for the community. Yeah.

Facebook, we still use it, but I would say definitely TikTok and Instagram is where definitely people see what’s going on.

[Darran]
Absolutely. Well, again, thank you so much. And as the Instagram is Plastic Funk, is the TikTok Plastic Funk as well?

Or are both the… Did I lose you again? May have lost you again.

But hey, we got the shout out for the Instagram again. That’s okay. On that note, you got me back?

[Plastik Funk]
Yeah, Plastic Funk. It’s Plastic with a K. Plastic with a K.

[Darran]
All right, cool.

[Plastik Funk]
Plastic with a C.

[Darran]
It’s Plastic Funk. It happens sometimes when we have our guests halfway around the world. No worries there.

We’re going to let you get going. Thank you very much for coming on the DJ sessions. It was a pleasure having you here.

We’re definitely gonna be talking with you more in the future about those releases, about other stuff coming up. All right, cool. Well, I’m Darren for the DJ sessions.

That’s Plastic Funk coming in from Hamburg, Germany. I’m coming in from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington. Don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com.

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