SurfingDJ’s on The Virtual Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions 6/18/25

features an engaging interview by host Darran Bruce of The DJ Sessions with Jean-Francois Collard and Hannah Roth, the dynamic duo behind Surfing DJs, an EDM and progressive house act from New York City. The conversation delves into their creative process, highlighting their focus on original productions designed to make people dance. They discuss their nostalgic influences from the 1980s, their unique sound, and the importance of building a musical arc during performances to match the crowd’s energy.

 

Darran and the Surfing DJs explore themes like defining success in the industry, the role of AI in music production, and the challenges smaller artists face in a landscape dominated by big-name festivals. The duo shares insights into their collaborations, including their recent signing with Flash forward label and their upcoming gigs, such as a performance in Ibiza. They also touch on the significance of visuals and virtual reality in enhancing the DJ experience.

 

Host: Darran Bruce
Guests: Jean-Francois Collard & Hannah Roth (Surfing DJs)
Genre Focus: EDM, Progressive House
Location: New York City

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Key Discussion Points & Highlights

1. Introduction & Background

• Surfing DJs, an NYC-based duo, specialize in original EDM and progressive house productions.

• Their sound is influenced by 1980s synth-wave, with a goal to make people dance.

• Both members share a passion for surfing, reflected in their name and brand aesthetic.

2. Creative Process & Musical Style

• They produce all their own tracks, ensuring a unique and recognizable sound.

• Discuss the balance between nostalgia (1980s influences) and modern EDM trends.

• Mention favorite tracks like Berlin Kyiv (inspired by historical speeches) and The Future (a crowd-moving anthem).

3. Live Performance & DJing Approach

• Their sets are dynamic, adjusting to crowd energy—high-energy for dance floors, mellower for chill vibes.

• Emphasize the importance of transitions and reading the audience.

• Share a memorable moment when a fan recognized their sound instantly on a radio stream.

4. Industry Challenges & AI in Music

• Debate on AI’s role in music production: a tool vs. a competitor.

• Discuss how big-name DJs often rely on pre-recorded sets and elaborate visuals, making it harder for indie artists to compete.

• Stress the importance of authenticity and collaboration (e.g., working with visual artists).

5. Career Milestones & Upcoming Gigs

• Signed with Flashforward (Belgium) and Beskar Bookings (Europe).

• Upcoming performances in Ibiza (September) and ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event).

• Recap of their vibrant Dance Parade NYC experience, featuring dancers and a mobile DJ float.

6. Advice for Aspiring Producers

• Leverage free resources like YouTube tutorials and NYC music schools (e.g., 343 Labs).

• Focus on originality—avoid fearing AI by honing a distinct sound.

• Collaborate across mediums (e.g., visuals, VR) to stand out.

7. Fun Facts & Personal Insights

• Their merch and branding use a signature light blue/pink color scheme.

• Darran’s favorite color (twilight purple) inspires The DJ Sessions’ nightlife-themed visuals.

• They dream of fans attending shows specifically to hear their music—not just the party.

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Where to Find Surfing DJs

• Website: surfingdjs.com

• Instagram: @surfingdjs

• Music: Available on Spotify and all major platforms.

About The DJ Sessions

• A platform showcasing DJs, producers, and industry innovators.

• Features exclusive mixes, interviews, and global event coverage.

• Website: thedjsessions.com

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Final Thoughts:
A lively, insightful chat blending music, tech, and behind-the-scenes stories. Surfing DJs’ passion for dance music and DIY ethos shines—proof that originality thrives in EDM’s evolving landscape.

Next Episode: Stay tuned for more artist deep-dives and silent disco sessions! 🎧

 

The interview is lively and unscripted, reflecting the spontaneity of live shows. Darran’s conversational style draws out personal anecdotes, like their memorable Dance Parade performance in NYC and their love for surfing, which inspired their name. The Surfing DJs emphasize the joy of creating music that resonates with audiences, whether in intimate clubs or large festivals.

 

Listeners are encouraged to follow Surfing DJs on Instagram or visit their website, surfingdjs.com, for updates. The episode encapsulates The DJ Sessions’ mission to celebrate music, creativity, and the stories behind the artists.

 

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of The DJ Sessions Presents The Virtual Sessions. I’m your host Aaron, and right now we’re going to do one thing before we start this interview, we’re going to flippy flop, doo-dee-doo. We have the surfing DJs coming in from New York City, one of my favorite cities in the entire world.

We have Jean-Francois Collard and Hannah Roth with the surfing DJs. Welcome on the show today. Thank you, good to be here.

Absolutely, super excited to talk to you. I know we were doing some pre-show chats before, and had to drop it in there and let you know that this is one of our, that is one of my favorite cities in the entire world to be in. You know what, when you’re doing this technical stuff, you always got to remember to turn off certain things in the background, like your audio transmission that’s coming in.

And there we go. Boop. Got five servers running with multiple streams and everything going on.

 

And sometimes when I turn them on, I forget to turn the audio off. So I was listening to myself and what I was saying with the intro there. But again, as I said before in the pre-show, it’s a live show and anything goes.

So you two DJ and produce music. You’re based out of NYC, that’s awesome. But something very unique, you, and I’ve heard this done before with a lot of artists, but traditionally you produce all your own original tracks and that’s what you DJ.

You know, tell our DJ sessions, what, first of all, I bet you the number one question you get is what genre do you focus on one particular genre, style? Are you partial to one or how does that, how does that all work out?

[Surfing DJ’s]
EDM, progressive house with an EDM or you take a house, progressive house.

[Darran]
Yeah. EDM, I suppose is more like the umbrella that you do most of it.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Something that makes people dance.

[Darran]
That’s what we wanted to do. Make people dance. That’s one of the key things.

That’s one of the elements I love about electronic dance music. I fell in love with it probably before I was 18 years old, growing up in the eighties, you know, and the influence of the synthesizer coming in and really taking over as a musical instrument. I remember my seventh grade choir teacher was very adamant that he did not like drum machines.

He did not like synthesizers because he as a musician could tell the difference. And yes, in the eighties, they weren’t what they were cracked up to be. You got it.

But over time, you know, even, even, you know, my friend, his father was a musician and he’s a, he’s a musician himself and uses, you know, logic and Ableton and all that fun stuff to create music. His father’s like, that’s not really making music. You know, you’re programming and it’s like, well, wait a second.

You know, you’re just using one different art form for different art form to create something. And really, if the output is that it’s somebody dancing to it, is somebody enjoying it, you know, I mean, even you look at the old art of noise stuff. Was that, that was kind of out there a little bit, but I love art of noise, you know, craft work, you know, joy.

[Surfing DJ’s]
And I would argue that maybe a nostalgia now that people like to hear a very obviously synthetic artificial drum machine or a very old style, old school, old school from the eighties, right. There’s a kind of back to, back to the eighties type of movement.

[Darran]
And one of the things we sometimes hear from people is they’ll listen and they’ll say, it’s like an eighties influence because both of us are really influenced by that. And I also grew up in the eighties. I loved it.

It was all my favorite stuff. I frequently listened to and have for the last 22 years, internet radio station out of San Francisco called Spice Soma FM called Groove Salad. And it’s a lot of down-tempo ambient.

And I had a friend of mine two years back and she was like, oh my God, I’m into this synth wave. I’m into this synth wave stuff. And I’m like, I’ve been listening to that since the 1980s.

I go, have you ever listened to Groove Salad? I always got to give him a shout out when I can, but listen to Groove Salad. It’s a lot of that eighties synth wave, down-tempo ambient.

I almost like to call it like Jan Hammer, like Crockett’s theme. It’s one of my favorite songs out of Miami Vice. I know.

Yeah. I’m dating myself. I just turned 50 last year, so I’m all good.

Yeah. I mean, I’m a huge, I always tell people, if you ever make me angry, which I very rarely get angry, just put on some seventies disco or some eighties new wave or eighties pop. And I’m going to be like, okay, you got me dancing now.

I’m good.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Absolutely. The goal of our music wants people to move, to dance, to be happy, to have music we like for the party. And one of the best compliments I’ve ever heard about our music is one night we were DJing there.

It was streamed on the radio station and one of Hannah’s friends could not join us, but she listened on the radio and she didn’t know exactly at what time we would be on or off. Right. But she told us, oh, you were on at 1110 and you played until that time because I recognize your sound.

[Darran]
It’s so different than anyone else’s because it is quite original. It’s just our brains doing it. So if you had a track, one of your tracks that you currently play, can you pick, I know DJs build a set and tell a story when they play.

Is your set, I don’t want to say pre-programmed, but do you know it like, okay, we’re going to build up with this, these tracks, then we’re going to get into this track and make the crowd go, wow, and then come down and kind of cool down, like a workout in a sense where you warm up, get it hyped up, get that BPM go, or not BPM, get the pulse rate going, like come on Darren, working out and DJing too, kind of same thing, BPM and pulse rate, but get that pulse rate going and then kind of tone it back down. Is that your storytelling process or could you describe your storytelling or musical storytelling process?

[Surfing DJ’s]
To me, each track, each song is a story in and of itself. It’s like an episode. We do try to build an arc and bring people slowly up in a faster pace, typically in private, during prime time.

And then also we have to take into account the DJ before us and the DJ after us.

[Darran]
We try to know who we’re playing with so that we can complement in the transitions and stuff. So it’s seamless. And also ahead of time, you sort of know the vibe a little bit of the place just because it’s always different.

It’s not necessarily always just hard dancing. Sometimes they want something a little mellow. So we’ll cater to that depending on what we’ve got in our repertoire and build it that way.

[Surfing DJ’s]
And we have created enough tracks now that we have more mellow stuff and a hardcore, hardcore dance that we can adjust a little bit to how people react. If they dance, if they’re in the mood to dance, then we can keep on going that way. If they tend to more be mellow and chill and enjoy a little margarita, then we can gear down.

[Darran]
We do watch, see what, you know, feed off that kind of thing too. Like, okay, and maybe next one, let’s do something different. Let me plan.

Because sometimes you just don’t know who crowds are.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Absolutely.

[Darran]
And if you can share with our DJ Sessions audience, what’s one track that you currently play and describe in detail why it’s such a great production?

[Surfing DJ’s]
Oh gosh. Why? I cannot tell you, but there’s something really, I like, for example, dropping in to a little play for one of our tracks that has a gritty sound that really makes us want to move.

[Darran]
It’s something about it that just, you can’t help but move. Does that make sense? There’s something just in it that you just, whether you’re dancing or I sometimes listen, I’m working in the street in New York City and I’m just kind of like bopping.

People must think I’m a bit weird, but, you know, some tracks you just can’t help but move to. And that’s one of our favorites for that. Like it’s got a great build and it brings you up and down and it’s…

[Surfing DJ’s]
There’s another favorite of mine called The Future for everybody who’s listening. If you want to check it out, it’s on Spotify, on all platforms. I think also the reason I like them is because it has this little sound that is so contemporary.

And I’m pretty sure, I’m willing to bet to both of you, to everybody, with everybody, that in 20 years, when we’re going to hear a track that has a little bit of… In the background, we say, oh, that’s a track from the 20s.

[Darran]
From the aughts. From the aughts, all tracks from the 20s. Yeah.

I just heard that term not too long ago, the aughts, you know? Yeah. I know it was kind of recent.

And then I realized that’s how you describe it, in the 2000s. And if you had to pick one of your productions as your most favorite one, which one would that be? And is there a thought behind it for it to be your favorite?

Was that the one you just mentioned that you’re playing now? I mean, you’ve got to take your whole library into account.

[Surfing DJ’s]
One of my favorites is Berlin Kyiv, which is a recording of the voice of John F. Kennedy at Berlin, a famous speech he made in Berlin. And I relate, we relate the situation in Berlin with what’s happening in Ukraine.

And to me, it’s dear to my heart. I’m a bit biased. It’s more the story and the history than the music.

That would be my favorite.

[Darran]
I could rediscover as well. There’s a couple of them that when you hear them again and you think, oh, I did that a while ago. I really like, you know, you sort of, because you file them away and they’re all your babies.

But then sometimes they pop up and you’re like, oh, I really did like that one a little bit more.

[Surfing DJ’s]
And I want to insist on the fact that we discovered the vocals are sung by Hannah.

[Darran]
Sometimes we have our vocals in them. That was not anything to do with why. Maybe it’s why I’m a little bit personal with it because there is me in it as well.

So yeah, that one, we had a friend text us once, it was such a great compliment. She said, you know, I’ve just got on loop. I can’t get enough of this track.

And that means so much. The term that you use there, babies, quote unquote babies. That’s a term I’ve heard used by other people.

They’re like your children. And sometimes you take them out, you dust them off, you put them in the, you take them out of the sandbox. You go, I want to read for it.

I want to work on this again. Sometimes you put them away and you’re like, I’m never letting that see the light of day. Or I come back and I love them.

You coddle them, you love them. And you know, then you release them out in the world and you see what happens. You know, you never know what’s going to happen.

Which leads me to my next question here is, do you make music with the intention of making it a popular record or popular track? Or do you make music solely to satisfy yourself and success is just kind of a nice side effect of that?

[Surfing DJ’s]
Well, we hope it’s going to be pleasant to hear by everybody, but it has to please us first. And success, well, I cannot say we have reached it anyway.

[Darran]
It’s an end goal perhaps down the line, but it’s sort of a fun passion project.

[Surfing DJ’s]
As long as we have fun doing it. And actually same thing with DJing. Personally, what I like to do while I DJ is to have a party, to have fun.

The goal is not to perform or to entertain. It’s if everybody’s having a party with, I’m having a party with them, that’s fantastic. That’s collective moment is the goal.

[Darran]
I always love it when guests kind of preemptively answer questions without me having to ask them. And I don’t send questions just for all our viewers and your fans. I don’t send questions out.

So these aren’t scripted. You’re getting these off the cuff brand new, you know, because we try to write Darren to have questions he refuses. Because one of the questions I wanted to ask is how would you define success as a DJ slash producer?

Would it be a Beatport top 10 hit, a sold out tour? Or what are your thoughts on that? I think it might be different for both of us.

Because for me, it’s the producing that I love more than the DJing. And I would love something like hitting, I don’t need to go out and DJ to thousands of people. That’s not my dream so much.

But to just have it something that maybe you’d be walking down the street, or you’d hear it out of someone’s car, or you’d walk into a store, and it’s on someone’s playlist, or, you know, that kind of thing is where I feel that that would be like, wow, that’s awesome. I’ve done something that meant something to someone else enough that they wanted to play it, just because they discovered the sound.

[Surfing DJ’s]
And my dream would be that people would come to one of our shows, saying, we’re coming to listen to surfing DJs, knowing the tracks in advance, and coming to hear a show about our music. We have a couple of fans already in New York City, and they come regularly to listen to our tracks, but that’s a couple.

[Darran]
And one of them is an awesome guy, he’s also a DJ. And we didn’t know him from Adam. And we were doing a gig in Brooklyn.

And he just didn’t stop dancing the entire set. He was the only one just dancing the entire set. Some people would dance and stop.

And afterwards, he just said, I just love it’s so original. I’ve never heard this sound before. You know, because we are saturated with DJs in New York City, you get kind of a little bit the same.

And we’ve had a couple other DJs come up to us and say, and Chris Wright also, like, hey, I really dig that you guys are original. I don’t know this stuff. And that’s a great compliment.

[Surfing DJ’s]
And I don’t want to direct the conversation, it’s your show, but it’s a conversation you had with Martin Jensen, a fantastic interview, I strongly recommend to everybody about AI. As music producers, we should, I believe, personally, we should not fear competition from AI. Because if we fear that, it means we’re not good at what we’re doing.

[Darran]
I’m glad you brought that up, because that is a hot topic right now. Especially, I just saw recently, you know, I’m taking my AI classes, so I understand the different systems. I know how to use, you know, work and use them.

I always like being a little bit ahead of the curve, as I mentioned, pre-show. But I just saw that Timberland signed the first ever AI artist, or was the first signing of an AI artist. You know, and you look at something like that, and it’s like, okay, well, who owns the AI artist?

Who owns the rights to that AI artist? And what’s that going to look like? You know, are we going to see more of this?

It’s already happening, but somebody getting assigned artists that they’re going to promote and put out there and commercialize, it’s like, whoa. It was like what the Gorillaz did when all, you know, you knew who the artists were, but they were these cartoon characters, and they would play behind the stage, behind the, the artists would be on the screen, the cartoons would be on the screen, but the artists would be behind. With like, Del, the funky homo sapien was one of them.

I should know all four of the guys. But, you know, that was kind of an interesting, that wasn’t really AI, but they were these cartoon kind of, or anime generated characters that were playing the music, was the band, the Gorillaz, you know, which is really kind of cool. But now that’s coming to AI, and then you look at, I know they’re testing, and I know how R&D goes.

I used to work for Apple, not that I knew any secrets when I worked there. I wasn’t that leveled out, but you know that R&D is going on at levels way beyond what the consumers will ever see for 20 years. You know, and somebody has to be sitting back there and saying, we want AI.

Well, we know it exists. You see this movies, it’s going to read the crowd. It’s going to read your perspiration.

You see it in like the casino movies where they have, and they can measure sweat glands and see if somebody’s cheating if they’re counting cards or doing certain movements. And maybe that’s too far advanced. Maybe that’s actually there, and we don’t know about it.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Exactly. I was about to say that maybe many music producers already use AI in their tracks and don’t tell us. I’m sure we’re going to hear a strange, new, beautiful sound that we had never heard from one of the top 80s DJs, right?

And we will never know that that sound was crafted by one of the AIs, which to me points to the fact that it would be harder and harder for DJs who don’t have access to that technology, DJs and music producers, to compete.

[Darran]
The thing is, you know, one of the things I’ve seen as a current trend, and I mean, this has been happening for some time now, but I think, I wonder when it’s really going to, when the audience is going to pick up on it, or do they not care at all, but you see, and I have nothing against big festivals. I have nothing against the DJs that play them at all. I love them.

I love going to those big type events. I do love the small, intimate club experience as well, where I’m 10, 20 feet away from the DJ, you know, maybe even 50 feet away from the DJ if you measured it out, and you’re actually having that intimate experience, and they’re actually DJing. But you see these big festivals, and all the DJs are playing, and they’re not wearing headsets.

They’re not mixing the tracks. They used to wear the headsets back in the day, and I know, being in backstage production, that you have these massive light shows and fireworks being cued and drones flying. You can’t have a DJ train wreck on the decks, you know, and screw up the lighting and all that.

So it’s all pre-recorded, but now a lot of these DJs are stepping up, and they’re playing their track, and they’re just, they’re not really playing. Or the knob twisting and all the, it’s like the song’s already mastered. I’m not big on style or their theatrics, you know, just, but, you know, you get up there, and it’s like, well, if you had a DJ that’s doing that, and they’re playing a show that’s generated with all the lights and everything, why couldn’t you do that with an AI experience?

Say, here’s the show, and then make a holographic DJ. And it’s, I mean, they got Tupac on stage back at Coachella a few years back, you know, and they got Michael Jackson, they do it with, too, the hologram effect, you know, things.

[Surfing DJ’s]
There was a big controversy around, I think, Skrillex, who did not dispute the fact that he had pre-recorded his set, and he was saying, but all my art, all my craft is in producing the music, and it’s okay that the set is essentially pre-recorded. I think if people really enjoy the show, however the pleasure is produced, that’s fantastic. What I fear is that people are more and more going to see a big name, which, by the way, makes it harder and harder for smaller DJs to attract people.

Smaller clubs, bars are getting more and more empty, because, in my opinion, what I observe is that people tend to save money to go to the bigger shows to say, I want to see Skrillex, or David Guetta, or Anima, et cetera, because they want the big experience. So, the AI will not replace that, because people will want to say, oh, I want to see David Guetta. And the question is, how do you become a name that attracts people?

[Darran]
If that’s what you want. 25 years in music history. I should actually put this back, 35 years in music history, because you’re more 80s influence.

Let’s go 35 years in music history. I guess that would only put us to the 90s. Okay, 45 years back in music history.

I just hated myself. I got to change that question now. Go back 50 years in music history, or go forward 50 years in music history.

Which one would you pick and why? If you go back in time 50 years with the knowledge you know now, or go forward 50 years with the knowledge you know now, which way would you want to go? You got the historian?

We don’t know, of course. That’s an interesting question, because, well, yeah, we’re all curious about what’s coming. But then there is that nostalgia of what’s coming.

If I was going back, it would be the 80s.

[Surfing DJ’s]
20, 30 years ago, I would have started doing some programming to create the Ableton of the world before they were created. I think it was such a great idea when the first computers came out to try and make music from a computer. That’s something I would have done if I could rewind.

[Darran]
Well, I remember playing with, I think it was Fruity Loops 3 back in 2000. I had it on a laptop that I’d gotten. I was always fascinated by sequencers, and I ended up getting some Roland hardware, the SP-808, the MC-505, and just playing around with that.

I grew up, I came from a musical background with my family. My brothers were musicians, played in a band. I had keyboards, synthesizers, rack mounts, eight tracks, four tracks, studio gear all around growing up as a kid.

But I went more towards video production. I played with a video camera like my brothers did the music. If you could give one production tip or insight to new producers out there, what would that be?

[Surfing DJ’s]
YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. So much good content. There’s lots of free plugins to monitor volumes across frequencies.

That’s something that is really useful. I’m blanking on, I don’t have any more, any other tip. If you are in New York City, there are a few schools in New York City that give free classes.

I strongly recommend Plug for 343 Labs, for example, a great school here in Manhattan.

[Darran]
Yeah, try and just absorb as much as you can from any of the stuff out there that would help you develop your path, as far as you know, and be open to criticism and learning. You can’t go in too big of an ego. You can develop it later when you become a big guy, which does happen.

Stay humble for a little while.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Yes. And to go into visuals, I think going back to how do you differentiate yourself as a DJ or music producer, I think if you don’t have nice visuals, it’s going to be harder and harder. Virtual reality, which I know is one of your big themes, will be a way to differentiate yourself as a producer of music and video content merged together, an entire experience.

Think anima at the sphere, right? It’s hard. It’s harder and harder.

That’s why I believe that fewer and fewer music producers slash DJs will be able to make it because they have the teams, they have the technology to help them. So it’s going to be harder and harder for the rest of us to compete. But if we want to try, we should not forget the visuals.

[Darran]
Yeah. And one of the questions I frequently ask to producers is have they ever thought, or even DJs, is have you ever thought of doing something with video as part of your mix or mixing audio and video together and put it on just the music video, but making that part of your overall presence, your overall show? And then leading obviously into, have you looked into doing anything in virtual reality?

Because you can have a whole arena in there. You see these shows like Marshmallow getting 12 million people, Travis Scott, 15 million people. There’s always the battle on who’s gotten the most in Fortnite of content being played, but you have millions of people tuning in.

And it’s like going back in the day and saying to somebody, when the MySpace was around, it’s like, do you have a website? And they’re like, no, we have a MySpace and our songs are up on our MySpace. But you have this platform where you can have a website, you can control the experience there, whereas MySpace has everything else going on, but you could do something there on your own website, where now you’ve got these virtual reality worlds where you could build a place where people can come to congregate and be looking around.

And I got big screen TVs. You’d think it was almost like an IMAX theater that you could watch our shows in.

[Surfing DJ’s]
And you’re like, whoa. The problem I see is that every field is getting more and more specialized. You don’t have enough hours in your days to do all this.

Tell me about it. By the way, we just got signed with Flashforward, a fantastic label in Belgium. A plug-in for them.

Thank you to these guys. We also work with an agent also in Europe at Beskar Bookings. A big thank you to them because they’ve been taking so much from our shoulders that frees up time for what we do to produce music and DJ.

But otherwise, it’s so difficult to put music out there if you don’t have someone’s help. It’s a full-time job. We were not doing it as well as they can.

So going back to the visuals, tomorrow actually, we’re going to play in Connecticut and a gentleman called Kiefer, a fantastic videographer in terms of making projections in the rooms, is going to do the visuals for the show. We cannot compete with him. We should not.

We should partner. We should collab. I think the collab of music that we’ve been all doing in the music space will be more across media.

Music producers collabing, collaborating with visuals.

[Darran]
I’m glad, once again, you actually talked about something that was going to be my next question I was going to bring up, asking you about your getting signed with Flashforward. You just answered that question of what that experience is like. It took me back to, I remember I was interviewing a DJ years ago.

Paulo Mojo had a nightclub here backstage. He said one of the worst decisions he ever made in his career, well, it wasn’t worst decisions, but one of the toughest decisions was going from an artist, DJ, to opening up his own label. He goes, I lost the ability to start producing music, produce music and DJ because I was focused on the label.

He goes, and I failed at it. What I learned from that is I went and hired somebody to do my label. Once that happened, I didn’t have to look at that anymore.

They took care of everything. It just went and took off. I’m the type of person, I wear 16, 17 different hats.

Most people think I’m the guy who just clicks a button and we’re sitting here doing an interview. It’s like, no, I spend 45 to 50 hours a week. You could make my own reality television show, watch a producer of an online series in the background all day long.

It’s almost a concept I’ve thought about doing, is just setting up a camera in the background and letting it go 24-7. When I’m in the office, I don’t need to add another show to the already 14, 30 shows I’m producing.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Everything is so specialized, we cannot be good at everything. Anima is only one or two people. I’m sure it’s 20 people or more.

[Darran]
You mentioned offloading that to your label. You have the other gentleman you’re working with as well. What active measures do you take to promote yourself, your releases and your career on your own?

Is solid PR an important asset for a DJ slash producer to have? Do you work with any publicists or PR people? Do you do it all in-house?

[Surfing DJ’s]
No PR, really. They do a lot of social media for us. Descartes Bookings does more of the bookings of DJ gigs.

[Darran]
You were DJing in Ibiza in September.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Yeah, prove them.

[Darran]
That’s awesome.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Another shout out.

[Darran]
Instagram, I suppose, social media. We were talking pre-show a little bit about ADE this year. I’ve been a couple of years in the past and possibly going this year.

You mentioned Ibiza and I was like, last year when we were talking pre-show about being at Ray of the Planet, I had this small window of opportunity. I was going to almost bucket list going to Ibiza for my 50th birthday. Only problem was that I was trying to do all this very quickly and I didn’t sit down to think because there was so much going on.

I could have got a ticket from Berlin to Ibiza for like $250, but then getting back home to Seattle from Ibiza was going to be like $2,400. But I didn’t think I could have just flown back to Berlin or phone. I would have had to get an Airbnb because I was leaving Berlin on Tuesday and I would have to get an Airbnb for like four days.

At that time of year, it was August. It was hard to find a place lower than 150 euro a day, but most places were like 300 to 500 a night. I was like, oh, that’s not cool.

Talking about festivals, events and going out, we’ll talk about ADE in a second, but you just played Dance Parade in New York City. Tell us about that experience. Yeah, that was really cool.

Unlike anything we’ve ever done really. It’s part of a huge grade. It’s really about dances.

You’re dancing from all over the world, but different sides of music. It takes a good couple of hours to make its way downtown through the west side of Manhattan. We had such a fun experience because we had just DJs on our float originally.

Then there were these fabulous dancers. One guy was in a full bright blue leotard with butterfly wings and some dancing fairies around him. They said, hey, do you guys mind if we jump on your float?

We’re like, are you kidding? That’s amazing. They jump on, they’re dancing, they’re doing their stuff.

It became like the best party.

[Surfing DJ’s]
People can see videos and pictures of this on our website, surfingdjs.com. You mean that website right there?

[Darran]
No, it reminds me, like I said, when I was in Berlin for Rave the Planet, working with Riverside Studios, we talked about this little pre-show. Being on a double-decker semi-truck bus, and there’s 25 things. He’s driving around for eight hours with 350,000 people.

Being in an immersed experience like that, I want to do more of those. It’s funny because here in Seattle, we have our mobile studio. If you go to our website, we have a series called The Mobile Sessions, which is a smaller version of this.

We can put about 10 people on the back of our glass box mobile studio, and we drive around with a concert grade sound system on it. People can hear us from about two city blocks away, about 20 stories up. We’re an icon here in Seattle for doing something like that.

It’s just an experience of bringing music out to the masses in a different way. When Pandy was going on, we did a campaign, and we put a banner on top of the truck, and we called it hashtag boogie on your balcony. When we drove by, people could come out and dance when we were driving by, stuff like that.

I was really trying to do things out of the box. I think those kinds of experiences where it isn’t just one festival, you’re locked in. You have a parade where you have multiple artists going by, and people can experience multiple stages or multiple platforms going on.

I think that’s really awesome to do those kinds of things.

[Surfing DJ’s]
It’s not easy to DJ on a moving car.

[Darran]
Yeah, yeah. That’s a lot of people who have to say they’ve got to get their truck legs on with our mobile stage. Even though I’m driving at no more than 10 miles an hour, they’ve got to get used to it.

Sometimes we’ve got to go uphill, so they’re kind of holding on. They usually get it after a little bit of a while. You mentioned ADE.

You’re going to ADE this year. Awesome for that. Love that.

Love that event. Lots of cool stuff going on in Amsterdam around that time.

[Surfing DJ’s]
It’s a great way to meet people in the industry, from producers to labels. It’s organized, again, by our friends at Best Gardening. Oh, nice.

Nice.

[Darran]
Yeah, we try to hook up with a few labels and go to the parties. Obviously, try not to party too much.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Yeah, right. I’ve been in trouble a couple of times.

[Darran]
Let’s just say I missed a few key interviews because I didn’t wake up on time. We’ll definitely let you know about that. Do you do Winter Music Conference as well?

Is that still a stateside American thing? I know Winter Music Conference used to be big years ago. It’s in Miami.

I was going to say, they’ve rebranded now.

[Surfing DJ’s]
They call it Miami Music Week.

[Darran]
Oh, Miami Music Week.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Yeah, we played there last year, March 2024. Yeah, that’s a fantastic place.

[Darran]
Awesome. Yeah, that’s very popular. Is there anything else you want to let our DJ Sessions fans know before we let you go this afternoon?

[Surfing DJ’s]
Well, we like Miami in particular because we can surf, and we are called surfing DJs because we are avid surfers.

[Darran]
Now, I notice you’re both wearing the same color shirts, though. Is that merch you have from your store? Yeah, that’s our brand logo.

Yeah, that’s our logo.

[Surfing DJ’s]
Well, our logo, our colors. We appreciate the fact that you also have your color scheme, your brand, two colors, blue and purple. We went the similar route, the kind of light blue and pink for the logo.

[Darran]
Yeah, we wanted to keep it sort of- My favorite color in the world only comes up twice a day, and if it’s not overcast in Seattle, you can see it. It’s right after twilight, but before black, there’s this purple, like there’s a dark blue that goes right into a purple, and then it goes black in the night, and you just see it at least twice a day at this one point. It’s perfect.

That’s my favorite color. We’re a nightlife show, so it’s like going with the sun setting. You go from the orange, sun setting to the orange, to the blue, and then into the purple, and then the darkness of the night.

That’s kind of the theme behind my thinking for the show. Thank you very much for that. We’ll definitely look forward to touching base with you and having you on the show again in the future.

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

[Surfing DJ’s]
Instagram or surfingdjs.com. Go over to Instagram, handle surfingdjs. One word, girl.

Awesome.

[Darran]
Well, Jean-Francois and Hannah, thank you very much for coming on the show this evening. We’ll definitely be in touch with you and have you on the show again in the future, because it sounds like you got a bunch of stuff coming on all the time, and we’d love to hear that with the DJs, producers, and industry. In New York City, if you go, or in Amsterdam.

Yes, absolutely. We’ll be in touch, definitely. On that note, I’m going to get going.

I’m your host, Darren, for the DJ Sessions. That’s Hannah and Jean-Francois from Surfing DJs on the DJ Sessions. Don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com, where you can find out all of our past episodes, past news stories, new news stories, over 700 news stories a month, 2,600 past episodes and more, exclusive mixes, mobile sessions, silent disco sessions, rooftop sessions. There’s a lot of sessions at the DJ Sessions, but it’s all at thedjsessions.com. Our social links are there as well. Feel free to subscribe, donate, check out our merch store, donate to the show.

Again, Darren for the DJ Sessions, Jean-Francois and Hannah for the Surfing DJs. And remember, on the DJ Sessions, the music never stops.