Amlex Finds His Voice Through Passion and Persistence on the Virtual Sessions 1/20/26

Amlex joins the conversation from Rome to share an honest and grounded look at his journey as a DJ and producer, shaped by passion, sacrifice, and relentless hard work. From his early musical roots playing guitar to fully committing to electronic music, he explains how following intuition and emotion has guided every major decision in his career. Music is not just a profession for him – it is a daily practice driven by instinct, late nights, and a constant flow of ideas that often pull him back into the studio when others are sleeping.

 

The discussion explores the realities behind producing and releasing music in today’s landscape. Amlex breaks down his creative process, explaining how strategy, mental focus, and experimentation all play key roles in shaping his sound. He speaks openly about the pressure artists face, the importance of mental health, and why staying true to yourself matters more than chasing trends or fame.

 

A major turning point in his career came through his relationship with Origami Management and Black Lizard, where mentorship, trust, and long-term vision helped elevate his work. Amlex emphasizes how vital strong relationships are in the industry, not just professionally but personally, highlighting collaboration, consistency, and community as essential ingredients for growth.

 

Looking ahead, Amlex shares excitement for upcoming releases, future performances, and the momentum he feels building toward 2026. Grounded yet ambitious, he makes it clear that success for him is defined by connection to the music and the people around it, not numbers or status. His story is one of persistence, authenticity, and belief in the process.

 

Topics

0:00 Introduction and connecting from Rome
5:00 Defining his music through emotion and hard work
0:00 Creative workflow and late-night production habits
15:00 Mental health and balance in an artist’s life
20:00 Moving to Rome and building positive circles
25:00 Discovering opportunities through social platforms
30:00 Working with Origami Management and Black Lizard
35:00 Defining success beyond charts and fame
40:00 Collaborations and upcoming music releases
50:00 Looking ahead to touring, growth, and 2026 goals

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions Presents the Virtual Sessions. I’m your host Darran and I’m back on the mic again after a little bit of a break but there’s a lot of stuff that we’ve been having going on in the background and coming in today from Rome in the land of Italy, my homeland, because I’m Sicilian. Here we have none other than Amlex on the show today.

Amlex, how are you doing today?

[Amlex]
Amlex in the house, thank you so much Darran to host me and of course to give me the opportunity to to go live in your broadcast and I’m so proud of that of course and yeah let’s go.

[Darran]
Yeah let’s go, I mean gosh it’s been a while we’ve been trying to nail this down. I know that you had ADE last year and was with we’re with the Origami team out there and Black Lizard, Black Lizard? Black Lizard label and ADE.

I missed ADE this year, I love ADE, I will be going back to ADE this year and some other cities in the EU. We’ll talk more about that later in the show but you know we’re here to talk about you and let our audience get to know you and more about what you do. So if you could describe, you produce music, if you could describe, we like to kick off the show kind of set a vibe, if you could describe your music in three words or less or just three words, three words, how would you describe the music you produce?

[Amlex]
Passion, sacrifice, pain of course and that’s three and let me think, it’s hard and hard work of course.

[Darran]
Hard work, yeah absolutely, you know I was just recently talking with a friend of mine and you know a lot of people think that oh it’s just easy because I just jump in front of a camera and I ask somebody some questions and it’s like no, if you saw my to-do list of stuff that I have to do just to get one episode on the air and I’m going to be producing 60 episodes in there, I can only imagine what it’s like being an artist, musician, not only I’m not a DJ, planning set lists, doing shows, traveling, being in the studio, sitting down, collaborating with everyone to make tracks happen, releasing, distributing, you know all that fun social media, don’t forget that, to put it all together and we’re not doing this for like personal reasons necessarily, this is business reasons we’re doing this for, then we have to separate and have our personal life as well, so you know how many tracks do you end up producing a month and how many end up being released?

[Amlex]
Per month I’m going to produce like one, two tracks, like for me it’s essential because you have to do like a lot of strategies to follow, I mean it’s like you have to do a radio show, you have to do Classifica, the charts on Beatport, you have to listen new music to take inspiration and for example for me is my mind and my brain is like still like doing, working like as a lab because when I sometimes I cannot sleep because my mind is full of ideas and I have to go back to the PC, to the computer and like yeah and write and write, write, write, okay I don’t like it, okay redo it, okay we go, go, go, go, yeah it’s like try, try hard and play hard because if you don’t try hard and don’t play hard for me is like you are wasting your time.

[Darran]
Absolutely, I know I can agree with that 100%, I was up till 3 a.m last night and ideas are still happening in my head because I got so many irons in the fire, so many things going on in my bucket that if I don’t keep my, if I don’t put it down on my notes and I used to write everything down manually on to-do list, now if I don’t put it in here which is nice for the cloud so if I ever lose my phone, I don’t lose my whole game plan because it’s in the cloud.

[Amlex]
Exactly, yes, you know it’s a strategy, yeah.

[Darran]
Exactly, so but having those to-do lists and they say that the one thing that’s nice is you know if you try to go with the day and you try to take on too many big tasks because time management is a very serious key thing and for overall health you know and making sure people stand, stay healthy, you know this leads right into my next question that producing dance music or just music alone stands synonymous with spending countless hours behind the computer sculpting your beats, making your beats, where do you find your free time to stay fit?

[Amlex]
Well, that’s a hard question to reply, I mean it’s like when you are, in my opinion, I’m taking from myself, I’m talking for myself, when you are behind the computer you are like still like going ahead in something that you love it and it’s impossible to like to get some distractions or whatever but I think that of course you have to eat and you have to go to shop something in the, to ship something in the shop or like quotidianity, you know, but when you are focused there and trust me like it’s like super difficult for me to leave this chair, trust me, it’s like I don’t know, I don’t know some to describe like in a few words but I think that is like a good thing, if not it’s like waste time, I told you like I mean yeah for me it’s like that.

[Darran]
You know, I can relate, I’ve been telling this story for over a year now about in 2024 how I was just at a standpoint, I didn’t know what to do with my show, my brand and I just took off what I thought was going to be two weeks, what I thought was going became two months, which became four months, which became ultimately eight and a half months where I did not sit in this chair and do anything for my show whatsoever, you know, and it was just after 16 years of doing this I was on the go, I was on the go, it was yeah go, go, go, go, go, but I mean I know why things happened and what they did, I had to come back and regroup last May and get everything together and now I’ve been doing a lot of behind the scenes work and I ramped back up last year and sat in the chair and forced myself here, I mean I did 160 interviews last year between May and like October, you know, so that’s a lot of interviews and we’re getting ready to ramp up, I got a new PR guy coming on board, I’m super excited, everything’s going well for 2026, you know, speaking of mental health though, you know, do you sometimes get fed up with making and playing music and how do you deal with that? Do you have a set, like I get up, I go jogging, I get up, I take a baseball bat to, you know, a stuffed animal, I scream out loud or do you have some mantra or something that you do that helps you kind of woosah and get back into the moment?

[Amlex]
I’m sometimes an overthinking person but I think that I’m also a last minute person, it’s like when you do, when you try to do like something for yourself, whatever, every time is like last minute for me, it’s like go to play football or go to play swimming in a swimming pool or go to play gym, whatever, I’m going to decide like last minute, what I’m feeling in that moment. I mean, that’s my behavior like from ages, I mean, my mom and my father, thanks so much to be alive, I mean, thank you but yeah, they hate me for that, I mean, yeah, a good way, in a good way, of course, of course.

[Darran]
No, you know, being a multitasker, you know, is kind of, I’ve been, I’ve had people think that I have ADD or they have Asperger’s or things like that or it’s like, no, I just, I multitask really well, it sounds like I got a million things going on and when you get to know me, it’s like, he has a plan going on, he knows what this, this, this and this all connect together, you know, to make something happen but you can get frizzle fried, you can get burnt out very easily and, you know, one of the things we like to address sometimes is, you know, the mental health of the electronic music industry, you know, talking about DJs, performers, even bands, you know, going on stage and, you know, here you are in front of 5,000 people and then all of a sudden, then all of a sudden, you’re at the airport three hours later and it’s completely silent and that dopamine effect that goes up and down, like, and that could be Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, could have two gigs on Saturday and it’s back to back and then you’re at the hotel room, you got to get it all up and put it back all again and maybe you’re running on jet lag and you’re not getting enough sleep but, you know, it sounds like, you know, you got some, you got some good connections over there, you got it pretty down, I mean, do you have a residency anywhere now, are you touring or do you have anything put together and do you do something in Rome or all over Europe, what’s that look like?

[Amlex]
Now, I’m, I’m based in Rome, I come from Sardinia basically, do you know Sardinia, right? It’s like, it’s like the little island next to Sicily.

[Darran]
Oh, okay.

[Amlex]
I decided to move to Rome. I decided to move to Rome because the music industry can, can allow me to, to, to be like, at least in the middle, not on top, of course, always, always be, always be with the, with the floor, with their feet in the floor, of course, but I don’t want to fly before it, it, it, it’s going to, to happen but I think, I think that to collocate it to, to the speech, it’s like, it’s like super, super difficult when, for example, like someone doesn’t believe in you, I mean, it’s like, for, I want, I want to be like surrounded of like positive people that always believe in, believes in me and always like positive feelings, positive vibes because if not, you cannot go ahead and now I’m trying to, to, to go on with my, with my career, of course, like doing like connection collaboration and I’m like trying to, like as you, to create like a format, like I don’t, I don’t want to spoil, I mean, it’s like, but like you, you can, you can, you can, you can see me on, on my, I can broadcast, of course, in my, in my Instagram and you can see me like performing in, on, on Instagram, of course, and I needed to get like all the tools to do that, like microphone, like a panel, like, you know, the ring guy, right? The TikTokers, the TikTokers, but it helps me to, to get like a good light, a good light and, of course, for me, it’s going to be, it’s going to be mad because I think and everyone says to me that I have the personality to do that and I want to jump basically, yeah, on that and I hope to, it’s going to, yeah, it’s going to be.

[Darran]
You know, the thing is, is that I’ve been doing podcasting, I mean, I started in broadcast television back in 19, I started in public access television back in 1992 and that was our only way, that was basically YouTube. If you had a video camera, the only way you could put something on the TV screen was if you went to the public access station, they kind of said, okay, here’s your time slot and you put your content there. Then I went into broadcast television and then I got into podcasting and then I got into live streaming and now I’m looking at VR and AR, those are two separate subjects.

The thing is, is when 2020 hit and everybody in the world jumped online, I was the guy who was doing the DJ show for 10 years and had a lot of people on the show and all that fun stuff, so I had a lot of people hitting me up and I’ll tell you, and I tell this to a lot of podcasters or live streamers out there, you kind of have the right, you’re in the right zone but you don’t have to spend a lot of money to do it, you know. You can get a decent, you can get a decent, this light that I’m using right here for my studio, I think cost me $40 online.

Yeah, probably cheaper now. It’s a nice LED panel, it’s color temperature controlled, won’t go into the specs of that. My microphone, yeah, it’s a $300 microphone but we’re sponsored by Mackie so they gave us that.

You don’t need a $300 microphone, you can get a good $50 microphone nowadays.

[Amlex]
Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Darran]
Lighting and audio are two key things and the big thing is making sure your audio interface is going in and you’re going right off the board. Usually if you’re into podcasting and live streaming for a very small amount of money and the services that are out there that are already there like Twitch or YouTube if you want to go to or Instagram or TikTok, going to those services, it’s very easy to get into that realm and I encourage so many artists to take advantage and do that because that’s the platform and as everyone found out when pandemic hit, everyone jumped online and said, wow, this is a thing and I said, I’ve been trying to tell you this for 10 years and now you’re both jumping online and everyone said, how do you do this?

Yeah, you just started now, you know, but there was a lot of infrastructure that people didn’t have in place. It’s like putting the cart before the horse. It’s like, yes, we’re online but was I ready to go online?

And some have had some success and some have not had success and I knew that was going to happen but we’re still here and I’m always down to help an artist. If you want some back-end advice and we can talk off camera about that, how to get you set up and running, we can do that because I do know that you are producing a show that you put to your SoundCloud and when did you start that and how long are those shows?

[Amlex]
Vradio show is, basically, when it start everything with origami management that they want to say hello, of course, and it started and it started like to develop my radio shows too, to build my radio shows too in the meantime and sometimes it’s very difficult to make it, to do it because sometimes the tracks, I mean, it’s like doesn’t match and you have to find another way to do that and so that’s hard to do that but I think that if you persevere with the perseverance you can do everything, of course, and day by day I construct my, I develop my radio show like in a different way, like volumes, like frequencies because you have to take care about frequencies, whatever and like technique and, of course, the page of the radio show, the layout and that’s super important to show to everybody else, that’s the last thing to do but I think that it’s not easy but it’s not hard to do that, of course, and…

[Darran]
Go ahead, go ahead.

[Amlex]
Yeah, go ahead, no, no, no, absolutely.

[Darran]
I was gonna say one of the things that I find that people say is the hardest and this is the biggest rule that I give them and tell them about when they’re doing a show, I know I need to slap my hand on this one because I haven’t been doing it as of late but I’ve been working on a bunch of stuff in the back end is being consistent and making sure that if you’re gonna publish, let people know every Thursday I’m dropping a new show or every Wednesday I’m dropping a new show, it’s gonna be out by seven o’clock, my show goes on, this is when I go live, this is when my new show is coming up, so you can build that consistency and that people always know, oh, it’s there, it’s there, you can build that viewership trust which is so key in this game with so much noise going on out there, you could stop and you gotta start back up but everyone else has found new stuff to go listen to and they’re like, oh, maybe I’m not in the mood today, they were happy when they were listening to you but then they maybe go through a breakup or they lose their job and if you’re off the air and they come back and go, well, I’m not in a good mood right now so I’m not gonna give them good vibe energy, whereas if you were consistent, they might have said your consistency kept me happy through, you know, so consistency is a huge one and you did mention Origami in there, we’re gonna talk a little bit about Origami and your relationship with Black Lizard, you seem to have a very good relationship with Black Lizard which has released most of your productions, can you tell us how that relationship with Origami and Black Lizard started?

[Amlex]
I think that it’s like before to start, I think that it started before Black Lizard than Origami and after that, Leandro, of course, go ahead to reach what he wants to do in the life for real, I mean, it’s like sending, not just sending feedback to the tracks that he gives but I think that to grow up, you have to take risks and Origami management is a risk but I think that is the best management in the world and Collegade with Black Lizard, almost all the artists going to produce for Black Lizard and Black Lizard now is becoming like a real, real, a reality like that is like breaking the charts, I mean, yeah, for me like producing for Black Lizard, it was like a very good thing because it was my first with No Sleep, my song was like the first song that I dropped on that and for me, the feeling when I know Leandro for the first time, when I was in the studio with Joy and Leandro for the first time, I was like, oh my god, are you real? Because I saw him just in there, he’s my idol when I was like 18, 19, 20 and yeah and whatever but I think that I was like a kid when after Christmas, under Christmas is like, yeah, it’s like breaking his open, his presence and I think that is doing like very well, he’s my mentor and I’m so proud of that.

[Darran]
Well, we’re really excited because we are launching into 2026 that I can announce that here, our press release is about to go out, it’s on our website that we have a sponsorship partnership with Origami management and we’re super excited for that, like I said, we’re going to be touring over there, hanging over there, doing something on the ground and definitely collaborating with all the artists with Origami and the labels as well, as well as Black Lizard, so super awesome with that.

You mentioned that they do such a good job for you with Black Lizard and there’s like, he’s a mentor for you, what do you think the most important thing it is that record labels should be doing for their artists, not just Black Lizard but for their artists and in general, are labels doing a good job in that? I mean, you definitely love Black Lizard, we get that, they’re doing a good job, like you said, they’re climbing the charts, they’re getting well known but what about other record labels, is there a really important thing you say, Black Lizard does this and I don’t see others doing this or Black Lizard, this company does this and so does Black Lizard and that’s why they are successful?

[Amlex]
Yes, of course, no, I was talking about in general, Darran, of course, I mentioned Black Lizard because now, I told you, it’s becoming very, very strong and I think that a label in general has to consider, for example, when you publish on the record label, they have to consider as your career, your music career, if you are already a pro or if you are a beginner, for me, but I don’t want to categorize the segment, the people, of course, but for me, it’s important to select the people in what you want to do with the artist and how do you have to launch him and I think that the advertising is very, very important, the advertising for me is the fundamental thing to do from a label and of course, connections all over the world.

[Darran]
You know, that’s the two big things you said there, you know, one thing I want to touch on is we have been toying around with the idea a long time ago, it’s still out there but opening up and doing our own label, then we got to figure out who are we going to release, what’s our sound going to be like, who’s going to listen to all the submissions if we take submissions and come in and, you know, who judges which is good or which is bad, you know, in coming in and I’m just like, that’s why I kind of got away from that and said, I don’t want to maybe do a label right now because there’s already so many people doing labels, why don’t I create this new music section on our site and we can just highlight the music of the guests that come on the show, we can make our own music and partner with labels and play their music and work with their artists and interview their artists and give them a lot more exposure and robustness on our site rather than trying to, I don’t want to manage you and your label and bring you on and go through the contract negotiations of putting everything together, who owns what and master sync, use, slice, but I don’t even want to go down that route, you know, I’d rather just say, hey, Mx, can I put your music on my site and cool, we’ll push a link to your beat forwarder, push wherever you want people to buy to you, yep, all right, cool, boom, and you go, wow, that was pretty easy, wouldn’t it be awesome if it was that easy for a label to put music out or collaborate with people, it’d be so awesome, but it’s not, but I’m glad that you work with such a prominent label, I know I’m super excited to be working with Leandro, the origami management team and the labels, especially Black Lizard there, you know, your career spans over 20 years, you look like a pretty young guy, how old are you, were you DJing when you were two or three or something, you don’t look like you’re out of your mid-20s, 32, yes, 32, okay, okay, so you were actually,

[Amlex]
I don’t show up, I know, I don’t show up my age and I show 24, 25,

[Darran]
yeah, they thought I was in my mid-30s, mid to late 30s the other day and I’m like, I’m 51,

[Amlex]
what, yeah, no, I can’t believe it, sorry, but I’m refusing to believe it,

[Darran]
it’s the Italian blood, that’s what it is, it’s the Italian blood, but you know, you’ve been DJing for over 20 years, got your start at a very early age, what do you consider the biggest break that launched your DJ career, what was that biggest break that said, boom, I mean, what’s your story, what’s your take on that, what’s your, what’s the magic behind Amelix?

[Amlex]
I was playing like the guitar when, since when I was a child, when I was like 14, 15, 16, then I decided to move, like to to choose another way because I felt that was not mine and, okay, I was like producing like some electro music, electronic music with my band, like rock music, rock electro, whatever and I decided to move because it was not my, the way that I want to pick it up and I said to myself, because I confront myself like in the mirror, like most of the time and it says like, it’s what you want and it says like, no, the reply was no, where no, and I decided to move in the electro house music industry and because I saw a lot of like in carnival parties in my town and in a lot of discos, like a lot of DJs that were playing like, not in the age of mine, of course, but it was more big than, older than me and I was saying like, hmm, that’s, that’s, that’s what I want, that’s what I want and I follow, I follow, I follow something that, that, that, that comes from, from, from my heart and it says like to myself, okay, let’s do pain, no pain, no gain and sacrifice, like I was like studying in the university and, and it says like, okay, I want to lose like a session, like the summer session to go like and work and to reach like some monies to, to get like the first consoles and the first, yeah, CDJs and I did that and now I freeze off myself, I mean, and after that, I moved in Rome, that when, that I told you and I know origami management from, from the social, social networks and I called them like in a, in a proper and diplomatic call and, and they, they asked me to go in the studio, blah, blah, blah, whatever and I met, I met them because you have to be like, of course, full of tracks to show them, if not, of course, they don’t consider you and it was like, we used to say in Italiano, my colleagues in Italian can, can understand, like when you look like something and you fall in love and for me, origami like is a family, like as my family, I don’t know how to explain but you, you, you know my effort right now and, yeah, and I, I think that I, I, I appreciate every single day what they do for me like in music career and over because after music career, like there are friends first.

[Darran]
You know, that’s a very important thing to have a very good tight-knit group of people, we work with our resident DJs very frequently, very closely. Speaking of, Axia is in the chat room, he’s watching us on Twitch, by the way. You know, having that support structure is very, very key to being successful in this industry, you know, so many people wanted to pull you in so many different ways and having a group of people that you can go to, that you not only trust as business partners but also as friends, people that you can collaborate with or bounce ideas off of or even talk to, you know, can, can, can, you know, make or break somebody if they don’t have a good close network of friends, especially when you’re an artist and you’re up on stage and you have all the fans that are trying to just get your attention, get your attention, everyone’s getting your attention, get your attention, get your attention, and you’re like, I gotta tune this out and, you know, help them do that, you know, how would you define success as a DJ producer? Would it be a Beatport top 10 hit, a sold-out tour, you know, what are your thoughts on this?

[Amlex]
For me, you have to catch the feeling. In this period, for example, for me and Axia can agree, it’s working like definitely the bus house, for example, bus tech house, bus house, whatever you want to call it, but I think that these row buses, these synth rows, I don’t know why, like periods is like Latin, periods is like bus house, periods is like going to like the, I think that anyway the normal tech house, the standard tech house doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t came, doesn’t came, doesn’t came anymore, doesn’t come back anymore. I think like with the simple synths, now you have to be like or not, not a music or sound engineer, of course, to catch like a sound, but your sound, but if you have like an idea before helps you, of course, to, to, to develop and to build the track like properly and definitely house the market, market industry wants to, wants to get it.

[Darran]
Yeah, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s so, with so many people out there now and the barrier to entry, being able to DJ, let alone being able to…

[Amlex]
It’s so personal, Darran. What? It’s so personal, it’s so personal.

[Darran]
Yeah, I mean, the barrier to entry, to DJing now, the access to music, the access to the equipment, to the software to make music, I think that, yes, behind, behind… And now, now, with AI coming out and people say, I’m a musician, to me being, I’m not knocking anyone for what they want to do, but back in the day, when you wanted to put a show on public access or you wanted to put a show on broadcast television, you had to meet standards to do that. Once YouTube opened the door, it let anyone put any video they wanted online and say, I’m, I’m doing a show.

But where’s the standards of, of where you compare? You might have a show here, somebody might have a show here, or a DJ might be really good here and they don’t get enough gigs, but you have a DJ getting all the gigs here and are they really good? I mean, and you could have somebody who just wants to DJ for the love of…

My friend, Ron, he’s a vinyl DJ. He doesn’t play out, but he has two techniques at his house and he spins wax and just does it by himself because he just loves mixing and doing that. Does that mean he’s not a good DJ because he’s not getting booked?

Or, so it’s very interesting to find out what people’s level of what they determine success is as a DJ. The one thing that I personally, the one thing that I have noticed in the industry though, is the higher up get, the more famous people get, I find that a lot of them, the ego has gone away. They’re very chill.

Yeah. They’re very calm. Like, how you doing?

It’s cool. You’d think they’d be like, maybe like, Oh my gosh, I better not go talk to that person. They’re too famous.

It’s like, no, they’re like, how you doing? What’s up? I’ve seen a lot of ego tripping in the game though.

And I get that you have to psych one’s self up. You don’t, you don’t become a football player or a soccer ball, soccer for you, football for us. You don’t become a football player and say, I’m going to miss the goal.

I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to trip and fall. I’m going to lose this game. You got to psych yourself up and build yourself up.

But when that ego becomes your outer personality and you start being offensive or rude to people or something, you know, that I think needs to be dealt with incurred. But a lot of people I’ve met in this industry, like yourself, like the, like the origami team, everyone I’ve interviewed from there and more, they’ve all been just really, really cool people, really outgoing, wanting to help people. And I think that’s a key to their success overall, helping somebody out, you know, passing the baton, passing the torch, lifting up the next generation.

You know, I think that’s important as a, as a, as a goal. And I was going to ask what is one of your main, what is your ultimate goal as a DJ producer?

[Amlex]
I think that you have to, from, from the beginning as your, as your, as your speech began. I think that you have to split it up first, your character and your technique. You know what I mean?

I mean, it’s like, um, therefore you have to be simply yourself. For me, it’s like that. That’s it.

Yeah. Cause if you are developed by someone else, by somebody else, the people felt it, the people feel it. And I mean, there, there is not, there is not, there is not like effort.

There is not like, uh, there is not like nothing magic in what are you doing. And it’s so easy to do that because you have like a stronger person, like a famous person that kicking you in the, in the best charts in the, on the top. But I mean, if, if you are, if you are like nobody with yourself first, it’s, it’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s the worst, I think.

And, uh, my, my, for example, in, in, in my, in, in my, um, in my opinion, uh, I want to be, I don’t want to be like famous. I, I don’t, I don’t have really care. I mean, it’s like, but I want to be for the music, Darran.

I mean, okay. So general. Okay.

[Darran]
So general, but sometimes better than being complicated, you know?

[Amlex]
Exactly. But now I’m telling, um, and I tell you something and, uh, I’m a little bit emotion and, uh, I’m a little bit emotional person, an emotional person. And, uh, uh, I love to, I love to my job to focus all my energies in the music.

Like right now, I, I think that 2026, do you know what I mean? It’s mine. Bernie down, bro.

[Darran]
No, I feel that. I feel that that’s coming back. I mean, after the hiccup of, of we had a lot of stuff getting ready for 2020, a lot of stuff was on the plate and I’m almost glad.

I don’t want to say it in that kind of way that glad the pandemic happened. That sounds like what the deck, but no, I mean, it, it, it kind of put a lot of pause on a lot of stuff that I’m doing. I got to learn a lot more in that downtime of where I wanted to go, the direction of what I wanted to do.

It gave me some time to think about things. And now after coming back after a couple of years and getting back in the swing of things, even taking that eight and a half month hiatus that I told you about, just taking the break, 2026 is going to be a great year for a lot of people. And I know it’s going to be a great year for you.

I know it’s going to be a great year for black lizard. I know it’s going to be a great year for origami. I know it’s going to be a year for all of our partners and a lot of people in the world out there looking forward to an amazing 2026, you know, speaking of, of working with people, collaborating with people, uh, networking, is there an up and coming producer that you know, that you would like to put in the spotlight?

Somebody that says, you know, they’re up and coming, but they aren’t just getting it yet, but I’ve been working with them over here, collaborating with them over here. I’d like to see them get in the spotlight. Isn’t there one that comes to mind without getting you in trouble?

[Amlex]
I can, I can reply to you like, uh, under than a sec. The, the people is watching this, this, uh, this broadcast, of course, Axia, my brother, for me, it’s like a super, like, I, I met him like just last year. And it’s like, uh, it became for me like, uh, a very important person, uh, over, over the music who can share your, who can share your, your, your stuff, your private stuff, your, whatever you’re, whatever you want.

And in the music, we collaborate for Break It Down. And it was like fantastic because he has got like an exam. I was like working and, uh, it doesn’t match.

Uh, we, we had to find like a way to, to, uh, to stream because we are like me, I’m in Rome and Kim is in Milan or in, uh, in Florence when they come from home. And it’s like, it was a bit difficult, but we did it. And I’m so proud of that.

And, uh, for me is one in one, in, uh, in, uh, in, uh, on a million to, to produce with, with, uh, with him, of course. And I want to thanks Kim, uh, if you can, uh, uh, if you can allow me, Darran, I want to thanks Kim to my number one, uh, my number one fan that I hope that is listening to this, uh, this broadcast, the DJ session interview and is Nina Michelle Rice. And is, uh, I want to thanks Kim because it’s my number one fan and, uh, allows me to, to, to living like a dream, like, like this.

[Darran]
We love number one fans around here. We have a ton of them and that was a really awesome shout out. And yeah, I know we’re going to have you both on the show in the future.

You mentioned your last year is track that you pushed, pushed together with him called break it down. Um, you know, it seemed like it was very well-received, pretty awesome out there. I got a chance to listen to it before the show.

What can we see from the future releases of Emlex coming out? Anything you can talk about or let us know.

[Amlex]
Yeah. Uh, I, I will, I will have to drop like already set up, uh, in this, uh, in February, uh, catch me if you can, it’s going to be cool. And it’s like a mix of, uh, uh, the cows and emotional, emotional, uh, part of the, of the vocal that, uh, that they choose it for and that fits perfectly for that song.

And, uh, and, uh, get down tonight. It’s like, uh, you know, get down tonight is like, I invented that like as a slang, like as a joke, get down tonight, bro. I mean, or get it burned, bro.

I mean, I wasn’t, I was not sure, um, um, in, um, uh, what’s the, what’s the name, but it’s, it’s the difficult is the most part difficult to choose, to, to choose like a name. And of course to, to, um, uh, to describe that like behind the scene, because when you produce and when you finish probably it’s like, it’s like finish, you reset your mind and you think of something else, you know, and to came back is like super, super difficult for, I think for everybody to everybody, but yeah, well, I’m, I’m so proud of, uh, of the people, uh, of the people that, uh, that is, uh, is like, uh, is like playing with me because we are like, uh, we are like a good, a good, um, a good, uh, closer friends first and then like artists. Wow.

That’s, that’s magic. That’s amazing. Awesome.

Awesome.

[Darran]
Now I have a question for you. What were you doing out at Hakkasan the other night?

[Amlex]
What? No, I’m joking. I wasn’t, uh, uh, I was with, uh, with Nina, my number one fan in, uh, New York and, uh, Las Vegas and, uh, San Francisco, like, uh, as a, uh, as a vacation and, uh, we did in Hakkasan and we watch, uh, we watch Steve Aoki and, uh, in Omnia club in Las Vegas, as you know, of course, for sure, uh, Fisher, one of my bestie, of course, in the, in the music tech house industry.

And, uh, it was so simply amazing. I mean, if you’re not there, you cannot understand, uh, what my, my, my heart was like eating cause, uh, I used to, um, I used to listen when I, when I was a child, uh, to like IDM electro dance music, like Steve Aoki, Artwell, uh, Nicky Romero, of course. And, uh, yeah, it was like, uh, an emotion, a feeling that a vibe like he, he kick, like he’s a very, like good performer.

Uh, and, uh, of course I didn’t see just him, but I’ve been in, uh, in, in, uh, Bruno Mars stage in, uh, in the, in the, not in the sphere, but it was in Dolby in, uh, MGM part. And for me, if you are listening to me, Bruno Mars, you are the best performer in the world. That’s it.

Like as a properly an artist and, uh, and, uh, Omnia for me was like a bit, a bit better cause of course, not less, not, not less than, uh, than, than, uh, I don’t want to compare the two stage of Steve Aoki and, uh, and Fisher, but I think that Fisher, of course, cause he’s close to my, to my channel. I, I, I preferred him. Of course.

[Darran]
And Nina, Michelle does it, you know, that’s Fisher does one of my favorite songs, um, moving up and down side to side, like a roller coaster. Yeah. I remember the first time I heard of the dance floor here in Seattle, but I did see him in concert.

He was at the Seattle set. He was in Seattle and I was like, he dropped that track. I just lost my mind.

I lost my, I love that track so much. Okay.

[Amlex]
Okay. You, you lose, you lost your mind with, uh, with the roller coaster. I lost, I lost my voice and my mind to Yaki Ding and, uh, he’s dead.

Damn. Oh my God. I was like, I got crazy.

I mean, I was like close to, to, to go down the, the, the mirror of the, of the disco, but it doesn’t happen.

[Darran]
When you’re a DJ and would you prefer, I’m sorry to cut you off, but when you’re a DJ, would you prefer to DJ large scale festivals, or would you rather do more kind of intimate nightclub style settings?

[Amlex]
Both, both, both. I can express all of myself. I can show I’m Lex in a different, in different ways, like, like performing, of course, moving the hands, like, uh, saying, uh, some, some shares.

I mean, it’s like, but I think that, uh, main stage, like as a, I don’t want to say let’s say like Coachella or like Time Warp or, uh, Lulapalooza. No, I’m joking. But like main stage like that, I think that are more, more eating, hitting that like intimate nightclubs, just that, but nightclubs of course, love it because you are so close to the people.

[Darran]
Yeah. Yeah. You know, there is, there was a nightclub here, a lot of nightclubs in Seattle.

You can get pretty close to the DJ. Um, and that’s what I like. I love the nightclubs here, but I’ve been nightclubbing for 35 years, uh, here in Seattle.

So I know every single nightclub, you know, here, but I love going to New York and going to, you know, um, or, or going to Amsterdam and going to like bigger, bigger clubs and, and seeing that. And that’s I’m really excited to even more so to be going, you know, the plan is to be more in Berlin and, and Amsterdam and Ibiza and Italy. And, um, you know, it being out a little bit more around Europe and planning to do that someplace.

Some got a ties with MN2S in the UK, which is really awesome as well. And then some ties Stateside here with a lot of, um, with a lot of shows with the Relentless Beats. That being said, you know, I saw something online recently, just a few weeks ago.

And I commented on it about, somebody said, we should be moving the DJ off the stage and back up into the booth and let it be about the dancing and not about the fireworks, the pyrotechnics, the show, because that’s the show that everyone’s paying for now. But the DJ is they’re DJing, but it’s not like when I grew up, you would do a club called the underground. You were on the dance floor.

You had the stage. The dancers were on the stage, not dancers like go-go dancers, or we, the audience was on the stage dancing. And the DJ was up in a booth with a glass window in front of it.

Usually they could maybe slide open so they could talk to the crowd and all the records and everything were stored up there. And they were kind of off to the side and I would get my way up into this DJ booth somehow. I don’t know.

I just had balls or something. I’d go walk by the door and be like, can I go up? I’d like the bouncer to be standing by the DJ door, big, huge guy.

And I’m like 18 years old and I’m like 130 pounds, maybe 130, you know, skinny kid. When I woke up and say, can I say hi to the DJ? And the bouncer would be like, sure.

And I’d get up there and I’d hang out up in the DJ booth, just rocking it. It became a huge trend for me that I would go to the club and then my friends would go out dancing immediately. I wanted to feel the wave.

I wanted to feel the motion. I wanted to get into the vibe of the floor. But then one of my things I would go do is I would go up to the DJ booth and say, hi, you’re doing a great set.

And I would make zero requests. I never made any requests. I would just be like, dude, this is awesome.

What you do is phenomenal. I’m so impressed and just kind of found my way over the years, not necessarily getting backstage, but up in that DJ booth area, you know, and being comfortable and people would get to know my face and be like, come up here. I mean, I was in the States.

You have to be 21 to drink. And I was getting into nightclubs at 19 years old, getting up in the DJ booth and getting to kick it in the DJ booth. And the club people that worked the club, they thought I worked there.

I just be kicking the DJ booth. I started working lighting and doing stuff at 19 years old. And then it just became like, I’d walk up and the bouncers would see me, the management would see me, the DJs would see me and I could just walk right into the club.

They didn’t even know my name. They’re just like, he works here. He’s the lighting guy here.

[Amlex]
And that’s a good thing too. When a DJ allows you to be part of, for a few minutes or whatever, of his show. I mean, it’s so impressive for you.

And of course, maybe for him it’s not too much, but I think that when you are followed by a million, million, million people, I don’t want to be one from picking up from a ship, a ship, a ship. Yeah. Range.

Ranch. Sorry. But I want to be like Yonick.

Maybe if, for example, it happens to me, like in a Paradiso, when I went in Amsterdam for the first time with Antonio, one of the best friends from Oristano in Sardinia, that I want to say hello. We went there and there were like the 20 years of spinning records and they were like, oh my God, I was like in the event properly. The disco is called Paradiso.

Do you know Paradiso in Amsterdam, right?

[Darran]
Yeah.

[Amlex]
And I’ve been jumped without no permissions in the main stage to see Mesto. You know Mesto. I saw Mesto just that time and I want to be like super close on it.

And all the bodyguards, all the bodyguards, yeah, hold me and yeah, kicked me out of the disco.

[Darran]
Nowadays, back when I was doing this, back when I was doing this stuff and up until, I mean, gosh, almost 2007. So remember I was nightclubbing back in 1992. So almost 15 years of going to nightclubs without this.

[Amlex]
Yeah, exactly. Yes.

[Darran]
And so, you know, and nobody, I mean, if you got up to go say hi to the DJ in the DJ booth, you pretty much knew them. There was etiquette, but now everyone’s trying to get up there and be like, yeah, see the selfie.

[Amlex]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Darran]
Even with our nights that we’re getting ready to do here, I just put together a new series that we’re looking to produce here. I’ll definitely be reaching out to Origami and the whole team over there to be part of this. It’s like top of the line, top of mind with this project I’m working on, but we’re doing a complete no cell phone in the event space.

I know how we’re accomplishing it. I can let other people go out there and research it and figure it out. But we have a really cool way that allow people to basically keep their phone, use their phone, but they won’t be able to record or take pictures with them.

You can’t say how we’re going to do that because it’s our proprietary stuff, but basically, you know, removing that essence and getting people back to the dance floor, back to focus on the music, back to socializing, you know, instead of, or watching the show like this, you know, it’s like, if you want to watch the show, go watch our live stream. If you want to watch the show, we’re recording it. Go watch it when you’re at home or stay home, pay-per-view this, you know, and watch it from home.

[Amlex]
Those kinds of things.

[Darran]
We want the interaction back. And I think there is, it’s not blowback, but it’s definitely coming back, you know, in adverse to the big, big production, $300 a day, you know, to go for a ticket to a show. I mean, I think I’m not knocking any show out of the park, but I think Electric Forest here in the States, I saw somebody for two people for two days or something.

It was like 2,500 bucks. I’m like, what? I mean, okay.

I mean, granted they were getting camping passes. Granted they were getting this level of passes. And I’m just like, I could go to Europe for probably a week and a half, two weeks and see a bunch of nightclubs and a bunch of phenomenal artists and a bunch of arts and culture and be spending it at this festival in this amount of space for this amount of time for that amount of money.

I get it. It’s an awesome experience. I would love to go to Electric Forest, don’t get me wrong, but maybe that’s just the 51-year-old year in me.

And I just want to go see more of the world than, you know, than the big, or go see big festivals around the world, you know, like do something like that. You know, we got invited by Leo. Oh, Leo.

Gosh. He was just on the show recently. Thank you, Leo Oliver.

He invited us to come down to Miami for Ultra, you know? So I was possibly looking at doing that and tapping Leo for Ultra and the whole conference and everything. And just like, oh, I got so much going on.

I’m going to hit him up here in about a week or two and be like, Leo, what’s the plan? And he’s like, I will take you everywhere. I will show you everything.

You’ve never seen like Miami, like I know Miami. And I’m like, all right, cool. Let’s do this, Leo.

So, you know, and that’s just meeting people on the show and you meet people. The virtual sessions, like what we’re doing, like I said, I’m planning to go to Italy and all that fun stuff. But talking about people, who’s the most inspiring person you’ve ever met backstage and why was that such an inspiration to you?

Leandro Da Silva. Give it to the man. Give it to the man.

Do you remember the first time you met him? Was it backstage at an event or how did you meet up with him?

[Amlex]
I met up for the first time, I told you, in his studio. Always seen in YouTube, Instagram, whatever in the world, but behind a screen. And wow, I was like super, super, super, super impressed.

[Darran]
You know, like I said, in building those long-term relationships with people, that’s something that I’ve always strived to do with people in the industry. And now when our press release comes out, the people that I’ve been working with, even though I’ve been working with them for like the last year and putting stuff together over the last six, seven months, to then put it all together in a pot, I didn’t want to say, here we are today and here’s this person today. I want to say, boom, here we go.

And everyone’s going, what the crap did Darran just do? I’ve had to shake hands and talk with these people, online, emails, back and forth. It wasn’t just like, I walked into the studio, I walked in and said, let’s work together.

They said, yes. I had to show them what we’re doing, show them what our angles are, show them what our direction is, see if there are brands that they want to collaborate with and say, we’re going to build a long-term partnership here. And yeah, again, it’s super exciting because Leandro also worked with MN2S, which is one of our sponsored partners right now.

Really awesome. So it’s really cool having… I think I met Leandro through MN2S, or maybe I had an interview with him before.

I do so many interviews and so much stuff, hard to keep track of this sometimes, but yeah, managed to get a really good partnership with MN2S and super excited to be working with Origami. Now you were at ADE last year. Was that your first ADE?

No, it was my second. My second.

[Amlex]
Your second ADE. Yeah.

[Darran]
Yeah. That can be an overwhelming conference to go to. We had spoken earlier about you saying, I think you said about networking and collaborating.

I tell so many people, I believe that that is one of the key… I don’t tell people you’re not going to make it if you don’t go to ADE, but go to ADE if you want to make it because you’re going to meet so many people, collaborate with so many people, get so much stuff going on. Don’t worry, that’s just Doja the Disco Cat.

You want to say hi? You want to say hi? And so get there, collaborate, at least get your foot in the ground, or if you’re stateside, get to Ultra, get to Winter Music Conference.

I don’t think they call it Winter Music Conference anymore, or get to some of the bigger networking conferences, even South by Southwest, you know, in Austin, Texas. Get yourself out to those conferences, get yourself outside of your bubble, of your normal networking, because you’re going to meet people that are really traveling because they want to up their game, they want to get bigger, they want to network, and you can meet those collaborations and meet with those people. It may just be something like where you met Leandra at a studio, I met so-and-so at their booth, or so-and-so was standing next to this booth, I recognized them, and I said, hey, my name’s so-and-so, and networked that way.

Do you find ADE to be a very excellent, a good experience for you when you’ve been going?

[Amlex]
Yes, yes, buddy, yes, of course. The first time was for me like an approach, a different approach, because I never and ever been in ADE, like in Amsterdam, to play, definitely. And I was not shy, of course, because it’s not stuck in my personality, but I think that I was like, this last year, in 2020, 2025, I was like a little bit like, without no pressure, but like elastic, you know, like, yeah, like a little bit elastic.

Yeah, that’s the best word.

[Darran]
I would say this, yeah, go ahead. Go, go, go, go, go. I was gonna say the second time, I had never traveled to Europe before.

My first time I went was in 2020, 2022, and definitely coming back in 2023, I was much more like, oh, I know we’re stopping off. Oh, we didn’t stop at Iceland this time, we stopped at Heathrow. Okay, we’re getting here.

Oh, we’re gonna get on the train. Oh, we’re gonna get to our houseboat. Oh, we know that riding this.

Oh, we know where the restaurants are. We kind of know, and it was very fluid, and that’s how we like to keep going. Not so much rigidness.

I do have a hard work schedule when I hit, it’s land on Tuesday, get our bearings. We leave on a Monday, get there on Tuesday, and then rest. Yeah, and then have Tuesday to rest, and then it’s work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then Friday night, go out to the events and go see the city.

That’s fun, you know, and having media badges helps because it gets you in everywhere for ADE, which is nice.

[Amlex]
That’s why I love it.

[Darran]
Yeah, I definitely am looking forward to doing something with Origami there this year. We will be back at ADE, super excited for that. Out of all of this, we’ve been talking about you, and your music, and your career, and your label, and your releases, and your partnerships, all that fun stuff.

What do you prefer doing when you’re taking a break from all of this stuff?

[Amlex]
Walking like around, for example, we have Villa Borghese, it’s called Villa Borghese, like a good park, like in the center of is the Palmen of Rome. Like go around there, or like distract myself with some with some like with some friends, talk about like other things, take beers, take a beer, or yeah.

[Darran]
This is Enzo the Disco Dog, by the way.

[Amlex]
Or doing like home stuff, like this is another one, he is another one, right? He’s another one. Yeah, he’s another one.

[Darran]
This is Enzo the Disco Dog. Enzo the Disco Dog. How is his name?

Enzo, like Enzo Ferrari.

[Amlex]
Enzo. Enzo. Enzo Ferrari, yeah.

[Darran]
Enzo, the fastest one-year-old dog in the world. Sorry.

[Amlex]
Yeah, like, no worries.

[Darran]
But yeah, I mean, it’s definitely good to get out and take a break. I like to sometimes cook. I have a park not too far.

I got out and played some pickleball the other day. I haven’t played that for a while, but trying to get a little bit more athletic and get out of this chair is, I think, the main goal. As long as I can get up and be moving around and doing something, I think that’s a break from video production and production and PR and all that fun stuff.

Awesome. Well, you mentioned earlier that you do have your show that you’re putting out on SoundCloud. How often are you releasing that show?

[Amlex]
At least two per month.

[Darran]
Two per month, okay. Awesome. Awesome.

And we’ll talk about, after the show, about possibly getting that syndicated on the DJ Sessions new internet station as well. Is there anything else you want to let our DJ Sessions fans know before we let you go?

[Amlex]
I want to thank you, Darran, to DJ Sessions, of course. And I hope to keep in touch super, super very soon. And, of course, follow the page and the website.

Follow the page first on Instagram, the DJ Session, and follow the website, the DJ Session.com. And, of course, Amlex Music behind here on my Instagram page. And, yeah, a lot of news coming up very soon.

[Darran]
And that is A-M-L-E-X underscore music, M-U-S-I-C, Amlex underscore music on Instagram. Well, again, Amlex, thank you for being on the show. We know we’re going to be following up with you and staying in touch with you, getting some of that music maybe up in our new music section as well.

And thank you for being on the show today. It was a pleasure having you.

[Amlex]
Thank you so much. Thanks, Darran. Thank you so much.

All the best for you, of course.

[Darran]
You’re welcome. On that note, don’t forget to go to our website, the DJ Sessions.com. Find us on all the socials out there.

We’re there. But everything and more, we have over 700 news stories a month to get published to our site. Our new interviews section, live interview section are going to be coming back up.

Our new music section, our new internet station, our VR nightclub is back under redevelopment. Our new app, our version 1.2 of the app is coming out. But all that and more and merch, you can get some cool DJ Sessions gear merch at our website, the DJ Sessions.com.

That’s Amlex, and I’m coming in from Rome. I’m Darran coming in from Seattle, Washington for the DJ Sessions. And remember, on the DJ Sessions, the music never stops.

Check it out.