ACRAZE on Sobriety, the Just Dance Remix, and Tech House in China

Transcript

Bobby: What's going on, dude? Welcome to Breakaway.

ACRAZE: Thank you for having me back.

Bobby: It's not like I'm having you back, I have you back in this chair right now.

ACRAZE: You're in my chair, but I'm not going to argue. I'm happy to be back in this amazing, comfortable chair you have here.

Bobby: Can I tell you something, man? I love you, dude.

ACRAZE: I love you, Martin.

Bobby: Your set was great.

ACRAZE: Thank you.

Bobby: We mentioned this earlier in an unofficial interview. People were humping each other. People were jumping on each other.

ACRAZE: I wanted to see what the humping looked like, because I haven't.

Bobby: I got some clips.

ACRAZE: Awesome.

Bobby: I'll show you, and then you can go into the bathroom or whatever you got to do. We're going to post the humping videos right here. All right, bring in the humpers. Here they are, like dancing lobsters from the Amanda show. You remember that [...]? Bring in the humpers, except they're like furries and [...].

ACRAZE: Just let them start humping each other.

Bobby: What's new with you, though?

ACRAZE: Really? Me? Yeah, dude, everything's great, man. I got a bunch of these breakaways, I got three more in the next four weeks. Traveling a lot, you know. Actually, I wanted to ask you, because you're in good shape. I've been struggling to keep up with my health with all this traveling I've been doing for work. How do you do it? What do you maintain, a good diet?

Bobby: You got to be disciplined for sure.

ACRAZE: Absolutely. I went sober for like three, three and a half months.

Bobby: Yeah.

ACRAZE: Obviously I broke my sobriety, so.

Bobby: Well, yeah, me and you are doing that right now.

ACRAZE: Yeah.

Bobby: How did that feel, going sober for three months?

ACRAZE: It was great for the mental health, I will say, and I think that's what I did it for. But other than that, I made a lot of music during that time too, which was nice. I just wanted to do it for myself, man. I think sometimes you just need a break from stuff. Balance in life is key.

Bobby: I think it's very important.

ACRAZE: Yeah, it's very key. We just talked about it, you tour 130 days out of the year. How do you find time to actually get in the studio and produce music? Do you get into a specific creative flow? Me, I'm a routine based guy, I need to have my Monday through Friday, I wake up at a certain time, I go to the gym at a certain time, I do my work between certain hours. Are you flowy, or are you routine based?

Bobby: At this point, with this lifestyle, you just have to go with the flow. I make music on the plane, I make music in the hotel, in the Uber, at home. You have to adapt, and I think that's the most important thing with this whole thing. You have to adapt to what you're in. If you don't, you're just going to crumble.

ACRAZE: No facts. Did you just wink at me?

Bobby: We're in a [...] studio, in the middle of a stadium. I don't even know, oh, soccer, I don't keep up with soccer, I didn't even realize it, I don't know this team.

ACRAZE: You got to adapt. That's the most important thing.

Bobby: No facts. I find myself, personally, I work better when I'm at home in the comfort of my own space. That's when I get good work done.

ACRAZE: Do you have a studio at home, like one of these?

Bobby: Kind of, yeah, I do. You got to come over, man, we don't live that far.

ACRAZE: You don't invite me, dude. Remember the one time you ate sushi alone, and I said, stop eating sushi alone, I would have come and eaten sushi with you.

Bobby: You have to make time for yourself. I get that too, and if you want to eat sushi alone, that's fine. But then me and you, we go out, we have a good time, we talk, we laugh. We don't have to talk about work, just have a good time.

ACRAZE: I'm down to talk about anything. But the sushi place I actually go to is so good, I have to take you there.

Bobby: What's your spot in Miami?

ACRAZE: It's called Uchi.

Bobby: I like that spot, you been there? By the way, I just want you to know I'm very casual about the way I go about this. We're just hanging out, having a good time. Are you in a rush at the moment?

ACRAZE: No, we're hanging, I'm chilling.

Bobby: Cool. So what's going on with you, man? I've been seeing a bunch of your releases online, we've been posting them, we love you, we love you to death. You got this Just Dance track that's circling around, you got a bunch of artists supporting that.

New Music and the Just Dance Remix

ACRAZE: Listen, Lady Gaga, if you're watching this, I need you to just listen to me, okay? Clear the sample. It'll be good for all of us, right? Sorry, didn't mean to get aggressive, but honestly, that record's going crazy.

Bobby: It's going crazy. It almost reminds me of Do It to It, everyone was playing it, and it was in different genres. I should make a dub set remix of it, that'd be cool.

ACRAZE: That'd be cool, dude. It's like SIDEPIECE did the Cash Out thing, and YDG just did a [...].

Bobby: That remix is wild, dude, it slaps, man. Shout out YDG, he's awesome.

ACRAZE: No facts, I met him yesterday, Mikey. Is he a Jersey guy?

Bobby: I don't know.

ACRAZE: Is he California? He looked like a Jersey dude, he had a Yankee hat on and everything.

Bobby: San Diego.

ACRAZE: God damn, San Diego rules, I love that city. Top three cities: New York, Miami, San Diego for me, not even kidding.

Bobby: That's odd. What about you?

ACRAZE: I'll agree with that.

Bobby: Really?

ACRAZE: Yeah, I'll agree with that.

Bobby: What about Orlando?

ACRAZE: I like Texas too, everything's bigger in Texas.

Bobby: There's like eight cities in Texas, you can't just say a whole state.

ACRAZE: I don't know, brother, a lot of things are bigger in Texas somehow, that's why I like Texas.

Bobby: I don't even want to know where you're going with that. All right, cool. Let's get into it. What's going on, man, what do you got planned for the rest of the year? We got like four months left.

ACRAZE: It's September, dog. I feel like New Year's was just yesterday. But a lot of shows, I got some music coming out. Fisher's been playing a new one for me, it's called Easy, with the guy who did Rock My World, the last release I put out. And yeah, we got some more stuff coming. Like I told you, within those three months of sobriety, I made a lot of music, so I'm excited about all the stuff that's coming out. We have a lot of big shows next year, we're going to capitalize next year, it's going to be fun.

Bobby: No facts. You've been getting real support from Fisher, actually, he played your Just Dance track too, at Tomorrowland, I was there.

ACRAZE: You were there?

Bobby: Yes, dog, at the Crystal Garden stage, he played your song.

ACRAZE: Was that your video?

Bobby: I was a little too tuned up to take the video. That was not me, dude, I was way too tuned up. It was day two of Tomorrowland, and he played the last set slot, and I heard it and I was like, everyone else didn't speak English.

ACRAZE: Was that your first time, or?

Bobby: No, second. Second one.

ACRAZE: Tomorrowland's magical.

Festival Stage Stories

Bobby: Rules, dude, rules. It was kind of unfortunate, I saw the stage design after it burned down, I like that they kept it there as a memorial, almost like a reminder, bro. It's like eight million dollars for that stage, they built it over three months.

ACRAZE: It's crazy, a lot of people don't know this, but it looks like a structure, but it's actually a balloon. So when it burns down, it's just like a whole sheet that comes down. There was one year I played right before Fisher on the main stage at EDC Las Vegas, and it was so windy that the whole stage sheeting was going to blow away.

Bobby: It was crazy, dude.

ACRAZE: Two songs into the set, I was like, where's the SFX? I look at my manager behind me, I'm like, where's the SFX? They're like, can't do none. I'm like, why? Someone just backstage said, it's too windy. So I was like, all right, well, whatever.

Bobby: EDC Vegas does similar stuff. We actually posted a video, one of the workers showed how it was built, and they flagged us for it. They were like, take that down, dude. We were like, sorry, guys. They didn't want anyone to know, so maybe we'll just put everyone on blast right now. Nah, we'll cut that. But I knew that, I knew that. All right, now, excluding, or you can include, Breakaway, favorite festival to play. You played EDC China, right? That was pretty dope.

ACRAZE: EDC China was sick, man, I really rock with EDC China.

Bobby: You got mad love there, too.

Tech House in China

ACRAZE: Yeah, China in general. I made a tweet, a controversial one, saying I feel like tech house isn't as big there, and it honestly went all over the China socials. But it brought a lot of talk to the tech house scene, and after that, all my shows in Asia started selling out, because people really wanted to indulge in the tech house scene. It's funny, because a lot of the guys who were in the scene back in 2013, 2014, 2015, doing big room, are thriving in Asia.

Bobby: Yeah, China is like five or six years behind us here.

ACRAZE: Yeah, that's because of the internet issue, I'm pretty sure, they don't have the same network. They have TikTok China specifically, right?

Bobby: No, it's not even called TikTok, it's called something else, Red Something.

ACRAZE: Oh yeah, I've seen that. You want to know whose song actually really blew up in China? Smack Yo was huge over there.

Bobby: A hundred percent, that one's crazy. All of China TikTok was posting his stuff, he was telling me about it. So they're down with house, dude, and all the Chinese people are doing a shoulder dance to it, it actually looks really cool, to be honest.

ACRAZE: But that's the thing, I feel like it's important, for someone like me, or other guys, to go over there and keep playing, regardless of the show turnout, and keep teaching people that the music we're playing over here is hot. So if you're watching this and you're a DJ, go play the tech house stuff, go play the new Margaret Kola vibes or whatever's playing, you got to get it over there. Facts, and play Just Dance.

Bobby: Exactly, and Lady Gaga, clear that, please.

ACRAZE: Come on, man, we're going to be nice about it now.

Top Five and Rapid Fire Questions

Bobby: Let's do something a little different right now, you ready? I'm going to put you on the spot. We're going to go from five to one. What are the top five songs you're playing in your set right now? Start with five.

ACRAZE: Oh yeah, baby, this is what it's all about. West End just made this remix of Around the World, it's a remix of Daft Punk, crazy remix.

Bobby: I saw him post that the other day.

ACRAZE: I actually opened with that today, that's a good remix.

Bobby: Number five. Number four.

ACRAZE: Matroda did this remix of Nirvana that I really love.

Bobby: I don't know if I've heard that one.

ACRAZE: I did, you played it today. Number three, it's a new one for me, it's called What You Do to Me, really fire song.

Bobby: Number two.

ACRAZE: I love playing Oddmob's remix of Cash Out.

Bobby: Cash Out, dude, so fire, that dude's a wizard, by the way.

ACRAZE: And obviously at number one, Just Dance. Come on, Lady Gaga, clear that.

Bobby: Clear that sheet. If you could let one DJ date your daughter, hypothetical daughter, who would it be? Who's a good guy?

ACRAZE: Holy [...], what a question, that is crazy. Kaskade, dude.

Bobby: That was Matt from Two Friends' answer too. What a good guy, by the way, he takes care of his health.

ACRAZE: He's sober, respectable.

Bobby: Good looking guy.

ACRAZE: For his age too, man, he's taking care of himself.

Bobby: Two words to describe your music to someone who's never heard it, what are the two words?

ACRAZE: Energetic and sexy.

Bobby: People were humping each other, that makes sense, roll the clip. That ruled, dude.

Bobby: All right, summer's actually coming to an end, what would you say was your song of the summer?

ACRAZE: Disco Lines, Broke Boys.

Bobby: Yeah, that song smashes every time. Shout out to my guy, by the way, he played yesterday. Love you, love you, Thad.

ACRAZE: You're at Breakaway right now, we love you here. Do you mind describing us in three words? You already used sexy, you don't have to describe me like that anymore, it's fine.

Bobby: I would say free, because I feel like a lot of genres are here, which is nice. Vibey, for sure.

ACRAZE: All right, we'll take it, you got one more word?

Bobby: I don't know, I got, not sexy, but hold on.

ACRAZE: If you want to use that word, dog, I'll take it.

Bobby: No, I don't want to use sexy again, I got to think of something different. So I want to give you a word, what's Breakaway to everybody here?

ACRAZE: Someone say a word.

Bobby: Family.

ACRAZE: That's a good word.

Bobby: We're going to say family because of Tom. You know, that's so true, because every time I come here, we're family.

ACRAZE: Yeah, all you guys are family, this room is one big family affair right now. Family, that's what's up.

Bobby: We said, what DJ would you let date your daughter? What DJ wouldn't you let date your daughter?

ACRAZE: Holy [...], I feel like this is going to be a disaster for sure. Let me think real hard, let me say a friend of mine.

Bobby: He's the type of dude to probably ghost your daughter after a date, you know? We love you, man, don't worry about it, I love you, bro.

ACRAZE: Have you ever missed a set before?

Bobby: I have.

ACRAZE: What happened?

Bobby: Flight issues.

ACRAZE: Yeah, that makes sense. All right, now, between you and Tom, you can't see Tom, he's off camera, who is late usually?

Bobby: Bro was late today. All right, so hold on, backstory, pull up a picture, Tom, now you see him. Let me just see if I can pull this up right now. Hold on. So yesterday we were in Vegas, right? We played Excess, and after Excess we went to see James Hype, and then we went to the strip club, Rhino, and then we went to another club. I was on the plane today, I had to pee so bad for five hours. I was so nervous to ask the people next to me, because they had a computer set up, they were watching football, they had the whole thing going. I'm like, I can't ask these people to get up, I have to hold this pee, right?

ACRAZE: So for five hours I had to hold this, it was crazy, dude.

Bobby: I drink like two gallons of water a day almost, I'm a hydrated boy, I pee like three times on a plane easy, I always need an aisle.

ACRAZE: But that's good though, you're flushing, you're flushing, non-negotiable aisle for you, Bobby.

Bobby: There you go, I like that, dude. I love you, thanks for coming on, thanks for doing this. Are we hanging out right now?

ACRAZE: Yeah, we're hanging out.

Bobby: We love you guys, thanks for coming out to Breakaway again, dude, thanks for doing this, thanks for your time always.