Jan 30 2012

Followup Interview: Like Mike

by Westhead • Electro House, Interviews, Progressive House • Tags: Big Room House, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Electro House, Followup Interview, Interview, Lady Gaga, Progressive House 0

The 79th ranked Producer duo worldwide on the DJ Mag’s top 100 and kings of all things massive, spacious house, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike are two young guys who love to party. With their high energy heavy hype live sets and beats that can go anywhere from the filthy of hard electro to the most melodic of progressive house, they are versatile, talented musicians who are quickly making a name for themselves worldwide and especially in the states. As the US continues to adopt house as their genre of choice, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike become more and more of a “house”hold name. We were lucky enough to sit down with Like Mike and have a nice little talk about Dimitri and his music as well as any other goofball questions we could try and stump him with.

(BB) Do you have any preshow rituals that you like to do before you go on stage?

(Like Mike) Dinner. (Laughs)

(BB) Any specific preshow foods? 

(LM) Usually, like we did today, we ate sushi. I could eat sushi everyday, I could be Japanese. (Laughs)

(BB) Do you have any crazy contents to your rider?

(LM) Actually, not yet, and we’ve been talking about that, that our rider is quite simple. We’re getting a little bit up there, maybe we should add something special.

(BB) What do you think makes Tomorrowland different from other music festivals? What sets it aside?

(LM) It’s so fucking huge man, that’s the first thing that comes to mind and almost every big DJ is there. People in Belgium and now the rest of the world are waiting for those 3 days. They’re saving money for those 3 days and when they get there, it goes crazy man.

(BB) Any inside information about the festival?

(LM) I don’t know if we’re gonna be there . . . (Laughs) No, we’ll be there for sure.

(BB) If you were to be stranded on a desert island with nothing but your production equipment, what other EDM artist would want to be there?

(LM) Hmm, that’s a good one. I still really, really enjoy what the Swedes do and not only Swedish House Mafia, Avicii is a genius. He comes up with those catchy-ass melodies.

(BB) What do you think it is about Belgium that allows for so much great house music?

(LM) Who do you have in mind coming from Belgium?

(BB) You guys in particular, but Northern Europe in general.

(LM) It kind of came from “New Beat,” which was a style at the end of the 80s, more or less, which came from Belgium and then in the 90s we had a huge, mega club dance scene together with England involving at the same time. So we have the history, but I don’t know where it all went wrong, but it all went down while the rest of the world started to pick up on it and now it’s our time to take it back.

(BB) When you sit down to make a new song or remix do you sit down with a particular sound in mind or do you experiment until you find something that sounds good?

(LM) I usually improvise, sometimes I’ll think “Oh, I like this track, let’s do something like this track” but I tend to do like ten different ideas before I come to the correct one. Sometimes I start with percussion, sometimes I start with the drop, sometimes I start with the melody for the break, there’s no real theory behind it, it just happens.

(BB) Do you play a different set depending on the audience, is it different between Europe and America?

(LM) We do a lot of mash-ups so we start with those, but we tend to move in slightly different directions everywhere we play, you kind of feel what you need to do at that point. Like, new years in Ibiza, you can’t do that same thing as Escape From Wonderland. In America, they like it hard here, man. In Ibiza, they like it techy and a bit softer, if you constantly keep bringing those hard beats they’ll be like “wooo, calm down” and here you can’t go hard enough.

(BB) It’s been about four years since you first played in America, how do you feel about America adopting house music and electronic music?

(LM) It’s perfect, man, It’s our biggest market. I love it out here, it’s my favorite place to go.

(BB) Do you like LA most or just America in general? (Laughs)

(LM) In the beginning it was Miami, but I went there a couple times in the summer now and it’s too fucking humid, so maybe LA’s the next spot.

(BB) You should move out here, do some recording with Kaskade.

(LM) Yeah, we have plans of maybe renting a house, but aren’t sure about fulltime or just a half year, who knows?

Marry The Night (Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike Remix) – Lady Gaga

Live @ Mysteryland Chile (16/12/11) FULL SET – Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike

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- DuKΣ