Interview by Robert Wieland
Over the past few years, EDX a.k.a. Maurizio Colella has made a name for himself in the international EDM scene, headlining the world’s finest clubs and festivals to crowds in excess of 60,000 – from Miami to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, São Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Seoul, Taipei, all the way to Sydney.
The chart topping Switzerland-based DJ/Producer has worked with some of the biggest names in music including Axwell, Benny Benassi, Kelis, Deadmau5, Armand Van Helden, Bob Sinclar, Kool & The Gang, Kaskade, Armin Van Buuren, Steve Angello of the Swedish House Mafia, Dubfire and many others.
His remixes have been consistently featured on top DJ charts, his No Xcuses radio show has been featured by the legendary Pete Tong, and was even ranked in the TOP 3 of Beatport’s Best Progressive House Artist alongside the likes of giants such as Deadmau5 and Eric Prydz.
I caught up with him after a packed show at Coda in Philadelphia to learn a little bit more about his explosion into the scene as well as what he has in store for us in the future.
RW: First off, thanks for meeting with me. How’s the current tour treating you?
MC: I’ve been on tour now for a couple of months, in and out of markets all over the world like from Asia over to Australia, South Africa, Europe, North America, South America… I’ve been in the US a lot on my Belong tour and it’s been really nice.
Out of all of the venues that you have performed at, which is your favorite and why?
Well, it’s hard to say because every country, every city has kind of a different culture, a different approach to music. I don’t feel I should just pick one. I do like to play in countries like Mexico, I’ve had some great shows in the US, Europe for some festivals… To just pick one, I feel like my African tour was really off the hook, something I didn’t expect at all. So I was really blessed to be there and be able to experience South Africa. It’s a very small scene but very musically dedicated, so definitely a lot of fun.
What about your connection to all of your supporters?
It’s an ongoing relation between the fans and myself. It’s been really, really great. Everywhere you have at least one fan, you have a good experience. So it’s been a really good year for my music and connecting with my fans out there. I’ve been very blessed to be able to produce my music from a really small studio out of Switzerland, just a small neighborhood in Zurich, and able to travel the world on that music. Going to some of the smallest cities on the globe and people know your music. It definitely drives me to do what I do.
Out of all of your original tracks, is there any one that holds special significance to you? Why?
That’s a hard question because there’s so many originals and each track has a story behind it. So if I tried to go inside myself and think about the story, I feel like Belong was definitely one of my key tracks this year and there’s a whole story around the writing of the song, when we wrote the music, the back and forth, so definitely one of the closer tracks to myself.
Which collaboration have you enjoyed working on the most?
My favorite person to work with is my comp
uter, always a great experience.
It’s an input and output relationship, I give input and it gives output. So it’s always really awesome. But let’s see…I’ve done a lot of remixes over the past 15 years so again it is hard to pick just one.
Now, when I did the remix for Sam Feldt, I did the remix first of all because I was a big supporter of “Show Me Love”, one of the biggest house anthem classics, and Sam is a really nice guy too. When I remixed Robin Schulz, again it was because there was a relation in place between me and his manager over the past 15 to 20 years, and he himself has been a big artist since 10 years ago when electro was really big. So everything I’ve done is always because of a relation or something special to me. I like to work with most of the talents so I wouldn’t just say “I had a really big thing when I remixed THAT track” because every mix stands as an individual experience.
You’ve mentioned before about how the music has matured differently between the US and Europe. Has that changed? Where do you see it going?
Well the US is about 20 years behind Europe, so it’s actually two decades. Everything is in cycles and it’s very interesting to see these cycles happening 20 years later. When it comes to the US and EDM, it’s really nice to see people start to understand about the different genres, about the different acts, about the different history that each genre has… I definitely feel like we’re back in 1995 in Europe, and now it’s 2015 and people start to understand there is techno, there is minimal, there is deep house, classic, UK, bass-driven house, there is trance and all these genres where everyone can find what they like. It’s definitely a great moment, the music is really pumping, and people are really getting into the new genres right now. It’s really good. It’s getting bigger.
Where do you want to go from here? What should we expect from you in 2016?
I will continue to try to stay true to my musical sound, to my identity. Luckily I have all these experiences from 20 years to now, so I wouldn’t say I’m always a step ahead but ready to adapt to different ways that the music evolves into fresher sound, more sexy sound. I definitely want to keep doing what I do and to me it’s very important that I feel what I do. I want to be 100% sure I can stand behind my music, to do music that I feel that means something to me. For 2016, I think I’m going evolve and go a bit more clubby with a balance between vocal songs and club songs. I’m really looking forward to 2016 — definitely a year I’m going to release a lot of new music.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N8s6u4r-BI&w=560&h=315]
EDX – Belong is OUT NOW! Grab your copy on iTunes HERE: https://itun.es/i6SV2N3
Listen on Spotify: http://spoti.fi/1GmaySc
Download on Beatport HERE: http://btprt.dj/1Kqfrs8
Follow EDX:
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