Belgium based music producer/DJ – DAMIVN, returns after a 4-year hiatus with a brand new single, “Something Good”.
We caught up with DAMIVN to speak about “Something Good”, and his thoughts about ghost production.
T.H.E – Hey DAMIVN (Damian)! Welcome to T.H.E – Music Essentials. How has 2019 been for you so far?
DAMIVN – 2019 has been great, many good things happened in my life and I’m grateful for having all the people around me that support what I do, and all the guys that I work with daily have been a great inspiration to me and my music. It’s been a while and I’m happy to be back!
T.H.E – Love your new single – “Something Good”! How did it come about?
DAMIVN – Thank you so much!
Back in 2014, I made this track called ‘ICE’, under my previous project “awaken” but the track was never released. I found it back on my SoundCloud and showed it to some of my music friends, I received some really good feedback on it, and that gave an idea to still release it in some way.
All I had was the audio file from my SoundCloud, but I decided to add a vocal on top of the track, the instrumental gave me a happy, uplifting kind of feeling, and I wanted to translate that into the vocals.
I still have a ton of unreleased ‘hidden gems’ on my old profile that may one day become an album or compilations of some kind. But as of now I will be focusing on new music so stay tuned!
T.H.E – What is the message behind the title – Something Good?
DAMIVN – Something Good is about positivity, about making things happen, this song was an inspiration for me to get back to releasing music. I wanted to share this good message to the world, to everyone that might be in a bad place right now; there is always something good out there, you just have to believe in yourself!
T.H.E – It’s been 4 years, between this and your previous release. As we understand, you spent a lot of time ghost producing?
DAMIVN – I’m very happy to have the opportunity to work as a ghost producer, because it gives me many more outlets to make music for, I always had a problem staying in one genre, one style, when producing for others I can do everything without feeling limited or being worried that it doesn’t sound like me.
T.H.E – Ghost production is such a taboo subject. What are your thoughts on it?
DAMIVN – I think it’s misunderstood, but I can see why it has been so controversial over the years. I don’t only work with DJ’s that have no idea about what’s happening in the studio.
Actually, many of my clients are experienced musicians and they are also involved in the process, some of them produce, some of them play piano, some of them sing.
Ghost production has been going around as a negative, but I think most of these stories came from producers that are not very experienced in what they are doing. If you work with the right people that treat you as part of the project, and you’re not selling yourself cheap, I don’t see any problem with that. Making music is what I do, no matter if I perform it myself or someone else does, It’s inspiring, and exciting to see your productions go places, most of the time I wouldn’t be able to replicate the success of some of my productions if it was just me doing it.
T.H.E – How and when did you decide to start releasing your productions as well? Do you still spend time ghost producing for others?
DAMIVN – I’ve been releasing my music for years under different projects, but the last 4-5 years I was more focused on Ghost Production, and my own business.
The decision to come back with my project came randomly, during a conversation with one of my friends who suggested it. I always had this thought of releasing something again but I didn’t know where to start, what kind of music to release etc.
T.H.E – “Melodies” seem to be a big part of your production. Do you spend a lot of time on them, and do you feel they are the most important part of a track?
DAMIVN – They are the most important, I think for most producers (unless they produce pure techno). But yes a melody is where all of my songs start, and that’s probably what I spend most of my time on.
T.H.E – Typically, what is your production process? How do you start work on a track, and what do you source for inspirations?
DAMIVN – It might differ for each project, but I would always start with a piano, and a couple of chords, Once I have the melody down I progress into the rhythm. Very often I would chop up some vocals during the first stage of the production just to add some more organic feel to whatever I’m doing.
T.H.E – Which artists inspire you with their sounds?
DAMIVN – There are so many great artists out there, it’s hard to name a few without missing some important ones. Some of the very inspiring artists for me are Stephan Bodzin, Noisia, Skrillex, Eric Prydz, etc.
T.H.E – What can we expect from you in the rest of 2019?
DAMIVN – I’m working on a lot of new music at the moment, collabs with some great people. Keep in touch on my socials, and be the first to find out!
