With Avicii playing at the Mullins Center tomorrow, we decided to feature a musican following in the talented Djs foot steps. James Haidak is a very talented DJ playing around campus, as well as off.
Here is everything DJ James Haidak has to say about his music, what DJs he looks up to, as well as where you can catch him spin.
1. How did you become involved with Djing?
I started producing first. Growing up I listened to a lot of electronic music. Artists like Aphex Twin, Carl Cox, Tiesto, Paul Oakenfold, etc. When I was a senior in high school I started really getting into Electronic music though and decided I wanted to try my hand at producing it. I took a comp. music class that was offered at my school, but it was sort of bullshit and didn't really provide the extensiveness that i wanted so I started researching production and bought Ableton Live (the program I make music with). I sort of dabbled on and off but did not take it way to seriously, and then when I got back from Spain spring semester of last year I decided to get more into djing. I put the production on hold for a bit and started focusing on just spinning and then this year I got involved with some kids who dj a lot of underground stuff in Washington D.C. (thats where I'm from). I had been using computer programs with control devices to dj, but these kids were all about the legit equipment and using CDs and USB instead of computer programs which is much more challenging. Two kids who really helped me out the most were Nick Bortz and another kid named Nick Dale. Bortz was more underground music and events, and Nick Dale was accomplished on the club scene both in the states and in Europe where he was attending university. I started doing events with them and my friend Nick Dale started getting me hooked up with small opening gigs in some club venues, and he actually ended up starting a booking agency based out of D.C. called Vinyl Agency (www.vinylagency.com), and he signed me to them a few months ago. Since then hes been starting to set me up with way bigger gigs. Im going to start doing a lot more club gigs in Washington D.C. this summer. Im actually flying back home on april 20th for a gig with Mord Fustang, Killabits, and Figure.
2. How would you describe your music?
As far as my music goes i'd say its sort of hard to really describe. I produce any genre i just like stuff that sounds cool. Im really still developing my sound and trying to pinpoint and focus on what sort of genre I will be trying to establish as mine and actually begin to send out demos to recording labels. As of now I predominantly make a fusion of progressive house and electro, and I throw in a little tech house here and there.
3. Where can our readers find your music?
Finding my music is easy just check out my Facebook DJ page "Loud James". I have a bandpage which has some of my music, and I also have a soundcloud also under "Loud James". I have a few songs up but will be releasing a large amount of material over the summer.
4. Where do you tend to Dj?
As far as where i tend to dj id say mostly house partys and fraternities on campus, but my real gigs are back home in the Washington area. Ive spun at clubs there called Midtown and Lima with more to come this summer, and I also do more underground events back home where ive done multiple gigs with a production company called RoyalFam. They do an electronic music show periodically called Dubtro, and are starting to pull in bigger name DJs.
5. What other DJs do you look up to?
DJs that i really look up to is hard. The list literally could go on for hours, but I really took a lot of influence from the old school guys as well as some new. Im a huge fan of Carl Cox, Sven Vath, John Digweed, Sasha, Paul Oakenfold, Armin Van Buuren, ATB, Hardwell, Sebastien Ingrosso, Above & Beyond, Lazy Rich, Chuckie, Sydney Samson, and many more but thats not a bad list to start with.
