ADE Amsterdam Dance Event interview Eelko van Kooten Spinnin' Records by the Dutch DJ Academy

We're still at the ADE and look who we found! Eelko van Kooten from Spinnin' Records! Hi, how are you? Welcome! Are you enjoying yourself? Yes I am indeed , are you? Yes I am too! Are you able to get through the crowd? Well I try, you've just seen it. It's great, the enthousiasm of all the people from around the world. Here everybody meets eachother, producers, labels, fans... It's really great! Great era for Amsterdam and the Dutch dance scene And you've got your own limo now You like it? Yeah, Spinnin' is everywhere We are looking for people from the industry Who can give some tips not only for our students, but for every starting DJ & Producer The motto of today appears to be, 'be yourself' Do what you want to do Choose your own path But that's not the only way to succeed of course You have to dare to be different In what way should you do that? How do people end up at Spinnin' for instance? What makes Spinnin' think, that's the thing we're looking for The basis for success is, I think, Talent... ...Ambition And to be socially connected You mean, social media connected? That too, yes. But also, how do you know Spinnin' and how did you connect with us So you have to have skills in many directions The best way is, to look at your DJ heroes doesn't matter if they spin Techno, House or anything else... Look, do they do what you would like to do You like that particular music and you want to spin that and get known with that Analyze your heroes. What did they do to get popular? I think that's really important It all starts with talent, if you don't have the DJ skills, and you want to be a DJ, that's gonna be a tough nut to crack I compare it often with pro soccer players if you want to be top scorer, you've got to have talent and be on the right spot in the field at the right moment Having the right trainer, who puts you in the right position It's more than just talent and ambition How shall I say it... Networking To pay attention... Analyzing... Timing is very important In Dutch we call it, the FIVE T's Tijgeren (To crawl/ambush), Toewijding (devotion), Talent... Timing... and Teamwork Those factors can help you be succesfull That's the way we see it At Spinnin', it all starts with music If you don't have some musical talent and you want to be a producer and a dj It's gonna be hard, if you don't have that musical talent To produce good music, you don't necessarily need musical talent You can learn how to use the software etc There are engineers, who aren't musicians at all but are really succesfull engineer It all depends on what your ambitions are Do you want to be a really famous DJ Than you have to, if you look at Nicky Romero, or Hardwell they make their own tracks they make remixes... have their own radio show they tweet almost all their own tweets Than you have to be able to do that, but if you don't have that ambition and you just want to spin recor ds for about 100 people or your friends Than, to just spin records is maybe your thing the things you do, you know them yourself and if that's your ambition, nobody is stopping you from doing that. just play music you like for a small audience If that's your biggest goal... But if you have the ambition to be a rockstar DJ then you have to look for the way, the big DJ's did it. And I know how they did it the secret recipe, like they say... Spin as many times possible DJ's become popular because they get booked many times, why do they get booked many times? because they are very popular on the internet, how did they get popular on the internet? because they have been spinnin' all through the years in that way they could build a fan base or... they had the chance to speed it up, look at Martin Garrix by... scoring a hit song What is a hit song? It can be a club hit, or from a club hit, Martin Garrix thought, I'm just gonna make cool music, he just did what he did it became a club hit and a radio hit as well now he is really popular a 17yr old school kid, in 18 months he rose to a superstar DJ How did he do that? Back then he had trouble with math at school Well, he still goes to school! At the Rock academy here in Amsterdam So 3 days per week, he still is in school That's quite an effort to combine that all, to spin records, produce music and go to school... And to think wisely, and finish his school because you never know, I might be a one hit wonder Well he still has to attend, because of his age of course that too of course He really does what he really enjoys and of course, he's lucky he has talent Look, a lot of people like what their doing and have ambition, but haven't got talent... he has got that and if you're lucky, you might go to the casino and hit the jackpot that's what happened to him Does that happen to everyone? No Does everyone have a hit? No Some DJ's, like Chuckie for instance, hasn't had a world wide hit yet but he's still really popular! yes indeed How did he do that? By spinnin' everywhere... How do you get to spin a lot? Be popular! He has had the chance to build his fan base, cause he had already been spinnin' for 10 yrs. In those 10 yrs he worked hard to build that fan base and that made him more and more popular and got him bookings etc. For everyone it's completely different If you look at the new superstars like W&W, Who are in a certain genre music and got a massive hit in that segment that gave them a big boost That's the cool thing about the internet If you have a hit, you can share that easily, show it to everyone With Animals for instance, people made remixes, movies, that goes viral easily. Martin Garrix became a lot faster popular than Nicky Romero for istance. Nicky had to work hard for 4, 5 yrs to get there. So you see, it changes constantly What last year was the thing to do, next year will be completely different. Do you have the idea that time moves faster in this business more and more? Or is that different per artist? Nope, that's because of the internet 3 yrs ago, internet was by far not as important as it is now And Youtube neither, and the way we post things nowadays Internet has been the accelerator for many things The success is being shared with the world, sharing is caring Super. What's going on with the talents from the TV program 'Beauty and the beat'? Well, that went in a different direction. Valerio, Isis and myself wanted to make a program, which shows what you can do as a DJ, that being a DJ is more than just putting up a record. That it's all about the audience, the order of your records to play, where are you spinnin', are you the warming up DJ or the headliner... The techniques of music production, making bootlegs etc. So more the background of being a DJ and what makes you succesfull. That was what we wanted in the program, but the broadcasting network wanted a reality show and eventually we broke up and stopped doing the TV program. With the 3 of us, we quit. So I was not supporting the TV program anymore. It all started really nice, but in the editing room, they turned the program 180 degrees. And that was really a pity! That happens a lot with TV programs unfortunately I wanted to show what we do to people and I wanted to.... stimulate people and the program was all about making fun of people Reality show That wasn't our goal, not from Valerio, Isis and me. and after a while you discover that it goes wrong and then you quit. That's what happened... it's a pity cause we have a message for the people... and we never got to that... Especially because a lot of people... That's why this is so important, what you guys do! Yes indeed! The enthousiasm, about the things we are doing, it's all about talent, and evolve talent and with music, that's all cool. And we, the temperate Dutch, hear of course constantly, that we're so important in the world of dance, and that we're so successfull, but... eventually the appreciation we get here in Holland, is a lot less... compared to abroad It would be nice if we became aware of that fact. Well that's because we have been doing this for over 15yrs now There is a dance culture and we're used to a lot, cause every week we bump into another famous DJ, from Holland. In the USA, it's all starting to become popular now... Here it's a lot more mature There everything is special The audience over there is really enthousiastic That's a lot of fun for the Dutch DJ's spinning there and that level of enthousiasm is returning to Holland too Oh, is that really happening right now? Well, because of these kind of events, the ADE, newspapers writing about it... A guy like Tiësto, is already spinnin' all around the world, over more than ten years. Now finally people start to notice it's a real profession and it's fun and about having talent. Oh wow, entertaining people... It's finally been taken seriously It's being respected finally Even the government doesn't take it seriously. You get it... that's terrible Subsidy? The dance industry doesn't get it! But look at what the dance industry does for Holland, 300k people visiting our country extra, because of that. And half a billion in revenue... It's an export product, and we have to be proud of that! The people in The Hague don't get it. Outrageous actually! AMEN! Yeah! So eeehmm, Well... Do you have a last good question maybe? Eehmmmm Do continu! You know, the most important thing is, just like with soccer... I don't have to ask you anything, you talk anyway... When there is one soccer player, like Wesley Sneijder, that becomes world famous, We all want to be like him Is that realistic? You should do the things you like to do. Just like with pop bands It's really hard to break through. Don't think you are the next Nicky Romero Even with Nicky, the reason he is so popular now, that happened to him. And then you go with the same flow, people like that, maybe I should go the same direction. If you don't succeed, don't let that take away the fun in what you do! Be ambitious, but with small steps. Enjoy the road you're taking, what ever happens! That was a beautiful message! One short question that popped in my mind. Sometimes we a question from really creative people, that made a good track, about the mixing and mastering of their song, because they have difficulty with that... If it's really necessary that their track it perfectly mixed and mastered when they send it to a label? Or is it about the creativity of the track itself? How should we filter the demo's then? I personally get 500 mp3's a week. And my colleagues even a lot more. We select foremost on quality And after that, originality... And the quality... is not about, having an expensive studio... but is about creativity and that takes time, so they should spend time on that. Finish it! Because if they support it themselves... because it's just a demo... Forget it, than I can't support it neither If it's completely perfect and they think it's a nr 1 hit Then they should let us listen to it, cause even then I will say.. I don't know about this... What they should do is, upload their track to Talentpool, through Facebook. That's a demo drop site from us. That's a way to measure the quality through popularity. What I think is really important, but not the most important. What the public thinks, you see in Talentpool... That's important! Good tip! And part of that is quality If they don't like it, is it bad quality, it won't be appreciated and liked Super, thx man.