Bolier is one of the most consistent producers in the Spinnin’ Records family. He constantly brings groovy and unique tunes to the Spinnin’ Deep imprint. Since becoming a deep house producer in 2014, his career has blossomed at an incredible pace. Spotify Benelux named him an “artist to watch in 2016,” an honor bestowed on Sam Feldt in the past. He also delivered an incredible reworking of Bob Marley’s essential hit “Is This Love” along with LVNDSCAPE. We got the chance to catch up with Bolier even though his set at Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano‘s Sexy By Nature event in New York City was rained out. We talked about failure, what went into “Ipanema” and plenty more. Enjoy!

Interview:

Where do you find your inspiration as an artist?

Mainly in other music – I love to be inspired by the creations of others, be wowed by what people come up with, be amazed by something someone puts out that makes me think ‘ah, why didn’t I think of that myself?’

Who has been your greatest mentor as you built your career?

I am pretty much self-taught to be honest, but during the years there have been quite a few people that inspired and supported me. Armin van Buuren was the first to spare some comments on the productions I would send him – I still think that was very cool of him!

What experience in your musical career have you learned from the most?

Failure. Not necessarily your own, but with most things that go in the music business you also need a fair portion of luck – which makes chances of things going wrong, or not going as expected, quite apparent. At that time it sucks, in the long-term it strengthens your mentality.

Can you describe your inspiration behind “Ipanema,” as well as the production process?

I was actually working on another track which I showed to Freek (one of the Redondo guys) and he said, maybe you could add something organic on top of this, something like a flute or whatever – which I tried. On that track it didn’t work, however I liked the idea of creating a track based on something like that, so I decided to make a new track from scratch which became ‘Ipanema’. For the brass section I studied a bunch of brass bands on tv and on YouTube, to see which instrument played what section etc and I made my own brass section using East West plugins. For the flute section I also used East West and Kontakt plugins – however I didn’t specifically study flute players or something, but just created something I felt right going together with the beats. Then I worked with a few vocal samples I combined, timed, stretched and pitched to the track and this combined became ‘Ipanema’.

Up to this point, what has been your favorite performance this summer?

I think Life In Color in Istanbul.

What was it like to perform in front of the New York City crowd this past weekend?

This gig has been postponed due to weather conditions – it wouldn’t have been my first NYC gig though, and I am definitely looking forward to going back to NYC soon!

What makes a Bolier DJ set unique?

My sets reflect my taste, combined with what I think will work for a crowd (not necessarily the obvious crowd pleasers). It’s a combination of a lot of energy and groove with a certain melodic vibe to it. I think those sets are both for the ladies and the gentlemen.

How do you manage all of the hectic responsibilities and schedules of DJing and producing?

Well, in the end music is my passion – sometimes it gets a bit much – I have learned to sometimes chill down a bit and just tell myself – today is yours and it’s totally fine that you are not working on music this Sunday afternoon, for example. Other than that I learned to prospect how much time something would take me, and thus planning my time kinda goes in a natural flow. However, I can’t really command creativity to spark, so the hard part sometimes is trying to come up with something new and unique while you might just be trying stuff in your studio for one or two days straight, while there might not be any result. But that’s part of the game, I guess.

How do you feel about the current state of the dance music industry? Do you think things like the DJ Mag Top 100 poll are still relevant and important?

The dance music industry still is in a process of professionalizing, which is a good thing if the personal / human aspect doesn’t get lost along the way. The top 100 poll, I don’t know. I have been in there a bunch of times, I can’t really say if this did something extra for me to be honest. If I get in there, cool. If not, also cool.

What’s in store for Bolier as this summer winds down? Any secrets you can let us in on?

Right now I am polishing a whole bunch of tracks I wanna plan for the 2nd half of 2016. The polishing part mainly means, wait for vocals and incorporate them in the production, and fine tune some tracks maybe using some comments and advice from the A&R managers I work with – just to get the tracks firing on all cylinders.

Top 5 Songs:

1. Bolier – Ipanema
2. Marcus Schossow & NEW_ID – Ada
3. Lucky Charmes – Bobotie
4. Bob Marley feat. Lvndscape & Bolier – Is This Love
5. BLR – Nungwi

About Thursday Thoughts:

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