Dance Rebels Artist Showcase 005 – Teamworx
Hey Teamworx, welcome to Dance Rebels! Please introduce yourselves, where are you from? How long have you been DJ/producers for? And how did you both originally meet to form Teamworx too?
We are Ben & Saar, 2 producers from Israel, and we’ve been DJing for more than a decade and producing together for nearly 5 years now. Everything started for me (Ben) after Tomorrowland 2011 when I saw all my idols play on the stages my favourite tracks, I always wanted to be more than just a DJ, to one day spin my own tracks and even one day perform at a big stage like this one. This experience definitely pushed me to come back home and start learning and taking producing courses. I’ve started learning for a year and then I reached Saar, which I knew he’s been producing for a couple of years now, we live in the same area and we know each other from school, so I made a call, we met and the vibes were right, we’ve decided to start this project together.
Everybody has to sacrifice something in life, to achieve their goals I feel, so, what did both of you have to sacrifice to carve out a budding career in the music industry?
You’ve touched in a sensitive spot haha, we’ve made a lot of sacrifice in favour of pursuing our dream. We’re not kids anymore and we sit for 12 hours in the studio almost every single day to produce, and on the other hand we’ve got big commitments. Ben is married and has given up a successful career as one of the biggest residents in Tel Aviv in favour of spending more time in the studio for this project, and not just that, he’s been DJing for weddings and private events of large companies and giving up these opportunities and money in order to be more in the studio is a big sacrifice. Same goes for Saar, he’s 28 and still lives with his parents in order to save every money he has to invest in the studio, with us developing as producers the demand to get better equipment is getting higher. Both of us put all our cards in favour of this project and pursuing our dream and it’s not easy that’s for sure.
I feel Teamworx music has a very distinctive sound, how would you describe your sound? Also, do you think artists should have their own ‘sound’ or should they always be diverse?
First of all thank you! We think that the sound comes from the fact that everything takes place in our studio, we do our own mix and master in the studio, and we’ve got experience of years as both of us started as DJs and then moved to producing, so we come from a wide musical background and everything we do is an infuse of our own inspirations. It’s important that artists will have their own signature sound and be diverse too, we don’t think it clashes, it’s important to bring something fresh to the table, under your own signature style. If being diverse considered copying other people’s style or following a certain trend then we’re against it.
Which release do you think put Teamworx on the radar of the big DJ’s etc, the track which gained you the most support etc? How did you both feel when this happened too?
Our track “Make The Crowd Go” with Corey James has definitely made an impact not just on us as artists, but overall as a track, it was the first heavy supported single we’ve had and it was overwhelming to see both Steve Angello and Fedde Le Grand dropping it on the mainstage at Ultra. It was released on Protocol Recordings’ Miami compilation and it’s much harder to receive a spotlight from the label when you stand side by side with other artists, which lots of them are bigger than you. We proved it wrong with “Make The Crowd Go” as it was the #30 most supported track in 2016, it was a big hit for us, and now, one year later, it feels like we’re doing this once again with our recent release “Atom”.
Releases on Spinnin, Protocol, Fonk, Void and a few epic remixes are some of your career highlights to date, so, what’s the best piece of advice you’d give to producers, to keep them motivated and the quality high etc?
It sounds like a cliché, but It’s absolutely true – do your own thing, what you believe in and what makes you happy, don’t do it for the wrong reasons, we see artists that are switching styles every second track, and surprisingly, every track fits the current trend, but this causes two main problems for them as artists – the first, if you follow a trend, you’re just trying to chase after a train that just left the station, no one has ever got any bigger than the ‘trend’s pioneer’, the only thing they’re doing is just empowering the one who ‘discovered’ the trend, no one has ever got any bigger than Avicii back in 2012 when everyone was trying to repeat the piano-house thing, or when Kygo did his breakthrough with the tropical house or Tchami and Heldens with the future-house, everyone followed their style, but the only thing they did is making them even more bigger, but then the trend changed and they needed to chase after the train once again. The second thing is, we do think in the old fashion, artists do need to experiment in new sounds, but for the sake of creating something new, but at the same time, to have their own signature sound. Try and make yourself one, it doesn’t have to be necessarily something new, but if someone hears a track and can recognize your own style in it – you did your part.
You’ve just released ‘Atom’ with Tom Swoon via Spinnin’, great! How did you first meet Tom to collaborate? Also, how shocked was you when Axwell ^ Ingrosso spun it in NYC a few weeks back too? Career goal (their support)?
Tom reached us on Twitter back in November with the idea of remaking the iconic “Atom”, Nari & Milani were happy that we’ll be the ones giving it the modern revisit and to be honest we felt like it’s a huge opportunity but also responsibility to remake such an anthem, we wanted to provide our own signature sound, but then again to maintain the magic of the original, and also to give it the modern vibe it needs, after all, it’s been 5 years since the release of the original version. It was a shocking thing to see, we remember when we saw on 1001tracklists that the support is there, but we couldn’t find a proper video of it, so half of the day we were just searching across all the web to find some uploads from people who were there, from hashtags to time filters, eventually we saw a fan video on YouTube and we were so happy. We knew Miami is just around the corner and they’re headlining the mainstage on the second day, we did an Alarm clock for 6am just to see if they’re dropping it Ultra and we saw they did. Both of them have been our idols for so many years, we felt like it was another major achievement for us, as they’re not the kind of guys you’re easy to satisfied or get into their set. We remember when we saw them as Swedish House Mafia live in Tomorrowland 2011, and today, 6 years later, after we’ve started making music together to watch them spin our own materials live, it’s a huge closure for us.
Being from Israel, what’s the club life like there, always busy? Also, where can fans get to see you spin over the summer? Any exciting over-seas gigs you’re looking forward too?
The Israeli nightlife and particularly Tel Aviv’s, has shifted a lot in the past 2 years, people have neglected the big clubs in favour of the bars and underground basements, it’s insane to see how the underground is the new mainstream, artists like Solomun are sold-out and people are killing for tickets, but at the same time it’s a circle, it’s always been like that. The majority still prefer the “EDM” vibes. We’re residents in loads of clubs and also Ben is a resident of the students’ biggest festival in Israel so we’re pretty busy even before we started with producing! We’ve got some cool shows in Europe locked up for this summer, including Spain, Cyprus, Sweden and it’s the first time we actually starting touring a bit! So this summer is definitely shaping up to be an exciting one.
Finally, if you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be, and why?
Definitely Matisse & Sadko, we’ve never heard such producers who have killer ideas and an amazing sound, these guys never fail to impress us every single time, it feels like no matter what’s the status of the industry, or in times where nothing is really interesting and you think everything is repetitive, once we see a release from them we know immediately it’s going to be something good. They always bring something fresh to the table and it’s inspiring to see it.
For More Information On Teamworx, See The Following:
https://facebook.com/teamworxmusic
