Many of us have our favorite songs playing on repeat daily, as we work, relax or do mundane tasks. However, after a while they tend to lack the luster and excitement they once had.
What if we told you we met the Dynamic Duo of DJing taking top hits, remixing them in a style called "mashups" and giving them new life, if not making them even better! They go by the name “DJs from Mars” and their music is truly out of this world!
They came from humble beginnings, to playing for huge crowds all over the world and collaborating with mega DJs such as Tiesto and David Guetta. We had a chance to talk to these talented, humble, masked DJs about their career, their music and advice they have for aspiring DJs out there. So, press play, listen to their amazing music, and find out more about their remarkable story on our latest Tivoli Selects.
Can you tell us when and how DJs From Mars got started and what was your big break?
We started making music as the DJing team “DJs From Mars” in 2004, however, it was only part time. In 2009, we focused more on our project and started doing it full time, uploading mashups on YouTube every week. The following year we started touring the world. In 2013, we were on the DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJ list.
However, within the last 2 years, we have really taken off! We released “The Drop” in 2020, a collab song with Tiesto, on his label Musical Freedom. We remixed David Guetta & Sia's “Let’s Love” which gained 1,700,000 plus Spotify streams and we’re working with David on some mashups for his live events! Plus, our YouTube videos this year have reached more than 150 million views and we’re working on new upcoming projects!
How would you describe your genre of music?
We call it “Alien Electro” which is a combination of musical genres such as: hip-hop, drum and bass, heavy metal, punk, reggae, ambient, and even classical music! We combine these elements with samples of voices and instruments to create a crazy mix. Once we have a good combination as a base, we work on the track like an actual remix. We add our own beats, basslines, our own drops, and we work on the final layout.
In the end, it’s electronic music, but it can be influenced 360° from different styles of music!
What has been the highlight of your DJing careers?
Being listed on DJ Mag’s Top 100 was definitely a highlight and a huge achievement for us. We’re probably the only DJs who’ve entered that chart without any actual “hit” song, only our mashups.
Other memorable moments have been getting to work with some of the top DJs in the world. For example, we released a collaboration track with Tiësto! Which we never imagined would have been possible.
Then getting to work with David Guetta was another surreal accomplishment. We had sent him a mega-mashup with all his greatest hits combined in 10 minutes. He loved it and he released it on his YouTube channel! To this day, it has 35 million views. After that, he asked us to create some exclusive mashups for his sets, and we’ve been working with him for the last two years.
We also got to play some big shows such as the World DJ Festival in Korea, it was our first time in Asia, and we got to play in front of 30,000 people, it was unreal!
We started making music for fun, in our bedroom studios, and now look we’re playing in Korea in front of a huge crowds! That is one of the most memorable moments in our careers.
What has been the biggest challenge you guys have faced in your career?
At the beginning, when we were working for a label in our hometown Turin and we were resident DJs at our city’s clubs. We didn’t have a lot of money in our pockets, but we had a passion for music.
We started creating mashups for our club gigs, instead of playing the same hit songs that every other DJ was playing. We saw the potential in what we were doing, however we didn’t have support from our label. They thought the mashups were a waste of time and didn’t allow us to produce the mashups in their studios. We persevered, working on our music at night and started producing it ourselves. Years later, we’ve proved them wrong!
What are your top 4 tracks that inspire you and why?
Hmmm difficult question, so many tracks we love!! But if we need to choose 4 we would say:
Da Funk (Daft Punk) – an example of dance music breaking the boundaries, no rules except making great music!
Inner City Life (Goldie) – it feels like it was created as a symphony, split in different parts, super long, with different moods, it’s electronic music at its best!
In The End (Linkin Park) – it’s the perfect pop song. It’s an anthem, you can play it with piano and voice, or with an electronic instrumental, it will always be an amazing song.
One Mic (Nas) – Hip hop at its best, lyrics, instrumental, just 100% perfect!
You guys have a good amount of pro audio equipment in your studio, why have you been using the Model One BT to do listening tests on new music?
Model One BT is always the final test for our mixes! We have big audio speakers which are needed to check all the deep frequencies while producing and check the stereo image of the track.
But at the same time, we know that no one will listen to our productions on professional speakers! People listen to music on their phones, in their cars, or in their headphones. With that in mind, the Model One BT was the best speaker to do our final test. If we manage to make a song sound great in this precious tool, we know the mix will be perfect in every other setup! We started using it in the last couple of years and it definitely changed our workflow!
Would you suggest to other producers/musicians to use the Model One BT to listen to their mixes? What would be the benefit from a Model One versus other audio tests such as car test, or headphone test?
Yes, we would recommend the Model One BT to everyone! We were big fans of car test, but now we save so much time with the Model One BT being easily accessible and us not having to go out in our cars (especially during these lockdown months haha!)
Another reason why we like the Model One BT is that, after working on the same track for hours or days your it’s difficult for your ears to recognize what’s wrong with the mix. However, having a totally different listening tool like the Model One BT it can immediately “refresh” your ears. So when we switch to Model One BT it is like having the first listening session of the day, even if we’re on the same track for 9 hours!
As for headphones, it’s a big "NO" for us, since they always cheat your ears bringing background elements to the front, and opposite, we have had some bad “surprises” mixing in headphones, we would not recommend that!
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What advice would you have for aspiring DJs?
Our advice would be, work in music only if you really love it! Today, being a DJ is trendy, and young guys could think that it’s easy money and luxury life. Well, that’s not true! It’s hard work, full of sacrifices, time away from friends and families for days, months, and it’s a life full of big ups and downs.
You can only stick with it if you deeply love music. And if you do, success will come naturally. If you start only to make money, you’ll never make it. Music is art in the end, and art is successful when it brings emotions. No emotions can be shared if your only goal is being rich.
Can you share any projects you are currently working on or upcoming projects?
We’re currently working on new original releases to be finished soon. We just released some tracks with Sony and released some new mashups last month.
If you want to check out more music from DJs from Mars, head to their YouTube Channel, or go to DJsFromMars.Com for their latest news, music release and to buy their great merch. You can also find them on their Instagram @DJsFromMarsOfficial, keeping us up to date with the latest music they are working on.
