Dabin has been quickly rising in the scene with his melodic bass tracks. Performing alongside Illenium and Said the Sky, the DJ and producer has really found his identity in the industry. We got the chance to sit down with him after his set at Electric Zoo to discuss music, playing in the Sadboi band as well as got some recommendations for Netflix. Check out the full interview below!
You just got off the stage and how was that out there?
It’s awesome. The New York crowd is so amazing. It was such a great experience just being able to play alongside somebody on the Ophelia stage. I brought Said The Sky, Jason Ross and MitiS out for our new songs. So yeah, it’s awesome. Big shout out to Seven Lions. We’re putting this all together. I’ve played like Webster hall before and since then I’ve been wanting to come back for a while, so it’s, it’s a cool way to come back and play easily sharing, especially around the affiliate station.
You’ve played plenty of shows all over the world, do you have a favorite festival theme?
Electric Forest is one of my favorites. I think hands down my favorite festival. Just being out there in the wilderness kind of gives you an opportunity to disconnect from everything else and just generally be one with just music and yourself.
What has it been like to work with the Sadboi group with Illenium and the rest of the guys?
Illenium just one day just followed me on Twitter and kind of hit me up and was like, Yo, I’d love for you to do a remix for one of my songs. It was like, yeah, super dope. And I am managed by Black Tiger Sex Machine. One of my managers was saying how I should link up with Illenium since we were kind of doing like a similar type of music and would be cool if we linked up. That was the ethic. It was at Electric Forest in 2014 or 2015 but that was the first time I met Nick. We kind of just kept in contact and you know, he brought me out to LA to do this live thing for one of his sets. And that was the first time I met Said The Sky. It was also the first time we all kind of played it as like a band together, you know, so we just Kinda kept that friendship.
Speaking of playing with those guys, I saw during your set at Terminal 5 in New York you had totally destroyed your guitar. Did you do that every single set or was that just a one time thing?
No it was every set, it’s just sort of a classic move, you know? It’s much cheaper than smashing the CDJs. if i did that to the CDJs, I would get in a lot of trouble.
You’ve been working with the whole Sadboi group for a while now. Illenium recently tweeted that this his upcoming tour will be the last time you guys will performing together, are you guys going on your separate paths?
I think a lot of people kinda just interpreted Illennium’s tweet as like, this is the final time we’re doing everything. And people were like, oh, it’s because of money. It’s because they don’t like each other anymore. I was like, no, it’s literally because everyone has their own career. All our own artists try to be themselves and things are just like going well for all of us and we’re super grateful for that and you know, as everyone’s schedule gets busier, it’s just hard. We’re super grateful for the platform that Nick’s been able to get us.
What do you want to do next in terms of collaborations? Who are some artists that you want to work with?
Definitely want to just work with kind of people outside of the electronic music. Really. Yeah. I just, I just think doing that is way more interesting and more unique basically. I’m kind of going back to my roots with some of the new music that I’m making, I used to come from like an acoustic like Indei Folk songwriting background. So I’m trying to like branch out to a lot of those type of artists right now. It’s just the type of music I love. It’s the type of music that I like to listen to. So of course I’m going to be like inspired by it.
We’ll just close it off with a more fun question. Name your top three favorite Netflix series? I need some recommendations as well.
Shit alright. I don’t mean to sound like a basic bitch right now, but yeah, The Office is just classic dude. You know, you fall asleep to it. You can just put it on while you’re eating food. Yeah, it was just perfect for that salad. So that’s one. I’ve been living with Trevor and Day now so they introduced me to ‘Big Mouth’, which isn’t a big in this area. It’s like very vulgar. It’s just about these kids going through puberty. It’s so funny. Highly recommend that. And um I’d like to recommend an anime, but I haven’t really seen like a Netflix original that’s been like, whoa, you gotta watch that so I’ll just name my favorite anime. It’s gotta be Spirited Away.
Dabin just released his debut album called ‘Wild Youth’. He will be joining Illenium for most of the stops on his Ascend Tour in the coming months. You can check out which stops he will be making below so be sure to catch him live where he may or may not smash his guitar!
