You, Don Diablo and Chuckie were the three big guys who started the whole Dirty Dutch scene, how has the sound changed since you guys pioneered it?
I have to disagree with that because I don’t think Don Diablo had anything to do with the Dutch house sound at all. I love Don, he has always had his own style and always played a rock kind of sound but now he has switched over to the future house stuff. It was Chuckie, Afrojack and I who really did the whole Dirty Dutch house thing. Since then it has really changed, it’s not even Dutch house anymore, now it’s all EDM.
Forgive my ignorance, is there a connection between Jamaican culture and Dutch culture?
No, not really, why?
I have found that there is a dancehall, reggae vibe in some of the recent releases and “Bludfire” is Jamaican slang.
Okay, now I understand you. In Holland, there are a lot of people from the Caribbean like Aruba and Curacao and also Suriname, which is where my parents are from. Suriname used to be a Dutch colony but it is now a country in South America. Everyone speaks Dutch over there but the music is also dancehall and has those kind of vibes. It has nothing to do with Jamaican culture, it is just the music style that has the same summer feel as Jamaican music. We don’t have the same lifestyle or Rastafaris or anything like that. I think that is the connection that you are talking about.
Is “Bludfire” meant to be a political song?
No, it is just a fun song. Eva wrote some lyrics and a melody that I thought was so dope so I did a production around it and it became a cool song. It had a trap kind of drop at first but when we played it for some guys who we know from the Dutch radio stations, they told us that it was a bit too hard for radio. I decided to give it another go and I changed the drop to a slow dancehall kind of beat and they loved it. That is how that song started.
https://soundcloud.com/powerhouse_music/eva-simons-ft-sidney-samson-bludfire-preview-out-november-23rd
I was getting a completely different read with the first song being “Policeman” and then “Bludfire.” I thought that there was some kind of political uprising that was going on in the Netherlands or something.
No, no it is just Eva who thinks that it sounds fun and is cool to say. “Policeman” was more of a gimmick, nothing political. Dutch people and police get along, it was nothing like that, we just did it more like a joke versus making a statement to the police.
One last question in this direction, I saw a picture of you wearing a jacket that said “Enemy Of The Hate,” what does that mean?
I am starting my own clothing brand and I had to give it a name. A friend of mine said call it “Enemy Of The State,” like the movie with Will Smith, which is impossible to get the domain name. He said “no you should do enemy of the hate” and I thought it was kind of cool because you have two negative words that mean something positive. You are against hate and you are only for positivity. I am going to promote my brand in all my videos and photos, they will have the Enemy Of The Hate brand in it. You can compare it to Yellow Claw’s brand Blood for Mercy. What does Blood for Mercy mean? It is just a cool name and people want to wear it on their shirts and I want people to do that with my stuff too.
From hate let’s talk about love. I am dying to know, when you married Eva who DJ’d your wedding party?
I asked a friend of mine Mike Mercy to DJ, he is a really cool performing DJ. At the end of the night I did for about 20 minutes with Eva next to me, just the two of us.
Do the two of you tour together now or how does that work?
We both have our own gigs, own shows and own tours but once in a while we do the same gig. We have music together but our schedule is really separate.
I would think that having such different lives and being on the road so much that it would be difficult for your relationship.
It works for us, we are both really ambitious and busy people. We are not the type to be in a relationship and be with each other 24/7. We love to have time for ourselves and to be in the studio without waiting for each other to come home. That is always the biggest problem when you are an artist and you have someone that has a 9 to 5 job sitting at home getting annoyed because you are waking them up at 4 am. That is not a problem that we have so I am really fortunate to have that and we enjoy that. If she goes to the studio and comes home at 7 am, the chances are really high that I am still awake too, so it works.
I liked the track that you did of Mad Nation “All Night,” it is like a trap/electro hybrid kind of thing. Is that where you see dance music going next?
It’s so hard to say but I think that things aren’t going to be as hard anymore. The EDM sound started with fun house and Dutch house stuff and then it became harder and more hardstyle with the kick drums and now people are tired of it. Now people want to hear more songs, like what Jack U and Diplo are doing. I think that is where it is going now, it doesn’t really need to be super hard like what everyone has wanted to hear for the last few years, I love it.
https://soundcloud.com/artificialrecordings/mad-nation-all-night-sidney-samson-edit
What is coming out from you next?
I have a few tracks that are ready to go but I am still not sure how I am going to release them. I don’t know if it is going to be on my label or if I am going to shop around to major labels. There is a new single coming from Eva and I, it is going to be the follow up of “Bludfire.” That one is going to be really big, that is the one.
What is it called?
Were not sure about the name yet, I think that it is going to be called “Escape.” You are the first to know that.
What would you like to say to all of your fans out there?
Thanks for the support I am just getting started…