Darius Syrossian

In today's quick-fix, fast paced digital age, artists like Darius Syrossian are increasingly few and far between. Raised on the acid house culture of the nineties, his gradual, yet unfaltering ascent contains all the classic ingredients; year upon year of relentless djing, a wild passion for vinyl and studio hardware and, of course, a job in a record shop. 15 years later and Darius continues to climb. Currently an ever more integral member of Steve Lawler's VIVa Music collective, he has spent the last 24 months destroying dance-floors worldwide, armed with a flurry of his own, top notch productions. Always one to speak to his mind, Pulse caught up with him while in the middle of his US tour to get Darius' take on his recent whirlwind exploits.



Pulse: Yes Darius – first off, how have you been? And where are you currently? Darius: All good thanks. Right now I've just woken up, its 8am and I'm on the 14th floor of the Fontainebleau hotel suite in Miami – damn these low flying helicopters!

You're currently in the middle of a mini tour of the US with Steve Lawler. How are you finding it? Fantastic, it lasts three weeks and has three lots of four days where we do four cities in four days, with two breaks in the middle. First we did Washington DC, Chicago, New York and Miami and now we're chilling in Miami for a bit and flying out to the West Coast to do a further four gigs from in Sacremento, San Fran, L.A & San Diego followed by four more gigs up in Canada. They've all been great so far but New York was especially good, at Distrikt 36 which people are saying is the new Twilo - it's putting NY back on the clubbing map.



So it's been a couple of years since you were signed to Viva. Was that step up in your career at all challenging or did you find you were completely ready for the experience? Not really to be honest. 'Ive always wanted to do this and I guess I've worked hard to get here so I was and still am more than prepared for it, and not phased at all one tiny bit. I will say though the most challenging thing now is that I'm doing all this without a manager or a press agent. I have a DJ agency agent, but that’s for just for gigs - these days more than ever DJs are being made big by managers and press agents but I prefer to keep it real and not pay a PR agent to hype me up. Believe me I know some DJs on the scene who have suddenly become huge and are featured in all the magazines but this comes at the cost of quite a high monthly fee. I'd rather promote my own stuff on my facebook, keep it real, talk to everyone on my facebook and not be aloof like most DJs on the scene. I'm still the same person who was a bedroom DJ all those years ago, and now just because I'm playing all over the world I don’t wanna change and act all serious and I know that’s what a manager would tell me to do.

For example if I express how happy I am to be in New York on my facebook and I say I'm super excited for the gig, its not something you would expect a DJ to say really is it? It's not cool I guess (laughs) but then again I'm not cool, I'm just Darius and I wanna do it that way. I guess there'd be more respect if I had a press agent featuring my New York gig, but isn’t that actually LESS real, paying someone to promote you? I think it is, and I think being in the scene like I am, and not using a manager or press agent and still doing it the way I am is the biggest challenge but, luckily at the moment it’s a challenge I'm winning (laughs).



You were first signed to Viva as Darius Syrossian & Nyra but have since separated. Could you tell us a bit about this? Why the split? Music is ART, and when was the last time you saw two people painting together on a canvas? Never right? So we started together as a duo just having fun, but when it started going great for us, we felt we wanted to express ourselves in our own way, and also prove our selves as solo artists. Since we went solo I've signed to 8 bit, Get Physical, Area Remote and I think I have proven I can do it on my own, and so has Nyra with a great track on fear of flying. I just want to say, I keep hearing from people that we have fallen out - that is absolute nonsense, its funny where these rumours come from. in fact we are hooking up when I'm back from my U.S tour, I have a great laugh with Nyra and have a lot of respect for him, hes probably one of the few straight up people I have ever met.

Is there anything about the wider international scene that really surprised/surprises you? An element that you had never really expected?Yes, the fact that in the UK we think we are the best at everything and have the best scene when really we don’t. I've travelled a lot and there are some amazing scenes out there. I guess a lot of the music press is UK based and because of that we talk about the UK scene more, so people back home just think they are THE scene and that nowhere else compares. That’s not true, house music truly is global and people love it the same everywhere - one of the best crowds you will ever get is in Canada; Toronto & Montreal, also in Eastern Europe, those guys love it!



Since you got your big Viva break, it seems as if the floodgates have opened on your solo career. How important a part have your skills as a great DJ played in this? Ok, I just want to say I think the most important part of djing is reading the crowd, the club and the vibe of the room your playing and being able to adapt YOUR sound to THAT paticular gig. Working in a record shop for 15 years gave me the chance to really come across so many tracks and styles of music that I wouldn't have come across if I was going record shopping on my own. For example when I guest in Montreal as a headliner I play a totally different set to when I play there with Steve lawler doing a three hour warm up for him, even though I'm also billed as a guest DJ. Both situations are different but I still apply MY sound to the set, but playing differently. If I couldn’t open up for Steve properly then I wouldn’t be touring with him, simple as that. For example in New York two nights ago, the club was packed out, an hour before Steve goes on, I pushed it just far enough to have the whole floor moving but not too far, so that when Steve came on, as the main act he could have the perfect platform to seriously tear it up.

Your relationship with Steve Lawler seems to have gone from strength to strength. Do you think he sees a lot of himself in you? What is he like as a man and as a label manager? Wow this question is crazy! (laughs) Just yesterday we were sat on the beach in Miami, and he said “You know what Darius? The more I hang out with you the more I see myself in you.” Obviously it’s a compliment the guy is a legend, but he wasn’t just talking music wise. I think he meant the fact that I make time to speak with everyone, I speak my mind, I'm always working, always on the go and like people around and so on. Anyway as a person Steve is super fun to be around, loves winding people up and its always a laugh when we are hanging out. When it comes to food and wine he's a serious guy, only the finest will do but work wise, the word workaholic isn’t strong enough; the other morning we get up after travelling for 4 days djing and hes up at 10am, on the phone, skype, emails, for three hours, talking to agents, managers, his label people, before we hit the beach to finally chill for a bit.



Tell us, how have your recent experiences shaped you as a producer? What have you learnt? Well I produce what I like, I try to stay true to my sound which is house but with a locked down groove and strong emphasis on drum programming and bass. I never try to make what is the 'in-sound' and jump on a bandwagon because that way when that sound has died off and has a backlash you will too. For me its just house music with good bass and drums, djing in clubs and travelling and experiencing different places of course influences your music.

Your own label BreakoutAudio is still very much alive and well. Has it been at all hard to balance the label with the recent advances in your career? What does the future hold for the label? Yes if I'm honest, maybe I neglected it a bit towards the end of 2010, but my new years resolution was to get back on it. I've got a great team working in the label and we just had a great release with Wollion from Germany who has released on 8 bit and so on, plus a great remix from Detlef who used to be called Alex Santer and also Dulaton did a great remix. Next we have new mixes of the massive Acid Tambourine track, with remixes from Tom Demac and also Horatio & Denny K. It's about quality not quantity, but a lot of the unreleased stuff I'm playing is going down a storm at the minute and I'm really excited about the next few releases.

You're known for having an extremely organic view of house music. You produce using masses of hardware and still play a lot of vinyl. Could you tell us a bit about your philosophy? (Laughs) I'm seriously old skool with this stuff. I use a lot of hardware for my music production and djing I do still use a lot of vinyl and cds too. I'm not too bothered about traktor, I don’t want to add all these effects over a track, the track was made by the producer to sound how it sounds, I don’t wanna mess with anyone’s art. For me djing is about bringing a vibe and feeling to a room and that’s mainly done with track selection. Also I don’t wanna have a computer beat matching for me. I cannot believe people do that, I want to do it myself. When something is too clean cut, your brain subconsciously picks up on it and it sounds sterile. Two of my favourite DJs maybe aren't the best at beat matching but are probably THE best in the game at creating the perfect vibe; Laurent Garnier & Derrick Carter. Personally I like to hear a dj working the mix, the new beat coming on top a bit heavy and then being fixed, its raw and its real - I like things to be real.

As an artist and dance music lover, Leeds played a big part in your career.. You recently still cited it as one of the best places to play in the world. What is your current relationship with the city? I wasn’t born in Leeds, not even in the UK and I didn’t start living there until 1999 but it's true I had been clubbing there since 1993 and on my nights off I still attend Back to Basics, one of the best nights in the world and I'm probably one of the very very few people who went to the first ever venue it was at and every single one since and who still goes there now. I don’t actually play a lot in Leeds itself, most of my gigs for the last 12 months have been international ones but when I do get to play in Leeds I play for Teknicolor at an amazing Thursday night at the awesome Mint club.

Other than that I guess I was never one of those DJs who would go and try rub shoulders with people to get gigs, the reason I'm djing globally is because of my music and it selling globally, locally nobody has helped me and I didn’t expect anyone to, for example I'm not a resident for any night, and I know that’s helped big djs in Leeds like Ralph Lawson, Paul Woolford, Audiojack and Simon Baker. Those djs are all amazing producers of the highest standard and have done leeds proud, re myself, im happy to also be representing leeds but ive managed to do it without the help of a hometown residency and im proud of that, it means that I’m djing because of my music production and I'm a true believer in quality not quantity and when I do play Leeds its more of a special occasion for me. The last two gigs in the past 6 months at Mint have been packed out and great fun. One was me & Nyra and the other me & Steve Lawler. Leeds is special to me because for many years I ran the vinyl section of the best record shop there and sold records to so many local DJs there and met so many great people I'm friends with now.



What's next for Darius Syrossian? You're doing pretty damn well but do you have any short term goals and any personal goals/ambitions that you are still determined to achieve? Well on a small scale, I've done a track called Seeking for Peace which I'm currently negotiating for a release with a big label and I'm giving all proceeds that I make from it to international red crescent. I came home from a gig abroad recently and had had so much fun but then I was watching the news with my housemate and there was a young boy who was being rushed to hospital by his father who had been caught up in the fighting the is happening in the middle east right now.

Later in the news it said that the boy didn’t survive, I got an overwhelming feeling of guilt - Why should I be having all this fun when people are living lives like that? So for a purely selfish reason to make myself feel a bit less guilty I decided to write this track- the vocals say, 'now which part of this real crisis you don't understand? Everyone is seeking for peace, you don’t understand!’ and it's aimed at all the corrupt governments who create war for dollars and power and make people suffer - from the neo-cons of this world, certain western regimes who support dictators for money to the puppet middle eastern regimes. This title is aimed at them, and I want to make sure that this track goes to the right label and that my proceeds make it to this charity, which I will start with a big payment.

And to answer the next part of your question; yes, I'd love to play in Iran when that current regime is gone. I'd love to do an LP but I want to give it a few years yet so I can give it full attention. I'm running a label, djing all over, producing and remixing for myself as well as engineering for others plus hosting the VIVa MUSiC Radio show which is broadcast around the world, so I'm mad busy right now. I need to work on all these projects before I start anything else, I've worked hard to get here so wanna enjoy all this before I start a new goal or project.



What about any upcoming releases you have? Well my latest release on 8 bit came out a couple of weeks ago - a track called You Can Change thats out on vinyl & digital. Plus I have my track on the Get Physical Jackathon compilation coming out, thats called 'I Am the Creator of Jack'. The compilation also features tracks from Soul Clap, Solomun, Mathias Kaden, Jamie Jones and Matt Tolfrey plus many more. When I sent Get Physical the track, Heidi who is mixing the compilation that will also come out on the Get Physical cd said she loved it and that it was her favourite on there, so I'm really chuffed! Finally, my release on VIVa called Favela kids is out soon too!

Finally, tell us about the exclusive Pulse mix you've kindly done for us? Ok this is my set LIVE from the amazing STEREO club in Montreal, its an amazing club with one of the best sound systems in the world I have ever played on, that and district 36 in new york, both amazing sound systems that I have played on, anyway I wanted to send in a live mix so people can check out my vibe at a gig, totally raw, mixed myself, no computers or sync in traktor, hope you like.

Carlos Hawthorn 

[After joking about not having a residency, in the time between the interview and this going to print, Darius has been asked to take on monthly residency at Kaluki - Sankey's Soap Manchester]

Darius Syrossian on Pulse