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 We had the chance to have a nice long chat with DJ / producer Sean Tyas so sit back and check out what this growing legend had to say...
SEAN TYAS - AN AMERICAN IN SWITZERLAND
Just a few years ago, the name Sean Tyas might not have rung a bell for the normal trance fanatic, but in only a short time, due to incredible releases and unforgettable DJ sets, he has become a household name in the trance genre world wide. He is originally from New York, but quickly realised that there was a bigger market for trance overseas. He got to know German producer DJ Beam and he moved to Cologne and started producing together with him. After refining his skills in the studio, he decided to go his own way as a DJ / producer and moved to St Gallen, Switzerland. He is a man who has had success with just about every release, bringing his combination of melodic sounds and a driving groove and thus forming a healthy fan base. In 2006, his steady rise as a producer was helped by top releases ‘Mirella’ (named after his wife), a remix of Duderstadt - Muhanjala and the breathtaking ‘Lift’ which was caught in many raver’s ears in the summer of 2006. The top jocks took notice, like Armin van Buuren who said, “Sean Tyas has to be one of the hottest producers around.”. He was very busy in 2007, producing two club burners ‘Drop’ (on Discover) and ‘One More Night Out’ (on Armada). But his talent for remixing other artists has become something like his current trademark. He has given stellar remixes to renowned artists Above & Beyond - Oceanic and Thomas Bronzwaer - Resound. He also remixed the classic Thomas Datt track ‘2v2’, sticking a “2007” at the end instead of “remix”. However he has not only remixed top trance acts, but also top pop artists like Christina Aguliera, Pink, Christina Milian, Mister Mister, Moby and Daniel Bedingford. His DJ gigs also have grown in the last 24 months, with the help of his hot releases. He has visited countries like Argentina, Australia, Turkey, Finland, Norway and Canada. Last year he received the honour of being able to mix the legendary Technoclub series together with German techno pope Talla 2XLC. He released the trance bomb ‘Heart To Heart’ with Talla 2XLC, which was hammered around the globe for months. In 2008, he remains very busy, as his tour schedule gets bigger and bigger, as more new hits follow. In the next months, he will visit the Far East, South America and have many gigs in the UK. On the production side, he remains very busy with remixes and new tracks with #1 DJ of the world Armin van Buuren and Simon Patterson. i:Vibes had a chat with the continuing big trance hope for the future…
i:Vibes: You came over to Europe some years ago. Now looking back on your success, it was the right choice to come to Europe. Do you think you could have grown as much as an artist and had as much success if you had stayed in the USA?
Sean Tyas: Hmmm, No, I don’t think so, but Filo & Peri did a great job in New York, so maybe it was possible. But I feel like here, I opened my mind and grew as a person, which I would certainly not have done living where I always have in the first place.
i:Vibes: How was your childhood? Did you have a normal childhood? What was your real first touch with music?
Sean Tyas: My childhood was great, and I really miss not having responsibilities. When I was about 10 or 11, my uncle had given me a cassette he got at a club of the different remixes going around of Apotheosis – O’Fortuna. I put the cassette in my walkman, sat on the beach, and listened to this tape over and over all day. This was something new to me, and I was in love. The term Techno in New York pretty much summed up all electronic music at the time, and in 1991 you would notice maybe 10 CDs in stores of the genre, not even a full section yet. I don’t need to go into details about what happened after, since I think everyone on this site went through the same process at some point.
i:Vibes: New York is known as having a diverse history of music styles. Some may say it is home to house music. How did you get involved with the genre “trance”?
Sean Tyas: It may not be the home of house, but it certainly is one of the headquarters. It even gets annoying at times, because it REFUSES to evolve. 80% of the typical New York club scene just clings to the old classics of the mid-90s NY house sound, there are even DJs that still play that stuff. In a city that refuses to evolve in electronic music, trance during this time was more popular in the rave / party scene. I was also addicted to happy hardcore and gabber, so as evolution goes, trance was logically my next step, when I stopped being a psycho nervous teenager needing 190 BPM tracks.
i:Vibes: What were your early musical inspirations?
Sean Tyas: The Prodigy (for the amazing, new, and fresh sounds), Chemical Brothers (for the originality), Moby (simply for everything he did in the 90s), Pop Will Eat Itself (for making me really like a rock band).
i:Vibes: You started mixing in 1999. However you went a non usual route by producing tracks before you were really known as a DJ. Why did you go this route? Did you have good contacts and how did you manage your breakthrough?
Sean Tyas: For me, making music is more fun and more satisfying. DJing and making people dance and feel what you feel is great. But doing that while you are playing your own song, is something amazing.
i:Vibes: You are 28. Did you go to college? Do you have anything to fall back on later in life or do you know now that music will 100% be your life?
Sean Tyas: I went to Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC for Illustration, and I really expected to be either a comic book artist, or an Anime artist. While I was going to school I was doing IT for a corporation, so I had that to fall back on.
i:Vibes: Filo & Peri and Thomas Datt are both from New York. Do you know the guys and if so how is your relationship with them?
Sean Tyas: Yes I know Dom & Bo, and they are good guys, and making the right moves, showing New Yorkers can be power players. And Thomas Datt, is a great guy, and great producer, and has this ability to create an atmosphere in his tracks that is both perfect to feel inside as well as outside.
i:Vibes: How is the trance scene in New York? It seems that house is quite dominant there. Can you still spread your sound there the way you would like?
Sean Tyas: House is dominant for the weekly parties, the parties that happen week by week. BUT the big events that bring over names like Armin, PVD, or Ferry are the parties that have lines that are a full street long. This tells me NY has a huge trance following, but it is the club promoters who refuse to believe in it, not the fans. So there is fertile ground for it, the promoters just a need a change of heart.
i:Vibes: You have a very unique sound. How would you describe your sound? You have an ear for beautiful melodies. Would you ever consider changing your style in the future?
Sean Tyas: I consider it every day, but I don’t want to change the style. I love trance that has power and an edge of trance. But I do want to produce better, still so many things I want to improve A LOT on.
i:Vibes: I love ‘Lift’, it has a beautiful melody. Was this a difficult track to produce. How was this track made? Did it take long to produce or did you bang it out quickly?
Sean Tyas: ‘Lift’ was really a lot of fun. I probably was standing up, dancing to it, most of the time while I was putting it together. I guess no track is really “difficult”, it’s more about the challenge of arranging correctly. It took about two weeks until the final master was set.
i:Vibes: ‘Lift’ used to be my favourite Sean Tyas track, but since last year it has been ‘Drop’. This track is just incredible. Are you aware this could become a trance classic?
Sean Tyas: I would LOVE that, it would certainly seem very surreal to me. The reason I think both of these tracks did pretty well is just because, at the heart of them, they stay simple and very accessible to the Dancefloor. I think simplicity, in any form of music, is soooooo important so that everyone can enjoy it the same.
i:Vibes: Was ‘Drop’ a difficult track to produce? How much time went into this track, and what was the most difficult thing you had to get right, so it was perfect?
Sean Tyas: The hardest thing was that it was ‘Lift’s’ follow up. So I wanted it to sound “related” but also sound fuller and possibly even have a bit more “edge”. It took about three weeks in total I think, if you include all the wasted hours obsessing over stupid details.
i:Vibes: When you are in the studio how do you go about producing a track? What inspires you to produce beautiful melodies?
Sean Tyas: This will sound cheesy, but my wife Mirella really is my main inspiration. Other than her, I am inspired simply by standing on a Dancefloor to a really good track and watching the Dancefloor totally light up when a break hits and the melody hits everyone in full power, the kick and bass come back in, it is orgasmic.
i:Vibes: What new releases can we await from you in the next months?
Sean Tyas: Well, I am working on my next original ‘Melbourne’ now, and have just finished a collaboration track with Simon Patterson, which should be very different than what anyone is expecting from us. It is named but we are trying not to say the name of it so we can keep it off of tracklists. J
i:Vibes: You also produced new material with UK DJ Simon Patterson. What can we expect from this track and what was it like working with him?
Sean Tyas: Don’t expect our usual at all! J In fact if you heard it you probably would not think it was him or me. That’s exactly what we wanted from the start, something different but also very challenging to both of us!
i:Vibes: Do you see your sound changing in the future?
Sean Tyas: Nah, not really. Maybe in the context of the actual sound textures used, but I really want to stay with what I love, pure energetic driving trance.
i:Vibes: You have produced a new track with #1 DJ of the world Armin Van Buuren called ‘Intricacy’. How did this cooperation come about?
Sean Tyas: A couple of months ago, he came to me about doing something for his album. I jumped at the opportunity, so we were doing the work over the internet sending the songfiles and audio files back and forth, until doing the melody, where I said something like “I am really liking how these effects are sounding - nice and intricate in the background…”, and thus, the name. J
i:Vibes: Were you able to get any studio tips from Armin?
Sean Tyas: I think I came out of it learning a lot, more about how to set up a larger session in Logic, for much faster workflow.
i:Vibes: It seems you have slowed down a bit with the quantitiy of your releases. Was there a certain reason for this? How has the dance community taken this?
Sean Tyas: I don’t know, I hope they understand. J It’s become a lot harder than when I was starting because now I am away usually three days a week doing gigs. In the beginning, it was easy because I wasn’t DJing yet that much at all. Now the DJing has become just as important as the studio work, and it is a very difficult balance.
i:Vibes: You have produced tracks like ‘Nuclear Device’ and ‘Imagine Yourself’ with the Swiss DJ Dave 202. How did you guys meet?
Sean Tyas: Well these were produced with David Kolodziej and Dave202 @ the Moonman studios. Obviously this is more on the hard trance side of things, not really related to my original work, but it is a breath of fresh air to keep producing different styles. We met indirectly while I was working in Germany for Beam.
i:Vibes: You have remixed superstars like Pink and Christina Aguliera? What is the most important thing for you when you have a remix to do?
Sean Tyas: For remixes, I think the most important thing is trying to find the way to still have the personality of the original track in the remix, while people know it is your remix. I have been given remix packs in every form, DAT tapes, CD audio tracks, MIDI file only, and have even done remixes working only from the the MP3. I just try to be ready and try not to complain about the parts that I was given. At the moment I am working on a remix in which the parts I was given (the MIDI parts) are all in a different key than the original track. This is not a big deal. I will just do the new key, and the feeling will be the same.
i:Vibes:What have been the most important things you have learned with your music experience in Europe?
Sean Tyas: I have learned that around Europe especially, there are always people who will be very willing to listen to what you do or make. I think people seem to be a lot more ready to take a chance here.
i:Vibes: You’re living in St Gallen, Switzerland. How do you like it and how much do you miss the USA? Could you imagine staying in Europe forever?
Sean Tyas: I really love it, St. Gallen is a really small city, but I live in its centre, so I still have a bit of “urban” feel. I will certainly stay here I think. In the long LONG long term, when I do decide to have kids, I want them to grow up un a bi-lingual environment (at the very least), speaking fluent English and German. Add that to the fact that in America, schooling is an absolutely RIDICULOUS amount of money. Certainly NOT relative to the “amount” of education you receive for the price.
i:Vibes: Your music has been hot in the last two years. What has been your secret?
Sean Tyas: Having a nice and organized smooth workflow, not having to worry about ad-ware or virii (Apple Mac), and really just spending the time required. I wake up Monday-Friday between 6:30-7:30 and usually work right until 20:00. I think this is the only thing in my life I have done, where my interest in it actually continues to grow.
After your success with ‘On Your Mind’, ‘Mirella’, ‘Muhanjala’ remix and ‘Lift’, many critics thought that was it, but you continued releasing top remixes and tracks, was there a lot of pressure in this time?
Sean Tyas: A hell of a lot yes! J But my close peers simply told me “Just make what you want, how you want it, when you want to.” and they continue to do so now.
i:Vibes: There was a time in the beginning of 2007, where many critics in forums said that your sound was not innovative anymore. How do you deal with criticism like this? Did you change anything in terms of your sound?
Sean Tyas: I don’t really care. Like I said above, I am making what I would want to hear when I am out, and that’s that. Criticism did bother me at first - that is natural for everyone I think. But now, I realize that these same people have a “top 5” of minimal producers in their signatures. Not exactly the audience I am working so hard for anyway, is it?
i:Vibes: ‘Drop’ and ‘One More Night Out’ have received a lot of play from the top jocks and thumbs up from the fans. You continue your banging, straight forward sound but not forgetting melody. However these tracks seem like a step forward and away from your previous tracks ‘Mirella’ and ‘Lift’ which were more melodic. Is this your new direction and where do you see yourself going in the future?
Sean Tyas: “I really want to take a step back towards more melodic, BUT at the same time get even more ripping and energetic. That’s really what I like most, this combination. SO whatever that combination actually means, yea, I’ll guess I’ll have to see what that sounds like.
i:Vibes: At the moment you have 73 releases. Do you have anything special planned when the 100th release is released?
Sean Tyas: Jesus I have 73 already???? When I do my 100th let’s hope that its part of my first album! J
i:Vibes: Is a Sean Tyas Album planned?
Sean Tyas: Yea I guess, I will probably start some work on it at the beginning of this summer.
i:Vibes: You mixed the Technoclub Vol 24 with the legendary Talla 2XLC. How did this connection come about?
Sean Tyas: Actually we played together in December 2005 in Philadelphia and met for out first time there. Since then we have stayed in contact, and I suppose now the time was right for us to finally collaborate and get things done.
i:Vibes: When you see the name Talla 2XLC, what thoughts come to mind?
Sean Tyas: I think of a very rich history and pioneering of trance in Germany. I think the early trance from Holland and Germany really set the stage for what was to come.
i:Vibes: You produced the beautiful track ‘Heart To Heart’ with Talla 2XLC. How was it working with the German Techno pope?
Sean Tyas: Hahaha the POPE! Talla’s a GREAT guy, we had a lot of fun with that track, because there is no “original mix” we both had full freedom to do it how we wanted. We first came up with the main melodies and how all the bass changes would go together of course, and then, we just had to work it up on both sides.
i:Vibes: What was the most important thing you learned from Talla 2XLC?
Sean Tyas: I know exactly where to go for the SPICIEST currywurst in Frankfurt. I nearly died!
i:Vibes: How did you like the Technoclub with Talla 2XLC?
Sean Tyas: I don’t care about what anyone says that Trance is dead in Germany. In Technoclub, you would never believe that. The people had just as much as, if not more energy, than most places!
i:Vibes: You were recently in Australia. How was that and did you take any musical inspirations back from Down Under?
Sean Tyas: I actually did! In fact I loved it so much, that yep, as you see above, the name of my next track will be ‘Melbourne’!
i:Vibes: What has been your favourite gig that you’ve done in the last year and was there a crazy experience you had that you will never forget?
Sean Tyas: So difficult to answer but I will say the first two that come to my mind. Buenos Aires had to probably be the best experience as a gig hands down. Amazing people, huge amount of people, and an enthusiasm I have yet to see matched. And they have their own little unique trademark. J When the break of a track comes on, everyone gets down, as if hiding low on the floor. As the track builds, you start to see them rise up slowly, and the continue on, and when the track finally goes FULL ON, so do they, more power than I have ever witnessed. I didn’t even know about that at first, so when they went down (and the lights also went out, so I couldn’t see ANYTHING), I was like “What the hell, where did they go??”. The 2nd and really my other favourite was the ASOT party in Holland. Much bigger than anyone expected, and really everyone knew EXACTLY what they were there to hear, real trance fans. This was also cool to meet so many different countries in 1 place, such as people from countries like France, where you don’t hear very much about a trance scene there, and they were just as crazy as places where trance is huge. And that’s an amazing thing.
i:Vibes: What are your five all time favourite tracks?
Sean Tyas: Push – Universal Nation (Tall Paul Remix)
Paul van Dyk – We Are Alive (the mix where there is a pluck melody in place of the vocal)
Binary Finary – 1999 (Gouryella Mix)
System F – Elevate
True Form – Forbidden Colours
i:Vibes: What are your hobbies?
Sean Tyas: Music is my only real hobby. All my life, my hobby was primarily drawing and illustration, pen & ink stuff, but I haven’t had much time for that lately. Apart from anything music related, I guess to relax, I watch South Park and House episodes, and like a true American, eat. At the end of long days, I really just like to take long walks, during which, my wife and I stop at a café or a bar, and discuss the day. I think one of my favourite new hobbies is eating Döner.
i:Vibes: The 2008 European Football Championships are around the corner. Do you plan to visit any games this summer? Do you follow European Football?
Sean Tyas: I will be following the championships of course! My wife Mirella has a cousin on the Swiss team, Tranquillo Barnetta (actually he normally plays for Bayer Leverkusen!) haha! So the family always gets together for big parties to watch the matches! Certainly makes it more interesting for us.
i:Vibes: Any tips for as to who might win?
Sean Tyas: I’d love to sound very knowledgeable and give you a good answer, but I don´t know!
i:Vibes: Thanks for the chat, Sean!
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