Dance Rebels Artist Showcase 001 – MAD2MAD

by JP Hadley · Published January 30, 2017 · Updated April 9, 2017

Hey MAD2MAD, welcome to Dance Rebels! For those who don’t know who you are, where are you from? And how long have you been a duo in the music industry for? How did you connect originally too?

Hi guys, first of all we would like to say a big thank you for this opportunity, we’ve been following Dance Rebels for some time, and must say you are definitely one of our favourite EDM blogs out there. We are from Belgrade, Serbia, we’ve been active as a duo for 4 years. We connected through facebook, actually. We were chating about music, production etc and after one of the members moved to Belgrade, we started working, in the begining only as DJs, and after some time, we started with our own production.

Do you do music full-time, or do you have both have other careers too? What sacrifices have you had to make, to enable you to pursue your passions for music too?

Unfortunately, we haven’t switched to music production as a full time job, to say so, but we are spending every free minute on it. One of us is a doctor, actually, and the other one has a different full time job, so it’s pretty hard to fit music production into a daily routine, but we are giving our best. The sacrifices are definitely present, less time for friends, family, spending a lot of energy on something that maybe won’t give results, and also, there’s always financial side of everything. However, we are fully focused and trying to use every possible minute to make something from our hearts, that will reach fans no matter where they are.

What track do you think gave you your big break through, the one which really put MAD2MAD on the map? Also, your most recent release entitled ‘Hypnotize’ was an absolute monster on Third Party’s ‘Release Records’ imprint!

We had some pretty successful releases in the past, but “Hypnotize’’ is definitely a track that put us on the map. It perfectly encapsulates our production style, the style we prefere on our gigs, and something we would like to continue developing in the future. And yes, we had an absolute honour to release our latest track ‘’Hypnotize’’, we did with Dirtywork and Erick Kasell on Third Party’s label, Release Records. Big shoutout to the guys for believing in the track and for releasing it.

‘Hypnotize’ also got huge support from headliners including Hardwell, Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano, Dannic, Thomas Gold and many more! Does this motivate you to work even harder in the studio? To try and surpass the quality of ‘Hypnotize’ on future MAD2MAD releases etc

Yes, the support has been incredible since the beginning. Actually, Corey James premiered the very early version of it and everyone started asking who’s behind the track. We must say we used all the hype around it cleverly, which resulted in such great support. Support from the big names and watching our track in Beatport’s top 10 is definitely something that gives us strength and big amount of inspiration to work even harder. There’s always a space to improve and that’s something we will try to achieve in the future.

Speaking of future releases, what are you currently working on in the studio? I’ve seen you hyping ‘Future Rave’ vibed stuff in the studuio, so when can fans expect another release from MAD2MAD?

We are working on a lot of different projects, maybe too many haha. Yes, you noticed that very well. “Future Rave” is a term established by Shapov that perfectly explains the actual style we are trying to encapsulate in our productions and to kinda bring back the good old progressive sound in a new way, with help of our good friend Erick Kasell. Regarding our new releases, we are actually finishing the follow up for Hypnotize. It’s in similar style, but with slightly different vibe, the first impressions are excellent, we can’t wait for people to hear it. Also, we are working with a very talented singer on our first vocal track and there are a couple of collaborations, one of them with a young and talented superstar from one of the biggest labels on the scene, watch out for that one, too!

You also run your own label entitled ‘Hoist Records’, so what inspired you to start your own imprint? What’s the ‘unique selling point’ of the imprint and what sort of tracks are you looking to sign to the label too?

Thanks a lot for noticing that! We started our own imprint, Hoist Records, around a year ago, with couple of good friends, in order to give the opportunity to young and talented artists to break through. We were receiving a lot of great demos that were unsigned, so we decided to do something with it. After label’s first year we can be proud of the support we got from the heavyweights like Axwell & Ingrosso, David Guetta, Nicky Romero, Dannic, Kryder, Blasterjaxx, R3hab, Promise Land and many others. We are signing mainly energetic, electro or progressive house tracks, but everything that is unique and fresh can find it’s place on the label. We signed a lot of different genres recently, and we are pretty excited to release them in the upcoming months.

Everybody has dreams too, right? So, if you could collaborate with ANY artist on a track, who would it be? Also why? And, what label would you like to release it via too?

That’s tough question haha. The artists we are truly admiring at the moment are definitely Third Party, Shapov and MEG \ NERAK, because they own their signature style we love, their productions are always on point, and technically are one of the best producers in the game. I think we don’t need to say it would be an absolute dream to collaborate with legends such as Axwell, Ingrosso or Angello, everything started from the trio. Speaking about labels, Axtone and Size are like Holy Grails of electronic dance music, so having your track labelled under their name would be more than a dream coming true. We will definitely work hard in the future to achieve at least some of these things.

Finally, as mentioned before, you’re from Belgrade, where can fans see you spin this year? Have you got any good club gigs or festival sets planned in the pipeline too?

Yes, we are living and working in Belgrade. We had a lot of great gigs last season, playing Exit’s Sea Dance Festival, Green Future Festival with StadiumX, Foam Fest and other big festivals in the country and region. This season will be even bigger with more festivals and even better time, we are more than excited to kick it off. At the very end, we would like to give a big shoutout to our #hljebimljeko group (Erick Kasell, Divolly & Markward, Drop Department, Pessto, Showbiz, Dujak, Farrel, Raf and Diamond Mark). Very talented producers and great people, we’ve been supporting each other for some time now, and the results are more than amazing. You can expect some big things from them in the future. And of course, thank you very much guys for giving us the chance to present us and our work. We tried to showcase something we dig at the moment, we play on our gigs, and of course there’s some serious ID action in this 30 min mix, so we really hope you will enjoy. Till next time, much love from MAD2MAD.