Your sound has been described as the love child of Armin, Indira, Landry, Lens, and Cox. You called it your favourite compliment ever. Why that one specifically — and which of those five shows up most in what you actually make. Which one are you still trying to earn.
I remember reading this with a smile on my face. It’s just the level of respect I have for all the artist’ names and to be compared to not one but all of them is such an honour. I also like that the people are understanding and loving the diversity I have within my music. I believe every one of those artists has influenced my work, but the king, Carl Cox, is one artist I will always and forever be learning from.
Charlie Sparks. You were born with it. How much of your artistic identity was shaped by the name you were given, and how much of the name was shaped by who you became.
It’s me. The music, the person you see on stage, the artist people follow — it’s not a costume or a front. It’s me in the flesh, in front of thousands of people, and the energy I give out comes straight from my heart.
You grew up in Kawasaki-Daishi and go back every summer. Most artists talk about dual identity as a resource. We want to know if it’s ever felt like a fracture — a place where you didn’t fully belong to either side. And how much of what you’ve built is an attempt to resolve that, or at least to hold both things at once.
See, I’ve never really understood when people say they never felt belonging because of being parts of two worlds. I can see why but I never understood it personally. For me it was another way to stand out, be a black sheep. It allowed me to be different from birth and one quote that stuck with me in my childhood was from one of my idols in a completely different scene. “The one thing I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that”, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You finished your architecture degree even when the music was pulling harder. What made you stay and finish — was it discipline, was it fear, was it for someone else. And is there anything you lost by leaving, or does it live inside everything you make.
Both discipline and pure love of architecture. It’s classed as the mother of the arts and I was in love with what I was doing. That’s what helped me finish the degree. But music, especially techno, was my first pure passion in life. I knew that nothing I did would compare to the feeling I get from it, so I had to give it my all and see before I gave up on the dream. You don’t lose it, you forget. But it’s always inside. Architecture uses materials and space to create emotions for the user. Music uses sounds. There are times where I miss it, but I know I’ll use it again. It’s given me a mental foundation for how to approach everything in life.
ELEKTRA is a community and family-like place. You went to your first rave alone. You warn artists about isolation from personal experience — and trust me on that advice is doing a lot of work. How much of ELEKTRA is for emerging artists and how much of it is for you, the version of you who needed it and didn’t have it.
ELEKTRA is for everyone and that’s the beauty. It’s a place for ravers to find new best friends and memories on the dancefloor. A place for emerging artists to have a platform and showcase their talent. A place for me to be proud of and feel part of something bigger, together. All experiences are better when you share them. I’m proud to finally be at the place where one of my goals is real: creating opportunity through talent. When I started I had no one around me to guide me. I had to find everything in the dark. If I can shine a little light, my day is made.
The first year of touring professionally you couldn’t open your DAW. A year is a long time. That’s not a creative block — that’s something more structural. What was actually happening. And when you finally went back to the studio, what was the first thing you made and what did it feel like.
When I started this journey as a producer I had the time to focus on just that, my studio and producing. When I joined my agency, Apelago, my journey as a DJ touring around the world started. Sometimes 3-4 shows on the same weekend. I once had 6 shows in 24 hours. Travelling alone, meeting new people, I had so much input during those first years that I was incapable of finding time for myself and my producing. When I first started producing I was a techno producer. Harder techno. I want to emphasise that word, harder, because my sound was never hard techno. It was harder techno, keeping the essence and energy of techno at its core. But as a DJ I discovered all these new genres in hard dance. Reverse bass, French core, gabber, bounce. That changed my sound completely, as a producer and as a DJ. The first studio session back I had to learn from the start. I was producing a new genre. It was like going back to square one, reshaping my sound and learning how to make this music again. The first EP back was Rude Boy Selecta, a mix of my old sound with everything I had been playing as a DJ.
You said your thought process over the past year was clouded and confused in both your production and your performances. That’s an unusual thing to admit publicly. What was doing the clouding. And what cleared it.
Life itself was cloudy. There was so much input and hectic energy, mostly good, all at once, that I couldn’t find my way back to the producer inside me. I got taken on this insane journey as a DJ, one who had to learn as he went. The ride was absolutely insane and still is. But over time, with small changes, I was able to compartmentalize and have a clearer vision of what’s in front of me.
You said hitting rock bottom in your personal life was a big push for your creative side. You said it in an interview and moved on. We’re not moving on. What happened? Not for gossip — because the album is described as a testament to four years of battles in both your music life and your personal life and we want to understand what we’re actually listening to.
I think what people forget is that the DJ you see on stage is also a human and also it’s the first time they experience this new journey and change in life. Yes it’s what I’ve worked towards but no one warns you how crazy it is and also you don’t want a warning you want to go ahead but it still takes a toll on your body mind and personal life. There’s the partying side where you come from the dancefloor and all of a sudden you’re on the other side while the dancefloor version of you is still your shell and to slowly adapt into a new shell which is being the DJ, the one providing the party with responsibility takes time.
There were also a lot of family issues and breaks within it at the same time that were pulling everyone apart that I had to deal with once the show was over. I learned that you never know what life is going to throw at you both good and bad. This is the beauty of life, so I just see it as no matter how bad you think it is. It will and can get better because life is full of surprises.
