All Eyes on Motez

If you’re a fan of the Aussie ‘90s-meets-modern vibes—and any sensible music-lover would be—you’re probably jonesing for more.

Meet Motez, one of our inaugural 5 Essential Artists, who’s taken over the American scene in just one summer. He’s no newcomer, though. Motez put in the work overseas for about four years, and he’s got cred. His exclusive 20-minute Insomniac mix (and don’t forget our mix from fellow Essential Artist Krakota) features recent remixes for Anna Lunoe and Wuki, and he’s got support from Annie Mac, Eats Everything, and Tchami.

To what do you attribute your career blowing up so fast in America?
I think the right things happened at the right time. There are a lot of people that are really supportive of my music. It happened at the start of summer. My music has been played by people like Tchami, Annie Mac, all of those guys. They really supported me. I think the other factor is in America, the sound is changing a little bit. I think maybe it’s the last summer for the whole EDM thing. Maybe G-House, or what people are calling now deep house—even though I disagree with it—is creeping in. I think next summer will be far more of that.

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal where they interviewed Patrick Moxey, the founder of Ultra Music. He said the next big trend in electronic music is going to be house and deep house. What are your thoughts?
That sort of sound has always been happening in Europe. There’s a very prominent culture in Europe. In Australia, I noticed it in the latest tour I made, just before I got to America. People are far more receptive to that house, the bass house, the deep house. I’ve noticed that in America as well. It’s not obviously as big as the electro sound or the EDM stuff. But I feel like the bigger the kind of EDM sound is, the more it kind of alienates other people to go deeper, go with the groovier house and different sounds. So I completely agree.

We listed you as one of our 5 Essential Artists to Watch for the month of August. You’ve been doing this for a few years. What do you want to tell to any up-and-coming artists to get to where you are?
I’m very big on work ethic in general. People need to do it for the right reasons. You need to have an immense drive to make it. Talent is good, but talent is very relative to the person you’re talking about. I think persistence, drive, and just doing it for the right reasons will get you anywhere.

What would you consider to be the right reasons?
Doing it for music. Not doing it for anything else. Having that as your profession, having that as your career, you wanna do it for a living. It’s an awesome thing to have, just do it for that reason. Some people do it for different reasons. Some people go about it the wrong way. Just put in the hours actually sitting down in the studio and making music. That to me is the key.

What would be a wrong reason?
A lot of people spend more time on the networking side of things, too much time networking, too much time touring or DJing. DJing is cool. It gets your name out there, but you need to have product behind what you do. Some guys spend a lot of time on gimmicks in their shows. It only goes for so long. After that, people kind of wonder where your music is. If you have the music, then it doesn’t matter.

“In America, the sound is changing a little bit. I think maybe it’s the last summer for the whole EDM thing.”

Do you think the American music industry is marketing Australia as the next hotbed of music, or is that happening organically?
I think, at the start, it happened organically. People started noticing music, for example Flume and Chet Faker. That happened organically. Then all of a sudden, it’s like people started looking at Australia for the new dose of music. I think probably marketing contributed to that, but at the beginning, what I was saying about being a producer, if you don’t have the content, there is no point in marketing. There is a lot of good content coming out of Australia, so it’s probably a good way to market it.

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