Chilli JAM is proud to have sat down for a wee bit of chit-chat with New Zealand’s hottest DJ talent of the moment, Maya and Vanya…
These girls really should need no introduction. They have been dominating the Auckland club scene, smashing all the big NZ festivals, touring the country and winning international DJ competitions. “Is that all??!!!”. The Croatian born, New Zealand living sister duo also recently made a pilgrimage to the Miami Winter Music Conference, the largest event on the international dance music calender, after winning the Lets Mix NGDJ Competition.
You can catch Maya and Vanya this Saturday, 22nd May, at Good Luck Bar in Wellington for Chilli JAM presents FOUR IS NOT A THREESOME feat Maya and Vanya with support from Buff Marvin and Dilby.
Here’s what is going down with them right now…
Can you introduce yourselves and tell us an interesting fact about each other that Chilli JAM readers won’t know? We used to be professional figure skaters, true story!
So, it’s been a big year so far for Maya and Vanya. Can you tell us what was the highlight of your recent trip to the Miami Winter Music Conference? The whole trip was pretty rad! Highlight was just being there amongst it all and getting to experience playing at some of WMC’s biggest parties alongside guys like M.A.N.D.Y, Swedish House Mafia, Pete Tong, Tiesto, Afrojack, Nic Fanciulli, Diplo, DJ Sneak, Dennis Ferrer, even Macy Gray! But the craziest gig out of them all was playing for the Mad Decent label party with all their crew, chicken on the BBQ and daggering all night long!
And I hear you are off on a Europe tour very soon. Can you tell the readers a wee bit about what that will involve and what you have planned? We’re heading there this July for their summer and have a tour lined up over the UK, Croatia, Ibiza and hopefully more to come so we’re really excited about that, its such a different experience to play at gigs overseas and it’s awesome to get the opportunity to do so.
Are there any gigs on that tour that you are particularly looking forward to? Definitely looking forward to playing at Creamfields in the UK, also we’re gonna be around there when the Exit Festival is on so can’t wait to check that out!
Beside all the international jet setting, you guys have found the time to play at some of New Zealand’s biggest parties and festivals. What would be your local highlight so far? Still Rhythm n Vines for sure! There’s not much that beats jam packing our car and driving down to Gissy for a week over the new year, getting amongst the grapevines and playing to an awesome crowd who are up for anything. Its one of the best vibes and something we’ve looked forward to every year.
Your sets and mixes seem to be containing a lot more edits and remixes in recent months. How have you found the move to production? We’ve always made edits and bootlegs here and there, just for fun and mainly for our sets but its only recently that we’ve started getting onto production more seriously. While Maya was as uni she did a few courses on music production on the side and got into Logic, Protools, Ableton and we both spent hours watching videos and tutorials on it so the basic knowledge of it all was always there. Its only recently that we’ve pushed for some proper studio time with some of our buddies like Dick Johnson getting to use some pretty epic studio equipment and proper monitors (as opposed to our $40 hand-me-downs that we’ve been working on till now) and other toys.
Do you have any original work in the pipelines? Your DJ sets and mixes tend to span quite a few different genres. What kind of sound can we expect from your original work? At the moment we’re in the studio working towards releasing our debut ep. The sound that we’re going for with this one is on the house and tropical tip with a twist of uk funky and dub sound to it.
Tell us a little bit about the set up your using in the studio? At home? Lol, right now its in Maya’s room which contains one MacBook Pro, Ableton, Logic, some rusty ancient Pioneer speakers that our dad used in the 80s, a bongo, a couple of shakers that one of us bought as a souvenir from Miami, and an inbuilt computer mic… But from time to time we do manage to put Dick Johnson in a headlock (which is not as easy as it sounds as he’s a very busy man!) and get the honour of producing in the BE Club studio which is equipped with some of the best gear there is.
Your sound has been described as “tropical house” and, while you play a very broad range of music, you tend to have a penchant towards Latin and tribal tinged music. How would you describe your sound and what are your influences? Its really hard for us to describe our sound as its ever evolving. I guess our main influence comes from our parents’ record collection filled with all sorts of music from all over the world, in particular the Spanish, Latino, South American and African sounds. I guess when you add that to the music that we ourselves listened to throughout the years you get that in a more clubby, house and hip hop mixture.
So, your playing at Good Luck bar in Wellington this weekend. What can the Wellington crowd expect from your set musically? We love Wellington so we’re excited about coming back down, have never played at Good Luck yet so really looking forward to that!
Thanks heaps for taking the time to have a chat and I’ll see you in the weekend for a big night at Good Luck.
Connect with Maya and Vanya using rad social media (how fresh!):
Maya & Vanya on Myspace
Maya & Vanya on Twitter
Download to get down…
Download Mix
Enjoy.
