Tony Junior isn’t new to being in the spotlights, with a reality on Dutch television with his dad he got used to having camera’s all around him. Besides that, he’s travelling the world to perform as DJ at some of the biggest stages. Recently he started a new YouTube series in which he’ll be giving viewers a peek into his personal life and will be helping out young producers. He was headlining City Of Dance Festival in Middelburg on the 17 July so we decided to do an interview with him. Check it out!
Hi Tony, Thanks for making the time to do this interview! How are you doing?
I’m fine thanks! No problem!
Great, recently you launched your new reality series on YouTube & you’ll be helping out young producers, are you also going to do a collab with them?
If their demo amazes me that might happen. I’m basically doing this to give back and because I just love music. I know firsthand how hard it is to get your demo heard and as you can imagine I receive sometimes like 100 demo’s in 1 day so I can’t help everybody, but the ones that I’ll pick will definitely learn a lot.
As you say you can well remember when you struggled to get your demo out there. It’s safe to say that you’ve arrived now, what has been your big break-through moment?
That’s a difficult question because you basically keep setting new goals & raising the bar for your success. Standing at AMF with Tiësto, getting number 1 on Beatport etc.; I mean that I don’t to sound selfish or something but you get used to things. Therefore, you always want to reach bigger goals. Standing here today is also reaching a goal because 3 years ago I played at like 1 pm and now I’ve got the honor to close.
You’ve already done loads of big things in your career, you already mentioned that you can get used to things, how on earth did you manage to get used to always having a camera right on top of you wherever you go?
To be honest in the first couple of weeks it got me in awkward situations because you’re not used to having it around like all the time. Now I don’t see it anymore and I’m just being myself you know. I like that I can give people personal insight in my life and my attitude & yeah they like following it.
We can understand it’s not easy in the first couple of weeks indeed. Have you got anything special prepared for the closing of City Of Dance? Any new tracks to be premiered?
Well yeah I do have about 8 tunes that are ready to be tested. Amongst those is a collab with Maddix and a remix that I did for Calvin Harris that’s going to be released soon. I’m not sure whether I’ll be playing many new ones today though because it all depends on the crowd and from my experience the Dutch crowd prefers a relatively commercial closing at a festival.
Okay, we’re curious about the tunes you’ve got coming up! Looking at your vlogs you’re on the road a lot & you’re doing loads of gigs, especially with the summer-tour on the way of course. What’s your way to spark creativity & what do you do to chill out?
For creativity to start a new track I simply lock myself up in the studio. Being in the studio at 3 am isn’t uncommon for me. When I’m working on new music I need total privacy so I recently deleted Pokémon GO because that’s distracting. I do love Pokémon though; my Slowpoke tattoo proves that. I love going fishing with my own little boat to clear my mind, there are actually more artists that love that so sometimes I exchange phone-numbers & we go fishing as a team.
So you mean real fish, not a Magikarp or something via the Pokémon GO app?
Haha, no I fish carp, sometimes I manage to catch real big ones!
Alright just kidding. Since you’re flying a lot for your summer-tour and because of the recent situation in the world, does it scare you at all?
Of course it’s alarming, in a couple of weeks I’m performing in Turkey and of course I’m always flying a lot. It doesn’t stop me from travelling though, but it makes me realize how important it is to have great people around you and to spend quality time with your family & best friends.
We understand you. So last question; where will everybody be able to catch you performing in the coming period?
There are so many shows coming up, pretty much all around the world. I’m really looking forward to Mysteryland in August and yeah there’s a USA- and even an Asia-tour coming up. I would just advise everybody to keep a close eye on my online channels & tour-dates.
Alright have fun closing City Of Dance & we’ll definitely keep following you.
Thanks!
Make sure to follow & stay up to date with Tony Junior:
Instagram: Tonyjuniorofficial
Facebook: Tony Junior
Twitter: Tonyjuniorlive
Snapchat: Tonyjuniorsnap
© Festivalling.com
Interviewer: Alexander Bouten