In the spotlight: BEAUZ
It's interview time!
After their fantastic single release 'Bipolar' on Future Generation in early May, we are ecstatic to have the fastest rising Asian-American duo BEAUZ to sit down with us to discuss about Bipolar and the development of their signature sounds, career highlights, hobbies and how 2019 is looking like for them at the moment!
Hi Bernie and Johan! Thanks for making some room for this little interview. Please tell us what you’ve been up to lately and how you’re spending your time these days?
"Thank you for having us! We recently released our major label debut “Sayonara” on June 21st and we have been working hard with our team to push it hard – during the first month alone it has gotten amazing responses from both our fans and tastemakers and we couldn’t be happier! On July 3rd we also released the official music video, which was the first of many coming soon. Otherwise we have just spent some time with family in Indonesia while coming up with a bunch of new song ideas. We’ve been focusing on creating the most beautiful melodies possible and we’re happy to say that we’ve accumulated about five finished tracks and five new song ideas so far."
To get to know you a bit better, we’d love to hear how BEAUZ got started in the first place and how’s the journey been until 2019?
"We grew up with music since young age. We played the piano, violin and saxophone, we sang, dance and beatboxed, and we were even offered a training contract from a major label to be in a boyband. Since our mom prioritized education, we turned that down and I (Bernie) went to attend USC in California. While I was there I attended my first festival and fell in love with electronic dance music ever since. I bought my first DJ controller and after some time of experimenting became interested in music production. At the same time Johan moved to California to attend his senior year of high school, so we had the opportunity to live together for a year. Since Johan knew how to navigate FL Studio briefly, I suggested that we start making our own music, and that’s how we got into production. Upon graduating from USC I decided to pursue music full-time and Johan joined me after he graduated from UC Berkeley two years later.
The journey has been amazing so far. We have met so many amazing people, learned so much about the industry, and made an enormous amount music that we can’t wait to put out. Our family is also seeing our grind and have started to respect it. We want to make everyone proud by giving our 110% in whatever we do, although we gotta say that the hole gets infinitely deeper as we progress further into our career!"
We were extremely satisfied to have you guys release with us as our tenth release on Future Generation! What was it like working with ThatBehavior and Luna on “Bipolar”?
"Releasing Bipolar with Future Generation was an amazing experience for us in every aspect. When ThatBehavior first sent us the skeleton of the track we already knew that it had the potential to be something special. After the instrumental was ready we immediately wrote to it, but it took a while to find the perfect vocalist to make it come alive; at the end we couldn’t be more satisfied with Luna’s performance on it. The record is meant for those who are suffering in their relationships yet don’t know when to, or if they should ever, walk away from the love that once was their source of happiness. It personifies the contradicting nature between loving memories and unhappy relationship, and aims to remind that only by truly valuing oneself could one realize that the toxicity isn’t worth staying for."
Pop music and EDM can be particularly difficult to develop a signature sound in to help people recognize the production instead of just the vocals. How have you both gone about perfecting your sound to let people know that BEAUZ is the one behind the track?
"One thing that we always try to do in our productions is keeping everything as clean as possible. We create by the rule 'less is more' and strive to give our audience a smooth and soothing listening experience by presenting only the most enjoyable elements. If you listen to enough of our music you’ll also notice that although we make various styles of music, certain sounds and motifs are ubiquitous in our productions. Another thing is we take pride in our multicultural background (Chinese, Indonesian, American) and infuse oriental flavors into our contemporary sounds."
Looking over your past performances, what are some of the memories that have had the most impact on you?
"Daydream Festival Shanghai was our first overseas festival gig and it’s easily one of the favorite moments in our career. Being able to travel to the other side of the world to perform our own music, seeing that fans showed up to catch our early set, and seeing their excitement when we met afterwards was simply life-changing. Then there was the recent Exchange LA show we played. Growing up near LA and spending the past 8 years here, we felt really humbled to witness how far we’ve come and how many people have been supporting us since day one."
What is the most meaningful way to get your music heard and how do you craft a track to make the most impact wherever it is played?
"We always make sure the vocals and drop we use, from melody to lyrics, are as catchy as possible. As subjective as music is, we noticed that catchy ones tend to make the most impact among a wider audience, and we pride ourselves in the effort we put in to make that our priority. However, gaining true fans is a skill that requires humility and constant willingness to learn. We believe that staying humble and keeping connection with your fans at the ground level is the key to success."
On a lighter note, what do you two enjoy doing outside of the studio these days?
"We used to love socializing and partying but since this has become our jobs we actually cut down a lot and prefer to chill and spend time with family. We also love to hit the gym and eat good food!"
What can we look forward from you two going into the rest of the year?
"Our new track ‘Sayonara’ with Universal Music means a lot to us because it’s the first single we release with a major label, and it marks a big step towards our goals. Up next we have a track to be released via Armada main label and much more coming in the coming here. We like to always keep ourselves busy working on many records and collabs, some of which we can’t wait to announce. However, in the upcoming future we hope to tour in many new places and have the chance to meet and get to know our fans, because that’s what we love the most!"
We hope you enjoyed reading this interview and getting to know the guys a little bit better! Make sure to tune into their socials to keep up with their upcoming releases and announcements.
Made in partnership with The QR Network, which is a site for interviews with some of the most emerging producers and DJs!