Backstage With Andrew Rayel at Dreamstate USA

Photo Credit: Jake West

Trance heaven does exist, we got there at Dreamstate. This year Dreamstate was held on Trancegiving weekend. At Dreamstate we were lucky enough to talk to “the future of trance music” star Andrew Rayel.

Andrew Rayel is a Moldova native who is dynamic and is shaping the trance scene. He just launched his new record label, inHarmony Music in September this year and played the mainstage at Dreamstate. He brings new and refreshing sounds to dreamer’s ears and helps them enter trance heaven.

Karen:

Hi Andrew, thank you for having us today. What are you looking forward to about playing Dreamstate? Is it different from any other festivals do you play?

Andrew Rayel:

It's definitely different because at Dreamstate, it's all about trance music. So, in general, I'm known to be in the middle of the genre, in the middle of the big room in trance, but I tend to play more trance, euphoric, melodic stuff for festivals like Dreamstate. I always prepare something different, something more melodic, something more trance-y, and that's what I'm going to do tonight. That's why it's different from any other.

Karen:

Yeah. I can't wait to see. You just came out with your new album Moments. Is there any reasoning behind the name?

Andrew Rayel:

Well, yeah, Moments represents all those beautiful moments from all our lives that we want to create and remember forever, and probably was created by me getting inspired by those moments from my life. Having those beautiful shows, the great production, having ... meeting those beautiful fans that are coming to our shows. Even the moments with the fans like I had so many times when people would get engaged during my shows, there’s a lot of great love stories.  All of those little things are together inspired me to make this album and call it Moments.

Karen:

How would you describe your fans?

Andrew Rayel:

Well they're probably the best fans in the world. They share so much love. They make T-shirts with my name. They send me pictures. They make cover sing a-longs to a lot of my songs that they know. That's great. That's the best thing for an artist to feel that interaction, to feel that energy with the fans. And that what makes me get inspired and create more music of them.

Karen:

Awesome, so in Moments, you teamed up with trance legend ATB to create "Connected." How was collaborating with him, and what was the inspiration behind the track?

Andrew Rayel:

It was a very easy collaboration. It was very fast. I had bunch of melodies. That's what I usually make, just piano melodies and I save them in a Dropbox folder. And he approached me, asking me if I had something cool. I just sent them, the whole folder. I was like, "Choose bro, whatever you like," and a few days after they came to me saying, "Okay, this is the melody we really like. Let's work on it." And after that it was a few weeks sending ideas to each other, tweaking things, and it was very easy. Very talented, ATB is obviously a legend of trance music so I was very happy and honored to collaborate with him.

Karen:

You play everywhere now. You've once said, if you could play anywhere it would be your home country, Moldova. Does that still hold true?

Andrew Rayel:

Yeah, absolutely. I play there all the times. I do big shows over there. A lot of people know me. I mean it's one of those dreams that became a reality. I do sold-out shows for five, six thousand people, and they always sell out. And we would have done even bigger, but there's no bigger venue at this point in Moldova, but we're working on that, maybe making the shows in open spaces and stuff like that.

Karen:

Oh wow.

Andrew Rayel:

It's going pretty well. It's ... the trance music ... in general electronic music is growing up really fast in that region in general. If you watch the news, there's so many festivals in Eastern Europe.

Karen:

Yeah, it's changing very fast. If you weren't producing music, what would you be doing?

Andrew Rayel:

I don't know. Something also very artistic. Something related to art. I studied economics, accounting, so I'm a licensed accountant.

Karen:

Oh, an accountant?

Andrew Rayel:

But I don't think I would be doing that. I don't know. Maybe also related to music, to art, to painting, to something creative.

Karen:

What does your creative process look like?

Andrew Rayel:

Photo Credit: Karl-Erik Leesment

It's always different. A lot of people have a weird thinking about the creative process. They think that we as a creative people come up with all these ideas in sleep, and then we just run away to our studio, and drop all those melodies. It doesn't really work like that. We have to be in that environment. We have to get inspired. You have to try. You have to experiment a lot, and at some point, you hear something that you really like, and you start recording that, and bring all that together.

Karen:

Congratulations on your launch of your label, inHarmony Music.

Andrew Rayel:

Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, the first release was in September. I announced it in August, but yeah the official launch was in September with the first release called, "Mass Effect."

Karen:

Are there any sub genres at trance you want to focus on, such as psy-trance, uplifting, progressive, or dark?

Andrew Rayel:

I do like psy-trance for sure, not like completely. I do like some tracks. Some elements from psy-trance. I still do prefer more like big room trance, melodic trance, and I focus myself more on that. Let's put it this way, I like music in general, so I don't really think about styles. If something comes up to me, I just do it, record it, and later on I decide if it makes sense to release it. I have tracks made in so many different genres and the only reason I'm not releasing them is because a lot of fans would not understand that. If I do something a little bit far from what they ... what I'm known to be doing, they start screaming on Facebook, "Why are you doing that?"

Karen:

Yeah with trance, especially.

Andrew Rayel:

"Why are ... you're a sellout. You're not staying true to your genre," but I've done so much stuff. It's just sitting on the computer, which I love by the way.

Karen:

Do you have any advice for aspiring DJs or producers?

Andrew Rayel:

It's very simple, at the beginning, all the aspiring producers and DJs should be focusing on a person that they really like, on a DJ, on a musical genre that they really like. And try to achieve their sound, so try to produce the track that they really like. Try to kind of remake it, remake that sound. In order for them to progress to that level. Do something different, and try to find yourself in a new sound. Try to come up with something new, and if you do succeed on finding that new or new genre or something interesting in the sound, you're going to be very popular. You're going to rise very fast.

Official Website 

Facebook

Soundcloud

Twitter

Spotify

inHarmony Music