Getting to know Carlos Serrano, Dance Music’s Mashup King (Part 1)

Two years ago at Ultra, I’m sitting at the pool talking with a few people (now friends) that I met through WRR and someone brought up this Daft Punk and Adele mashup that we posted. Sitting poolside listening through the speakers of an iPhone, first time listeners were still captivated by the sound. Years from now when we look back at this era of music, it will be considered one of the best remixes or mashups. Maybe even timeless.

This feature is about getting to know Carlos Serrano; the producer, dj, average 23-year-old Mexican-American from San Diego who’s making serious headway in the dance music scene. No labels or press agencies, just an intense passion for music supported by a tenacious hustle.

The opportunity is out there, but you have to chase it.

So to start this interview I have to ask when you combined two sounds in “Something About The Fire” did you know how big it was? 

To be quite honest, I never expected the track to become as popular as it did. I was completely shocked by the feedback it received in a matter of minutes as I had only planned to upload the track just for fun. “Something About Us” is undoubtedly one of my all time favorite tracks so I sought to create something special out of it. The result was unimaginable as by the end of the night the track had already reached up to 80,000 plays, the #1 position on Hype Machine, and received praise from a vast number of websites.

By the end of the week it acquired over 500,000 plays making it the 2nd most played track on SoundCloud at the time (behind M83’s “MidnightCity)”. In a span of one month the track was the subject of 1,000,000 plays, radio airplay from across the globe, and was featured on Rolling Stone and MTV. It was completely overwhelming and happened all so quickly, but I’m extremely grateful for the people who supported it.

In a lot of ways dance music is a business where one single can drive an artists career. What did that mashup do for yours?

This track really put me in a position to take my music career to the next level. Previous to this track I had already accumulated a fair amount of followers, but “Something About The Fire” really put me on the map. It directed a large number of people to my social media pages and put me under the telescope for numerous websites as 500,000 plays on SoundCloud in a week was unheard of during the time. A wake up call would be an understatement to what this track brought on to my plate, and I wasn’t about to take it for granted.

Okay, I had to get that question out of the way first. Who are you? Where did you come from? Why make electronic music?

My name is Carlos Serrano, a regular 23 year old from San Diego, CA putting music on the internet for people to enjoy. Music has always been my biggest passion and everyone that knows me personally will tell you the same. I started to pursue music because it was always around me. My family would always play music that I enjoyed at family gatherings or in the car on the way to dinner.

As a child I would listen to the music and it subconsciously grew on me. Everything from Hall N Oates, Sade, Ohio Players, Kiss, Bowie, Prince, New Order to latin artists as I am from a Mexican family. I was heavily influenced by a lot of different genres and was determined to know more. As I grew older I started to discover more music on my own but never settled to just one style. I loved listening to a different range of music including indie, punk rock, rap, to classical, soul, and jazz music. Anything that sounded cool to me I wanted to play it until I knew every single lyric or the melody was engraved into my brain.

Finally when I was about 11 years old I discovered dance music and it completely took over my life.

Artists such as The Chemical Brothers, Tiesto, Oakenfold, John Digweed, Daft Punk, Eddie Amador, and Underworld really left me in awe by the way their sounds created a feeling that no other music could. When I was 14, I started heading to Los Angeles and Tijuana with my friends to catch these artists perform as electronic artists would rarely come to San Diego and when they did they played for 21+ crowds. So many people coming together to see them play was something that I’ve never witnessed before, leaving me in complete admiration.

Soon after attending these shows I knew I wanted to create that same unique feeling for other people, so I purchased my first turntables and picked up production software. Being stirred by the huge raves, my friends and I soon started making our own parties in high school and would literally invite hundreds of people through MySpace.

I remember this one house party got a little out of hand and police sent helicopters to come shut it down. Everyone left in seconds and I was left to deal with the cops. They asked me if I was that DJ everyone was posting about on MySpace and laughed. The cops were cool about it and let me go, but before they did they let me know that they liked what they heard. I had so much fun that night making people dance and have a great time, I knew I had to keep on pursuing this.

Was there a moment where you decided that, “this is what I’m doing for the rest of my life and this is how I’m going to do it” or has it been more of let’s give it a go and see what happens?

There were two moments that really stood out to me, letting me know that this is what I wanted to do with my life. Skipping class with one of my best friends to see if an online article RollingStone wrote about me was published on the physical magazine was one of them. Reading about myself on a magazine that I looked up to growing up was a very surreal feeling that I will never forget. It let me know that I was doing something right and people were listening.

However, the moment that really made me open my eyes was receiving a message from a cancer survivor on SoundCloud. This person let me know that my music was the only thing that was helping him get through chemo. If I could help people through my music, there would be no greater reward in life.

When your music first started getting noticed, who picked up on it first? Was it support from a major artist or did it begin to circulate the blogs and then gain traction?

My music first started to get noticed by various blogs and began from there. I would send countless of emails to different websites and some of them would respond letting me know they were down to support my sound. From there I built some solid relationships with these websites as I kept them updated with my latest music. I’m extremely grateful because without them it’s nearly impossible for people to listen to you nowadays due to so many people making electronic music.

While my music started to get picked up by more people, some major artists began supporting my stuff as well. One of those artists was Erick Morillo, a huge influence to me as he is a house music legend and also comes from latin descent. Two weeks after he posted my track I got the chance to meet him at a local show. It was a very humbling feeling having him tell me that he enjoyed my work and to keep doing what I loved. He rolled up to the venue in crutches that night with a beautiful woman on each arm and played a killer set. Such a boss…

I think I saw a post on your facebook where someone commented on your Soundcloud page, calling your mashups works of art. From the way you’re able to combine sounds to the artwork that’s aesthetically beautiful, I have to agree. Are mashups your art? Or will you begin to expand into original productions?

Creating mashups is something that I love doing and drives me as an artist. Combining different styles of music and building something innovative and refreshing is an huge passion for me. When someone tells me “wow, it was like listening to the original track for the first time” I know I did something right.

Fabricating that special magic when you first hear a track is something rare and I make sure people have that amazing feeling whenever they listen to a Carlos Serrano mashup.

This is something I have been able to build with my fans and it’s very special being able to connect with them through this medium. However, my heart is in dance music and I have been developing my sound for a while now. I feel I’m finally ready to show people my original productions which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. Going from mashups to your own work is certainly a nerve racking feeling but I’m more relaxed now as people are really showing love to my first productions.

I also plan to produce hip-hop and venture out into various genres of music later on in the future, there are so many things I want to do. I feel I’m just getting started and I cannot wait to continue showing people my vision.

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Connect with Carlos on Facebook | Twitter | Soundcloud

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