Justin Prime’s remix of “Can You Feel the Love” is incredibly epic from top to bottom. The passionate vocals and heavy percussion segway perfectly to a massive drop of roaring synth chords and moombahton-style drums.This is easily one of heaviest Justin Prime sound to date and I simply cannot get enough of what he’s dishing out.
Prime has come along way since his humble beginnings; even from the start, his talent has always steadily escalated his fan-base. But then there was “Cannonball” , which catapulted Prime into the mainstream EDM spotlight and changed his career forever. WRR caught up with Justin Prime to grab details about his career, success, background, and life on the road.
How did the name “Justin Prime” develop?
My real name is Justin Putuhena, but I figured my last name is too difficult for people to pronounce. In Asia people probably wouldn’t have a hard time to pronounce my name, but since I’m operating on a global base, I had to came up with a name that would be more easy for people to pronounce haha. I made a list of different names, and this was the winning one!
Were you planning on being a dance producer when you were working toward your Sound Engineering degree at Univ. of Utrecht?
Yes. I started producing music when I was 15 years old. When I was 18 I released my first vinyl record on an indie hardstyle record label. I knew I was still not good enough on terms of mixing and mastering, so I decided to go to school and study for sound engineering and mastering, and from there on created my own kind of mixing style. I have been told I’m a “clean mixer” lol.. I never want to clip or push things too much to the edge. But nowadays you really have to. Anyways, from the age of 18 until 25 I have been in the hardstyle scene releasing a lot of records on different labels. At home I was listening to all kinds of music and I started to produce pop and dance music besides Hardstyle. It really made me happy to be free in my productions and I decided to follow my heart and switched over to electro/progressive house. I started to produce music for myself and a few month later also for other internationally renown dj’s and pop artists.
Has your degree benefited you in unexpected ways?
Not the degree itself, but more the things that I have learned at school. They taught me a lot of technical stuff like how a compressor and eq works, the use of delay and reverb, limiting, and several other tricks and techniques. This really comes in handy when you’re a the final stage of your track and want to make it sound good.
When was the moment when you realized “Holy Shit, Justin Prime is getting huge!”
Well, I already saw some progression last year when some big names like Afrojack and Tiesto started to pick up my track Revolt. But things really started to blow up for me when I released my track “Cannonball” with Showtek. This track got so much attention worldwide, and it really put me in the picture.
Is there other projects you’re excited about that are non-music related?
Well, besides music I love food and I love cooking 🙂 The only thing is, I don’t really have the time for it lately so I’m skipping that more often nowadays. I also like to work out in the gym, but we need to make a better balance between those two haha…I love cars, especially Audi’s and I like to watch comedy movies and laugh everyday. I always say: A day without laughter is a day lost living. Ohh yeah.. and I’m a big fan of South Park and Family Guy 🙂 I live in a small city where it’s pretty quiet, perfect for me after a busy weekend on the road. When I need to relax, I also like to take a long walk in to the forest which is right behind my house, to clear my head and open myself for new ideas.
Who is you’re favorite producer/artist to work with?
Hmm… that would be David Guetta. I would love to work on an original with him. I love his vision on music and he’s been such an inspiration to me the last few years. How has the success of ‘Cannonball’ transformed your career and how was the song born? As a dj it instantly changed my career! My dj schedule really started to fill up. We also received a golden record for Cannonball because we sold more than 10.000 copies in the Netherlands. That’s something I’m really proud of! The song was actually born last year summer and was called “Drop it!”. I made the track in my studio and sent it over to Showtek which I was already working with for a few years. I asked them to test my new track in the club and tell me how it sounds, but they loved the song so much that they asked me to do a collaboration. So I came over to their studio in Eindhoven city (Netherlands) and they added that Showtek flavor to the track and Cannonball was born.
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