Xenia Ghali is the Greek born producer, DJ, and songwriter that has not only been taking over the European dance scene, but the global market as well. Growing up around the European dance scene, you could almost say that dance music and its culture is in Xenia’s blood. After attending school in England to pursue music, Xenia quickly found her calling in the DJ world after a debut performance at Ministry of Sound. Since then, she’s been perfecting her craft to make music not only she loves, but her fans love as well. With the ability to produce just about any type of music, she stands apart from the majority of producers already in the industry. She’s released countless singles and has performed at festivals all across Europe as well as clubs in the United States.
Her latest single “Under The Lights” was released not long ago and has already taken off since its initial release. The mainly house track is equipped with a slow but upbeat progression fused with high pitched vocals to create a euphoric listening experience. The single was released on Xenia’s Funky Sheep label and reached number one on Billboard’s Dance Club Charts. Lyrics from the emotional track were used in commentary by Billboard about the recent Orlando Shootings at Pulse nightclub. RaverRafting had the opportunity to sit down with Xenia and talk to her about her rise and thoughts on the industry as well as her latest single. She’s one of the most passionate and sincere people I’ve ever interviewed and we hope to see much more of her here at RaverRafting!
What got you into producing music?
Xenia: It started since I was very young and I have my parents to thank for that. They were adamant about my sister and I learning music in a classical sense. When I was five they enrolled us in classical piano lessons and flute lessons and did that all the way through my high school years. When I was 15 I started listening to a lot of rock music. I then decided I wanted to learn how to play the guitar and formed a high school band. We started performing and doing rock things. During my time with the band I found that I really loved writing my own music and covering songs.
Xenia: That’s when I realized I wanted to pursue music writing rather than performing it. After I graduated high school I went off to the UK to study music composition production. During my studies there I went to a lot of underground parties and started exploring the DJ scene in the UK which was very interesting because in the UK they actually spin with vinyl so I was very interested in that whole thing. I picked up some techniques and sort of started teaching myself to DJ and produce.
So you went to school in England to sort of learn how to DJ?
Xenia: I mean we didn’t learn how to DJ in our studies. But it was in school that I first got into producing and learning ableton, logic, and pro tools to make my own music. The only way you write music is with real instruments or with classical score, so that’s sort of when I learned to make electronic based music through computers and software. Then the DJing thing happened because I just got so into it that I wanted to learn how to do it.
How can you compare the scene in Europe to the United States?
Xenia: It has its similarities and its differences. I guess in Europe what I have realized is that the scene is much more straight up house, tech-house, and deep house. Meanwhile in the states people love electro-house and EDM and the harder stuff. Now with the evolution of trap that mixes hip-hop with EDM, for me that really is the dance scene in the US.
Will you ever change your sound or your sets based on where you’re performing?
Xenia: I’m not married to having one set that is very set and rigid. For example I’m on tour this summer and I happen to be in Europe and the states during the same time period, I won’t play the same set everywhere I go. I like to know what type of crowd I’m playing in front of, what kind of venue it is. If it’s more intimate space I’m not going to play big room festival stuff even if it’s in the states. I’ll tap into my more tech house stuff and deep house stuff. I was just in Greece and headlined the Color Day Fest that had 50 or 60 thousand people. Even though it was Greece and they love house and deep house, my set was full on festival-edm electro house set and people went nuts for it. So yeah part of what we do as DJs is make sure peopler have a good time so I’m not going to go ahead and play hip hop in my sets because that’s not who I am. I love hip-hop but I didn’t grow up with hip-hop I grew up in Europe so my roots are very house and dance oriented.
From a production side, how would you describe your sound?
Xenia: I’m so engaged with so many different types of music, I could never just stick to one sound. For me it really comes down to three very key elements. My music is 9/10 very melodic, I love incoperating melody in what I do. The other thing that is very common with my music is passion. Whatever it is, whether it’s a bass rift or an incredible passion of melodies. Or a great drop that makes you want to rip your clothes off and party. Then the third would have to be very dance based I guess, I haven’t really experimented with down tempo stuff yet even though I love it. But it usually just tends to be more up tempo stuff in terms of BPM.
Do you have any opinion on sticking to one specific genre? A lot of fans can be very upset when a producer changes up their style or sound, do you have any opinion on that?
Xenia: Well I mean it kinds of depends on the type of brand you are or the way you want to brand yourself as a producer and a musician. There’s certain musicians that could not fathom the fact that they are anything other than what they are and whoever loves it loves it whoever doesn’t then whatever. In those cases of course staying true to your sound or genre or style is extremely important. If you start tapping into the more commercial stuff and crossover between whats underground and whats widely listened to and you want to be that type of brand, you want people from all over the world to like what you’re doing. Or you want to be able to tap into young markets and older markets you have to be comfortable with experimenting with different genres.
Xenia: It really depends on the brand and the musician, I personally think it’s incredible how much power music has and to be able to relate to people all over the world and kids that are 12 years old as well as 50 year olds mothers or fathers. To me that is just magic and that’s what makes my heart tick. So that’s what I feel very comfortable switching up my sound and obviously my market is much more club based. Having said that a lot of my music is you can listen to it on the radio and feel comfortable. I like that, I think it’s a very interesting thing in music that it can relate to a ton of people. At the end of the day, that’s what DJs wants; for people to relate to your music.
I know you just released your latest track “Under The Lights”, what can you tell me about it? What went into producing it?
Xenia: Oh gosh, well one thing you need to know is it’s probably the most fun track I’ve produced in my whole life. The reason for that was purely because I did not care. It was one of the few times I didn’t care what anyone else would think of it. I just wanted to do it because it sounded cool and loved what I was hearing. I did a lot of experimenting production wise with the track. For example the drop was totally new for me. When I was producing it, it had the element of EDM to it and I just refuse to have the lead you’d expect to have. EDM leads are sort of you know what you’re going to get. When I was producing it I didn’t want my lead in the drop to be something you’ve heard before. It sounds like something you’ve heard before in the melody and structure, it sounds familiar.
Xenia: It could stand next to a lot of EDM tracks right now, but I didn’t want the lead sound to be something you’ve heard before. I built the lead sound out of my voice so I took my voice and sampled it and fiddled around with it. I added about a million plug ins and effects and created this weird Daft-Punkish type sound. That was it though, that was my lead. No synths or anything like that. Same things go for the vocal processing. In the chorus it sounds like a woman is singing the song, a lot of people think it’s me. Which is funny because I can’t sing. What I did was I took the guy’s voice and the part where he sings the hook and sings “Under These Lights”. Of course everybody would expect to keep the voice as is. But I tried making him sound asexual so you really don’t know whats going on. It’s just somebody randomly singing the hook, guy or girl. It started off as a joke, but I ended up keeping it that way because it sounded so cool to me. It’s the part of the song that speaks about what I am most proud of about this release. I’m extremely proud about the message the song is promoting.
Xenia: When the unfourtante incident in Orlando happened, it was a massive honor how they mentioned the lyrics of the song and how it depicts through music we are trying promote unity and humanity and love and differentiation doesn’t exist. They quoted a part of “Under These Lights” which was a huge honor and I am so proud of the fact that I am able to even remotely represent that message. That’s what I wanted through the song, it’s crazy how much hate, aggression, and terrorism everywhere in the world. I was really trying to promote something that reminds people of the importance of life, humanity, and love.
Do you think music in general can you unite and bring people together?
Xenia: Definitely. That’s what music was from the very beginning of humanity. Tribes collectively singing together, so it’s a very primitive human means of interaction and unification. Any type of art is a means of communication that is very true to the human race. We all feel something when watching it or feeling it or hearing it. It’s a huge part of being able to unite people.
You’ve performed at locations all across the world, do you have any favorite spots to perform at?
Xenia: Oh goodness that is such a hard question! The smallest venues are sometimes the best because of the amounts of energy you are feeling. They’re packed and people are there because they want to be there. They’re the ones that really really love what you are doing. So they often are the best types of crowds. Having said that, I have performed at huge festivals with thousands of people and that energy is completely insane as well, you can’t really compare. I’m going to mention one of my most memorable performances that was actually my first proper performance at the ministry of sound in London when I was in school. It was when I first started DJing and a promoter at the ministry of sound took notice of me when I was spinning at this tiny club close to my university. He asked me if I wanted to perform at the ministry of sound and at first I thought he was joking. But a week later I got a flyer with my name on it and it took me about three days to collect myself and figure out what I was going to do. But it ended up being an absolutely incredible show and all my friends came. That was the turning point when I realized I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. That will be one of my strongest memories forever.
Do you have any future plans for producing?
Xenia: Well right now I’m on tour in Greece and Serbia, but I have shows all summer. I’m in the studio whenever I can though, I have a lot of ideas that I want to get out before they escape my mind! So I’m working on new music, new collaborations, but I’m excited for everyone to hear my new stuff. I have remix requests which I love doing. It’s very interesting for me when you have to reimagine something so I love remix. Oh! Something that just happened that you will be seeing very soon. I just finished shooting the official music video for “Under These Lights”. We’re releasing that very very soon, we’re in the post production phase. Honestly, I’m so excited for people to see this video because it’s literally like nothing I’ve ever done before. It’s going to be very interesting to see what people think of it. All I’m going to say is that my one side of my leg is completely black after filming it. It’s intense, we’re releasing a behind the scenes as well because you just need to see it. It’s going to be crazy, I’m very excited for it.
Do you have any words for producers trying to make it in the industry or just do what they love?
Xenia: What I would say is that it’s a very difficult industry, as are most. The difficulty with this industry is that it’s not a 9-5 job. You’re “job” becomes your life and you have to be ok with that and have to want it more than anything in the world, or you won’t get where you want. It takes that amount of discipline, hard work and time to do these things. If you have those things, I find no reason why any producer can’t make it. It’s those three things and the love for what you do is the number one out of anything that you need to have. I find no reason why anyone that sets their mind and heart to it and puts the hours can’t make it.
Connect with Xenia Ghali:
https://www.facebook.com/xghali
https://twitter.com/xghali
https://www.instagram.com/xeniaghali
https://soundcloud.com/xeniaghali
https://xeniaghali.com
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