If you have ever listened to Lehar and his musical compositions, intuition and emotion are the basis of his creative process. The feelings generated within his DJ set reflects his approach to life with spontaneity, and passion the key driving forces.
Offenbach imprint Connaisseur Recordings put him on the map of modern electronic music and is a good representation for his artistic manifesto. A mixture of sounds and atmospheres of dramatic effects characterized by intimate basslines with intriguing melodies.
Since then he has excelled as an artist with his impressive skills behind the decks earning him a residency at Heart Ibiza as well as a move to Solomun’s Diynamic label.
Ahead of him joining us at Egg: London for an extended 4 hour set on July 27th as we join forces with our friends Shindo, we thought it was time to find out what is behind the headphones.
Everyone enters dance music at a different age. Sometimes they are obsessive from a young age, for others, it is not until later life. When did the penny drop for you, was there a defining moment?
My first contact with dance music occurred when I was a young teenager. I started to go clubbing around the Venice area a few times a year (not so often). Only for real special occasions as I was still under the age of 18. The first DJs I started listening to was the American House artists like Tony Humpries, Dave Morales, Frankie Knuckles, Little Louis Vega and so on who used to play quite often at ‘il Muretto’ in Jesolo Lido or Toy’s Club in Treviso.
A common question we have been asking a lot of artists recently is regarding mental health. Life on the road is by no means easy. How do you deal with the psychological challenges of DJing?
Well, this is a very interesting question.
I do what I love so… it is very tiring at times but yet enormously gratifying, and that is exactly what an artist needs to keep working and keep doing it.
As an artist, you are very much a part of the Diynamic crew and Connaisseur Recordings. Have the guys associated with these labels influenced your sound and how important have they been in making you the artist you are today?
Since the first Ep I released back in 2014 on Connaisseur I have never thought about imitating a label sound, I have always thought of doing something very personal and exclusive;
We are the sums of our experiences, we need to remember this and I as an artist today I m able to gather the important knowledge I had in the past and in the present and the ones I had of me: Connaisseur, Diynamic, Multinotes and so on…
Producing music is a tricky business. How hard is it not to repeat yourself in the studio and evolve with each release, but at the same time stay true to your sound? Do you wrestle with this?
If there is something I have always been avoiding are repetitive tasks, as a human being, I always try to better myself in transforming and adapting my art through the times and so in my job through the productions and performances.
I find myself at ease in this.
Would you describe yourself as a confident DJ that plays within the moment, or are you in the ‘over thinkers’ department, often scrutinising every detail of a set and rarely happy?
Every day I listen to electronic music, this makes me improve daily the knowledge of what I can play during the DJ sets.
As I am a spontaneous person and quite a confident person in my life, the same happens in my job. I am usually satisfied with my performances but when I feel there is something I m not happy with, I like to work hard on myself by trying to understand how to be a better man, friend, and also a DJ.
We recently attended a talk at IMS with the focus being Dance Musics role in reducing the use of single-use plastics. There was a number of companies and DJ’s like Blond:sh advocating eco-riders for artists. What do you do for the environment?
I agree with this for sure. I usually don’t eat meat, only if this is strictly necessary, we travel the world and unfortunately when you have not much time there are many parts of the world where you can only eat meat.
Regarding the plastic, I hope everyone will understand that it is important to avoid this at the parties, not only for the artists (even if we can and we have to be a good example) but what really makes the difference is the people at the party. I mean if the DJs has no plastic in the booth but everybody on the dance floor is drinking from plastic glasses what is the sense?
A sustainable world has to be one of the main objective of the present and the future for every one of us.
If you could play any dance floor past or present which would it be and why?
Would be nice to play in the first dance floor I had my first dance when I was a teenager, now this club doesn’t exist anymore. The name was Matilda, in Jesolo Lido.
At that time this seaside city close to Venice had 2 legendary clubs : il Muretto and Matilda.
Il Muretto is still one of the best reality in Italy and I have the honor to play first time this summer, Matilda was closed more than a decade ago. So yes, if I could go back would be nice to spin records there 🙂
