Interview by SAMO ŠAJN

Guy James Robin, known professionally as Jonas Blue, is an English DJ and music producer based in London. His career has so far been astounding. Having been certified platinum over 130 times around the globe, he has amassed an army of instantly recognisable hit singles. With over 20 billion global streams and over 92 million single sales, Jonas Blue is a certified DJ and pop powerhouse.

Jonas, from starting behind a DJ booth in a local London bar, to now producing hit songs and performing in front of thousands of fans all around the world; where does your love for music come from and walk us through your exciting journey in the industry?

My love for music was sparked by my family playing lots of music in the house when I was a kid. I began experimenting with learning instruments and software when I was young and it all grew from there, I started putting out my first releases when I was still a teenager, like 14! So much has happened between then and now but obviously a key moment was releasing Fast Car and that propelled things forward in a crazy way. 2016 was a crazy year of traveling and promoting that single.

You’ve just released a new single ‘Rest Of My Life’ with Sam Feldt, under your collaborative project Endless Summer. How did the collaboration come about, and how did the idea for the song come to light?

I’ve known Sam quite a long time now and we always talked about doing a single together, we had a few ideas for tracks, and rather than just do one we decided on the collaborative project Endless Summer. The new single combines a musical sample from the trance classic called ‘Cafe Del Mar’ by Energy 52 with an amazing song written by Becky Hill and Dan from Bastille. Together the song and the sample just had a bit of magic to it so we dived in and produced it up, and as soon as we played it out at Ultra Bali last year we just knew we had something special.

You have been collaborating with Sam for some time now, how would you describe your dynamic working together?

Endless Summer was formed to also give us an outlet for music that maybe didn’t feel right for Jonas Blue or Sam Feldt singles but worked as a collaboration. We try and bring some harder influences into some of the music we make too, real dirty club sounds.

Besides being a producer, you are also a celebrated DJ. How do you balance your time between DJing and producing music?

This year I’m actually planning to DJ less and be in the studio a lot more. I love DJing, but it’s got to be a balance between making the music, finding those moments of magic in the studio, and playing them out to crowds, they’re both hugely important and clearly play into each other.

Your breakthrough track ‘Fast Car’ passed 1 billion plays on Spotify. An incredible achievement for any artist. When you were making the track did you ever imagine that it would go on to reach so many people?

I did have a feeling about it… even when I had made the instrumental before a vocal was even on it, I had a feeling it was a special one! Obviously, the song is one of the best songs ever written so it was always going to be special if I did it justice.

If you could collaborate with any vocalist or music producer on a song, who would it be and why?

Shawn Mendes just captures the Jonas Blue feel – would love to work with him.

How would you describe your creative process, do you have a routine you follow on a daily basis?

I’m a night owl and usually work on music throughout the night when no one is bothering me.

Looking beyond your most recent release, what is coming from you in the future? Any new projects you can talk about?

I can’t say too much but I have some global collaborations I’m really excited about. I’ve been enjoying really connecting with some international talent and I’m looking forward to sharing that music soon!