Exclusive Interview: Jay Hardway discusses his new track ‘Let Me Tell You Something’ and upcoming releases

Tracks like ‘Wizard‘ and ‘Electric Elephants‘ have dominated clubs, festivals, and main stages across the world during the last few years. However, the success of these tracks comes as no surprise if you know who produced them. The brilliant mind of Jay Hardway has created some of the best loved tracks of recent years, and his dynamic exploration of styles, sounds, and genres has proven to be fundamental to his rise. Growing from a young boy in Holland to a worldwide sensation, Jay’s phenomenal journey has come with plenty of highlights along the way. Good relationships with other producers have brought incredible collaborations, and his friendship with Martin Garrix has created plenty of bangers. Hardway often changes his style, but the production quality is always impeccable, and has established himself as a Spinnin’ Records artist.

As his new track ‘Let Me Tell You Something‘ is dropping on Spinnin’, We Rave You managed to catch up with the Dutchman to get an insight into his upcoming works, 2018 so far, and the inspiration behind his new tune.

2018 has been a wild year for you so far, with performances ranging from America right over to Vietnam, and Tomorrowland also as part of the Spinnin’ Sessions stage. Has everything happened as you have expected with such a busy schedule?

This year has been amazing and even better than expected. Being this busy touring also has it’s downsides, but when I play shows I get a lot of energy back from the fans. I think it’s really cool to see people singing along and requesting my own songs, this still surprises me every time. Other than that I’m really happy with my release schedule and the way the tracks are performing. The studio time in the beginning of this year has paid of!

Your latest track ‘Let Me Tell You Something’ is coming via Spinnin’ Records, so please tell us something about this one?

This track is a little bit different from anything I made before. It’s an 80’s music inspired track with analog sounding synths and it’s all based on a sample. The cool thing is that I made this sample myself. I was just messing around and made 8 bars of an 80s sounding track. I thought it would be cool to sample that part again and rework it into a more 2018 sounding track. I’m really happy with the outcome! 

‘Let Me Tell You Something’ takes on more of a house vibe than some of your tracks over the years, but you have produced big room and other genres. What has inspired you to adapt your sound more recently on tracks like ‘Jigsaw’ with The Him and ‘Save Me’ with Mesto? 

When I enter the studio I try not to think about what I’m going to make. I just try to let the creativity flow and come up with ideas. If I have some cool ideas I might turn them into tracks later and that’s when I think more about the “style” of the track. Most important thing is that I personally feel the track. Because of that you can still hear my influences in every track, even if they are different in genre.

You’ve gone solo on the new track, but have worked with so many producers in the past, some of whom have been mentioned. Who is your favourite artist(s) to work with?

Everyone I worked with has inspired me so much, that’s also the reason I worked with them in the first place. I think it’s important to work with people that inspire me and whom I feel connected with on a personal level. Working with Martin Garrix was really cool, because of his talent and personality, but also because we worked together on several tracks before we both were DJ’ing as much as we do now. We didn’t know where all of this was going, so we were just having fun making new music.

Your long-lasting relationship with Martin Garrix has resulted in a number of tracks with him in the past. Is there anything currently in the works with Martin?

Martin and me keep in touch but are both incredibly busy at the moment. I think we will probably work on something again and I would love to release a track on his label STMPD Recordings.

What more have you got planned for the remainder of the year? Is there many more releases planned or are you going on studio lockdown?

I have a newtrack with Mike Cervello coming up and I’m still finishing some projects of my own. A real studio lockdown is difficult because of touring, so I have to postpone that lockdown until January probably haha! But when I’m at home I’m always working on music, even if it’s only one or two days a week, so there is plenty of new Jay Hardway music coming!

Keep up to date on all Jay Hardway releases via his Spotify below.