Mausio opens up about main influences & latest album ‘unCENSORED’: Interview

Hello Mausio and thank you for joining us! Could you give us a little insight on the main inspirations/influences that led to your chosen career pathway?

Hey, thanks for having me. My deep roots are in the rap scene, but after I listened to Skrillex ‘Scary Monsters’ and ‘Nice Sprites’ for the first time, I directly knew that I need to learn how to produce music by myself. This moment was the initial spark for my career. Along the way I was influenced by music from Nero or Feed Me among others. Above all, my motivation was that I always wanted to play my own music. That’s why I started teaching myself how to produce before I even thought about DJing. Even today I see myself primarily as a producer and not as a DJ.

Having just released your second studio album, ‘unCENSORED,’ we would firstly like to congratulate you on this amazing body of work, and in doing so, we would also like to know the main thought process behind each of the featured tracks, as well as the impact the global pandemic may have had whilst creating your album?

I came just out of a gigantic 2019, played more shows than ever before, had the summer of my life, just signed a major deal and build my first professional studio when the global pandemic forced me into a complete time out. On one side, I was down, lost and had no idea how to deal with the situation, but on the other side, I had more time in the studio as ever before. I always describe this as a driving school crash course where you learn everything you need for your driving license in 2 weeks. Due to the lack of live business, which I never had before, I was in my studio 24/7 and learned more about music production in one month, than normally in one year. I was producing my album, without knowing that I was doing an album. At a point I had 12, 14, 16 songs and thought, “that’s a lot of amazing music, I should do an album”. The second impact the pandemic had, that I felt for the first time in my career no pressure on my music productions. Neither from my fans, the industry or whatever. I was just producing the music, I really wanted to do and just what I felt in the specific moment. This was a crazy experience for me, as my work got a different flow. There was no chance to test new music live, no direct feedback, I just had to believe in myself and my musical vision. It gave me a lot more confidence and resulted in this masterpiece.

Featuring over 15 tracks, ‘unCENSORED’ is truly a work of art that portrays a deeper and more raw side of yourself. Could you give us a little insight on how each single came to be, as well as a further look into ‘Trapped,’ the accompanying single that has been released on the same day as the album?

Going into detail on every single would blow up this interview a bit 😀 I´m a 100% perfectionist and I never release a track, if I’m not sure I could have done it any better. Every single on the album has its own development story, as I see every single I release as a part of me. ‘Trapped’ is a very special song to me, as this is a song that I have never done before. I think everything fits together – all the instruments harmonize well, the lyrics have a certain depth, Bibianes vocal performance is insane and it was finished in just two days, which is very unusual for me. Usually I work on a song for months or years, but with ‘Trapped’ it all went super-fast. I even did the mix myself because I didn’t want to let anyone else change anything. And also the reactions on the track – whether it was from my family, my friends, or a driver on the way to an event – were just so positive and everyone had this goosebump moment.

Implementing your signature sound throughout, it was also essential for you to develop a visual representation, amongst the music that you created. We would like to know the main inspiration behind the music videos for tracks such as ‘Fever,’ ‘Ghost,’ ‘DAMN!,’ and ‘Try,’ as well as the overall message portrayed through each?

I was always a big fan of music videos, as this is part of my musical education. When I came home from school as a kid, there was always MTV or VIVA on the TV and I saw all these great music videos. It was always a dream to accompany my tracks with stunning music videos and I’m grateful that I had the chance to shoot at these amazing locations, whether it’s Iceland, Los Angeles or Dubai. When I start working on a song, the creative process of the music video starts automatically in my head and evolves over the whole producing time. When I’m finished with a song, I normally have the script and optical vision for the music video also ready. We are starting then to plan everything and set up the video production. It’s always great, as it bonds you even more with the song you made.

 

Leaving no doubt to the imagination, ‘unCENSORED’ further showcases your undeniable musical prowess, but at the same time, also allows for certain artists to demonstrate their talents as well. This of course refers to the various features that are witnessed on the album, so we would like to know the main decision behind choosing an artist to feature on your album, as well as the overall feel when working alongside artists such as Bibiane Z, Roxen and VAUST when naming a few?

Working with other artists is always a super inspiring situation. You can try around and work out the best result possible. Bibiane is my muse, my congenial partner in crime in the studio. We worked on a lot of tracks over the last years and our energy in the studio is magical. We never hit the studio without creating a great song. There was no doubt, that she will be a big part of the album. VAUST is a genius producer and is always there when I´m creatively stuck. That is super helpful, as it sometime can be tricky to work on a song when you come to a point, where you are missing the final idea. And also the studio session with Roxen was super funny. She came from Romania to Germany to record the vocals, which gave us the room to experiment and record it the way we wanted. I´m not a fan of remote sessions. I need the artists to be in my studio, to create the right vibe.

Having performed at some of the biggest festivals worldwide, we would like to know the overall feel when performing live to an array of audiences, as well as the sense of reward that you may experience when your music is constantly recognised on a global basis?

I started making music in my child’s room, when I’m now playing in front of 10.000, 15.000 or 20.000 people, it feels completely unreal. The energy on the big stages is crazy, with all the lightning, the effects and enormous crowds. My fans are the best, there were festivals, where they showed up with huge banners with my name on. This still makes me happy every day. On the streaming side, I´m now at more than 85 million streams only on Spotify and have the United States as my second biggest market. I still feel like a normal boy from Germany, and then there are people on the other side of the world listening to my music. I have no words for this.

Offering only the most energetic of shows, as well as innovating your sound on a constant basis, could you give us an insight on the main thought process when preparing a live set, as well as when being on stage, and in addition, we would like to know of any other hobbies and interests that you may have?

I really don’t need to prepare for my live shows, as I´m playing 95% of my own music. I know that’s quite unusual, but as I said before, I always wanted to produce my own music to play it live. On festival shows I´m discussing the SFX and lightning with my team before and we always try to set up the most outstanding show. About 10 minutes before a show, I get extremely tired, what we funnily describe as “power saving mode” like on a smartphone. My body indirectly tells me to calm down, save all energy, set up the focus and when I then hit the stage, there is no holding back. I completely get sucked into the audience, I’m able to see every single person in the crowd, catching all the energy and we all together create a cauldron, full of endorphins, happiness, and freedom. When I’m at home, I like to play videogames, or have a nice dinner, but my biggest hobby will always be the music production. It’s there for more than ten years and I think there never will be something replacing this.

Combining a mixture of Hip Hop, Dubstep and Minimal Techno, you have in your own words created a new genre in “Future Techno.” We would like to know of how this genre came to be, as well as the main inspiration that led to you creating a genre of your own?

We always had the “problem” that the press, the promoters, the clubs, etc., could not describe my sound. The clubs were calling my agents and were asking “we booked him now, but what do we put on the flyer? Is this a techno party, or is this anedm party?” I never wanted to be put into a special category, as music is unlimited for me. So we sat there and said, just call it “future techno”. In the beginning there were a lot of people hating this, making fun of it and tried to bring it down. But this headwind, gave us even more confidence to stick to this meaning. And as it always is, when you are working hard enough on something, with time it gets accepted. I think it was 2018 or 2019 where I had a solo show at the famous Bootshaus and they called the party “Future Techno presented by Mausio” and they even made an own genre category on their app and website. After this, everybody stopped making fun, as they knew, it was unstoppable.

With 2023 just around the corner, could you give us a little hint of what’s next for Mausio, as well as any social media platforms that fans alike will have the ability of further witnessing your brilliance as time progresses?

We are already working on the festival schedule for 2023, which will be insane. We also just finished filing for a big project, that will come to life in summer 2023, but I can’t say more at this point. I may also be taking a break in the springtime, as this year was more than turbulent. Regarding social media, I’m active on all platforms. The best tool for direct information about what’s going on with me, is Instagram. But you will also have tourmovies and other videos on Youtube and TikTok.

 

Featured Image Credit: PAXPICTURES / Provided by Warner Music Group