LISTORIO discusses main inspirations, latest single ‘Hit The Club’ and more: Interview

Taking the dance scene by storm with each of his endeavours, LISTORIO is well and truly on his way towards global dominance and we are all for it. Delving deeper into his genius mind, this is one interview that you don’t want to miss out on.

Looking to leave his own mark within the electronic dance industry, LISTORIO (real name Laurent Pistorius) is the epitome of an act that has been mastering his craft to the utmost of perfection. Hailing from Germany, this highly versatile DJ/Producer is more than set on causing quite the havoc with each of his endeavours, and having already amassed millions of streams for his productions, performing at some of the biggest events, and garnering support from the elite of our community, it is fair to say that LISTORIO is one to watch as time progresses. With this said, we could not be any happier to be joined by the man of the moment, as he discusses main inspirations and influences, the sound that he has set out to portray through each of his tracks, balancing his musical career with his every day life and job(s), venturing through the event management industry, the release of his latest single ‘Hit The Club,’ future aspirations and so much more.

Hello and thank you for joining us! Could you provide us with an insight on the main inspirations/influences that led to your chosen career pathway in music?

Hey guys! First of all, thanks for having me. My passion and love for music exists, since forever. As a child I started playing the piano, later on, we had this school band which covered rock and metal music. We also had some songs, which slapped pretty hard, sadly we never had the chance to record them properly due to a lack of equipment and budget, but I still know a few of the guitar riffs from 15 years ago. When we left school every member went on his own journey. Mine started with studying and within a minute I was working a full time job in the tourism branche. By that time I wasn’t making a lot of music, furthermore I was going to all the festivals and raves around as a guest. I’d say this has always been my biggest hobby. When Covid hit the world, suddenly there was no tourism branche anymore within the blink of an eye. After months of staying at home, I saw David Guetta’s first “United At Home” performance from Miami with two friends of mine. This was kind of the moment where I decided to dive back into music. The same night I downloaded this DJ-App on my iPad, connected my Spotify and started to play around. It didn’t take long, until I replaced the iPad with my first Controller and the Spotify with a library.

With versatility playing a key role for any DJ/Producer, we would like to know how your signature sound came to be, as well as your own thoughts on experimenting with different genres? 

Finding my signature sound is actually a journey that is still ongoing every day. Where I am now is certainly not where I’m going to be in two years from now and I love that about being an artist. My heart has always been beating for House and Techno music. Knowing this, it’s quite clear that my sound had to be somewhere in between those genres. Talking about versatility, I don’t think you have to decide whether to build ‘a House’ or ‘a Bunker’, so my music is all about connecting house and techno music. I always loved strong drums and strong synthesisers. To combine both in the same productions is not the most famous decision, but I think this all comes down to smart mixdown decisions and leaving space for sounds and samples to shine in the track. Also I love the element of surprise (who doesn’t?), so I always try to build arrangements beyond the obvious. The drops I create vary a lot, so there are always new elements to experience in my productions.

Releasing tracks in the form of ‘Demons & Angels’ and ‘Lost in the Sea,’ we would like to know the main thought process behind them, and more so, how such tracks may differ from the LISTORIO sound that you strive to portray?

Those tracks are clearly my most euphoric and melodic productions. They are more fitting for streaming platforms, than to be played in warehouses. LISTORIO has always been about live performances. So the main question in my productions always used to be, if the tracks will go off when I play them live. When I look at artists that inspire me every day like MEDUZA, John Summit or Dom Dolla they always combine club sounds with radio productions. I kind of had the feeling that I had to do the same, so ignored my central question and started the melodic attendance with ‘Demons & Angels’ and ‘Lost In The Sea’. To produce this music was a lot of fun. It took me back in the past when we were putting chords together with our band a decade ago. I gotta admit, that ‘Lost In The Sea’ is influenced a lot by last year’s hyper techno hype.

Combining your musical career with various daytime jobs, could you provide us with an outlook on how to balance these current circumstances, as well as the plans that you have set out for yourself when moving forwards? 

Balancing both? I think that’s impossible (laughs). Okay, let’s be serious here. When I started my career, the plan was always to let this balance shift dynamically from 9to5 to night2night. As artists nowadays we are not only musicians, but social media managers, marketers, videographers, cutters, promoters, networkers and many more things. I’m not sure if this dynamic approach is able to be successful. Actually from my point of view, I would say it isn’t if you want to become popular on an international scale. I have this edited picture of myself performing on the Tomorrowland Mainstage in the studio, so this is where I aim to. What has always  been my dream has now become much more of a motivation to me. I figured out this can’t be a part time job, because I didn’t have enough energy to give the music the passion it deserves. I’ve never been a great poker player, but I figured out that for 2024 it’s time to go all in.

Kick-starting a career in event management has led to more opportunities as time progresses, we would like to know the impact that this had on you achieving your goals, as well as any recommendations you may have for individuals in similar situations? 

When I prepared my first USB-stick, I already felt like a pro DJ. I texted the clubs in my hometown, ready to have a fully booked calendar right away. Guess what, this didn’t happen at all. I think in total only one club replied in the first place. Together with my five best friends, we had already been organising birthday parties in the area, so we came up with this crazy idea of organising a commercial event. We actually got one club that gave us a chance on a Friday night. We took all the (plastic-)plants from our homes, decorated the stage and called the party “Jungle Rumble”. We were pretty certain to sell out immediately and create a night for the books. Guess what, again it didn’t happen. In the end we had a total of 100 people at our event. But for those 100 people it was a night for the books. So we saved some money and dived deeper into our jungle concept. By now, we need 6 hours with at least 8 people to set up our decorations.Our event crew, the ‘Lifebuoy Crew’, has 4 residencies all around north germany. I think our success is based on us putting a lot of love and passion into our events, our guests actually are in the centre of the happening.  Our own events help us a lot to connect with other artists or clubs, which is a big boost to bookings and tour schedules. My strong advice would be not to create another generic saturday night dance party, but something unique or a little crazy, which will make you recognizable to guests.And also don’t get frustrated, when the plan doesn’t work out in the beginning. Consistency is the key to success in the event industry.

Adjusting your sound and ultimately finding that LISTORIO spark, your latest single ‘Hit The Club’ is one for the books. Could you provide us with the overall thought process behind this production, as well as the message that you have set out to portray? 

Last year I found myself in the studio putting together chords to create a follow-up for “Demons & Angels”. Please don’t get me wrong, I love the track – it is still my biggest track in terms of streaming numbers – but  I kind of had the feeling, that I lost a lot of connection to the music, I was creating. I remembered the times, when I was dancing around in the studio, to hard hitting drops and basslines and figured that producing music just now felt much more like work, then it’s supposed to do.  I started a completely blank session without any intention of creating a full scale release, putting together some splice vocals with synthesizers and drums.Three days and a lot of dancing sessions later, there was “Hit The Club”. And it felt like the most LISTORIO track I ever created. I would say ‘Hit The Club’ is the start of a new chapter, so it had to be the first release after my 6 months release break. With the creative flow, I found myself in, with those new sounds and moods, I can happily tell you now that the track is just the start of LISTORIO 2.0.

Currently on a sabbatical in South America, we would like to know the main reasoning behind this decision, as well as the impact that it will have you, on as an artist as time progresses? 

Actually it could not have had a bigger impact on me as an artist. I’ve just come from a 5 day hike in Peru with a lot of time to think about the future.The decision to go all in now, which I stated out before, was made on top of a snowy mountain in 5.000 meters height. I went on this sabbatical to find out, what I really wanna do. This I can now answer with confidence. Right now I’m putting everything in place for the time after my sabbatical, starting in april. It will be a rocky path, it always is, but I’m sure it will turn out the right path.

With 2024 in full flow, could you provide us with any hints of what the future may look like for LISTORIO, always in terms of new music and live performances? 

I can and I want to. Thanks for asking. Besides the edits that I put out on my Soundcloud channel frequently, there will be two full scale albums released from my feather in 2024. The first single, ‘Hit The Club’, just dropped a few days ago. From now on, there will be a new LISTORIO track every 3-4 weeks. By the end of the year the albums “The House” and “The Bunker” will be completely available for the world to listen to. Also we’re organizing a big live production right now in my hometown ‘Rostock’ next to the Baltic Sea in Germany. This DJ set will be almost completely out of LISTORIO exclusives, so I can’t wait to share it via my socials. In case of touring, we are right now filling the schedule with some major festivals in Germany. Due to me having the feeling, to be quite known in the north of Germany, this year will be a lot about the southern parts of the country. 

Remarkable in every sense of the word, LISTORIO is well and truly on his way towards global dominance, and as you may have guessed, we are all for it. We will most definitely be keeping a close eye on all his future endeavours, but for the time being, you can stay fully up to date with all things LISTORIO by following him on Facebook, Instagram and Spotify.