THE MIXTAPE IS DEAD: March 2012

Tell us a bit about yourself

I'm Sam, also known as Eyes, a 20 year old producer/songwriter from near Brighton! Music is pretty much all I do, wouldn't have it any other way, other than that I'm a pretty standard 20 year old!

How did you get into DJing?

Always been a huge fan of music, started playing guitar when I was about 12, played in bands and eventually decided I wanted to get into producing to record my band's music. From there I just ended up getting more into the electronic side of things, remixes and stuff, and DJing was the logical choice.

What do you look for in a song you want to remix?

First thing is vocals usually, has to have a vocal that gets people's attention. Doesn't have to be huge and in your face, could be quite soft, just as long as it sounds nice.

What equipment do you use?

My main piece of kit is my MacBook Pro, do pretty much everything on that. Have a few bits of kit but rarely need to use much else. Having masses and masses of plugins helps a lot though!

What are your views on music being shared and sold online?

Very difficult question, I don't think there's an option that doesn't have its fallbacks. I don't agree with the insane crackdown on copyright infringement at the moment, but I wouldn't, being a remixer myself! I believe it should be shared, and that people DO still pay for good music even if they can get hold of it for free. YouTube is an awesome tool, as is SoundCloud, and iTunes seems to be a good system. It'll be interesting to see where that area of the industry goes over the next few years.

What is your greatest achievement?

Not sure! Either hitting 5 million hits on YouTube. Or playing Ministry of Sound was pretty insane. I had a remix on the Cher Lloyd Swagger Jagger EP which got up to number 2 in the album charts, and the single went number one, so that was pretty cool.

What inspires you?

Good music, and meeting other people who are just as passionate as me about what they do, I love being surrounded by other people who love music. But in terms of actually making music, producers like Skrillex, Feed Me and the Noisia guys are a huge inspiration. Seeing Skrillex win those Grammys the other day was very inspirational.

Best and worst gig?

I've not done that many gigs as Eyes, been spending too much time in the studio! The ones I've done so far have all been awesome fun though, Ministry was the best, couldn't say what the worst was.

You've nearly hit 2million YouTube views for your recent Ellie Goulding remix, any feedback from the good lady herself about it?

I haven't actually! I've met her a couple of times but never really spoke about it, might try find out what she thinks!

What have you got lined up for the future?

Loads more original stuff, some more remixes, more gigs, 2012 is exciting already. I've got a single out early March called "Tonight", going out on the Quantum label, it's featuring Ryan Keen who has been having some mad success recently, really talented bloke, so that's the next thing on the agenda!

Excellent, thanks Sam, and all the best with the new single.

Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/sameyes

YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/user/eyesstv

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/EyesOfficial

SoundCloud - http://www.soundcloud.com/sameyes