Heard It Here First

We had a blast last weekend at Baltimore’s Moonrise Festival. With a super diverse lineup and some awesome improvements to the festival grounds/stages, this year’s Moonrise may have been our best yet.

Last weekend, we had the chance to interview both Wooli and Peekaboo, two talented rising stars in the Bass realm that you should be familiar with in 2019. Both artists are skyrocketing, with massive fanbases and festival hits galore. Today, we are happy to present you with our exclusive Heard It Here First interview with Wooli! Our interview with Peekaboo will be available next weekend.

Wooli (pictured on the left) had just gotten off stage doing a b2b set with close friend and collaborator Sullivan King (pictured right) when we had the pleasure of chatting with the self-proclaimed (jokingly) inventor of Psytrance. Check out our conversation with Wooli below!

Alright, we are here with Wooli and some other fun people. Let’s get this thing started.

W: Sullivan King is here.

I can neither confirm nor deny that. How does it feel to be the inventor of psytrance?

W: Amazing, and honestly, I feel like it just needed to happen eventually. The mixture of four on the floor and driving bassline is something I always had this idea in my head, I just never knew how to put it out in the world and once I figured it out  I think people were very receptive.

Well, we are all grateful for that so thank you. We know you’re a huge fan of the watermelon Sour Patch Kids. You’ve been seen eating them on stage multiple times. Now, if you had to pick one other candy beside Sour Patch watermelons, what would it be?

W: I’m a big Resees fan as well. The chocolate peanut butter combo is very good. Classic Resees, don’t go crazy with the Big Cup or sticking the Reeses pieces in the Resees cup that’s just too much. So classic Resees and refrigerated.

So, “Psyclone” is out now through Welcome Records. People were already playing it even before it was out I think.

W: Illenium played it at EDC. I think he was one of the first people to support it.

How did you link up with Welcome Records and Kayzo?

W: That was really easy his manager is my manager and the owner of Welcome Records. So I was like, ‘I need to put out a song really fast’ because it had been a while since I released “Island” back in January. I had like thirteen songs ready but because of how the release schedule works everything was pushed to the end of the year. Labels are very notorious for scheduling kind of late so we were able to control it a little easier and fit it in. Also, Kayzo is a really great producer and a great guy and great record label head and they do a great job at welcome.

The Voyage Tour. You’ve already started, correct?

W: We have finished 2 shows, three if you count this one but I don’t. But we did South Carolina, Charleston, beautiful place, Tampa, also very moist. It was very humid but amazing. Tampa was very crowded, a lot of people just lined up all the way down around the block, they all came out to show support. That was at the Ritz Ybor. It was a great show and I’m very happy to have Trivecta, Warez and Computa later to support. Trivecta is someone who I write music with a lot. And he’s amazing and super talented. It was actually the first time I got to see him play live was the first tour date in Charleston, and it was the first time in my life that I was nervous to play after someone because he just crushed it. I couldn’t be happier with the support on this tour.

Tell us about the jerseys because I know that the Woo-tusk Clan, which is your Facebook group, they want jerseys. The people want jerseys!

W: They love them. I feel like everyone started doing the jerseys this year a lot. Like most artists I know have either a baseball or basketball jersey. It was something I always wanted to do. They’re really easy, flowy and comfy so they go really well with the shows. People really love repping their favorite artist. I was really taken back, I knew putting out merch is always something as an artist I wanted to do but I was surprised with how receptive and crazy people went for the pins and the jerseys. I try to make things kind of limited. I have merch on the tour, but jerseys will be online only just because they’re with Electric Family online and all that stuff. I love that if you make it limited, and a little bit more special it makes people want it more and also makes it cool when someone in the crowd who has a limited one, you know it’s one of the die-hards, you know.

That’s awesome. So, you dropped your collab with Kompany during your set today, are there any others collabs you can tell us about on the horizon?

W: Yeah, I can say that there is a collab EP, four songs with Excision. One of them is a collab with Excision, Seven Lions, and myself.

Little bit of an “Island” follow up, we know he loves that track. As do most people.

So Excision played “Falling” with Trivecta, “Island” with me, Seven Lions and Trivecta, and then also I got Trivecta, Excision and myself to write a song. It’s pure melodic, there’s no heaviness in it. Which I thought was a nice surprise, because you would think Excision and I would do a heavy drop but we really wanted to focus on making something all melodic because we’ve got one with Seven Lions that’s melodic and heavy and then two other songs that are pure heavy so we wanted just pure melodic and we found a really good singer to do it. And we were really stoked when that came out.

You’re playing an official Moonrise afterparty alongside SVDDEN DEATH tonight, what can we expect from you at the aftershow tonight?

W: Something that I will be more in control of. Because back to back sets are harder to control because it’s two people working together in a short amount of time where you’re just throwing songs that you think will be banger.

You’re not really getting into a flow or a groove that you would if you’re up there yourself. So I’ll probably play a lot more melodic stuff. I always look at my shows as like 70% heavy, 30% melodic, feelsy, sadboi, whatever you wanna call it. I’ll probably play a lot more of that stuff, maybe some darker stuff, some psytrance since its an afterparty later at night. But definitely a lot of stuff I wasn’t able to play [today].

Last question, what are some positives of playing a b2b?

W: It’s always good to it when you have good chemistry like outside of music. Like Keaton (Sullivan King) and I are really good friends. We facetime almost every day, we bust each other’s balls a lot but we know it’s all in good fun. When its someone who you haven’t done one with before it can be really cool because you don’t really know what to expect. I’m never someone who goes in with a plan. Some people plan it out really meticulously and they will meet up a day before and pick what tracks they’re gonna do but I go out like “Let’s just go have fun, we’re both good DJs and producers and we’ll be able to figure it out.” Obviously, we (Sullivan King and I) have done two in the past this is our third and we know how to vibe each other out and it’s really easy. If I had to pick between back to back or solo set, I like solo sets more. But it’s always something special to break up the same thing. And makes things more entertaining as a DJ because you get to work with someone else.

Thanks so much for sitting down with us Adam! We can’t wait for your upcoming collab EP and will be sure to cover it.

Wooli is pictured above grabbing a broom and sweeping the stage before his set, what a guy!

Be sure to support Wooli on Social Media below and peep his twenty-minute mix to prepare for his The Voyage tour here. Remaining tour dates below as well.

Also, keep an eye out for our exclusive interview with Peekaboo dropping this weekend. As always, thanks for reading!

Wooli on Instagram

Wooli on Twitter

Wooli on Facebook

8/21 – Salt Lake City – Sky
8/22 – Albuquerque – Effex
8/23 – Los Angeles – Avalon
8/24 – Seattle – Bass Canyon
8/30- Chicago – North Coast
9/1 – New York City – Electric Zoo
9/6 – Kansas City – Dancefestopia
9/12 – Indianapolis – Mousetrap
9/13 – Toronto – Revival
9/14 – Grand Rapids – The Stache
9/19 – Virginia Beach – Peabody’s
9/20- Montreal – Le Belmont
9/21 – Denver – Bluebird
9/26 – 9/29 – Thornville – Lost Lands
10/2 – Washington DC – Soundcheck
10/3 – San Marcos – The Marc
10/4 – Dallas – Lizard Lounge
10/5 – Houston – Ayva Center