INTERVIEW: Leo Diniz

Leo Diniz creates music that works in all settings and transcends genres. His openness to a wide range of sound is what has both made him a widely loved favourite, but also someone who operates in his own parallel musical world. We had a chance to talk to him, so enjoy your reading and check out his latest releases.

Hi! Where can we find you right now? How did you start your day?

Hey, guys! I hope you are doing ok out there. I currently live in São Paulo. I've started my day as I usually do, waking up early and going to the company — this is a detail that few people know, but I share my music career with my corporate career, as I'm the Commercial Director of an engineering company. During the business hours of the day I dedicate myself to the company and at night to music production in the studio I have at home.

Can you tell us a little about your experience? Where are you from / how did you get into music? Was it all internet based?

I was born in the city of São Paulo and lived in some other places like London, for example. I began attending electronic music parties in 2004 and immediately fell in love with the style of sound, firstly with psy trance and, in the following year, in 2005, I started my career when I was living in London. As I always enjoyed and attended parties, I automatically developed a great network and got to know many people from the scene who attended, played and organized events back then.

What was your first foray into the world of electronic music?

I was invited by an ex-girlfriend in 2004 to go to a big party that takes place in Brazil, called TRIBE. I was delighted with all that universe, the music that until then was completely unknown to me... the atmosphere surrounding the environment fascinated me and I fell in love with that place and with everything that involved it.

Who have been your main inspirations (both musical and in "life")? And how have they affected your sound?

I'm quite a privileged guy, because I've always had amazing people by my side, in the first place at home. My mother and grandfather are wonderful people who have given me the base of values and principles. Within the music, right at the beginning, the guy who gave me all the base was Fabio Leal, an excellent DJ who taught me to always bring something different to the dance floor, avoiding the obvious and the concept of taking to the audience not only a DJ set, but rather a complete music experience.

Over the years I've had many other inspirations, but over time I've come to admire artists for qualities that go beyond music: D-Nox for his musical truth, Kolombo for his treatment with his fans and for his genuineness, and Renato Ratier for being a guy who contributes a lot in my musical education and for his fundamental role in the Brazilian electronic scene, one of those responsible for placing Brazil on the world map of electronic music.

I must also mention my manager and friend, Mauricio, from (UAM) Artists, who is the guy that helps me to take decisions and supports me in all projects, in addition to being an extremely competent professional.

How would you define your sound?

I really don't like to tie in the labels as I'm constantly changing, both as an artist and as a human being, but if I were to put my sound on a shelf today, I would define it as Indie Dance with influences from Melodic House and Progressive.

What can you tell us about your research with the last trubes that still live in the old fashioned way, disconnected from the modern world?

I believe that technology can be good or bad depending on how you use it, in my case it's extremely important for my research and to find new artists, music, etc. Today I can find an amazing song by a guy who lives in a Russian countryside town. Without technology I would be limited to a few artists and my research would be much more difficult.

How has your sound evolved so far?

To give you an idea, in 2005 I started playing Psy, then Techno, Tech House, House, Tech House and today I'm more focused on Indie Dance. The fact of making countless immersions always opens up new windows of opportunities for me. I'm open to evolution and, consequently, to changes. The important thing is that all these immersions through different styles taught me many lessons that have a very positive impact on my career, regardless of style.

What can you tell us about your last work? What inspired you? What do you want to convey?

Despite my long career as a DJ, I'm at the beginning as a music producer, with approximately 2 years of career. I still consider myself a learner in this sense, I'm in a discovery phase and my inspiration comes from the thirst to experiment and discover new things all the time.

What can you tell us about each song that makes up the Space EP? What is hiding behind?

In this EP I have two different proposals, a song that carries all my Indie Dance influences and another song with a more organic and psychedelic style, but which makes a lot of sense to me and translates a big part of my musical DNA.

How would you define the sound of Space EP? What is the concept behind?

One of the songs as an Indie Dance and the second one more organic, melodic and psychedelic, each one was conceived in different mindtrips, experiments aimed in different directions, but that speaks a lot about me.

And your work of art? What scale are you working on? What is the concept behind the work?

Com a pandemia, pude potencializar bastante os trabalhos de estúdio e fazer várias faixas que estão sendo lançadas. É difícil prever uma escala, mas sei apenas onde quero chegar e tenho feito de tudo para poder conciliar todo esse trabalho e atingir os resultados, até o momento tem funcionado bem.

With the pandemic, I was able to greatly enhance the studio work and make many tracks that have been released. It's hard to predict a scale, but I just know where I want to go and I've done everything to reconcile all this work and achieve the results, so far it has worked well.

How are you living the current situation because of COVID? Has your work affected you a lot? Do you think there is hope? I feel like the underground scene will continue to persist.

It certainly affected my weekend routine a lot. I always enjoyed parties, both to play and to enjoy and develop relationships with players on the national scene. As I mentioned before, I have a corporate career that supports me, so I didn't have any major financial problems. On the other hand, at the beginning of the pandemic, I was living the best moment in my career and the big challenge was to think of a strategy to not regress within the achievements that I had achieved so far.

I did what I could at that moment, I spent many hours in the studio creating content, making music, recording podcasts, among other things. Now we are experiencing a return in Brazil, finally a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm very optimistic, I managed to evolve a lot in the pandemic in different aspects and I think I will reap good results from this.

Underground music will always resist, just like all art that has truth in its essence, it will never die.

What projects are you working on right now?

The priority now is to resume a consistent gigs schedule with good events, as before the pandemic, in addition to the development and growth of my label party — which already has a defined date. Thank you for the space to talk a little about my career!

BUY