‘Sweet Memories’: An Interview with CID

Over the last year, CID has emerged from behind the scenes production to on stage, touring in the spotlight. His tour with Kaskade last October was his first tour. Earlier this year, he was on tour with Galantis. From his experiences as a newer touring artist, he describes that it’s not just about the music to be successful. It’s important to find something people can connect with. When describing going on tour versus behind the scenes production, CID stated,

“You definitely learn from your mistakes, and how to present yourself on stage. It’s two completely different worlds, but I love doing both. It’s definitely an amazing feeling getting to be able to play your music. You’re sitting in a room alone most of the time making this stuff, and you don’t really know how people are going to react. Playing it out and seeing their reactions is really inspiring. Then, you can go back in the studio and think ‘well I made this and this worked,’ and experiment with other sounds.”

In following that up, we know social media is now an important aspect about being a DJ. We wondered what types of hindrances there are to DJing first, and then building a social media credit with fans. CID described that it’s not only about the music:

“The way society is right now is that people want something they can connect with. Not only on a musical level, but they want to see what their favorite artist is doing. I think that’s what being an artist now is; it’s about the music, but it’s also about your presence.

Bouncing off of that, we had the opportunity to discuss the nuances with SoundCloud. Currently, SoundCloud has come under fire due to German laws that allow DJs to post mixes freely. Many people took this to mean that this is allowable to the rest of the world, but unfortunately it does not. DJ mixes and profiles are still being removed, and these laws cause hindrances to smaller DJs looking to create music.

“What made SoundCloud was the fact that anyone could take any song, remix it, and post it without having to worry about it getting taken down. . .I think it does hurt artists who are not trying to necessarily release their music through Spotify, but just want to get known through bootlegs and such.”