Sick Individuals are Dutchmen Ray and Jim. Multi-talented and educated musicians, they have been slowly (but steadily) making themselves a force to reckon with. Ray & Jim studied Music Composition & Production at the Utrecht School of the Arts in Hilversum and this was the birthplace for Sick Individuals. Their mutual love for House music led to their formation.

Initially resident DJs at the exclusive Club Drop in China, their performances started spreading across Europe. This duo are committed to bring in a fresh sound and say: “We want to be part of the whole production process when we decide to make a new track. From chord progressions to recording vocals & samples, from refining the mix to the final master”. The Dutchmen are now roped in by a variety of established labels, such as Universal, Warner / Atlantic, Virgin Records, Spinnin’ Records, Armada Music and Steve Angello’s SIZE Records. Big name artists like Far East Movement, Justin Bieber, Flo Rida, Freestylers, Nadia Ali, Graffiti6, Tiësto and Nicky Romero have opted for a Sick Individuals twist to their tracks and from what they told us, 2013 is only getting bigger and better.

We caught up with them over Skype and had a lovely session discussing music, touring and life in general. Here’s what they had to say:

Hey Guys!

It is a matter of immense pleasure to interview you for our portal- The Bangin Beats. We love your work ! Also, we’re hoping you’ve formed a favourable opinion of our portal.

Q) Tell us how you came up with the name?

SICK INDIVIDUALS: In the beginning there were three of us and the third person was an MC. He used to keep saying “these guys are sick individuals” and “you guys did a sick performance” and kept using the word “sick” all the time! And that’s how our name came up..Also, the MC was an older guy and he was a gym instructor as well. So he had two passions and we had just one and so we both wanted to focus on the music and we finally dropped him..

Q) We read a bit about your past and you guys are multi instrumentalists and have graduated with a degree in music composition and production. Tell us about that.

Ray: I play the the piano and guitar and I started singing as well. Jim can play the piano really well and I’ve tried giving him some singing classes! I did a little course on drums and we know a lot of instruments but yeah I concentrate on the piano and he’s focused on the vocals. And a couple of months back we got our degrees and it’s nice because we’re finally finished with it. So now we intend to be solely focused on Sick Individuals. In fact, we decided to team up during the course of our education for projects in school since both of us were into electronic music.

Jim: He liked my taste and style of music and I liked his. So yeah it was an easy one..

Q) Did you always want to be dance music producers?

Jim: Ray started with hip hop and I started with trance and a little bit of hip hop and slowly got into dance music.

Ray: I think that was a good combination because I was writing the songs and all that and Jim was doing the beats and combining those elements brought the chemistry together..

Q) Were you DJs first or producers? What is your setup like?

SICK INDIVIDUALS: Producers definitely! We started DJing about 2 years ago. We have 3 sick CDJs and we feel its really important to create a good atmosphere when you’re playing. So if you look at your laptop (no offence to the people who do) you don’t entertain the crowd. A pioneer setup is the best way to do it. And when you’re touring its easy because the clubs have it already and you don’t have to carry any equipment with you..

Q) What inspired you to get into dance music?

Ray: Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra and later on it became more electronic with Daft Punk, Fedde Le Grand etc..

Jim: I always followed house music so Laidback Luke, Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso etc..

Q) You guys have certainly made a name for yourself when it comes to remixing records with releases on numerous renowned record labels such as Size, Virgin, Spinnin etc..Did they start out like bootlegs?

SICK INDIVIDUALS: No bootlegs involved. We did some because we wanted to have some fun. But the older remixes were official ones. We started remixing with smaller artists and then the big labels heard us and so we moved onto bigger labels. (like with the Flo Rida remix). We like remixing because we get focal and inspired because we are producers and we wanna try things out. We switch the mood of the original project and the next time, we always wanna do something new. So anyways we ended up making 22 remixes last year!..

Q) What is your personal favourite remix?

SICK INDIVIDUALS: Some we like more Live and some we like more when we’re in a chilled mood. You’d mentioned that y’all liked the Hook N Sling remix and we took inspiration from the icona pop remix for that one. We like the progression we got for vegas girl and we liked the climax of Pauly D. If we have to warm up for another DJ, we like to play on fire – the second drop is pretty original because the crowd goes just mad when we play that..

We’re more focused on originals this year and we really like it because we get to work and collaborate with singer songwriters. We’ve already made six..

Q) What does the touring calendar for 2013 look like? Coming to india any time soon?

SICK INDIVIDUALS: We had a really nice time last time we were in India. We’ve just switched booking agencies and now we’re with Sushi 3000 that also represents Deniz Koyu, Fedde Le Grand etc..We saw the live stream of the Sunburn Festival in Goa and Fedde’s set and the production looked amazing! Right now we’re working on our visa for America but january is all about making new stuff in the studio..

Q) What are you working on in the studio these days?

SICK INDIVIDUALS: The tracks we made recently are very different and they’re all going to different labels. The originals are with big labels with big artists. The next remix is for a dutch band and its a little commercial and radio oriented

Q) Any last word for your fans?

SICK INDIVIDUALS: We love you! We think we have a lot of real fans and they know every sound and track and really into our music and we love that..

Thank you for the interview! We look forward catching you live in India soon!

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