We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Critz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Critz thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

To be completely honest I learned most of what I know now about music production through trial and error. Of course I have had and still have mentors to this day but the majority of the growth I see comes from trying something or taking a creative risk and learning from the success or failure of that. I’ll also be the first to say if you have the means to go to school for music production it is the best investment of time and money that you can possibly spend. A lot of what we start off learning is in the box, this is how Ableton works, this is how you write drum patterns, this is how you synthesize baselines or chords or lead sounds. But eventually that put me into a box of this is how it HAS to be done. If I could go back 3 years to the start of this music production journey I would tell myself learn the basics of how the programs work and from there, start exploring. Try things that may or may not work. Be okay with failure, with writing a record that doesn’t sound good the first time you play it out. Be okay with writing something that doesn’t work as well as you thought it would on the dance floor. Overall, be okay with failure because even though there is a right way and a wrong way to write a dance record, sometimes the wrong way is the one that sounds the best or gets the best reaction.

Now all of that being said I do believe it is so important to learn the basics. Learning how to use. Ableton or Logic or ProTools or Reason or Cubase or Bigwig or any other DAW is the fundamental building block of learning how to make dance music. Keyboard short cuts are life savers! Learning how to program basic drum patterns that have worked for years in the clubs is super important. Learning how synthesizers work and how to make unique sounds is super important! Once you get to the stage though where you can put together a basic skeleton of a record don’t be afraid to take some risks and try things outside of the box. Youtube videos of artists breaking down their tracks are super cool and useful but you don’t have to take everything they say or do as law in regards to how you want to write a track.

All of that brings me to a point I’ve made a few times but truly believe is the biggest obstacle that stood in my way and still stands in my way from time to time. There is no right or wrong way to make music. There are no rules, there is not standard. Music should be an expression from the artist in my opinion and by basing our entire belief that this record is make right or wrong negates the entire form of artistic expression. Leading us to the terrifying future of every record ever made sounding exactly the same.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Chris and I am from Denver! I started Djing about 10 or 11 years ago, honestly I can’t remember when, and had an 8 year run up in Breckenridge working at ski school and Djing at local bars and venues there! I moved back to Denver when 2020 hit and ended up using my abundance of free time to pursue making original dance music instead of just playing other peoples records!

I’ve now been making music for almost 3 years and playing tons of shows around the Denver area at pretty much every venue you can think of for dance music! The most exciting thing is that I put the final touches on an EP I plan on releasing around late march or early April of 2023 that will be the kick start to some really big and exciting things! I would love to tell you more but some of the final touches are still in the works so make sure you follow me on social media to learn more when I can finally announce it!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Yes! My number one goal is, to have as much fun as possible. I remember the first time I ever experienced dance music in a club. I think I might have broken a few underage laws to get in but the amount of fun and excitement I had from that has stuck with me this whole time. My goal is to always have as much fun as possible and to make sure that my fans and audience have the same amount of fun because of my music.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

There’s a saying, and I don’t know where it came from or who said it first, but it goes something like “The only reason any musical artist is famous is because their friends believed in them and supported them before they were famous”.

I think the thing to focus on there isn’t the aspect of fame, or the aspect of success. Rather its meant to be focused on the support of their friends and people who believe in them before the success. Releasing music is very hard on me mentally for a variety of reasons but the number one reason I keep going with it is any time any of my friends like or share or save a song that I made it makes me so happy that they like it and are willing to support it! If I could change one thing though, I wish that there was more attention paid to what we are doing. It only takes a maximum of 20 seconds to pre-save a song on Spotify or $2 to preorder it on iTunes or Beatport. That love and support goes a long long way in the long term success of the song and the success of our careers as artists. So, if someone asks you to pre-save a song please just do it. We will all be thanking you forever and ever.

Contact Info:

• Website: itscritz.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/itscritz
• Facebook: Facebook.com/itscritz
• Twitter: twitter.com/itscritz
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6tPwZ194S6dJLsSMb4ENwI?si=D_I__ZL5ShKcjRLNZlDq8Q Sound Cloud: https://soundcloud.com/discover

Image Credits
Jason Meyers @memorqndum_media (1,2,4) @brizzzzzle (3)