La Voz de Ibiza: Thirty-Five Years Behind the Decks

Ibiza's La Voz de Ibiza published a long interview with me this week. From the early mixtape years to DJ culture on Ibiza. The full interview (in Spanish) is at La Voz de Ibiza. Here are some parts that matter to me, translated into English.

Music came first; everything else was a detour

"I've been making mixtapes since I was thirteen. Companies came and went, careers came and went. Music never left."

That's the sentence I love. I've been DJing for over thirty-five years, from cassette decks in a Dutch bedroom to a residency at the Tomorrowland Rooftop Sessions here in Ibiza. What business chapter do people like to ask about? That was the detour. Moving to this island in 2024 wasn't a retirement plan; it was closing the loop and going all in on the thing I started at thirteen.

Today, that means a weekly radio show, The Midnight Project; thirteen new techno tracks every episode; a monthly deep tech house show under my alias Seb_h; my own label, Redesign Records; and new music of my own, most recently my track Paws.

A DJ's responsibility to the scene

The part of the conversation I cared most about wasn't about me at all. It was about what people like me owe this island's scene:

"There are two kinds of communities: exclusive and inclusive. The exclusive one, you need money to enter, you can only play there if you have millions of followers. The inclusive one, anyone can walk in and participate. We have to connect people, in the real world."

If a 17-year-old in Ibiza wants to make a track, film a video, or build something with other creators, where do they go? Governments are sitting on empty public buildings. Open them up. Free open-air parties with local talent? Yes, and not one, a hundred.

"We, the older generation, have to create environments where young people can meet in person and create together, live, not through a screen."

That's not philanthropy talking. That's how every DJ of my generation learned the craft: in rooms where nobody asked for your follower count.

On AI, ugly flyers, and grumpy old men

Thirty-five years in this game teach you one thing about new technology; it always arrives, whether you like it or not:

"Don't complain about it, make better flyers. You have to accept change and not turn into a grumpy old man."

The same was true for CDJs, for digital production, for streaming. The craft survives the tools. It always has.

Read the full interview at La Voz de Ibiza (Spanish). Thank you to M.O.E. for taking the time to write about the music, not just the headline.

Catch me every other Friday at the Tomorrowland Rooftop Sessions in Ibiza, every week on The Midnight Project, and on Bandcamp with my latest release Paws.

Sebastiaan