Open Mic with Audien and Mahalo!

DjWhtDaHek:
All right guys, back again here with another edition of Open Mic. It is dj, what the heck. And uh, with one of my favorite artists back on the show, once again, I got Mahalo with me this time. Mahalo, thanks for coming back on man.

Mahalo:
You betcha. And thank you for having me, man. The

DjWhtDaHek:
Last time we did this, it was over, uh, zoom, I believe in. Now we’re doing it in person, uh, which is really nice. It’s a lot better than over a Zoom call, that’s for

Mahalo:
Sure. I got to agree with that one.

DjWhtDaHek:
Yes. Yes. And, um, y you held it to me to, uh, find a place with, um, some good pasta, maybe a ball and yays. Well, I dropped the ball on that if we just had lunch and there wasn’t a pasta dish. Insight. In fairness, though, you still owe me some clean versions of, um, not watching anymore and so cold. So I guess we’ll have to just call it even for this right now,

Mahalo:
It’s a draw for now.

DjWhtDaHek:
It will be a draw for now and that, that is acceptable. . Well, next time you’re in town, there’s gonna be so many pasta dishes around. It’s not even be funny. It’s gonna be 24 7

Mahalo:
And you’re gonna have like five different files of not watching you more clean in your inbox.

DjWhtDaHek:
Good. I will take that. So you’re in Durham tonight. In Charlotte tomorrow. How are you prepping for these shows right now?

Mahalo:
Um, you know, feeling good about ’em. Uh, had a release today called Feeling Down. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. and, uh, you know, just excited to be here. Um, it’s gonna be my first time playing in both cities and so I’m really looking forward to it.

DjWhtDaHek:
Yeah. Will, uh, feeling Down be played tonight? Maybe? Yeah,

Mahalo:
We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see you out.

DjWhtDaHek:
You’ve mentioned, uh, feeling Down, which is your latest track. You said it’s one of your favorite records yet?

Mahalo:
It is. Why is that? Well, I think, you know, it’s uh, it’s a real fusion of a lot of different styles and emotions. Um, lot’s gone into this one and it’s, it’s, it’s cool because, you know, feeling down, you know, kind of what does that mean? You know, is it feeling down in an emotional kind of literal way or is it feeling down in essential kind of seductive way, you know? And, uh, it’s that ambi ambiguity in that sort of balance. I think that makes this track sort of special because it’s towing the line of both of that.

DjWhtDaHek:
I like it because I heard it, it dropped today. I heard it for the first time last night, so take that Spotify, but it’s been stuck in my head ever since. So when we were having lunch, back of my head, feeling down was going, so it was great. It’s a great, great track and I hope it does really well when it’s actually when everyone starts hearing it everywhere, so

Mahalo:
Really appreciate it. Indeed. Really. That’s awesome.

DjWhtDaHek:
Appreciate it. I’m saw on your website after Charlotte tomorrow. Uh, there’s nothing else listed in terms of, uh, live shows. Is there some downtime coming for you?

Mahalo:
Uh, for a couple weeks? I do have, uh, another show coming up in Kansas City and uh, yeah. But for the next couple of weeks, you know, really got some time carved out to work on some tunes and there’s a lot of stuff I’m working on finishing up that I can’t wait to show you guys.

DjWhtDaHek:
Right. So it’s much needed downtime from the, a break from the tour.

Mahalo:
Yeah. You know, um, holidays are always a weird time in the music space. Mm-hmm. , um, people are everywhere, so, you know, things tend to not get done as much. Right. So things are just kind of firing back up. And so the next few weeks are a good time to, uh, you know, everyone’s kind of available and back by now. Yeah. No more excuses. Right.

DjWhtDaHek:
No more excuses. And in that downtime, what would, what would downtime with Mahalo be like?

Mahalo:
Um, you know, chilling, chilling, uh, reading, doing, you know, different kinds of exercises and stuff. I, I love Tai Chi. Mm-hmm. and so, you know, I’ve been working on that, working on myself and uh, you know, just trying to do my best.

DjWhtDaHek:
Nice. And, and back home is gonna be to California, right?

Mahalo:
Yeah, that’s right. I live in Santa Monica.

DjWhtDaHek:
Right. Santa Monica. Do you ever get back to Hawaii at all?

Mahalo:
I do. I do. Um, I was there last June mm-hmm. , um, hoping to go back again this year if you know the situation, permits, but, uh mm-hmm. , I, I, I’ve gone back about every year, um, for probably the last 15 years. Maybe not once or twice in there. Right. But, um, yeah, I try to make it back all the time. I know I see family, you know, just be, be out there in the islands, like it’s a good reset and recharge for me Yeah. Out there, um, every time, you know? I love it.

DjWhtDaHek:
Never been to Hawaii. Never been to Sacramento before either, but, um, you’re Santa Monica. I’ve,

Mahalo:
I was about to say Sacramento. You don’t need to go to Sacramento for comparing Hawaii and Zack, but you know, nothing against Sack down, but , you know, I don’t think it’s cut from the same cloth as Hawaii. Right. At some degrees.

DjWhtDaHek:
I, I’ve never been, but I would’ve to agree with that one as

Mahalo:
Well. Santa Monica on the other hand is a great place. Yeah. Highly encourage you to go.

DjWhtDaHek:
What would be one thing to do there?

Mahalo:
Uh, hit the beach and now hit the beach. Hit the pier. You know, that’s, that’s kind of the, the, um, the typical thing, you know, has got on the pier. But dude, I mean, it’s an experience every time you go out there. I’ve, I’ve never gone down, down and out onto the pier without it being magical. Mm-hmm. always something happening. Always something happened. Always something unexpected.

DjWhtDaHek:
Unexpected. And what’s unexpected is that we’ve both never been to the fruit tonight. So, uh, we’re just gonna show up and hopefully it’s, that

Mahalo:
Is surprise

DjWhtDaHek:
. We’ll figure it out right at the fruit tonight. Mahalo. You don’t wanna miss it. And you also don’t wanna miss his latest track feeling down, out everywhere. Now Mahalo, once again, thanks for doing this and Yes, next time you were in town, Boer pasta dishes galore. It’s happening. All right. I’ll have the U USP stick ready for you . Sounds good. Thanks for doing this man. You bet. And now throwing it over to DJ Flame with my boy Nate, who I wish I could gift a uh, propel Water too, because we talked about that last time. Maybe he still has his coconut water gone. A ya coming your Way.

DJ Flame:
Thank you DjWhtDaHek? This is DJ Flame right here. And now we have Audi and hey buddy, how you doing today? Good man.

Audien:
How are you

DJ Flame:
Doing? Really good. So how, how was your trip here by the way?

Audien:
So easy. I, I live in Austin so it was like a two hour flight and I just zoned out for two hours. Easy.

DJ Flame:
Yeah. I ain’t that bad. So. Well, since you have, I know you’re a bill of rush, but I know for like big stuff like this, how do you conquer like stagefright? Do you ever get stagefright or

Audien:
No, not at all. I mean, like, I’ve been doing this for like a 12 years now, so it’s like, it’s just second nature to me. But I don’t know, I guess there’s some shows that I get stagefright, like if I’m about to play in front of like, I don’t know, 50,000 people, I might be like a little bit but flight up. But I mean, you know, I I just have so much fun with it. I don’t even care anymore. I just just enjoy myself.

DJ Flame:
Yeah, I completely understand that. I know this is not like much of the bigger venues. So like is there anything that you do prepare for a show or you just like have any routine or,

Audien:
You know, I just keep it really simple man. I, I always sleep before a show. I get a disco nap going, but other than that, I mean like I just get new music and I always wait until the very last minute to prep sets. I don’t really prep sets but I like always get my la my new music like 10 minutes before I get picked up

DJ Flame:
. Yeah, I gotcha.

Audien:
It’s kind of a problem maybe, but yeah,

DJ Flame:
That’s pretty good. So, um, I’ve been recently listened to your music and the best one I probably love so far is the one that you did with Lady Anna Beum. Yeah. So can you tell me more about that one?

Audien:
Yeah, that was like, you know, so long ago and like I was just in a different head space completely back then, but I am still in that, that cre I still have the same creativity that I did back then. You know, it’s like I just wanna create cool records with unexpected artists and like just take the, the kind of the progressive house sound to like cross over sort of appeal moments. That’s what I thought that was really, you know, like a country song with Progressive House. It was like the only other person to do that was Aviche at the time. Yeah. You know, rest of peace. So

DJ Flame:
Did you, did you like, did you intend it to be like a country song or just like a half and half?

Audien:
I wanted it to be like a really perfect blend of the two. Like, you know, I wanted it to live in both kind of settings comfortably and I think it did, you know, it was really hard to get it to that point but I think it’s a classic at this point, at least for me.

DJ Flame:
Yeah, it’s a really good classic and it just popped up while I was listening to your music and I’m like, that’s the best one yet. In the music video I got a little confused on the music video. It was like, was like about like an alien or something or? Yeah,

Audien:
Exactly. So like we wanted to create a video that like wasn’t predictable, just like kind of the song wasn’t so predictable and, and I think we achieved it for

DJ Flame:
Sure You did cuz I was like, I was expecting like an alien but it was like a human-like alien and it was like, that was interesting. But yeah, that has to be like one of my all times. It is definitely a classic, but hey most of the older songs are definitely a classic. So do you like plan on doing another like collaboration with other artists in the future

Audien:
Or? Yeah, definitely. I mean we’re, we’re like always trying to think of cool collabs that are unexpected, but right now I’m working on collabs with a lot of artists that I like right now, like just in MySpace really. Um, KOCO is one of ’em, music a really amazing up and coming producer, like super underrated in my opinion. So like, have a bunch of stuff with him, um, working on one with telecast also very underrated and up and coming. And then, uh, couple other collabs this year that are like, I can’t mention yet, but that are like really unexpected crossover kind of thing. So yeah, just check out for

DJ Flame:
It. Yeah, those are the best ones and trust me, Amy Mu music, we always play it right here on Wolf Bites Radio. Thank you. I know one of my favorite ones is drifting Away that You Did so that, that a actually has been stuck in my head too, especially with the synth and that one. So

Audien:
Thanks bro. Appreciate it.

DJ Flame:
Yes sir. So it looks like you’re about out of time here, but again, I really appreciate you for sitting down here. No worries. This is DJ Flame and is there any last words you’d like to say before you go?

Audien:
Nah man. Just thanks for the support and like yeah, let’s keep it, keep it moving with the music.

DJ Flame:
Right, of course. I know dj what the heck wishes here cuz he says something out, he’ll give you like a Propel water or something from the last Zoom interview.

Audien:
Ah darn. Yeah. Here in spirit.

DJ Flame:
Yeah, he is. Anyway, good luck tonight buddy. I do appreciate it. And if you do enjoy this podcast, you do it for you to subscribe to Wolf Fights Radio on Apple Music and on YouTube DJ Flame. And I’ll see you guys later.