RB Exclusive Interview: Hungarian’s Own Nalestar

After winning Morgan Page’s remix contest for “Beautiful Disaster,” receiving support from massive EDM blogs, and amassing an impressive 85,000 streams on Spotify with only a single release on the platform, Hungarian producer Nalestar is an up-and-coming artist who isn’t messing around. Currently, the house producer is working on lots of new original music, collaborations, and has also recently started a YouTube vlog series.  Through his videos, Nalestar provides his subscribers with updates in his musical life, music tutorials, and more!

After discovering his remix of Porter Robinson and Madeon’s “Shelter” on YouTube, I had this instinctual feeling that Nalestar was on the verge of blowing up.  After checking out his releases on SoundCloud (seven tracks in only five months!) I reached out to him about an interview, hoping to provide some background on the European artist and insight into his process in creating his “Shelter” remix.

Thanks for doing this interview with us!  What is the EDM scene like in Budapest, Hungary?

Thanks for having me, my pleasure and thanks for the opportunity!  Hungary is known for the big festivals like Balaton Sound and Sziget more than its club life, kind of hard to describe the scene as a whole to be honest because it’s very different here than what it’s like in the US for example. I’d say there are some great clubs, but it’s rare to see international headliner EDM acts here.

 How did you go from being a classically trained musician to becoming an electronic dance music producer?
I was 10 years old when I started playing the violin and 11 when I first discovered FL Studio so there was no real transition. I ended up studying classical music as a profession but because I was basically living my life on the internet the whole time I discovered online forums about music production and I got involved.

 There are not many producers like you who are selfless enough to give away your resources and music production tips.  What prompted you to release your music project files for free on Splice and to post tutorials on YouTube?
I discovered Splice in 2015 I think but I’ve been using it only since last year. The platform reminds me a little about the “good old forum days” and I simply decided to upload the stuff I do for fun, this is how it really got started. It’s something I’d like to keep continue doing in the future as well, I hope these projects can help others with taking their productions to a higher level.

You have only started releasing music since September of last year.  How did you feel when you saw your song ‘City Lights’ gain tens of thousands of plays as a new artist?
It felt like a dream! That was something I never expected, I’d like to thank JoeySuki and Dubbed Records again for the release and the amazing promotion they arranged for the track! City Lights was my first official release as Nalestar and I honestly couldn’t be any happier with how well things went.

Your musical style is really melodic and refreshing.  Could you tell us some of your biggest influences?

I listen to a lot of different genres, but my biggest influences at the moment are probably house producers. Oliver Heldens, Shadow Child, Dave Winnel, Tchami, Joe Stone etc.

Where do you draw inspiration from for your tracks?  What inspired the remix for Shelter?

I usually just mess around with synths and try to come up with something. The idea for the Shelter edit came from this same process, I uploaded a short video about the creation session to my Youtube channel. I try to keep up with the hit tracks and such but I always try to get the inspiration from within.

What made you think to throw in a trap section in your remix?  I thought it was really tasteful and unique!
Thank you! When I was working on my Beautiful Disaster remix for the competition I wanted to end the track with a bang to make sure it stands out, that was the first track where I tried out this type of switch up. Then I liked it so much I decided to implement this element into a few other productions as well, and I think I’ll keep playing with this until it becomes too predictable and then I’ll figure out something else!

 What can we expect from Nalestar in the coming months?
Lots of new music! Don’t know if I can spoil this, but I’ll have a new original coming out probably next month, I’m really looking forward to it! I’m working on a few different collaborations at the moment as well so I’m still hard at work and hope to finish and publish everything as soon as possible! I’m active on all the big platforms, so if anyone’s interested just keep an eye out on my socials!  Thanks for having me, really enjoyed this!

Connect with Nalestar: Facebook | Twitter | Soundcloud