Kaskade Inspired Wax Motif to Start His Career in Dance Music
Have you ever experienced a stroke of divine inspiration? The sensation can be fleeting, sometimes only lasting for a few seconds. But in those few seconds, you experience a sudden clarity that feels like every piece of yourself has fallen perfectly into place—momentarily liberated from all doubts and inhibitions. Often that clarity is quickly contested by our conditioned consciousness hurling at us every reason why that abruptly illuminated path could never be anything more than a pipe dream. But what would happen if we took hold of that inspiration and fiercely guarded it against those self-limiting beliefs? What would happen if we boldly nurtured that sapling dream instead of stamping it out in favor of the status quo? If you ask Danny Chien, aka Wax Motif, he might tell you you could land the profession of your dreams.
Wax Motif has become a household name in the world of dance music—a name synonymous with the most gritty and grimy G-House in the game. A vast library of production credits, a successful label, and a loaded performance schedule show us the impressive scope of Waxy’s reach, but this is not mere happenstance. This career materialized because of Chien’s willingness to earnestly foster a stroke of inspiration he received as a college student doing a gap year in the United States.
“Me and my two buddies came [to the U.S.] and did a season in the snow and while we were there we saw Kaskade. It was my first time ever seeing Kaskade,” the Australian shares. He laughs as he adds, “It wasn’t even a good show. It was in Tahoe in some shitty nightclub. When you think about where Kaskade plays today where it’s like Staples Center like this wasn’t a good Kaskade show.”
Until then, Chien had only casually dipped his toe into DJing. He was a regular club-goer and had purchased “some shitty turntables and like two records and would just go back and forth.”
During that small Kaskade show, however, Danny was blessed with a moment of clarity.
“For some reason, it triggered something in me to be like, ‘When I get home, I’m gonna try and do that actually… And then I came home and tried but I wasn’t really that good… That was when the really long boring part started where I was just like trying and trying and trying and trying.” That long boring part would see Chien grind for years to make headway in a budding Australian dance scene. He’d later elevate his game to a level ready for international expansion while growing into the Wax Motif known around the world today.
