Wax Motif has a long history with Miami Music Week. The don of bass-forward house music has been coming to the infamous marathon of dance music events since before he signed his first official releases to Nervous Records and Mad Decent nearly ten years ago. So, his debut appearance on the Worldwide Stage at Ultra Music Festival on Saturday, March 26, was a potent full-circle moment.

 

When he took the stage early Saturday afternoon, the crowd stretched well beyond the confines of the massive structure that towered over the dance floor. And as the Australian-born LA-based artist breezed through his library of naughty, low-end slappers, the crowd only grew more frenetic. While certain artists' music is more conducive to a mellow two-step, the crowd for a Wax Motif set comes to get down. There's no parking on the dancefloor.

 Born Danny Chien to immigrant parents near Sydney, Australia, Wax was imbued with a hustler's spirit. He watched his parents grind to build a home for their family. And they imprinted the entrepreneurial spirit upon him. Aside from his command of ripping basslines and technical DJing, his passion for innovation stretches into community building, label management, and technology.  

He was among the first to recognize the power crypto holds to create unique direct-to-fan relationships. His WAX coin allows users to engage directly with him in various ways, from meet and greets to production workshops. And his ever-growing Discord has forever challenged the way he sees the community that coalesces around him. So much so that he is no longer comfortable calling them fans. Instead, they've become a vital part of his team. 

 We caught up with Wax Motif just after his Ultra Music Festival debut to chat about his love for Miami, his wildest nights out, and what it means to have come this far. 

 

You've been coming to Miami for years since you were handing out USBs to DJs at shows. How does it feel to be on one of the biggest stages in the world in front of a crowd like that?

 It's crazy because we used to come out every year from Australia. Just hustling, trying to get into parties [to give] the DJs a USB. I can't believe it now. I'm the one getting USBs, and I'm the one they got getting a boat here. It's like a dream. Like I was saying earlier to the boys. I was like, 'Yeah, you want the helicopter to EDC. You want the boat to Ultra.' So I feel like I did it.

 

What do you think sets Miami apart from other party cities in the world?

One. It's Miami! Even when I was coming from Australia, every time I landed here, and walked out of the airport, I felt that humidity and smelled the air. Something happens in your brain. And you could see it this week when everybody was landing they were all posting their photos on IG for Miami. Yeah, that's that feeling.

 

There's an energy here that's different than anywhere else in the world.

I'm living in LA. Everyone's done by two or midnight. So it's like that excitement of 'I don't know, shits going on all the time. There's never a downtime. You can probably go to leave [for the club] at 3 am, and it's crackin'. 

 

 So, you started your label in 2019. And I feel like it's inevitable for artists to start a label at some point. Why do you think it's essential to create an outlet for yourself and other artists?

I think the number one thing is speed. I think with the big labels, they have a lot of other artists, and there's a release schedule. And, you know, the process is a little longer. When you have your own label, you can be like, 'bang, bang, bang' and kind of run and gun a lot. Some things need to go out straight away. One of the biggest things is speed. And then the second thing I think is owning your own masters and retaining control over everything.

 

Let's talk about your label as a community, not just for you but for your artists too. How do you see that as being a community-building project?

So, I think I involve a lot of my fans in what I do as well. We have a really good Discord. For instance, I let them vote on the title of my album. And so I think it's the same thing when someone signs to the label to the label. Like with longstoryshort the other day, my next song is with him, and he dropped in my Discord. Everybody's chatting with him, and he's chatting back and getting that crossover with fans in a genuine way. Direct engagement goes a long way.

Yeah, it's a beautiful thing to see artists be able to be so direct to fan.

I love hanging with my fans. And I hate even calling them fans. That sounds cheap. I mean, half of them are my friends now. Lunar and X, for instance, are definitely two of the biggest fans. They've come to every show from east coast to west coast. They'll fly. And we'll tell them, 'hey, we're going to an after-party. Do you guys want to come?' I want to include all my people

I love to hear that. That's so awesome that you're really making friends in the process.

 Yo! I've made shitloads of friends. My tour manager is my friend.

Are you serious?

Yeah, we became such good friends. I had other tour managers I was working with, but I just wanted to work with my boy. We met because of all that shit.

 

So fun fact, you put out the very first Dj Mix on Spotify a few years ago. I was working for the company that did that. And then you've also been an innovator in the crypto space. So I just got to ask, what is so impactful about you being one of the first to do something?

I'm pretty big on that. I'm not much of a procrastinator. If I have an idea, I'll want to do it like today, and you can ask my manager about that. He's laughing his ass off back there. Because the minute something gets in my head, I'm blowing his phone up, and I'm like, 'you gotta go now.' I'm not a waiter. I don't like waiting. He'll tell you too. If I can do it myself, I fucking will. I also just don't mind taking a risk. And if I fall on my ass, cool, but lately, every risk has paid off for me. So, I gotta keep going.


We also recorded a hilarious speed round with Wax Motif. You can check that out in the above video.



 

 

 

Wax Motif Came Full Circle at Ultra Miami

Australia

Wax Motif

ARC Music Festival

United States

Union Park

Superior Ingredients (Roof)

OCHO Episode 3

 show will tell you it’s an absolute ripper of a time. Tongue-in-cheek samples seamlessly skate among brain warping production while chest-thumping 808s shake the hips and stomp the feet of every listener in earshot. The spell of the music is hopelessly irresistible, and fighting it only prolongs the inevitable party that awaits.

But how did Wax become the G-house giant of today? How did Danny Chien from the sleepy suburbs of Sydney, Australia, become one of dance music’s heaviest hitters? The answers to those questions start with his parents—the son of two immigrants who modeled a tireless work ethic for Danny from a young age.

“My parents weren’t crazy into music… There are some people whose parents are composers. My parents weren’t that musical or anything. They were immigrants. They were just working a lot,” Chien recounts.

Left to his own devices, Danny started down a path of music discovery in high school. Platforms popular at the time like Limewire and Napster meant easy access to seemingly bottomless wells of sounds old and new.

“That was when I started finding rap shit and dance music. I would just find heaps of shit and suddenly I knew every word to ‘Juicy’ by B.I.G,” he laughs.

Wax Motif- House of Wax #050

Dropping tracks off my brand new album "House Of Wax" as well as new music from Matroda, Diplo, Dombresky, Solardo, CID & Joshwa, Rebuke and many more!

House Of Wax #050

Danny sheepishly shares that the first dance music that captured his interest was trance and progressive house. A distant sound from the carnal bass-driven beats for which he's now famous. But those themes would prove to be mere introductory stepping stones, soon giving way to beats more in line with his affinity for hip hop.

 “It moved pretty quick out of [trance and prog]. That was cool for like… experimenting. And then 

. Because I really enjoy like Armand Van Helden cuz the sampling shit was so—the texture and stuff—the feel was so organic,” Chien remembers.

The Picard Brothers are a Parisian duo that initially got their start in the music industry composing beats for French rappers. Their command of hip-hop artistry eventually led to a debut on the Pelican Fly record label in 2014. The pair went on to produce and write songs for artists like Beyonce, Kehlani, and recently, for rising star Yebba on her album Dawn, produced in collaboration with Mark Ronson.

They won a GRAMMY in 2019 for their contributions to “Electricity” by Dua Lipa and Silk City. These days, their production is a complete modern-day revival of classic French dance music. Their unique contemporary French house production style can be heard on energetic remixes of songs by Disclosure, Flume, and fellow French artist, Myd. 

The purveyors of this modern French house resurgence are aiming to repopularize the subgenre this year. In the 1990s, house music and European disco-inspired the short-lived but heavily-adored subgenre of electronic dance music called French house. The subgenre is characterized by disco, funk, and house music elements like funky basslines, filtered and phased effects on vocals, and songs often feature samples of disco hits from the 70s and 80s.

The French house sound dominated the UK electronic music scene in the late 1990s and then, as the subgenre emerged at raves and clubs, it peaked on global dance music charts. Though French house’s popularity tapered off in the early 2000s, Italian and French DJs remain loyal to the iconic subgenre.

The Picard Brothers made a playlist of their top 9 favorite French house tunes of all time to share with you. In it, you’ll find classic cuts from the 90s and early 2000s, by iconic artists like Daft Punk and Cassius—these French house tracks will have you getting up, getting down, and vibing out! Listen to the Spotify playlist here, and check out their cheeky video for their latest modern French house single Best Of Me, directed by Jay Christiansen.





Demon - You Are My High

This hit song by Demon was released in 1999 and has seen a resurgence among younger audiences lately, thanks to the song’s burgeoning popularity on the TikTok app. The tune is timeless and an earworm—you’ll be singing the bridge long after the song is over. 




The Paradise - In Love with You

Produced by Alan Braxe and Romauld and released on the Vulture label in 2003, this gorgeous track features an ethereal soundscape and beautiful resounding vocals by Romauld. This French house song is essential listening.




Daft Punk - Face to Face

This tune was co-produced by American house producer Todd Edwards and is one of Daft Punk’s most memorable cuts off the electronic duo’s 2001 Discovery album. The song is a moody tale that touches upon themes of miscommunication, love, and connection. Face to Face features a plucky chopped riff, a driving bassline, and undeniably Daft Punkesque vocoded lyrics.








Bob Sinclair - Gym Tonic

This simplistic disco-heavy gym jam was produced by French DJ Christophe Le Friant, who built his career under the name Bob Sinclair. It’s groovy, delightful, sexy, and fun—two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and Back! Back! Back!




Cassius - 1999

Cassius 1999 is the title track off of the ‘1999’ album released the same year, by venerated French electronic producers, Phillipe Zdar and Hubert Blanc-Francart (aka Boombass. Upon its release in the 90s, the song became an instant hit in the UK. The song is an amalgamation of jazzy-hip hop sounds blended with filtered-down disco house. 




Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You

Stardust—the trio composed of Alan Braxe, Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter, and vocalist Benjamin Cohen—released this irresistible dance single in 1998 and immediately disbanded after the single was met with wide acclaim, so the single could retain its magic and mysteriousness, reportedly. After almost two decades, the song still feels as nostalgic and magical as ever.




Cheek - Venus (Sunshine People)[DJ Gregory Remix]

This danceable French deep-house tune is, at 126 bpm, a happy little track that features intensely energetic kicks and distorted synth riffs. "Venus" starts hot, but descends into a slow burner of a house cut, with a quick tempo and fetching percs.




DJ Mehdi - Signatune (Thomas Bangalter Edit)

This track was produced by fellow French remixer and hip hop producer, DJ Mehdi. Inspired by legendary hip hop group Public Enemy, DJ Mehdi’s production style on the original "Signatune" track featured resounding kicks, scratching, and reverberating bass patterns often heard in both electronic music and hip hop. This edit by half of the Daft Punk duo, Thomas Bangalter, is an elevated, pumped-up take on the original yet still stays true to Mehdi’s unique melding of the two genres.




Alan Braxe, Fred Falke - Chrystal City 

Another French house staple by Alan Braxe with co-production efforts by Fred Falke, this funky tune features heavy synth and electronic sounds, paired with samples of the city. The sirens, wind sounds, and answering machine vocals paired with the groovy bass and synth, will make you feel nostalgic.




This Picard Brothers Playlist is a Masterclass on French House

His ears now fixed on a groove, a 16-year-old Danny soon found himself exploring the rave scene with his friends. One of those friends even acquired Numark turntables, and while one might think this would be the launching point of Wax Motif, Danny sings another tune.

“When I was 16 or 17 my friend bought decks and I went to his house and started playing with them… and I was so bad it was so difficult I was like ‘Naaaahhh, I’ll never do this,’” he chuckles. 

“I went through high school and I was playing sports, so music was never really in my mind, I was just playing sports the whole time.”

High school came and went, and as Danny graduated to college, so did his interests and exposure to the music scene. 

“I started going to clubs, like actual clubs,” he starts. “You’re not going to raves anymore cuz you can get into clubs. So it was around then I just bought some shitty turntables and bought like two records and would just go back and forth. I would just mix from one record back to the other back to the other. It was like a 

 record to a Chemical Brothers record into the same. Only had two vinyls. But yeah, so I was doing that but just for fun.”

Wax Motif - EDC Las Vegas Rave-A-Thon

Take a look back Under the Virtual Sky as we celebrate the EDC Las Vegas Virtual Rave-A-Thon with host @Pasquale Rotella! ⚡️🌼🎡 #StayHome and rave #WithMe #WaxMotif

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Wax Motif - EDC Las Vegas Rave-A-Thon (May

But halfway through college, what started as a light-hearted hobby soon found new vigor when Danny and his friends spent part of a gap year in the United States. He humorously recounts the defining experience saying:

“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. I think it was after that… but it wasn’t even a good show,” he cracks up.

“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. But 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 grinding for years to make headway in a sparse Australian dance scene. Sydney's open format parties allowed him to hone his now-famous party-starting energy and technical skill. They even led him to interact with fellow Aussie up-and-comers like Alison Wonderland and Flume (then in WhatSoNot). 

However, discontent with the resources available in his homeland, Danny began taking yearly trips to the US for two to three months of networking, industry studying, and production projects.

“There was no other way you could do it from Australia. I mean now there is,” he admits.

“Now there’s a couple kids who can be based out there and smash it. But back then we weren’t even on the map. The only two people I knew that had moved were Tommy Trash and 

... And that was right when Tommy was like really big. Like right before he did 'Reload.' I was with him when he wrote all those records when he was still in Sydney. So I got to watch all that happen in front of me."

Anna Lunoe warmly greets me via Zoom, even introducing me to her family in her cheerful Australian lilt as we set up to dig into her upcoming EP, Saturday Love. Lunoe radiates energy that’s as gentle as it is powerful, exuding a calm grace that stands in contrast to the high-intensity club tracks she’s known worldwide for.



Re-writing the rules of the game comes naturally to Lunoe, who first broke into the mainstream with her 2012 EP Anna Lunoe & Friends. A legendary multi-hyphenate of dance music, Lunoe is a songwriter, producer, vocalist, touring DJ, Apple Music radio show host, podcast creator, and mother of two children, who feature on her latest single, “Alright.”






After facing the turbulence of the COVID-19 pandemic, dual lockdowns following her relocation back to Australia, and a cautious uncertainty surrounding live events, Lunoe’s new music is a love letter to past and present selves changed by following life’s unknowable path. Despite adversity, Lunoe muses that “all roads, all the emotions lead back to being able to dance through them.”




Saturday Love releases on July 29th via NLV Records.


Follow Anna Lunoe on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Tik Tok | Soundcloud | Youtube




With a new EP coming, and a brand-new banger out now, tell me about the writing process—the EP came together over the last few months, right?

It happened in a few different stages. The oldest one is "Saturday Love," the title track. I started that in 2015. "Peach Fuzz" was started in 2016. Those two songs have been on my laptop, waiting for me to work out what to do with them, but I loved them. Every year or so, I check in on them. I have a stack more [songs] sitting on my laptop that I think are special. There's something I want to pursue about them.





Do you feel like you learn different things when you come back from a song that's seven years old? How do you determine when you're ready to do what?

When I wrote "Saturday Love," the other songs I wrote that year were "Stomper" and "Radioactive," which are quite different from that. "Saturday Love" was really emotional and really rolling. It had the same sort of walking bassline, which wasn't a straight four-four beat. It was a bit more convoluted. The sincerity of the vocal wasn't really where I was at with the vocals I was putting out. There were a few elements that didn't fit the story of where I was at.

I go through stages where I'm more into this sound then more into that sound, especially when it comes to club music. It's just like fashion. You look in your wardrobe, and suddenly an old sweater that you never used to wear, that you haven't worn for five years, looks fresh again. It's the same thing with a song.




I love the sample of your son on "Alright." It's such a fun, personal touch.

[laughs] He really did enjoy it. I started it on a Friday. It was literally the week before we were turning in the EP, and I was playing with this song that I had, and I decided to delete 90% of it and make a really directional club banger out of some of the sounds I had. I played it for the kids before bed, and I've got this video of them jumping on the bed, screaming, and enjoying it. The next day, I had a sample in there, and the sample was sounding pretty boring, so I was like, "What can I do instead of a sample?"


The next day, it was a Saturday, and I get a little break when the kids have a nap in the middle of the day. I started fiddling with this song, and Rocky woke up early and came downstairs. I was like, "okay, Rocky, you say it!" I got him to record some stuff, and it sounded fun, and then Willa woke up, and I tried recording the two of them and just played with the vocals to see if it sounded good. I ended up stacking most of our vocals together for the most part, so it's me and both the kids.







Let's talk about the artwork. I love the neon, 90s, and 2000s rave vibe to it.

Well, I worked with an artist called Adam Dal Pozzo, who is an Australian designer and is very accomplished. Really incredible at what he does. We came up with this mood board of concepts. I selected all these images, and then we came up with this palette of what I like, which was interesting for someone to analyze what you like. It was like, "okay, you like blur mixed with sharp edges," and I realized that's exactly like my music. I like blurry big bass mixed with the sharp edges of the perc. It was quite cool to analyze what I like visually and see how it mirrors what I like sonically. Each song is like a spirit wave, a sine wave.


Each song has this energy, this color palette, and this texture and font. So each individual artwork is like a burst of that spirit. The main artwork for the EP is all those spirits weaving in together.







You mentioned that you're working on more environmental approaches to your merch for this EP. What's inspired you to pursue this model now?




If you've been following me online for the last few years, you've seen me get progressively more vocal about environmental issues and the actions that I'm taking. Before the pandemic, I was really passionate about a lot of things with the environment but wasn't living in line with a lot of those passions just by pure necessity. I was so busy that I wasn't even able to give it the headspace it needed to unpack. In the same way that breaking everything gives us a chance to rebuild it when I broke my life apart, it gave me a chance to rebuild it more in line with how I feel about my energy provider, my bank, and the way that I cook and find food, the way that I buy food, where I buy my food, what it's packaged in. I was very mindful of how I put my life back together.




When it came to re-doing my merch game, I absolutely didn't want to do what I was doing before. One t-shirt requires two years' worth of drinking water. We have to be mindful that the things we make have a cost.




I wanted to do vinyl, but I didn't want to do it if it was going to put a lot of waste in the atmosphere. It was really important to me to find a provider that was using recycled materials. We found a great provider in Canada. We actually found a few, and I would encourage any artist who wants to do it this way to reach out, and I'll give you information. We found a t-shirt provider who's using recycled jerseys and not using heaps of dyes and chemicals that wash into our water. [They also use] a closed loop production system, which is where everything is re-used.



You do so many different creative things. I love that you're like everywhere, and you do everything well. How do you recharge yourself in between all these creative projects?




It's funny that you think that I'm everywhere because I feel like I'm pretty selective with what I do now. I feel like I say no to a lot. I have very strong limitations. Over time, I've learned where the boundaries are of what I can commit to, and I give myself very strict deadlines to do things. I do my best to do them to the best of my abilities to a certain point, and then I promise myself to let them go.




Before I had kids, and before I had the responsibilities and restrictions that I have now, that [lack of limitations] was not my friend. I wasn't as productive because I didn't have those deadlines. So I think that the less time you have, the more time you use.







When you're not creating, what do you do to rebalance?

I go for a walk. I have a bath. I cook food. I go to the farmer's market, buy heaps of vegetables or food, and cook soups. I just try to nourish and calm everyone down. It's very boring, but it's what I have to do to keep it all even.





Was it emotional to be back in the clubs on your tour earlier this year?




It was very emotional for me to be back in the clubs, especially in America. I walked away from my home, not knowing what was going to happen. When I went back, I didn't know what I was going to see. I didn't know if I was going to have people that wanted to see me play anymore. So to go back and feel the love, and feel [that] the connection was still so strong, was very emotional for me. I felt like a part of my heart belongs there and is just at home there.




I've spoken to a lot of artists too on my radio show about how they felt, and I think a lot of people did what I did. They just wanted to connect with their more emotional songs as well. They had time to dig into these songs that had more emotion because they were in a place of flux and uncertainty. Some of us made songs that are really chill and not for the club at all, which is beautiful, but somehow in the journey of the two years that I fiddled with these songs—I took breaks on them and did the podcast and stuff, but they all ended up coming to the club on that journey, so that was cool too. I gave them the chance to be total weirdo, not-club songs but they sort of all ended up coming back to the club.




All roads lead back to the dancefloor. That's the new slogan.




All roads, all the joy leads back—all the emotion leads back to being able to dance through them.








[Interview] Anna Lunoe Dances Through Her Emotions with the 'Saturday Love' EP

Danny was fast becoming a rising star, and as he watched his Aussie friends make a move to the States, they urged him to follow.

"[Tommy] said, ‘You’re getting close to the limit, to the glass ceiling.’ And then Anna had just moved out here, she was killing it too, she was like, ‘Dude, you have to move.’ And I think I had just done the Mad Decent EP and did some shit on Dim Mak and Fool’s Gold and it just didn’t make sense to stay.”

The consistent hustle in Australia combined with the yearly trips stateside had constructed the stage. Now, the move to L.A. positioned Wax Motif square in the spotlight. His reputation for no-nonsense production led him to work with artists from new walks and genres, even producing with artists like Ty Dolla $ign, Pusha T, Scrufizzer, and Diddy. His performance load hit new levels, selling out clubs across the country and headlining festivals the world over. Even the most casual club-goers have undoubtedly heard Wax’s work with tracks like “WET,” “Bunda,” and his remix of AC Slater’s “Fly Kicks” gracing the USBs of countless DJs.

Danny’s journey as Wax Motif has rocketed to the next level in recent years. He’s even taken steps to further ownership and agency of his career by founding his Divided Souls record label. Now at a professionally self-sustaining level, he looks forward, eyeing artistic growth as the next frontier.

“Now I just want to make things that I feel inspired by in the moment. I think I got so used to making music that had a particular energy or particular vibe to it that it kinda became about making club single, making club single, making club single. Which I’m not against,” he adds.

“I think you gotta do that. But I think the point where I’m at it can’t always just be making music for other people. It has to be making it for myself. Obviously, I’m still going to have club records, and I’ve still got some in the bag that I’ll put out… But at a certain point, I need to do a few things just for me, even if people don’t like them, and then we’ll go back to the regularly scheduled programming.”

It is not difficult to lose sight of your starting point in the break-neck pace of the music industry. Being aware of the aforementioned career catch-22 and maintaining the fortitude to venture from the proven path of success is a constant struggle. However, reconnecting with why you do separates the good from the great, the transient from the timeless. It’s as if we see a reconciling of Danny Chien and Wax Motif when he ties this awareness back to his recent debut album, 

“It was just such a shame to have made so much of this music sit on my laptop and not go anywhere. The album is a collection of the older stuff (there’s new songs on there too)," he explains. "The reason there are some things that are maybe a little left of pocket was because I just made it with some homies and was like, ‘This is fire. I would listen to this…’ I don’t want people to sit there and judge it. This isn’t going number one on Beatport. I don’t care. That’s not what it was for. It was just, ‘I fuck with this.’ You can listen to this in the shower. You can listen to this in the car. You can listen to this hanging with your chick. There’s a song on here for each one of those occasions. That’s what it’s all about.”

60 Seconds With Wax Motif

Wax Motif discusses his upbringing and how he got into music and raving.

Read our Spotlight on Wax: https://grayarea.co/artists/wax-motif/spotlight

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Anyone who’s attended a Wax Motif show will tell you it’s an absolute ripper of a time. Tongue-in-cheek samples seamlessly skate among brain warping production while chest-thumping 808s shake the hips and stomp the feet of every listener in earshot. The spell of the music is hopelessly irresistible, and fighting it only prolongs the inevitable party that awaits.

But how did Wax become the G-house giant of today? How did Danny Chien from the sleepy suburbs of Sydney, Australia, become one of dance music’s heaviest hitters? The answers to those questions start with his parents—the son of two immigrants who modeled a tireless work ethic for Danny from a young age.

“My parents weren’t crazy into music… There are some people whose parents are composers. My parents weren’t that musical or anything. They were immigrants. They were just working a lot,” Chien recounts.

Left to his own devices, Danny started down a path of music discovery in high school. Platforms popular at the time like Limewire and Napster meant easy access to seemingly bottomless wells of sounds old and new.

“That was when I started finding rap shit and dance music. I would just find heaps of shit and suddenly I knew every word to ‘Juicy’ by B.I.G,” he laughs.

Danny sheepishly shares that the first dance music that captured his interest was trance and progressive house. A distant sound from the carnal bass-driven beats for which he's now famous. But those themes would prove to be mere introductory stepping stones, soon giving way to beats more in line with his affinity for hip hop.

 “It moved pretty quick out of [trance and prog]. That was cool for like… experimenting. And then French house. Because I really enjoy like Armand Van Helden cuz the sampling shit was so—the texture and stuff—the feel was so organic,” Chien remembers.

His ears now fixed on a groove, a 16-year-old Danny soon found himself exploring the rave scene with his friends. One of those friends even acquired Numark turntables, and while one might think this would be the launching point of Wax Motif, Danny sings another tune.

“When I was 16 or 17 my friend bought decks and I went to his house and started playing with them… and I was so bad it was so difficult I was like ‘Naaaahhh, I’ll never do this,’” he chuckles. 

“I went through high school and I was playing sports, so music was never really in my mind, I was just playing sports the whole time.”

High school came and went, and as Danny graduated to college, so did his interests and exposure to the music scene. 

“I started going to clubs, like actual clubs,” he starts. “You’re not going to raves anymore cuz you can get into clubs. So it was around then I just bought some shitty turntables and bought like two records and would just go back and forth. I would just mix from one record back to the other back to the other. It was like a Plump DJs record to a Chemical Brothers record into the same. Only had two vinyls. But yeah, so I was doing that but just for fun.”

But halfway through college, what started as a light-hearted hobby soon found new vigor when Danny and his friends spent part of a gap year in the United States. He humorously recounts the defining experience saying:

“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. I think it was after that… but it wasn’t even a good show,” he cracks up.

“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. But 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 grinding for years to make headway in a sparse Australian dance scene. Sydney's open format parties allowed him to hone his now-famous party-starting energy and technical skill. They even led him to interact with fellow Aussie up-and-comers like Alison Wonderland and Flume (then in WhatSoNot). 

However, discontent with the resources available in his homeland, Danny began taking yearly trips to the US for two to three months of networking, industry studying, and production projects.

“There was no other way you could do it from Australia. I mean now there is,” he admits.

“Now there’s a couple kids who can be based out there and smash it. But back then we weren’t even on the map. The only two people I knew that had moved were Tommy Trash and Anna Lunoe... And that was right when Tommy was like really big. Like right before he did 'Reload.' I was with him when he wrote all those records when he was still in Sydney. So I got to watch all that happen in front of me."

Danny was fast becoming a rising star, and as he watched his Aussie friends make a move to the States, they urged him to follow.

"[Tommy] said, ‘You’re getting close to the limit, to the glass ceiling.’ And then Anna had just moved out here, she was killing it too, she was like, ‘Dude, you have to move.’ And I think I had just done the Mad Decent EP and did some shit on Dim Mak and Fool’s Gold and it just didn’t make sense to stay.”

The consistent hustle in Australia combined with the yearly trips stateside had constructed the stage. Now, the move to L.A. positioned Wax Motif square in the spotlight. His reputation for no-nonsense production led him to work with artists from new walks and genres, even producing with artists like Ty Dolla $ign, Pusha T, Scrufizzer, and Diddy. His performance load hit new levels, selling out clubs across the country and headlining festivals the world over. Even the most casual club-goers have undoubtedly heard Wax’s work with tracks like “WET,” “Bunda,” and his remix of AC Slater’s “Fly Kicks” gracing the USBs of countless DJs.

Danny’s journey as Wax Motif has rocketed to the next level in recent years. He’s even taken steps to further ownership and agency of his career by founding his Divided Souls record label. Now at a professionally self-sustaining level, he looks forward, eyeing artistic growth as the next frontier.

“Now I just want to make things that I feel inspired by in the moment. I think I got so used to making music that had a particular energy or particular vibe to it that it kinda became about making club single, making club single, making club single. Which I’m not against,” he adds.

“I think you gotta do that. But I think the point where I’m at it can’t always just be making music for other people. It has to be making it for myself. Obviously, I’m still going to have club records, and I’ve still got some in the bag that I’ll put out… But at a certain point, I need to do a few things just for me, even if people don’t like them, and then we’ll go back to the regularly scheduled programming.”

It is not difficult to lose sight of your starting point in the break-neck pace of the music industry. Being aware of the aforementioned career catch-22 and maintaining the fortitude to venture from the proven path of success is a constant struggle. However, reconnecting with why you do separates the good from the great, the transient from the timeless. It’s as if we see a reconciling of Danny Chien and Wax Motif when he ties this awareness back to his recent debut album, House Of Wax.

“It was just such a shame to have made so much of this music sit on my laptop and not go anywhere. The album is a collection of the older stuff (there’s new songs on there too)," he explains. "The reason there are some things that are maybe a little left of pocket was because I just made it with some homies and was like, ‘This is fire. I would listen to this…’ I don’t want people to sit there and judge it. This isn’t going number one on Beatport. I don’t care. That’s not what it was for. It was just, ‘I fuck with this.’ You can listen to this in the shower. You can listen to this in the car. You can listen to this hanging with your chick. There’s a song on here for each one of those occasions. That’s what it’s all about.”

Words by: Austin Miller