Originally from Iran, moving to the United States, Dubfire honed his craft in the vibrant club scene of Washington, D.C. With a mutual childhood friend Sharam Tayebi, they created a DJ and production duo “Deep Dish,” that made a significant mark on the global electronic music scene, earning a Grammy and several nominations along the way. Venturing into a solo career, Dubfire embraced a distinct sound, focusing on techno rather than the progressive house that characterized Deep Dish’s music.
Interview with Dubfire
Hello Ali, how are you doing?
I am good, thank you I am just in L.A. recording at the moment, I’ve been and I have the rest of this week before I will go to Miami to play at Ultra Music Festival and then more or less move back to Europe for the summer season.
That’s what I wanted to ask you, are you preparing for your upcoming performance at Ultra Music Festival, this time you are going to play the B2B set with Ilario Alicante. How did this collaboration come about?
Ilario and I have been friends for years. We often play the same events, sometimes he plays before me, sometimes after me and I am not sure exactly when we did our first B2B, I think I might have been Escape From Wonderland before the pandemic and we had great chemistry. He said at the end of the set, that this was great and that we should do it more often. The more often, it keeps happening over and over again. We are doing Cavo Paradiso, Family Piknik festival, and Ultra together. It is always fun to play B2B sets not only as a challenge because you need to follow each other musically, but it takes sort of pressure on the burden and the anxiety of just knowing yourself in getting through the set. No matter where we are and what stage we are in our careers I think we get a little nervous whenever we are in front of a big audience and to have someone to share the burden is always welcome.
I like both of you, so this B2B set, I am sorry I will miss it this year, but never mind because as you are coming soon to Europe You’re scheduled to play also at the Beats For Love festival, which is known for its special locations. What can fans expect from your performance, and why do they come to see your closing set at Techno Dome?
To be honest, I have never been to the festival or that region before. I am coming in with an open mind. I often have like a sort of basic outline mapped out of what I want to play, but I usually turn up an hour before just to check the vibe, the stage, the atmosphere, the crowd, and especially the DJ before me, I think its Michael Klein a friend of mine. For sure, I will come early and once I am there it help me to determine which direction I go in musically.
I think you are going to love it, because of the atmosphere and the location it’s pretty amazing, so I hope you will stay a little bit longer and see what’s going on at the Beats For Love Festival. They have announced today Eric Prydz as well as the headliner.
Ah great, he is my friend as well.
I guess so, it’s going to be big this year.
You’ve had an incredible journey in the electronic music scene, as a solo artist and as part of duo Deep Dish. What’s the biggest difference for you when you are up on the stage with Sharam, or when you are performing alone?
Sharam and I, the reason why we started Deep Dish is I think not only that we had recognized we have a certain unique chemistry together. Initially, we started just playing locally and a lot of our friends, and promoters, and then eventually when we started to tour outside of DC and around America, and Canada before we went to Europe. Everybody sort of felt like we had a unique sound together. I came from a very alternative underground background which Sharam understood but he tended to lean more towards crowd favourites, crowd-pleasing tracks, and that combination of underground and commercial I think was where the magic of Deep Dish was created and we took that around the world. But having gone solo after that I decided to connect with my techno roots, my underground house roots and let the solo music kind of dictate the direction I go in as a solo artist. I have always been eclectic and I am still very eclectic and I enjoy being that way I couldn’t imagine only playing one specific sound multiple times every week and year out. So I do enjoy all the great opportunities that come my way to play deep house set to banging techno set and everything in between and that’s sort of been my journey so far and I continue to do what I love I am very fortunate and happy.
Speaking about Deep Dish I still have in mind the set from Ultra Music Miami 2019. The intro of the set was really special with the sound Say Hello and It was cool I have it still on my SoundCloud saved and sometimes I am listening to it.
I just remembered it was a re-edit we did a long time ago when we mixed Eric Prydz, you have mentioned Eric Prydz before. We mixed this with the song „Positive Education“ Pink Floyd The Wall. It happens in the same key as Say Hello. I think it came out around the same time and we did a re-edit where we used Say Hello as the intro to our set and it went into Eric Prydz track, a crowd-pleasing kind of favorite for many many years and we put that song out for that Ultra set.
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your career?
I think we continue to face challenges—especially these days.
I mean back then there weren’t as many people as today who are DJs and producers, while that’s a good thing, it seems like, it’s tough for the crowd to decide who to see because there are too many options, and for the promoters to decide, who to book. It’s an interesting and challenging time for different reasons.
Watch Interview with Dubfire
It’s the same and I can see it in the Czech Republic, there are so many DJs, but not so many parties and events, so they don’t have a place to play.
That is exactly what I was going to mention there are more DJs than events and there are only certain hours at these festivals and clubs they operate and with too many DJs that everyone fights to get on the lineup, it creates this sort of unhealthy competition for everyone.
From your point of view As the legend on the scene, what advice would you give to newcomers in the industry?
There is so much I can talk about. I think, make sure you are getting into it for the right reasons. A lot of people look at what we do as having the sort of access to the party life. VIP, travel life. It is important to make a decision about what you want to do, who you want to represent, and what kind of legacy you want to have, are you a DJ? Or the producer? Don’t be in a rush, that’s the major thing I would say. Don’t be in the rush to go from announcing you are starting to DJ to getting on festivals, international festivals, and club lineups. Take your time. A lot of us took a long time to get where we are today and we appreciate where we came from we were able to enjoy the journey of getting involved from someone who had just a passing interest in music to become a passion in something we made a conscious decision pursue to where we are today and that took decades. So I would just tell all the young kids out there to be patient and allow things to involve organically and naturally. Take some time if you want to make music, and spend some in the studio with an engineer. If your music is not good enough and you can easily compare to what’s kind of in charge, what’s under streaming sites, and what others playing, if it’s not good enough, don’t be in a rush to release it.
Finally, can fans expect any new music or exciting projects from you shortly?
I just did a remix for an alternative rock band, that I wish it when I was younger.
There is another remix I did for techno artist RMK in London, that coming out in May.
We continue to release remix packages from my EVOLV artist album. We have a lot of amazing remixers who have remixed certain tracks from my album that we released so far. There is a collaboration with Flug and certain labels are interested in it.
There is going to be a lot of original production and a lot of remixes and eventually, I am going back to the studio probably to work on my next artist album, which I want should be more reflective of my roots, like in new wave and indie music and you will have probably me sing on it. It’s a challenge to record the next artist’s album having been influenced by my old roots and have me singing on every track!
Lots of exciting things, great, we can’t wait for that and we can’t wait to see you at the Beats For Love festival in summer, so do you have any message for your Czech fans, who are going to visit you there?
Thank you so much to all of my Czech fans over the years and I am very much looking forward to playing at the festival for the first time and seeing the unique location and meeting all the fans.
Thank you so much!
Listen to Dubfire on Spotify
Follow Dubfire
YT Dubfire – Escape (Truncate Remix) [SCI+TEC] | EVOLV The Remixes (youtube.com)
