Festival Friendly sits down with DJ/Producer Ben Brown

Its a great feeling to see people enjoy your music. It also goes hand in hand with Djing. It also serves as a great conduit to get my name out there to different faces and places.

That's becoming the hardest thing lately. As a DJ I spin anything from quirky minimal and deep house to banging progressive and techier house... Occasionally trancier stuff too. Good music exists in every genre. If someone asks I just say Progressive House...it's easiest that way.

Ha, not sure.. unicorns eating hot dogs? Seriously though,sometimes I do write songs with an accompanying visual idea or concept in mind, but each song has its own unique feel to it so it might be hard to choose one image.

The amount of energy in dance music is great, yet there's still some stuff that's highly sophisticated and intelligent. I like to find that medium.

Oh man.. always a big question for me. Beck, Fleetwood Mac, Radiohead, RATM, Sasha/Digweed, Led Zeppelin, and 16 Bit Lolitas lately, but the list goes on forever.

Lately it's been all music. I'm finishing up my master's degree in Computer Science at Loyola here in Chicago, so that's been my other commitment. I also taught a course in computer science and worked as a teaching assistant over the past 2 years. I may be going for a PhD pending acceptance to a few programs. For fun I like to play Wii on occasion. Getting back into running and working out a bit as well. Also: movies with the girlfriend, dinners, normal stuff.

Well, I'm about to sign with management/booking agent, so that's fulfilling one of my primary goals for this year(it came way sooner than I had expected). Right now I'm working on expanding my gig schedule, solidifying a few local residencies, and generally setting myself up to go full-time music.

Eventually want to be in the upper echelon of electronic music producers and DJ's. I'm also starting to do work in film and video game scoring, so that's going to be another avenue I'd like to develop.

In general, I always want to get better at what I do.

I would say generally the gigs I play at Vision about once a month are all my 'biggest'. Always a good crowd in that venue. Playing in Miami this year with Chris Lake, Jody Wisternoff, Oliver Moldan is a big one too at this stage in my career.

I play about once a month at Vision's main room. I play a lot around Chicago as well at various other venues. So, anywhere from 3-5 gigs a month.

Personally I wouldn't want to be doing anything else, so it's 'good' for me.  Everyone in my life, from my family to my girlfriend, is supportive of what I do, so that makes it easy.

• Faithless - It's a Kind of Peace (Gabriel & Dresden Remix)
• Underworld - Beautiful Burnout (Pig & Dan Remix)
• My own track Tessera is becoming a favorite as well.

I can't remember, probably some party in college.

I never have a set playlist.. If it's a big party I'll have a good idea of what I'm going to play, but not in any particular order. The beauty and challenge of DJ'ing is reading the crowd and feeding off that vibe.

I've had the most fun playing smaller events with friends... where the DJ's are more a part of the party instead of the focus of the party :)

Never played a festival or concert venue before, so I can't say. I can imagine each having their own pros and cons.

I have some remixes out currently and my first original release was last year - Love and Solace on Audio Logic Recordings. 2008 is going to be a much bigger/better year for me on the production front.

Almost exactly three years ago  I bought Ableton (version 4 I believe) and started trying to write dance tracks with it. Been playing with audio software before that since I was 17 or so. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner.

I think the first thing I did was for a remix competition, of this track by Digital Witchcraft.

Oh yes.

Absolutely. One of my goals as a producer is to be as versatile as possible. I don't have a set template for tracks, so I force myself to start fresh for each new track. I love to experiment with new software and synths as well. It's a pain sometimes, but I think it helps to keep things interesting.

I really don't like to write a track in the same style as the last one I did. I've got to keep moving and keep it interesting. For example, an original I just wrote is quite a banging peak-time progressive house track... just before that I was working on a collaboration with Nosmo and Kris B here in Chicago on a track called “La Cocina”, a real trippy and groovey minimal vocal track.  And my remix for that is much different than our original.

The week of WMC is always fun, I've been down there the past two years. Ultra itself is a massive party, a bit of sensory overload for me, so I plan on doing the club/pool parties this year. It's a great time to go down and network with music people. It's also a great chance to finally meet and hang out with people in person who I've only had relationships via email/IM.

It was pretty shitty.. The weather was terrible. Cold and rainy. I was only down there for 2 days for a gig then back to Chicago.

I think this year is going to be superb. The weather should be better and there seems to be bigger/better events going on as well. Everyone I've talked to is stoked to be going to Miami this year.

I'm playing a party with Chris Lake, Jody Wisternoff, Pole Folder, Oliver Moldan, Adam Sheridan  and a bunch more at Hotel Marseilles.

Not sure.. maybe 1000-1500 people.

All the time. I've finished up about 7 remixes in the past month and a half. Also have two releases in March, one two-track EP on Deep Records and another on Audio Logic. Finishing up a ton of original projects as well.. It's been a busy time.

Yes of course. Production-wise I'm starting to make music more in-tune with the dance floor. In the past, I was writing music before I had been Djing to crowds consistently, so I didn't quite get it and was writing more for myself than for what is applicable in the club. Playing out consistently has really helped on that front.

Yea, I just signed with Rise Artists to handle my bookings worldwide. Very excited about that because it allows me to focus on doing what I do as an artist, and I don't have to worry as much about organizing and negotiating trips. Its looking to be a great relationship.

No problem! Thanks for the interview!