EDM posterboy Martin Garrix has today claimed that his most formative musical influence is phone ringtones.
Speaking to Mixmag earlier today, Garrix was asked what style of music most influences his brand of EDM, to which the Dutch producer replied by taking out his iPhone and playing the old Nokia tune while bobbing his head with eyes closed and telling the interviewer, “ringtones man, they’re amazing”.
“A lot of people will come out and say ‘oh, I like Chicago house’ or ‘the first time I heard this track I knew dance music was the thing for me etc,'” elaborated Garrix. “But for me personally, none of that matters, I was brought up on ringtones and it’s still a massive musical touchstone for me now.”
“I guess it’s just the tinny, nursery rhyme melody and vaguely annoying feel that I like and tried to capture on tracks like Animals,” he added. “Ringtones are supposed to jarr and disturb you from what you’re doing so you pick up the phone to make it stop, just like EDM.”
“For me a good ringtone is better than or at least equal to any piece of traditional music ever made,” continued Garrix who says he has a collection of over 50,000 ringtones on a hard-drive he keeps in a safe at home. “Those chirpy little phone alarms are as good as anything Beethoven ever wrote. Sure he couldn’t even use a phone. Fucking mong.”
“I still remember the first time I heard Crazy Frog, I was on a bus reading a copy of Beano and eating jellybeans when suddenly this amazing sound blared from the phone of a large woman next to me,” explained Garrix. “It had this jerky, infuriating energy that just resonated with me. I was heartbroken when the woman answered her phone, but changed irrevocably by what I’d just heard. It was like how actual musicians must have felt the first time they heard The Beatles.”
“Some of my favourite ones include the Nokia Tune, Hurdy Gurdy and of course the classic, Ring Ring,” continued the young producer. “Every time I sit in front of my computer to email my producer about what track to make next I always tell him to make it sound like a ringtone. It’s the sound I’ve been chasing on every track I’ve ever written.”
“When I have my people sit down to write a track I never imagine what it’ll sound like in a club or coming out a speaker at a big festival, I always just think would this sound appropriate if it was being piped out of a tiny phone? And if it is, then I’ll release it.”
“I’d prefer to just compose ring tones if I’m honest, but there’s no money in it,” he concluded. “Maybe once EDM disappears up its own arse in about 6 months I’ll probably have no choice but to make ringtones full time, that’s the dream.”
