With their brand new single Gravity now available on all platforms (check it out HERE!), Iranian DJ duo Vessbroz stopped by to chat with us about their music, their life in lockdown and their plans for the future!
First of all, thank you guys for taking the time to chat with us today. How’s everything going?
Armia: We are doing great! Now that we have more time because of the Corona situation we are more in the home studio making more music, making more content for our social media and also making more content for our YouTube channel.
For those few people who may not have heard about you, can you explain a bit more about yourselves?
Arsham: Me and my brother Armia started Vessbroz in 2016. Originally, we are from Iran and currently we live in the Netherlands.
Armia: We signed songs with Sony Music, Reveal Recordings and we have upcoming songs with Smash The House. You may know us for our song Nothing, which charted in the US Billboard Top40 for 7 weeks. We also host a weekly radio show, where we interview different guests every week, such as Nicky Romero, Timmy Trumpet, Blasterjaxx, Bass Jackers, Julian Jordan and Vini Vinci to name a few.
How did you guys get into music?
Arsham: Music has always been our childhood dream, but we didn’t get the opportunity to start our career in music until 5-4 years ago. We started to work on our music in Malaysia. I went there to study Audio and Music Engineering, while my brother Arsham attended private classes in Deejaying and Music Production.
How’s working together as brothers?
Armia: It’s fun working together, especially when we are on stage…that’s one of the best moments for both of us! Of course, we have arguments and disagreements about music or other things sometimes. But because we are brothers and we love each other, we are able to put everything aside after 1 hour (or maybe 2) of arguing. In our group, I handle music, songwriting and melody-writing, whilst my brother handles the more technical part, such as mixing, mastering and song design. From a social media perspective, I handle our social media profiles and the business aspect of things, while my brother handles video editing photo editing and things like that.
How much is your sound influenced by your Persian roots?
Armia: Well, at the beginning of our career we never really thought of getting inspiration from our Persian roots, as we were making more Electronic and Pop music. However, as we learned more about music we started to incorporate more Persian elements in our work , which made us feel more connected to our roots and realise that by combining western music with Persian music we could create something unique, something new.
Arsham: Yes, we asked some friends of ours in Iran to record the sound of some traditional instruments for us, such as the tombak (Persian: تمبک , an Iranian goblet drum) and the setar (Persian: سهتار , an Iranian musical instrument belonging to the lute family). They sent the recording to us and it was great. We mixed them with our Western kind of sound and the result was so good.
Armia: Yes, we managed to sign the song with a good record label and it got a great feedback. Everyone said the sound was so unique and that they could hear the Persian elements in it, but it was still a track you could dance to.
Your album Lost charted in the Netherlands’ Top 100 Album Chart and received support by nothing less than American rap legend 50 Cent. How do you guys live with such a huge success?
Arsham: For us that moment was so unbelievable! Because, you know…50 Cent is a legend. We grew up listening to his songs and they bring up so many memories. The fact that he shared our music made us so happy, and pushed us to make more music. But in a way it also made it more difficult for us, because the expectation was so much higher at that moment.
Armia: People were also looking for something more from us. You know, when you achieve something like that people start asking you “what is next?”, they look for the next step in your career and it was very difficult for us also because it happened only one year and a half after we started to make music.
Arsham: Yes, and I was still a student.
Armia: Yes. I think that in the first or second year after that we didn’t achieve any success, and we were struggling to find our own sound, but now we finally managed to find ourselves, our sound and we are super happy with the result.
Your radio show Electro Vassel is super popular (you can check it out HERE) and hosted some of the biggest names in the industry, such as Nicky Romero, Timmy Trumpet and Vino Vici. How did the idea of the show come about?
Armia: We wanted to share the music we like with other people, and we thought that the best way to do so was to launch a weekly radio show. We were looking for possible names for it and we wanted a name that could really represent us. The word Vassel is similar to our artist name, and Electro is a reference to the type of music we play: that’s why we went for Electro Vassel.
Arsham: Yes. The equipment we started with wasn’t that big at all: we used our laptops and our phones’ microphone. We used our laptop to mix everything. The show kept on growing and in 2019 we had our first big guest: Nicky Romero, who by the way I really want to thank for trusting us. That was a turning point for our radio show, because after that moment many other big guests and top 100 deejay started to came over.
Armia: And to bring the show to the next level, we decided to introduce the topic of “The track of the future”, where we select what we think is the best track of the week.
Arsham: Yes, and from the 100th episode we started to record interviews with our guests for our YouTube channel.
Armia: With them we usually discuss the “behind the scene” of the music industry. This is, in a way, our contribution to the music industry; a way to give back to the community and share our and our guests’ knowledge with beginners or experienced deejays and music producers. And we are super happy with the result so far!
Your brand new single Gravity feat. Michelle Montezeri has just been released and it’s now available on all platforms. How did this collaboration come about?
Armia: This is a very interesting story. Some time ago, we did an interview for a Persian TV channel, and Michelle’s father—who is Persian—saw it and suggested to her to get in touch with us for a collaboration. She is a very good singer, and at that time her YouTube channel was already pretty big and she had already joined a few talent show such as American Idol. So, she emailed us and that’s how everything started. This is already our second collaboration. The first one was the song Lost In The Dark, which we changed later to Dance In The Dark.
Arsham: Actually, we recorded lots of different versions of Gravity before getting to the final version. There was a lot of back and forth.
2020 has been a crazy year. Do you miss touring? When do you think we could see you performing live again?
Arsham: Of course we miss touring, that vibe and that energy that the crowd always gives us in our performances. But during these times….I really don’t know when the Covid will finally go away. We hope that a vaccine will be available soon, so that we will be able to tour again.
Armia: Yes, please Covid go away!
Let’s talk about fashion. How would you describe your styles? What’s the piece that can’t be missing in your wardrobes?
Arsham: We love fashion a lot! We did lot of modelling for different brands back in Malaysia, before starting working in deejaying and music production. We love accessories a lot.
Armia: Yes, we always try to “hang something on ourselves”, such as necklaces, earrings, a scarf or a ring. That’s something we always like to have in our fashion. And because of our love of fashion, oftentimes we change our style: sometimes we are very more formal, other times more sporty and casual or streetwear.
And now 5 Rapid Fire Questions…
1. If you weren’t DJs, what would you be?
Arsham: I think I would be an actor.
Armia: I would be a basketball player.
2. Dream collaboration?
Arsham: Nicki Minaj.
Armia: Enrique Iglesias. I love his voice.
3. A song you’ve got stuck in your heads recently?
Arsham & Armia (singing WAP by Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion): whores in this house…whores in this house…
Armia: That song is crazy!
4. Favourite festival you plaid at?
Arsham & Armia: Exit Festival in Serbia.
5. Who’s the most stylish of the 2?
Armia: My brother is the most stylish one.
Arsham: No, he’s the one.
Last question: what can we expect from Vessbroz for the rest of 2020 and 2021?
Arsham: We have lots of songs in production, like 25. We are going to release them one by one in 2 months. We also have a lot of YouTube content and live stream, so stay tuned for that.
Armia: What we wish, and we dream of, is that one of these 25 songs will win the Grammy in 2021. That would be our dream. Finger crossed!
Thank you so much for your time guys, and best of luck!
