Sometimes in life you make decisions that put you in the right place for things to happen

Sometimes those decisions are deliberate, sometimes they are luck. But luck or not, that choice was yours and Sean Tyas has made some big choices over his career that have always seemed to put him in the right place. Rather leaving America or rebranding, Sean has been able to navigate 20 years in a scene that is very hard for US born artists. With a brand new label, Sean’s focus is taking him back to an old sound that was almost lost. With his passion and talent, it is no surprise that he is where he is today.

Welcome back to LA! You are currently on fire and your new label, Regenerate, is quickly becoming a major player. First of all, why the move away from Degenerate? What will be the biggest difference between Degenerate and Regenerate that fans can look out for?

So I think the biggest difference will be just content. We are signing up a lot of tracks that are much more of a happy, uplifting, ugh I hate that word uplifting, let’s go with happy melodic vibe.  And the label name Degenerate no longer fit these tracks. Degenerate fits more dark, tech trancy stuff which I will probably still be doing on Regenerate. But the concept of the label was to regenerate a sound that has been kind of lost by us over the years. Bring back this 2006-2009 more banging kind of sound. It didn’t completely die off but it needed a bit of a growth again, because the sound is really big for me.

You established Regenerate Records, along with British DJ Activa. It is a no brainer why you would work with him. He is a legend and talented. How does your working relationship going?

We communicate on a daily basis. We usually use phone calls through WhatsApp. We just try to coordinate things and constantly going back and forth with ideas and content for the internet, for the artists. We work with the artists that we are working with. Pretty much just stay in touch at all times

Danielle: I really love what you guys are doing right now with Regenerate. You guys are placing yourselves as a massive player, very quickly.

Sean: Thank you

Danielle: I am a huge fan of the label already and i love the track you have currently with Niko.

In a recent post, you mentioned that a new remix, Rapid Eye-Circa Forever, passed the test at Luminosity. I know many artists road test their music live, but what exactly are you looking for when you drop a new track or mix? If not playing it live, how do you prefer to test your music to see if it is up to your standards?

If I am testing it in a club or a festival or something like that, I am looking to see if it still sounds good to me. It is hard to gauge because it is so loud, but I am definitely making sure it sounds great, and I am making sure it has a good effect on the crowd. The crowd is going off, or is it a small effect in your set. If it has a small effect, you did something wrong and you need to go back and rework it. And if I cannot test it in those places, I will take it to do the car test, and if it sounds a bit off. You know what music should sound like in your car, so that is another process.

Everyone knows you are a family man, and you are rather reserve with your family life. You recently made a comment that your daughter has been banned from social media until she is 26. While I do agree with keeping youth off social media for as long as possible, 26 seems a little too much. Why do you feel that way? How does social media play a role in your life?

Well, it was an exaggerated joke of course. That would be impossible to keep them off, but I want them to experience life the way I did growing up. With minimal input from the outside world. There is a lot of negativity ideas and a lot of negativity on social media, so to be able to avoid that for as long as possible would be nice. 

You began your music career in 2006, after you were named a contest winner by Sander Van Doorn. Do you ever look back at that moment? Would you do anything different in your 20 year career?

I would do some things different. I probably would have stayed or tried to stay in a [particular style of] trance only, rather than doing so much public exploration of different genres throughout my career. I feel that from a production standpoint, I learned lots of things by doing a lot of new skills. But from a fan standpoint, they kind of got pissed at me for trying anything new.

You have been living out of the United States now for 15 years. Do you miss anything from the US? How much has this move helped you with your career? Would you recommend others who are passionate in pursuing their careers in electronic music/trance to do the same move?

I miss a lot of choices that we have for restaurants. You don’t have that at all in Switzerland. You may have 2 choices of anything and that is not even a guarantee. At the market, you can have plain chips or that is it, and that is super boring. But in terms of has it ‘helped me’ by living there with my career, and that is a ‘yes’. 

I am living dead center in Europe. I am perfectly located to get to any of the European gigs, which is of course especially 10 years ago, was the bread and butter of what I was doing. So that worked out very well, because when I was living in New York for a bit, I wasn’t able to do half of the gigs because they wouldn’t fly me out, or I couldn’t get a visa, so that made a lot more sense. And if anybody needs to do the same thing, just make sure you got something good in place so you [can make it happen]

Finally if you could only live by one motto, what would it be?

I like this one, it is not mine but I do love it. I was told if “you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life”.