DJ Q&A: Cold Blank

Los Angeles electro-house duo Cold Blank will be occupying the stage at Temple on November 19th, playing tracks off their debut album that won’t be released until 2012.

I got a chance to talk to Christopher Gaspar, one half of the duo, discussing how far they’ve come, how they’ve built their record label Burn the Fire to utilize EDM distributors like Beatport, and they’re excitement having completed their debut album.

How much fun are you having right now?

I have some friends in the industry that also do what I do and although they seem happy their not really able to take the next step. Manny and me are best friends and almost like brothers and I’m blessed to have that. I’ve toured without Manny in Florida and felt so disconnected. We get to have a lot of fun. We go on tour, share the experience and explore places we’ve never been together.

What Remix was your favorite  to do so far?

I’m not saying that I don’t like the official remixes we’ve done for Chuckie or Zedd, but the bootlegs we’ve done are my favorite. Seeing the reaction of the crowd when we’ve turned a top 40 song into a dirty electro house track is something special.

What city has given Cold Blank the best reception?

Australia has been our place to showcase our music and our label in the sense that we always bring our A game when we’re there. It was our longest flight and it felt like we were touring, so when we got there we compiled our best tracks, a lot of new tracks and remixes that would be coming out in the next few months. We treated it like the Winter Music Conference. We divided our focus on the Winter Music Conference and Australia. Everywhere you tour you always try to bring out your best, and Australia is a place where we’ve gotten to show what we are all about.

How has your relationship with Beatport helped spread your music?

Once we noticed which marketing tools were the most beneficial, we’ve been able to build a strong relationship with social mediums over time. It took almost 12 months to be cleared as a record label by Beatport but now we have our own Beatport agent, which allows us to release our music directly to Beatport without going through some third-party distributor. Now it’s not just Cold Blank that hits the top 100 [on Beatport], it’s almost everything we put out on our label [Burn the Fire] that reaches the top 100.

Burn the Fire has evolved and now has more subscribers on Beatport than Cold Blank does; that gives our artists more of an advantage. Now when we release anything on our label it’s propelled by a completely different force.

What do you prefer, recording or performing?

That’s too easy. I prefer performing, to be honest. I’d rather make one album a year and tour off of that album for the whole year. I don’t think it’s that exciting if you’re making these big tracks with huge drops if you don’t get to see them in action. It’s more fun to play your own music, because some people are there for you and the exclusivity of hearing a new track before it’s been released or even announced. Performing creates a natural euphoria that nothing can touch.

Cold Blank perform at Temple on November 19th. Tickets are $20 and the party starts at 10pm.