Don Diablo: Exclusive "Future XL" Interview

We sat down with Don Diablo after a big year and his massive Future XL show in Amsterdam. Looking back on 2018, the #1 most supported Producer Of The Year talks about selling out his first solo show months in advance, his plans for the upcoming year, and what makes his fans so special to him in an exclusive interview with 1001Tracklists!

Don, first of all congratulations on such a big year! How does it feel to look back on 2018?

This has by far been the craziest and most gratifying year of my life to be honest. I mean, becoming the #1 most supported Producer Of The Year on 1001Tracklists, entering the DJ Mag Top 10, a massive Star Wars collaboration, and also selling out my biggest solo show of my career — months in advance. It’s something I probably never dared dreaming of but I’ve always worked hard for, so it definitely feels like all those years of hard work and massive disappointments have now finally resulted in something I’m super proud of and I’m massively grateful for. So I don’t know what to say other than that I’m going to do my best to make 2019 an even better year.

Talk to us about Future XL and what made the night so special for you — what are some of your personal highlights from the night?

For me, Future XL is probably the most special show I’ve done so far because it was a 4 hour journey through my own music, remixes, and edits. And it wasn’t just a musical journey, it was also a personal journey. I would like to say, through music that means a lot for me personally — music I haven’t played for many years but have played an important role for me when he comes to becoming the producer that I am today. Also some of these records have a very personal undertone — I premiered a record that I wrote for my brothers and I also played a song that I wrote for my dad when he passed away — and all of these are songs that I don’t usually play in my normal festival or club shows, but they are very important to me and very personal. Future XL was all about connecting with the crowd on a different level and about opening up even more than I normally do and that’s what truly made this night very special to me.

Your dedication and passion for giving back to the fans is truly admirable — why do you like to connect with your fans?

I feel like the connection with my fans is on a whole different level. I would like to think of them as family. When I perform live it feels like everything kind of comes together in a perfect way — from music to fashion to art and video — they’re all merged together and they all kind of make sense all of a sudden. They kind of connect to people on a deeper level. As much as my music has meaning to my fans out there, my fans are also the ones that save me because I've gone through a lot of dark times and I’ve been going through times where I was really struggling with finding self-worth and even kind of deciding whether I would still continue doing music. Now that I've connected with fans and people all around the world it feels like I owe it to them to give it my all and my passion and energy for the love and the art of music is still growing everyday to be honest.

What’s next for Don Diablo and your Hexagon label in 2019?

My plans for the future are to keep working on becoming a better producer, becoming a better human being, making more people smile. I want to push and release more talent on my Hexagon label, make the label more independent, and just kind of grow a bigger ecosystem that will be able to support more artists in the future. And also, obviously I’m working on my next Star Wars collab — very excited about that! Most of all in 2019 I'm going to try to make another album.