Russian producer Artyom Stoliarov, known to fans as ARTY, grew up eating, breathing, and living music, so it’s no surprise he’s seen massive career success in the last decade.

His traditional training began at age eight in Russia, where he went to music school, graduating at age 14. His passion transitioned from the more traditional path of classical piano to electronic, where his talent flourished. His debut release on Enhanced Music put him on the map of the electronic music scene, and his success has since seemed to snowball.

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ARTY has collaborated with huge artists Armin van Buuren, Above & Beyond, Mat Zo; he’s performed at huge festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival, Tomorrowland, Creamfields; he’s been listed on DJ Mag‘s top 100 DJs five times. This coming year is going to be a big one for him, and he took some time to speak with us about his journey so far.

You’re originally from Russia, would you say your background affects how you approach producing?

I wouldn’t say that growing up in Russia made any big imprints on my approach in terms of production, but being raised in Russia and studying in music school and university definitely made me more diligent and willing to work as hard as I can.

How did you get into music?

Apart of music school in Russia, it was mostly my childhood DJ friends who introduced me to house music and production software. I started to mess with making music when I was about 14 years old. By my second year of university I realized that music is my biggest passion and it’s the only thing I wanted to do in my life.

You’ve played huge festivals such as EDC Las Vegas. Do you have any favorites? Any crazy festival stories?

There are so many, it would be hard just to mention one! Every year you discover new favorite cities, countries, and venues that you’ve never played before, and they blow your mind!

One crazy story that I remember happened in Indonesia when I was playing Warehouse Project Festival a few years ago. It was pouring rain, unbearable traffic, and getting to the venue, even with police escort, took us five hours. Even when we got there, we had to take a motorcycle ride through the venue and I barely made to my show! Never seen anything like that in my life, but it was worth it – one of the most passionate crowds I’ve ever played for.

Your sound is very melodically driven. What’s your inspiration behind that?

I’ve always loved melodies the most. For me it’s the most important part in pretty much every track or song. For as long as I can remember, every record that I’ve made, production has always started with harmony or chord progression, not the actual beats.

I think in the long run, a good melody is the most memorable and timeless thing that people are going to think about when listening to the music.

Where’s home? What do you do when you’re not making music or touring?

Los Angeles has become my second home for the past few years when I moved here, at this point I barely have any time to visit my family back in Russia.

I’m a huge video game fan, however sadly, with my schedule and amount of work I have to do in studio every day I don’t have time for it anymore! Good movies and books (the other things that I really love) are left for plane trips when I’m touring.

Is there anyone you’re interested in working with?

There are a lot of new artists that I would love to work with! But first, my hope is to finish collaborations with my favorite artists like Axwell, Porter Robinson, and more tracks with Mat ZO. We started collaborations but just haven’t finished yet. I’m looking forward to hopeully finishing those tracks in the near future!

Are there any up-and-comer artists you can’t stop listening to? How do you discover new music?

My main platform for discovering the new music and artists is Spotify. SoundCloud is still incredible, but this year I spent less time on it. The most stand-out new artists that I discovered for myself in 2017 were Antic, Lorn, and Spencer Brown.

Any advice to someone trying to break into music?

Passion, hard work, and a strong belief in what you do is by far the biggest advice I can give. It’s really important to stay true to yourself and push yourself every day as hard as you can, further and further.

What’s in store for the next year?

Since I have my two projects that I’m working on, both ARTY and ALPHA 9 [ARTY’s side project] will have a lot of new music coming out! At this point, I have about eight to ten records that are already scheduled to be released next year and I’m still working on more. It’s going to be a lot of new music in 2018! It’s going to be amazing.

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