The Echio Quiz with Thys (Noisia)

How did you learn music and did you have any mentors?

When I started making music on computers it was around 1999 and it was really out of boredom. Nik, who would later form Noisia with me, and Martijn would spend nights at my house because he lived in a village out of the city and we didn’t have much to do. We either played video games, but at some point he brought a CD-ROM with pirated music software on it and we started messing around with music.

I had always liked music a lot and was considered a musical child — I had lessons and stuff, but the lessons bored me so I quit at some point. The software combined what a video game feels like with music-making. Exploring the possibilities of music software is how I learned — it was very game-like.

My mentors were also Nik and Martijn. We kind of learned together by playing around with each other. Back then, internet forums were very fruitful places. It felt like an unlimited new world opening up in the early 2000s. Places like Dogs on Acid, dsci4 Forum, DNBforum.nl — we spent a lot of time there, got feedback on early work, production advice, asked silly questions that are still online. We also shared breakbeats and recordings. So yeah — the internet and each other.

Tell us about a key piece of feedback you received during your career and from whom.

What was really important for how we ended up doing things is that Black Sun Empire and Triple Vision encouraged us very early on to start our own label. They understood that we wanted to release on labels we loved and belong to those crews, but they said: “Start your own label now, from the beginning.”

It took us until 2005, which in retrospect was still quite early. Big up Black Sun Empire and Triple Vision — we still work with Triple Vision today as distributing partners.

What is good music feedback in your opinion?

Really good music feedback starts with questions. If I give feedback on a song, I start by asking: What are you trying to achieve? What is the context?

I’m not going to answer only from my perspective and experience. I need to know where you’re going with it. Is this for research or fun? Do you want people to feel something specific? Is there a concept? Good feedback starts with questions that aren’t answered by the audio itself.

What feedback would you give to your first release?

I wish I had more feedback on our first release, but it was still kind of dope. Silicon by Noisia came out on Nerve Recordings and I still really like it — good groove, good energy.

My feedback would be: “Great, keep going.” And in retrospect, if you’re doing this seriously, start your own label so you don’t have to follow other people’s schedules, tastes, or interests, and you can pave your own road. We did that two years later with our first release on our own label in 2005.

If you could spend a day in the studio with one of your heroes, who would it be?

A couple come to mind. Our biggest examples as Noisia were always The Prodigy — spending a day in the studio with Liam making old-school breakbeat punk stuff would be sick.

Daft Punk are personal heroes since the ’90s. Filtering disco samples with them and running everything through an Alesis compressor would be incredible.

And dBridge — such a unique personality. I loved his early stuff with Bad Company UK and everything he did after is iconic. He followed his own path and I have huge respect for Darren. We’ve never collaborated, but I feel it will happen at some point.

What’s the object in your studio you can’t live without?

I’m going to give a very lame answer: my laptop.

I stopped working with desktop computers. I do everything on one laptop so I can bring my whole studio anywhere — couch, train, plane, headphones, Bluetooth noise-cancelling. Every time I have an idea, it’s right there.

Ableton, Bitwig — the software is so fun, fast, and playful. Pair a laptop with good headphones and good visualization software and you don’t even need a studio room. I make a lot of music on my couch.

If you weren’t making music, what would you do?

If I hadn’t met Nik and Martijn and started Noisia, I have no idea. I was studying philosophy, into video games, probably would’ve played more chess — which I’m doing again now.

I find it hard to imagine myself being the person I became without music. Discovering this creative calling gave me purpose — making music, making people feel things, creating connection.

I’m incredibly grateful. I have no idea what would’ve happened otherwise. I hope to do this for many more years and start giving back — returning the blessings I’ve received. That’s why I’m here, trying to impart my knowledge.