[INTERVIEW] Saad Ayub Talks Career Choices, His Label, Visions, And More

We had an in-depth chat with one of Dance music’s most prominent faces of the last decade.

Recently, we sat down with quite the artist for a proper conversation: Saad Ayub. One who has had an incredible career across his 15 years active, he topped the Bangladeshi scene before moving overseas and pursuing new heights in Canada, and is now a renowned figure in the entire world. Although once a successful Trance producer, his heart moved his sound over to Techno around half a decade ago, where he now rocks stages worldwide with his impressive beats and powerful compositions.

He’s the founder of VRTN, an imprint focused on heavy Techno representatives, and through which Ayub has been able to discover and give light to a good amount of hidden talent, in a relationship that reciprocally exchanges exposure and a helping hand for properly mouthwatering tunes.

At the same time, he’s the head of the events brand Techno Without Borders, a firm born in Lockdown four years ago. Despite its creation happening strictly over the internet, as the months passed and restrictions started to ease and cease, they held larger and larger parties, transforming once empty dancefloors into unforgettable nights hypnotised by the best sounds of Techno.

And if that was not enough, 2024 marks a crucial year in his career, as he’s been crafting not one, not two, but three entire albums, a trilogy he calls Past, Present and Future, which serves as a bridge between an extensive recap of his first ten years in the production side of music, and never-heard-before pieces and IDs he will be lifting the veil of as the albums roll out. The first one, fittingly named Part 1, is out now, and it is comprised of nine tracks, from hit tracks, to his recent release ‘L’amour‘ alongside vocalist Zara Taylor.

Saad’s story is really interesting and fairly intriguing, and so we had to have a chat to discuss a handful of topics with the man himself. Read on to learn anything from his career evolution to VRTN, Techno Without Borders, the Past, Present and Future series, how each of his best sellers has a special meaning and reason to be, and so much more. Without further to do, we invite you to dive into our interview with Saad Ayub.

(Please note, the bolded text represents a question, while the paragraph(s) following it represent Saad’s answers.)

Thank you for coming in mate. We’re stoked to have you. All right, so, first question. You’ve been a part of the scene for quite some time now, 2008 if I’m not mistaken. We’d love to know how you decided to become a producer and a DJ. What — or who — was your inspiration to start on this path?

That’s a great question. Actually, I started around 2007, 2008, as an event promoter in Bangladesh, back when I was about 17, 18. And in one of the nights I was promoting, the DJ was late on his flight and it was a sold-out show. I knew a little bit of DJing here and there, but nothing crazy, just enough to keep the crowd going. I was pretty much, you know, fed to the wolves just to see. That was when I fell in love with the art of DJing, and ever since then, fast forward about what, 16 years now? It’s been quite a ride as a DJ, for sure.

Then I decided to move to Canada and pursue my master’s degree to finish my career. At the same time, I wanted to try the Electronic music scene in North America. That’s how my career as a producer started. I remember I was finishing my master’s degree, but at the same time, in one of the summer breaks, instead of going out and partying, I learned how to produce music from scratch. And yeah, that’s pretty much it, the rest is history.

In terms of my inspiration from 2008 up to now, there have been quite a few of them. I remember being at a friend’s, in his living room watching Armin Only, the 2008-2010 videos. And I was just in awe seeing the people go crazy, thousands of people in the arenas. That really inspired me to be a DJ. And I was like “You know what? One day I’ll be there“. And that’s how it all started.

Then in terms of production, I can list quite a few of my inspirations, but it’s definitely a dream come true for me to work with some of these legends that I used to look up to and go to their parties, such as Markus Schulz, Ferry Corsten, and Paul van Dyk. Especially working with Paul on three different albums is one of those bucket list moments and a dream come true, because if you think about it, just for context, his hit ‘For An Angel’ came out back in 1993, I was five years old then. So being able to work with a legend of his caliber, especially my latest one that just came out this year called ‘Overture’, it’s been a very fulfilling experience for me. And yeah, that’s how it all came to be.

With my recent changes in terms of my music shifting to Techno from the Trance that a lot of people used to know me for maybe 10 years ago, it’s been, I would say more like a natural progression. I remember when I first started as a DJ, I started as a House DJ, and that’s how I got a chance to work with Ministry of Sound World Tours in Bangladesh and the Asia region. And then seeing, you know, Armin playing arenas, that shifted my perspective, and I started to pursue my career on the Trance side of things. Fast forward to not long ago, I had a 360-degree moment when I was like “You know what? I should bring back what I first started“, which was House and Techno. And here I am releasing Techno tracks right now, and I’m very, very happy to.

That is an incredible answer. It blows my mind how it started from an accident and it’s become this.

Absolutely! Yeah, it was not planned.

That’s incredible. Now, when you moved to Toronto, did you notice kind of a change in your musical career? Do you remember seeing things maybe differently when moving to a new country?

Yeah, actually, I remember it was much easier for me to approach crowds or music fans in Bangladesh, just because I was one of the few who were doing Dance shows there. Then when I decided to move to Canada, it was a complete reset, especially in Toronto. But one very interesting story I love to share with everybody is that, before I moved to Toronto, I already knew the scene over there. And it’s thanks to the Internet.

The Internet was just about to blow up around that time, 2009, 2010, everyone was on the Internet. So I discovered all these Defected Records’ videos of different parts of the world. And one of those was Toronto. Same thing with Trance, Armin used to play at Government Main Room and Markus played Government Main Room.

Those were videos I started consuming. Just following and watching them, taking inspiration in and just learning about all this new music I was being exposed to. So I kind of knew what I was signing up for, and I knew that my aim wasn’t like, “Oh, I want to play Government Main Room, play at this festival in one of the proper slots“. It was more of an “I want to go there and experience everything as I see it in my mind“. Also, when I first moved to Toronto, my friends were already living here. It was easy, therefore, to get that exposure I needed. But it was definitely a very different take when I actually got into the scene and became a part of the community.

I was a big raver for my first couple of years, I would say until 2013. I was just raving away my life pretty much during my free time when I got a chance. And then after coming back from those parties, I felt so inspired and even more pressed to learn the music craft. So that’s how the whole process was. But I do remember one cool, cool story with one of the locals, his name is Joee Cons. I had this mix CD I was putting up online. And I thought about sharing this CD to some of the local DJs and seeing what they thought about it. And they would listen and would tell me “You belong to this club or that club, give that a try“. And I was raving in those clubs! So it was quite a natural process. And then one of these legendary DJs, who was the resident DJ for Government Main Room, his name is Mark Oliver. I sent him some of my early-day mashups and he played them. And that’s how I kind of blew up. It was not, you know, getting signed to Armada or any of that kind of catapult. But it meant a lot: a local DJ that really brought me up to the Toronto scene. And that’s how it all came about.

Amazing. Thank you. So, well, you’ve already talked about this a little bit. Over these past years, you have morphed your sound quite a bit and are now sitting on the more Techno side of the spectrum, right?

Yeah.

So during this process of going back to the old sound of yours and discovering this different, “new” space that you love to produce, did you ever feel backlash from your fans and followers?

Great question. And to be honest with you, I would say I am one of those very few lucky artists out there that have not felt that backlash. I remember some of our colleagues from around 2015, 16, when they started to morph from Trance to a little bit more Big-Roomy sound, there was a huge backlash. Even I as a fan! I remember my, you know, heroes, I was a little bit disappointed when they switched their sound, those who did.

And then when I did, I realised sometimes you just have to do it. And I was very lucky that my fans, even up to now that I’m celebrating my 10-year anniversary of being a producer, if I look back, they — and everyone — have been super supportive. Yeah, I’m sure maybe some of them might not like my new sound, but I’ve never got a single hate message. I feel like I was very transparent on how I was transitioning out from the typical Trance sound into a more melodic Housey or Melodic Techno-ey sound, then a little bit more of a harder Techno. I would say I’m very lucky that my fans are super supportive of me about what I do.

So you never kind of thought of releasing this more banging stuff under a new alias, sort of like ARTY does with Alpha 9 or Ciaran McAuley does with Elï now?

I actually thought about it multiple times. I do have an alias, but that’s a genre that’s outside Electronic Dance music. I would not make a new name because I keep it as a “secret” thing. However, the reason I didn’t want to create a new alias inside EDM is because one of my mentors, actually, she’s ANNA’s manager, her name is Lucia. And she’s told me that at the end of the day, you can create aliases to branch out of what you’ve done in the past, but that’s not what the biggest artists have done. They never actually created aliases. They stuck with their name and took their fanbases on a journey so you can always look back and see how they have progressed.

A good example would be Sven Väth. If you go back to his 90s sound, he was playing Trance. Banging Trance that was so huge back then. He’s now known as one of the godfathers of Techno. So I feel like it’s all about how you perceive yourself, and if you’re very confident about your brand. And I feel like I am pretty confident about myself and how my fans are. And I don’t think I need another alias to showcase different sounds that I am dabbling into.

I see. Now, let’s change topics for a bit. Among the many things that you’ve done over the years, you are now the proud founder and owner of your very own record label, VRTN, if I didn’t butcher the pronunciation.

That’s correct. It’s a short form of “Variation“, but spelled taking the syllables out.

VRTN’s logo.

I see. Can you please tell us a bit about how the idea of a record label came to you?

I think this was back in 2017, when I was just about to transition out from Trance into the Techno world. One thing I’ve seen consistently over the years is that the Techno world has always been very welcoming, and I really love that, as well as their idea and culture. So right when I was just transitioning out from Trance, I figured I wanted to showcase my side of Techno on my own at first, because, you know, I was just about to alienate an entire fanbase that was all about Trance.

And I didn’t want to reach out to record labels because they would be confused too if they tried to look into my catalogue from the back, the early days. And so for that reason, that’s where it came about, which was called VRTN. And the idea of VRTN is that I can produce whatever I want, staying within the scope of Dance music. I wanted it to have a kind of underground Dance flavor.

On that year, 2017, at one of the shows I played I “officially” announced I was branching out to Techno, and released the first EP on the label to commemorate it. It was a great feeling. And to be honest with you, along the ride we’ve built a small, but tightly knit family, and I find everyone that belongs to VRTN is kind of… they can’t really define their music in terms of Techno or Trance. They like both and they want to dabble into both worlds. That’s where we come in and help artists express themselves.

Some of the names that I would love to mention are Sam Van Horne, my partner Katrii, Cory Goldsmith, and then there’s also vocalists such as Jaren, and Zara Taylor, and I recently signed a new up-and-coming artist from London. She’s super young and super talented. And her name is B3cks. Some of these artists that I’m trying to work with, have a very unified vision as well. But I’m also open to signing or listening to other artists who can be part of the VRTN family.

Aha, that’s great. Well, the whole record label thing is perhaps one of the fundamental, hypothetical situations that all producers have thought of at least once in their career, the big dream of owning a record label, having a record label. But for most of the producers, it is a passing cloud. It’s just like they ditch the idea after a while. So the question to you is, why did you decide to stick with it and keep it as one of your greatest projects to date?

To be honest with you. I think one of the reasons is I’m producing a bunch of genres at the same time. This year, for example, I released Trance music alongside the legendary Paul van Dyk. And then I still produce Techno and I still produce Melodic House. So there’s no single island I can hop into. I’m hopping into different islands, right? For some bigger Techno labels, maybe that’s not something they prefer.

And I think me being able to express myself with VRTN has been very rewarding, because even if it’s not a five million play hit, even if it has 50,000 plays or 50 downloads, it’s my success or my loss. And that’s way more rewarding for me because I can see how it’s doing. Sometimes, when you’re part of a bigger record label or a different record label, it can be a little bit daunting, or confusing, how you come into their picture versus when I’m doing it on my own. I know exactly what I want to do and I can see exactly what my vision is with that record label.

Exactly. Well, I do get the point, actually, that’s one of the things when you release records on whatever label, you’re kind of subject to how they treat you and if they treat you at all after releasing the track, sometimes they don’t even talk to you at all. [laughter]

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I must add is that record labels are great. They are an avenue for you to express yourself with your music because, you know, you could make 200 songs within your five-year career. And then if you’re very heavily focused on just releasing on a bigger record label, you end up having this bank of music that you never released and would never see the light of day. And I feel like that’s just very unfair to the artists’ talent.

I know a lot of artists that are like have that mentality. I don’t rock with it personally but it’s all power to them because, sometimes, all it requires is one hit track and then the next day you’re pretty much blowing up. I find where I fall is a gradual progression. You can have, say, 20 tracks within your last two, three years and you can see a gradual progression, giving it a journey and stories. I feel like that’s more important than just looking to be a one-hit-wonder.

Yeah, that’s my vision as well. I’m glad I found someone who thinks like me. All right, so not only do you have an entire record label focused on building the sound you envision, but you also have a physical space to showcase all that power, Techno Without Borders. So what’s this brand all about? How did it come to be?

I would say this was born as a full 360-degree solution for me because this idea of Techno Without Borders was kind of like an accident. There were no plans to become the brand that we are now within the last, I would say three or four years. So it came about like a casual take on the concept of livestream. When COVID happened, I remember I was touring with Paul (van Dyk) in Amsterdam and then everything got shut down. So the next day I was stuck in the airport, and then finally flew back to Canada, and all our friends were very devastated that they wouldn’t be able to party. They were trying to figure out a solution because, you know, everyone had to social distance themselves. So I thought, “I have my decks, and I have a nice condo in Toronto with a view, so maybe I should leverage this idea and just stream music because I have so much to play“.

So that’s where it started. It started as a Zoom party with around 20 of my friends every weekend. So we were just getting drunk, isolated, and livestreaming our music and our friends just being completely, ridiculously funny, as you could see on Zoom back then, people dancing and in our case, seeing me perform. So it was very funny. But the audio of those mixes started being promoted and then it was getting reposted by all these people all over the world. And that’s how Techno Without Borders took off.

And then once COVID started to slow down a bit, we had the option to throw our own events because clubs weren’t open yet, but people could still organize events. So what we decided to do was to throw a boat cruise, because boats were allowed for a gathering since it had to be made outdoors. So we’ve been doing boat cruises from 2021 until today. It’s like an annual thing now. And every single boat party we’ve done has been sold out. So it just kind of snowballed to this brand in Toronto people were very aware of. And then from Toronto, I was thinking, “What can we do?“, because it had great momentum, definitely something I didn’t plan. And sometimes when you don’t plan things, if they take off, it definitely has a lot more merit to it.

So we figured, “Let’s start as a livestream or video concept in Amsterdam“. So we did two years ago, we did the Crane Hotel. It’s basically a hundred-foot crane where many of the big names have played. Michael Bibi, Pan-Pot, Peggy Gou. Actually, the night after we played was Michael Bibi, same venue. So we invited only a handful of people with our colleagues Neon Owl and just threw an event there with some of our friends in the Techno scene. Some of the artists were Nakadia, Ramon Tapia, we had T78. So they all got on board and just decided to come in and play for around an hour. And that one took off as well. Then we did a small club, Club Up in Amsterdam. Again, it was very close to selling out.

So it just took off that way. Nothing planned, just very impromptu. And then we finally organized ourselves. Now it’s a fully incorporated company. And last year we finally did a proper show in..