#INTERVIEW Eva Shaw chats about music plans and the EDM scene

Canadian born DJ and model Eva Shaw,  is slowly dominating the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) scene. She recently performed at Digital Dreams, Electric Love Festival, and headlined some of the biggest nightclubs such as Hakkasan, Omnia, Marquee, and Liv. With club hits such as “Space Jungle” “Get Down” and newly released “Moxie” , Shaw has already won the likes of Calvin Harris, Tiesto, Hardwell, Afrojack, and winning fans from all over the world.

The Xtra Mile spoke with Shaw while she made a quick stop back home in Toronto for a photoshoot. Shaw spoke to us about future music plans and her new clothing line coming out soon. We have to say, she is one of the nicest DJs ever! Read the interview below!

There are so many producers all around the world. What do you think differentiates you?
Well, I am a female, or I look like a female anyway (laughs).  I think that’s pretty unique. I’m pretty energetic and I think my music is a little bit different. I hope so, I’m making some more hip-hop kind of stuff right now. So you’ll hear some of that stuff soon.

You are a female DJ, but there is a lot of male DJs out there. Do you think it’ll ever come to a point where female DJs overpower male DJs?
I wouldn’t say that. I don’t think so. I think there will be more female DJs and then it’ll be a little bit more even maybe. But I don’t think it’s really a competition. I don’t know, I’m not like “Only girls, girl power”. If you’re good at DJ and making music, that’s all that matters.

You have been all over the world. You’re from Toronto, you’ve been to Miami, You’re in Europe next week, how do you think the music differs from Canada to other countries?
I think in Canada, if you’re from here it’s a little bit harder to be accepted here. I found that it was a lot harder for me to get shows here in the beginning and now I’m booking festivals and stuff. Where as I was already playing festivals and stuff in the US, and then I started playing here later. In terms of the crowd, I don’t think there’s a huge difference. I think everybody’s really into it here, like the energy at Digital Dreams when I was playing here last time, was insane. It was pretty perfect.

You play a lot of shows in Vegas; you just played at Omnia nightclub. For club shows, do you see a difference?
A club is sort of like; you’ll have some people that are your fans that are right at the front. But then you have all the bottle people that are kind of just there because it’s a cool club. That doesn’t matter if you’re Calvin Harris, or me, or Joe Smith (laughs) if there is a Joe Smith, sorry. I think there’s always going to be people that don’t really necessarily know the music, they’re just there to have a good time. Vegas you have to pay a little more attention, I think it’s a little bit harder, not just Vegas, but clubs. You have to kind of pay attention to what everyone likes and depends on the club as well. Like a VIP club is more like that, but you can play a ticketed venue like Webster Hall and everyone’s your fan . So it’s kind of like a festival atmosphere, inside the club.

Do you prefer that?
I mean it’s nice to switch it up. Omnia was amazing, and everyone there was pretty into it. It’s kind of a fun challenge as well, finding people, sometimes I’ll notice there write on my Instagram or something “this is the girl DJ we saw at Omnia” maybe they’re not huge electronic fans, but they went and now they’re like my fan. So it’s a cool way to sort of gain new fans. But festivals are always the most energetic and it’s really cool when you can play new stuff and they know it. Or they’re at least accepting to it, at least I can try out a new song that nobody’s heard and they’ll still be into it.

You’ve been in the music industry for a while, you were once known as DJ Bambi, EDM has grown a lot from back in the days. What’s the biggest change you’ve seen?
It’s funny back in the days is like five years ago. EDM is like “quote on quote” has kind of blown up and then levelled off, I feel like it’s still big now, but it went like way insane for a second there. I think I kind of came in at a good time, I knew how to DJ before it was popular and I just did it for fun. I did it as a teenager and I did some small shows, but it wasn’t really a huge thing. I mean Deadmau5 was big, but it’s kind of a different vibe. And then it kind of just blew up and I got a lot of shows because everybody wanted to book DJs and now I think changing to Eva Shaw and having my songs come out under Eva Shaw, then I kind of transitioned onto the next level of DJ. Now I feel like some of the DJs are falling off a little bit because it was so big, and now you really have to have something a little bit different for people to still come out to your shows. Cause you’ve seen everything now at this point.

Back to your music, you just released “Moxie” not too long ago. Can you tell us the process behind that?
I wrote the breakdown of “Moxie” about a year a half prior to that, then I came back to it later, I was flying on the plane to Toronto actually. Then I started working on it and I finished the main idea on the plane, and I always like the melody and I didn’t have a drop for it. So then I just finished it and send it to AfroJack and he really liked it, he played it at Ultra I think, in Miami. He kept playing it and then signed it to Wall Recordings, it was cool. Then I made a music video as well, I was in Europe trying to coordinate the whole video, I did it completely on my own with my friends. It was super ghetto but it was fun. It’s just like a easy club song, it sounds really good in the club.

We’re all about the Xtra Mile. How do you go the Xtra Mile?
Well musically, I think right now I’m working on a lot of features. So trying to not just be like instrumental club songs with like samples, but actually having artist come in. I’m going into the studio with a really amazing singer from the 90s, the 90s kind of style dance music. I’m going to record something completely original with her. So kind of having still electronic music with something you wouldn’t expect necessarily with an artist you forgot about or maybe something you wouldn’t expect to be on the song.

Is there anything else you want to say to fans?
Yeah, I have a few more original songs coming out soon. I think just looking out for that. I also have a clothing line that I’m doing collaboration with a designer, I can’t tell you yet. It’s a really big designer; we designed the first line already. It should be out in March next year, and I’m shooting the AD next week in Europe. And I’m designing the next season next week too.

Check out Eva Shaw’s single for “Moxie” below!

Watch out for Eva Shaw’s first official remix coming out VERY soon