NGHTMRE Interview: New Label, Chainsmokers, Strangest Rider + More

Tyler Marenyi, better known as NGHTMRE recently released his highly anticipated monster collaboration with A$AP Ferg as well as the VIP edit! He just closed down Coachella weekend #1 with his brand new stage piece ‘The Orb’ which will be featured in his tour this fall. He brought out mystery guests who are recent collaborators A$AP Ferg and Lil Jon on stage to play their respective tracks and it made for an unforgettable night.

We chatted with NGHTMRE about his Chainsmokers collab, weirdest rider he’s seen, more music with SLANDER, his recently launched label and more!

What got you into electronic music?

Originally when I was in high school, I was listening to a lot of hip hop, rock and all kinds of different types of music. There was this DJ named Girl Talk and he was the first guy I heard that had the mixing style that focused on mashups. He created an entire album of just mashups by sampling all different records. I was just really intrigued by it and it was such a new thing for me. He had all these rock songs that I grew up listening to and loved and had mixed them with dance music and it was this beautiful collaboration of all these genres. That was the first thing that inspired me to listen to dance music. It was the time when Porter Robinson was making house music, Skrillex was making his first dubstep, Zedd was making house music, Flux Pavilion was just starting, Zeds Dead and those kind of guys. I got really into that type of music and started to produce on my own by teaching myself and it snowballed from there!

You’ve collaborated with a huge variety of artists.  Who would you like to work with again?

I’ve done two tracks with Dillon Francis.  He’s always really fun to work with. It’s also really easy to work with him, we always have really similar tastes. Both times we’ve done a track it has come out really naturally. Obviously he’s a really funny dude so it’s cool to hang out with him also!  We use Ableton and a lot of the same software so everything feels really easy and natural when we work together.

In the past you have collaborated with Chainsmokers.  How did that come about? 

We had been talking about working together for a long time. It’s kinda crazy, their day to day manager was basically the first person I ever met in the industry.  Before I was even making music as NGHTMRE, I was making it as a hobby and I made this song that won a Dancing Astronaut competition and he was running it at the time. I thought it was crazy! He actually ended up being the tour manager for The Chainsmokers. Before they even made ‘Selfie’ we were in communication and we discussed making music. Obviously, as soon as ‘Selfie’ hit and they had all these huge records blowing up it took a little while to work things out and get time in the studio. It was cool though, I expected artists of that calibre to be disconnected or something as they’re really busy! But it was great.  Anytime I texted Alex or Drew about feedback or something they and their team were super responsive. It was great to work with them. They have been stuck in this pop world a bit but if you go and see one of their shows you see that it’s crazy festival music. The collaboration was great as I got a cool vocal from Drew which is more relatable to their fans and they got to do something more what I like to do.

You launched your label with SLANDER last year.  Tell us about Gud Vibrations.

Yeah we worked on the label idea for a long time.  It’s great to have it finally operating consistently. One big factor in us starting that label was to get the names of upcoming talent out there a bit more. Soundcloud isn’t that big anymore so it’s not that easy to get your name out there even with great music, so hopefully we can help in pushing their talents and we’re excited for the world to discover them!

Any new collaborations with SLANDER on the horizon?

There’s a couple of things that we’ve worked on that is solid and finished. But we’re definitely focused on producing together for our label.  We have some studio time scheduled in to work on more stuff! It’s hard when we’re both always on the move. I’m sure it’ll come together, it always comes very naturally when we work together.

What is the strangest thing you have seen on an artist’s rider?

Ookay has a pretty hilarious rider.  I think he has a signed picture of Tiësto on his rider. Shout out Abe [Ookay], he’s the man – I love you!  

If you weren’t in music what would you be doing now?

I love food and cooking, so I feel like I would be in cooking. It’s another one of those jobs where there’s a whole set of rules but you can be real creative with it too. So I’d probably be a chef!

What is happening at the moment for NGHTMRE?

I have finally released my collaboration with A$AP Ferg called ‘REDLIGHT’ – it’s a crazy hip hop/trap/dubstep song and we worked on it for a long time. I really enjoyed shooting the music video!


Listen to NGHTMRE’s new track with A$AP Ferg


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