First and foremost, can you tell us what the Manufactured Superstars are all about?

Bradley Roulier: We are a DJ duo, so we are not singular DJ’s and we try to be the funnest DJ’s out there. We try to throw a party and really bring the fun. Not that other DJ’s aren’t fun, but we try to bring the party. We don’t want to be too underground, we don’t want to be too cool, or sophisticated. We don’t want to be anything but fun.

Shawn Sabo: We try to be unpredictable; you never know what we are going to do next. We do lots of custom edits of everything. Whether it’s our songs or other people’s songs. We just let the music flow and if you don’t like one song, just wait two minutes and you will like the next one.

Two minutes eh? That’s pretty quick

After you both first teamed up, what was the most difficult part in getting noticed by record labels and booking agents?

Shawn Sabo: We really just had to do something different to try to stand out. That’s the biggest thing.

Bradley Roulier: We were very true to what we started from the very beginning. We always said we wanted to be really fun and unpredictable. When we first started we would play some disco or even 80’s music. We don’t play as much of that stuff now since most of our fanbase is from the ages of 18-25.

Are you excited for the gig tonight?

Shawn Sabo: Yes, super excited! We played Lavo a few times already. I grew up in New Jersey so it’s always fun to come to the East coast, represent and hang out with some old friends.

Where are you both from originally?

Shawn Sabo: Well we live in Denver now. I grew up here in the tri-state area and Brad grew up in Denver.

What’s the deal with the cool looking glasses? Would I be correct in my assumption that they are not prescription lol?

Bradley Roulier: It just started probably about a little over a year and half ago. We saw the nerd glasses and thought it kind of went with our space suit theme. We realized that girls really like them and they look really cute on them. It’s kind of funny that in a lot of the places where we play the girls are wearing 300$ high heels, thousand dollar dresses, and they are fighting over two dollar glasses. It’s kind of our thing. We don’t do it all the time, but it’s something that our fans like. A lot of them keep the glasses and bring them back to future shows.

Do you have them with you today?

Bradley Roulier: Yes, we have a few.

You have been performing at the Identity Festivals in many US cities. How has that experience been for you?

Shawn Sabo: It was awesome! We have normally been in and out of town very quickly and we never really get to hang around with all the artists. What we do is drink backstage, say hi, bye and send a few text messages so it was really cool to be able to hang out with Kaskade, Aoki, the Nervo girls, and Daniel from LA Riots. It was all of us on 29 buses; it was like a traveling circus family. It was really a cool experience.

Bradley Roulier: It was really fun but unfortunately we were only able to play in major markets. It was cool to be able to play in places like Indianapolis, Detroit, Pittsburg, Atlanta and cities that we really haven’t had a whole lot of exposure in.

Shawn Sabo: We were super excited to be a part of it.

What is your most memorable performance to date, and what aspects make it so special?

Bradley Roulier: The 80’s dance party on the tour buses. It was really interesting to see at three o’clock in the afternoon we were listening to dance music and going crazy. We’re used to playing at night and sometimes we don’t get up till three in the afternoon so it was interesting to see people just raging in the daytime in the mid-west. It was kind of surreal. It shows that EDM has gotten that big.

Shawn Sabo: I would say one of the highlights would definitely be in New York at Jones beach with Aoki’s tour manager and White Shadow stage diving at about 45 minutes into our set.

Bradley Roulier: That was really insane.

That’s when the rain was pouring down right?

Shawn Sabo: It was right before it rained. It was one of the biggest rainstorms I’ve ever seen in my life.

That’s crazy!

You will be touring Europe in the next few months. Can you tell us which cities you will pay a visit to?

Shawn Sabo: We played the Leif Festival in Holland a little over a month ago, which was epic. We played in Ibiza with Tiesto, which was good. Our schedule is kind of all over the place. A few dates here and a few dates there. It’s not actually a full on European tour but we will be playing dates all over the world.

Do you have any upcoming dates that you want to mention?

Shawn Sabo: Our residency in Las Vegas is always epic. We are pretty excited about Nocturnal, San Bernardino, and Insomniac events which are always fun. We are playing for the guys at LIV on Halloween weekend. Those are the highlights for the next couple of weeks.

Bradley Roulier: We play about three of four shows every week throughout the year.

You are very busy guys!

What is most important to you about being a successful duo in the music industry?

Bradley Roulier: I think it’s producing songs and remixes and just really developing a sound. There are so many talented people out there and so much hardware and software available and it’s about using it the way that works best for you and building something that’s yours. If you look at all the big artists out there they are pretty known for a particular sound. What we have tried to do is create our own sound and image.

Shawn Sabo: You got to keep your head down, and focus. It’s a lot of work, working twenty-hour days whether you are touring, working in the studio, or doing interviews. As well as handling your own social media, trying to do photo shoots, and keeping everything current.

I hear you have an album coming out. Can you tell us more about it?

Shawn Sabo: Yes, we have an album coming out probably right around the time of WMC. The first single “Take Me Over” is out and it’s doing very well. It’s in heavy rotation on satellite and terrestrial radio. The second single is “Serious” with Selina Albright, which is a straight up house song along with some great remixes including one by Calvin Harris. The third single should be out in the middle of October and it’s called “Drunk Text” that we did along with Paris Hilton

You guys are really good at this; you just answered my next two questions….

Can you tell me more about the second single “Serious”?

Bradley Roulier: “Serious” was an old 80’s track that we really liked. For some reason I was out late one night and the vocal was really stuck in my head and I couldn’t figure out the name of it. It took a while but we finally figured it out. We thought that if we got the right vocalist we could really re-do this in a 2011 kind of way. We found an amazing vocalist Selina Albright. She is a fantastic singer and a Jazz musician. She didn’t know much about House music at all but when we got into the studio with her she knocked it out unbelievably fast. We are working on some other tracks with her too. She has a great energy and a great look. At EDC she sang it live to about thirty thousand people through a microphone and she killed it, we did it again at Red Rocks in front of ten thousand. There are very few people that you can just give a microphone and tell them to sing and it comes out perfect. We were very fortunate to have her on the vocals.

How did you guys meet up with Scarlett Quinn the vocalist for “Take Me Over”?

Shawn Sabo: That song came about when we were working on some music with a few different songwriters. She is actually engaged to the guy who wrote the lyrics to the track. She did the scratch version and we really liked it and we went back and tweaked the arrangement and worked on the hook. We really liked what she did. We listened to it a few times and recorded it.

Bradley Roulier: There are some diva types of singers out there and then there are some along the lines of Sneaky Soundsystem which Tiesto worked with that are more alternative and she is not really a diva or alternative, she is a little in between. She just has a natural voice and we didn’t really do many effects on the vocal at all. The way she sang the song is exactly the way it came out.

You guys also do some behind the scenes work at Beatport. The site has recently been revamped and updated quite nicely. Did you have any involvement in that?

Bradley Roulier: We are the founders of the company. I was the director of marketing for seven years and the co-founder of the company. We are not really as busy with Beatport right now; we are just having fun Djing and making music at the moment. Beatport just launched its new html five version and that’s been a priority. We had a lot of say in that; it’s a really big change going from flash to html five. It was a shift that the new CEO really insisted on and it was a great move. The site is getting great reviews it’s a lot faster and lighter with a lot more devices.

Oh you don’t need to convince me. I’ve been using it! It’s quite good.

Bradley Roulier: Beatport is amazing and it was a great experience for us to work on it for seven years and we are really excited to see it continue and to do well.

You guys have really been amazing to interview thus far.

Shawn Sabo: We were involved with Beatport from day one, and I was always the PR/Marketing guy so even if I wasn’t doing the interviews I was coaching Brad and the CEO and the other people we started it together with. We handled interviews about music, to technology and all kinds of crazy stuff.

Are you working on any other projects that you would like to tell us about?

Bradley Roulier: We are just continuously touring and working in the studio and we are working on our 2012 plan. We have an idea that we want to come out with to add and update our work and image. We’re branding, getting ready for the album, and hopefully making more music videos.

Shawn Sabo: We are just trying to take the party to the next level of fun!

Do you have any final comments for our readers?

Shawn Sabo: To anyone who likes our music we would like to say thanks so much for the support. We love you all! We are really excited about everything we have done so far and we are hoping to continue that in the years to come.

Bradley Roulier: Buy music, don’t steal it.

Shawn Sabo: Yea, and send more drunk text messages! [laughs]

Thank you guys very much for your time.

-   Interview by Zaneta Ortiz [ElectronicNightLife.com]

http://www.manufacturedsuperstars.com/