Teffler is one of those DJs who simply doesn’t care that summer is over, he will keep serving up those sunny beats, rain or shine. This American songwriter and producer got his big breakthrough in 2017 with Never Let Me Go, leading to collaborations with Afrojack’s record label, tours of Europe, and even a performance at Liverpool’s legendary Cavern Club. He gives Headliner the scoop on the persistence that went into this success and how a partnership with Waves plugins has changed the game for him.
“I was watching an MTV award show in 2012,” Teffler says when asked about where it all started for him.
“Calvin Harris was playing and the moment I saw him on stage, it just clicked: ‘this is what I want to do. I want to be a dance music DJ’. Before that, I would listen to a bunch of stuff on the radio, from The Neptunes productions, songs written by Max Martin, Katy Perry. But Calvin Harris really intrigued me – seeing how he was able to make crossover dance-pop music, with catchy melodies and also with the hard dance beat.”
In terms of the song that put Teffler onto the trajectory he’s on now, it was Never Let Me Go, in 2017. “It went viral in quite a few Spotify charts in different countries,” he says. “In the USA and the UK in particular. That was what started to really catapult everything. It got me to tour in the UK and I did a bunch of college shows in the US.”
That trajectory led to him being booked for his most major US festival appearance thus far for 2020, but with that year being that year, Teffler faced the disappointment of cancellation.
The silver lining was that he found time to go and learn more about the music industry and improve his already considerable music production skills. A partnership with plugins giants Waves, he explains, has helped no end.
“I connected with them last year after I DJed at a conference and a Waves rep was there and saw me play,” he says. “Before meeting them, I remember I spent four months mixing the vocals on Good Love because I wanted it to sound right. Everything I used was Waves, from the CLA-2A, to the Vitamin. So when I got the opportunity to work with them, it was a dream come true. I sent the song out to a few mixers, but I wasn't really satisfied with the quality.
"Some had too much reverb, or it was over compressed, so I decided to learn mixing myself. I got the Waves Suite and that was my introduction to it. I went through everything like a kid in a candy store, trying them on vocals and the drums – trying the Saturator, the H-Delay, putting them on the bus. I thought, ‘wow, this is great!’”
