February 8, 2014 marked the date that Champaign hosted UZ at canopy club. The opening for UZ featured Kyral x Banko and Heesh. Before the show I got to meet up with my friends opening for UZ: Kryal x Banko otherwise known as Collin Burdick and Bennett Kohler. These two DJ’s have been on the uphill track to success with great Soundcloud accounts. Here is an interview I had with Bennett Kohler.
1.) What are your most successful songs currently?
-“Right now it’s Pocket Picked, which got posted on Trapmusic.net and has almost 34,000 plays. It’s incredible the amount of success we’ve been having lately.”
2.) What is the second best song you have produced so far?
-“The next song up is definitely our Dark Horse remix at over 13,000 plays right now.”
3.) What is your favorite part about being a student that is also a talented DJ?
-“It’s awesome to be able to spend multiple nights a week grinding on tunes and then being able to see how crowds of people react to it. It’s a huge plus because it feels like real trial runs before the chance we get to play at the bigger shows.”
4.) Where is your favorite place to DJ?
-“As far as favorite places, definitely canopy club but red lion is fun when you don’t have drunk chicks coming up to you requesting timber all night long.”
5.) When things aren’t going your way, how do you stay motivated?
-“Usually I’ll check soundcloud, since I have a premium account, I’m able to see where people are from what they are listening to from my songs. It’s super uplifting seeing people from all across the world visiting my soundcloud page. (Soundcloud.com/bankomusic) Fortunately, it seems like everything’s been going in our favor lately.”
6.) Any advice to any fellow student DJ’s looking for a break?
-“Continue working and keep your head up. Quality comes from quantity. Sometimes I’ll sit and start around six different songs in a night and one of those could end up becoming a hit. Sometimes you really never know what you can accomplish until you put your head to it. You just have to stay motivated and work harder than your competition. Hard work really does pay off.”
Bennett Kohler and Collin Burdick are motivated artists who are destined for success. Their performance at Canopy club was a phenomenal opening that really set the vibe for the whole crowd. As Bennett said, hard work pays off in the long run no matter what.
