Local DJ gets international recognition

Saturday 07 September 2019

A Guernsey DJ is making a name for himself internationally after being asked to produce an official remix for singer Carly Rae Jepsen and producer Gryffin.

Josh Le Tissier's track was released last Friday and already has more than 120,000 streams.

The opportunity came about when one of Josh's 'bootleg' unofficial tracks was picked up by an American radio station.

"I made a bootleg of Lewis Capaldi's 'Someone You Loved' at the end of April and I put it up on YouTube and SoundCloud for DJs to play and people to listen to," he explained. "Everyone loves that song and sings it but you can't dance to the original and there were no other remixes out there.

"Back in July, somebody from Sirius XM in America contacted me and said they'd been playing it a few times a day and every time they play it they get requests from people asking 'where can I listen to this remix?'.

Pictured: Josh Le Tissier.

"The presenter asked if I would turn it into an official remix and I said I would love to, but I have no contacts with the record label or Lewis Capaldi himself. She said that she had contact because she worked at the radio station, so she copied me into an email and apparently they're still working on it."

Sirius XM is popular in America where it reaches around 65 million listeners.

While Josh was waiting for the Lewis Capaldi remix to be finalised, he was approached again and asked to create an official remix for Carly Rae Jepsen and Gryffin's 'OMG'.

"They sent me all of the audio files for the remix before the original came out," he added. "It was super confidential. They said 'please don't share this with anyone and don't even say you're working on something to do with these two artists'. I wasn't allowed to talk about it until two days before it came out.

"I'd never done something like that before. Every time I do an unofficial remix I just try and find an a cappella of the original song and try to strip bits out, but they actually sent me all of the individual audio files which I laid out in the software that I use. I kept the vocal exactly as it is but sped up is it's more of a dance remix and then I chose a few elements that I liked and built everything else around that. I didn't want it to be too similar to the original - I wanted to put my style on it.

"I smashed that out in a weekend and sent it back to them, because they said they wanted it as soon as possible. I clicked send and about half an hour later they came back and said they loved it."

Josh first got into DJ-ing around eight years ago, after developing an "obsession" with electronic dance music.

"I am completely self-taught with YouTube videos and a couple of online courses," he said. "I can't play an instrument but I know music theory. I can write chords and write melodies within the software, but if you put a keyboard in front of me I couldn't physically play so that it sounded good or in time."

While he is becoming known in America, the local DJ is hoping to build his name in the UK. He will be playing at Ministry of Sound in London on Friday, and one of his bootlegs was played at Tomorrowland festival this year.

Guernsey people can often hear Josh playing in the island at Luna and Fusion, or can listen to his music on various streaming platforms including Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music.

Pictured top: Josh Le Tissier.