Declan Williamson

I'm Declan, I'm 20 years old. I've lived here in McKinney for about 10 years now. I've traveled and lived in other places for small periods of time, but this has been my home base. When I was about 14 years old, I downloaded a trial version of a program called Ableton Live and started messing around with it. A few of my friends were doing it at the time, we all liked electronic music.
 
By downloaded this program and messing around with it, I learned the basic functions. I made little songs to compete with my friends and we shared our music with each other. It was never supposed to be a serious thing. When I turned 15, I came across an opportunity to take a masterclass with one of my favorite music producers. It was 600 bucks for a few weeks. I had some money but not enough so I struck a 50/50 deal with my parents. I took this course and I met a ton of people over the next few weeks.
 
I was only 15 so I had to lie about my age to get in because I was under the age limit of 18. They could tell that I clearly wasn't 18, but it didn't matter. I ended up making a lot of friends in that class. I met a bunch of guys that lived in LA who were trying to do the same thing. That’s when I started taking my journey seriously. After that course I had a solid group of people who I could bounce ideas off of and collaborate with.
 
For the next year, I produced for a few hours every day. I had a laptop that I would take to school, and I would produce it between and during classes. When I was just over 16 years old, I sent my first track to a record label called Melodica Music. It’s owned by Mark Pledger; he is a DJ from London. He responded almost immediately and asked if I would sign with him, I said yes. I was super excited about it. I signed and released it under my full name Declan Williamson. That was my first signing and release with a real record label. 
 
Later, I decided to change my production name to Declan James, because Declan Williamson wouldn't fit on a flyer. I had my first release as Declan James on a label called Reboot Recordings based out of New York. It was played the week of its release by a guy named Armin Van Buren. He is one of the biggest trance DJs in the world. From there it was picked up by a bunch of other DJs. It was a huge record and ended up doing like 600,000 plays on Spotify within the year, which was insane. Now I have transitioned to techno music.
 
Eventually I got some of my music picked up by a guy named Adam Beyer, who's the biggest techno DJ in the world. He invited me to open for him at EDC 2019, I accepted his offer. That was my first festival gig. I played to a crowd of about 15,000 people. That was my intro to techno, now that I've been in it for a few years. I am working on records and touring around when I get offers to play shows. 
 
I think being artistically minded and creative is emotionally difficult sometimes. I deal with a lot of anxiety and depression. I feel like my identity is so connected to my ability to create that when I can't create or I'm creating things that I'm not happy with, it really takes a toll on me emotionally. So that's something that I have struggled with for a long time. 
My favorite place I've traveled to has to be Zurich, Switzerland. I think it's the most beautiful place probably on earth, at least as far as I know of. I also love Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, I like Thailand, Bali, and Indonesia, they are beautiful. I think the city, Zurich, inspires me in a lot of ways. In terms of its energy, it's very calm for a large city while being extremely populated. I think it’s interesting and pretty unique. And the pace of life is very slow which I like. I feel like when I went there, I could think and breathe despite it being a big city and I loved that. I had the best of both worlds. 
 
I think with everything in life, but especially as you're transitioning from youth to adulthood, don't be so held up on holding on to things from your past. I think the transition is difficult. It can be rocky for a lot of people, myself included. Transitioning from being a teenager to a self-sufficient adult entails emotional and mental challenges. I think it's more about not being afraid to change as a person. Change is good and part of life, like experiencing mini deaths within yourself; getting rid of and letting things go that are not necessary for you as a person anymore. Something that I've learned is that over time, you just have to let stuff go within yourself, and don't be afraid to change. 

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