1 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The Seattle duo soon became an independent success story: their In Return album, released on the Ninja Tune imprint Counter, debuted at No. We started talking through email.” ODESZA liked Wolf’s version of “Say My Name” enough to include it as part of a subsequent remix package.īillboard Dance Radar Spotlights Jai Wolf: How One ‘Summer’ Changed His Career I had no idea who they were - this was before they blew up. “They followed me on SoundCloud ’cause they saw that. “I was charting on Hype Machine and they were charting on Hype Machine,” Wolf notes. That rendition has accumulated more than a million plays, and it also earned the attention of ODESZA. “So when I was remixing ODESZA’s ‘Say My Name,’ instead of making an EDM banger, I was like, I’m going to make a chill remix of it.” “Over the first year, as the plays were rising, it was obvious that people like this more chill and ambient side of the music I was making,” Wolf says. “But I don’t treat it like, ‘this needs a dance beat.'” Wolf dressed up Martinez’s version with big-room tools - ornate synths, jabbering drum programming - but while many remixers attempt to rearrange tracks for club-floor onslaughts, he never detonated “Dollhouse.” “‘Remix’ has the connotation that it has to have a big drop,” Wolf explains. The original “Dollhouse” tells a story about the gulf between reality and public image with the aid of a gnawing, hollow beat.
“I changed names to Jai Wolf in April.” That summer, he started reworking the Melanie Martinez track for Atlantic Records. “If I wanted to get serious, I needed to pivot and make a statement,” he recalls. He graduated from NYU a year later than expected - “I was slacking off so much making music” - and the imminent threat of the real world forced him to try something new. “I found there to be sort of a ceiling,” he says. (Looking back now, he calls it “corny.”) After three years, though, Wolf decided he didn’t want to spend the rest of his career making dubstep. He chose a goofy title to set himself apart from his peers: No Pets Allowed.
“I thought all the names were so serious and harsh-sounding,” he remembers. “I didn’t think it was going to be popular, but two years later: four million plays.”īefore he put his spin on “Dollhouse,” Wolf had been making dubstep, influenced by artists like Skrillex. Wolf started working in this vein by accident shortly after graduating college, when he was given an opportunity to turn in an official remix of Melanie Martinez‘s “Dollhouse.” “That turned into a really chill, slowed-down remix, no drop or anything,” he says. On Tour With Jai Wolf: Polaroids From the Road
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