MaWayy is the musical collaboration of Iranian-American Emmy Award-winning Brian Wayy and Iranian producer, artist and DJ Masoud Fouladi Moghaddam – known for leading the electronic dance community in Iran. At the age of 18, Wayy signed a contract with MCA Records and by 24 he toured with The Untouchables, opening for major acts, including UB40, The Police and Duran Duran. 

Masoud began working as a dance music producer in 2009 by collaborating as a songwriter with Jaren Cerf and her sister Josie on vocals for ‘Leave It All Behind’, which was signed by Ferry Corsten’s label Flashover Recordings and received support from the label boss and Armin van Buuren.

The two started an EDM project, called MaWayy (Masoud and Wayy) in 2015, in which they released their first single ‘Wrong’, in 2017 under Teletunez division HitTunez and Blanco Y Negro. ‘Wrong’ reached number 42 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs Chart in May 2018 for three weeks. It later went on to become the number one record on WCPY ‘Dance Factory FM’ station in Chicago. 

The two are at it again with their new release ‘Blame’ which was released October of 2018, accessible on Spotify, Youtube, Deezer and Play Music. Filthy Lucre was granted the opportunity to gain some insight into the music duo’s world. 

When did you get into DJing?  What or who were your early passions and influences?

It’s all about creating. Creating something from scratch & seeing it! It’s like a painting. When you start painting you start from the canvas and just paint. Music is just like creating a painting—it has moments where you have the ability to express yourself in ways you never thought possible. When you are able to create it from nothing, it has the ability to make you feel so proud by the time you finish your project. These day’s top40 chart music and Spotify playlists, which is curated by music lovers to help our career as a group, but individually we stick to the old tunes that gave us goosebumps.

Brian: I’m influenced by any great music.

Masoud: Vangelis, Pink Floyd, Late Night Alumni.

How do you find your inspiration? 

Brian: Just sit in front of my computer and open up a bunch of software and just create.

Masoud: Getting back to the old days by listening to artists like Vangelis and Pink Floyd, but now browsing Spotify’s playlists are having a huge impact on my inspiration since I hear the most amazing melodies by unknown talented musicians.

Where are people most likely to see you perform? 

We are currently seeking agents and working on songs to line up new releases. We can’t wait to start touring and giving back to our fans. In the meantime, our radio show is getting aired on Digitally Imported radio DI.FM Mainstage channel, every first Tuesday of each month and the podcast is available on Spotify, iTunes and Soundcloud as well.

Tell us about your latest single ‘Blame’, where did the inspiration come from?

We started an instrumental progressive-Big room kind of sound and collaborated with LaVoyce, a singer/songwriter from Dallas. The song happened to be so good that we wanted to match a better style with it, so we tried to change the production a little bit, but it didn’t go well. Then we changed it completely to future bass. That’s how we felt the magic in this music that we decided to release it right after our first song “Wrong.”

What is one mistake you see a lot of up and coming DJs making? 

Oh, where to start?! back in the days people had to hire musicians and get in the studio and spend hours to make a good track, but these days they just buy a sample pack and put it on their projects and BAMMMM – a track is born just like that! Unless you’re familiar with all these instruments and how they get programmed in your sequencer, it’s not a good idea to use these kind of loops-sampling systems. We see A LOT of DJ/Producers (even big names unfortunately) use these and pre-recorded vocals. Some of them surprisingly get traction and the artists get famous. What’s wrong with that? Well, they can make 1-2 songs this way, but what about the 3rd song? Another big mistake is the loudness war, it’s like if you’re not as loud as other people, you’re not as good!!

If you could be eternally stuck in one year’s music scene, which year would it be? 

Brian: 80’s.

Masoud: Definitely somewhere with less digital sounds like 60’s when the Beatles released their albums.

What is one track that never gets old for you no matter how many times you hear it? 

Brian: I love all kinda music so I don’t have just one that I can think of.

Masoud: I think “Vangelis – To The Unknown Man” will always give me goosebumps. Whenever I need to get out of the situation, I just listen to it! The atmosphere he made in all his songs had a huge impact on my music, especially when I am creating a chillout song.

What is something that bugs you about the DJ scene? 

That so many DJs are making mash-ups with other producers work instead of their own original songs and they even get their mash-ups into big radio shows or festivals. The art of music is what you create and makes it unique compared to other artists, but getting famous without your own work does not make sense. Unfortunately, big stars do it as well. In addition, unofficial remixes are a big portion of these days music industry, because there’s no permission from the copyright owner it gets published on platform like Soundcloud, and since YouTube content ID can’t find out which song is it, they upload it on YouTube and they get so many fans clicking on their channel and grow like a star, which is completely wrong.

What do you try to communicate to the audience through your vibe? 

To create positive and fun music. You know we’re more like a pop-dance musical group so having a pop flavor with influences of today’s hit songs is heard in our work, although, we want to be creative in our own way, but so many times we put popular synth sounds in production so we connect to a younger audience.
 

Where would you most like to perform? 

Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival and Coachella.

What are your predictions for the music industry in the next five years? 

There will be more independent labels and more artists in control of their destiny – also Non-Copyrighted music will take over the industry. it’s not a good idea for artists to not to protect their rights, but it’s gonna happen big time! Since competition in the music scene is getting harder each year, new artists will try to release their work for free to get exposure!

How do you prepare your sets? 

It usually comes from promos we get everyday and we collect them for our monthly radio show “MaWayy Radio” which is available on Spotify, Soundcloud and iTunes as well. there are too many of them but only 20 of them get into our playlist each month.

What have you learned since you started out as a DJ? 

It’s a very tough business and a long process.

Although if you’re technically a great DJ/Producer, still people are gonna say NO to you. They will pass on your music so many times!

But you know what? You shouldn’t give up. Keep pushing. Keep expanding your musical vision. Try different styles. And before all of that, be sure if DJing is the right choice for you.

In general, be persistent in anything you do.

Who or what was your inspiration behind your new release “Blame”?

LaVoyce told us, “When I wrote the song I was just thinking about love, and how complicated it can be, and that’s what came out. I have an organic way of writing, where I don’t write anything, I only record right in the moment, so everything that comes out is authentic and true.”