A Career Built on Hustle: The Keys to Early Success with Jordan “DJ Swivel” Young

October 3rd, 2018 by Matthew Wang

Jordan Young, aka DJ Swivel, has a career that took off early and hasn’t showed signs of slowing down. He shares the hows behind his hustle.

Our guest today is one of the hottest young mixer, producer, entrepreneur triple threats in the music world: GRAMMY-winning producer Jordan Young, known professionally as DJ Swivel. By age 26, Swivel had already engineered for legendary contemporary artists including Beyoncé, Fabolous, Jay-Z, Whitney Houston, Britney Spears, Kanye West, the list goes on.

Recently, he has gone on to mix some of the biggest pop records in the world for artists such as The Chainsmokers and the K-pop group BTS. He is now also running SKIO (a music tech startup that acts as a marketplace for people to create new songs together and remix the songs they love) as well as developing up-and-coming talent like songwriter Candace Sosa and artist James Kaye.

He has even recently put out his Platinum Collection sample pack for Splice. (If you want to check it out, you can use the code YTMW18 to try out Splice free for a month and download Swivel’s sounds.) His latest album, BTS’ Billboard 200 chart-topper, Love Yourself 結 ‘Answer’ is out now and he wrote the songs “Euphoria,” “I’m Fine,” “Answer: Love Myself,” and “Magic Shop.” I caught up with him in his LA home studio to ask him about what he’s been working on this year and what’s coming up next.

So I know you went to Full Sail. Were you working with [renowned hip hop producer] Duro while still in school?

No, that was after. Full Sail, through their placement department, found that opportunity, and so I submitted a resumé. I started at Full Sail in August 2004, and then I graduated August 2005, moved straight to New York that month, and then I got the job with Duro. I interviewed with him in, I think, December or maybe late November of 2005, and I remember starting with him on January 2nd of 2006. So it took me about six months to land and that job set me up for everything. He’s still one of my closest friends.

That’s amazing, you’ve had such a great mentor.

Yeah, it’s made all the difference in my career for sure. He’s like my big brother. I always joke he’s sort of my industry bodyguard because he just knows so much.

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But I just wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I responded to that email and I just begged. I was like, “Look, that’s not me. I would never leak music. I want this more than anything. Just please give me an opportunity. Meet me. I promise you that you won’t be disappointed. Just give me a shot. That’s all I’m asking.” And then he said, “We’ve already filled the position, but if you want to come up and see the studio, you can do that.” It wasn’t actually far from me, so I walked up to the studio and I met Duro, and I sort of got a little impromptu interview. But as far as I was concerned, the job was already filled. And then sure enough, maybe a month later, I got a call. “All right. You start right after the Christmas holidays, you start basically January 2nd. See you then.”

I remember that week I showed up, I was doing 30-hour days from day one. And it was unpaid and I didn’t care. I knew the first day, Fabolous and Styles P came into the studio and worked on this Mariah Carey “We Belong Together” remix with DJ Clue. These are the guys who I grew up listening to. Fabolous, huge fan of Fab. Styles P, huge fan of The Lox and Styles. Working on a Mariah Carey record, fucking DJ Clue. I’ve heard about this guy for my entire life. I realize that now I’m in the middle of what I loved so much growing up. So I just knew on that day, this is it. I’m gonna make this work no matter what.

There are challenges throughout that process of interning for Duro, but seven months later, I was Fab’s engineer and I did two entire albums with him. And I even got a mix on the first one. So basically a year out of Full Sail, I became Fab’s engineer, which is unheard of. And then a year after that, not only did I record the whole album, but I got a mix on it. I didn’t get a mix because Duro offered one to me. I got it because I was his assistant at that time, because the assistant who was there before me had left, so I sort of inherited the job, as is often the case. And he wanted me to set up the last mixes and I just mixed them for him. I didn’t even ask, I just did it.

These are some of the ways where I’m a stubborn dude and I think Duro understood. “Okay, so he may go about it the wrong way, but I see what he’s trying to do and I respect that.” And so I mixed this one record, and he didn’t like that mix at all. And then I was like, “Well fuck this, I’m going to mix another one. I’ll show you.” And I’d mixed the other one. And he never told me if I would get the credit, but he gave me the credit.

Wow.

The day the album came out, I went to the Virgin Megastore in Times Square with Duro, and we went and bought it. I took the cellophane off, had the CD, and I saw my name, mixed by Jordan “DJ Swivel” Young, and I was like, “Fuck yes!” Didn’t get paid for it, but I mixed it.

Were you always such a persistent person?

Yeah, I was stubborn. I think it’s just music in general, it’s such a tough business to be in, and quite frankly, you don’t have to be that talented to be successful in music. I can tell you a lot of non-talented people who are successful in music. But what you do have to have is this unwavering work ethic, because at the end of the day, you only fail when you quit. Right? There’s always another opportunity. The only time there isn’t another option is when you decide, “I’m not going to chase that opportunity anymore.” So for me, I just never took no for an answer, I never quit.

You’re always going to run into people along the way that don’t like what you do, and maybe don’t want to work with you, and I’m cool with that, because there are a lot of people making music. I will find a way. No matter what. I’ve said it, “I will be the biggest mix engineer.” “I will be a top producer.” “I will be all of these things, eventually.” Maybe I won’t get there as soon as other people get there, but eventually, you’re gonna see me. And that’s just not taking no for an answer, that’s just going after whatever you want. At some point, you’re going to chip away at it long enough, at some point you’re going to get what you want. That’s always been my philosophy and approach to music.

Are there any lessons you learned at Full Sail that you think have gone on to serve you?

Yeah, the way I sort of look at music education is it’s really good foundational knowledge. Full Sail has a great program. They teach you a lot about the business, they teach you the fundamentals of being in a studio and using gear and all that sort of stuff. Full Sail’s on a 24-hour schedule, so they try to teach you the music industry—studios never close. You’re there all the time. And they try to get you prepared for that, which is helpful. But I don’t care what anybody says, until there’s a risk of you being fired, you just don’t absorb things the same way. Maybe some people do, but I don’t. So for me, I really needed consequences, and at school when you’re spending $50,000 a year on school, there’s very few consequences, truthfully.

They’re not gonna kick you out.

Yeah, it’s still a business for them, right? This is all schools, right? I’m not isolating any one school here. I go back and speak to students at Full Sail a lot. I love Full Sail. I love what they stand for. I love what they’ve built there. The staff there has so much passion for what they do. They’ve really created an amazing environment. I have nothing but love for them, but I feel like there is no education that is better than working on the job. I just think it’s impossible to recreate it. You can get close, but it’s just not the same until you actually have the pressure of being kicked out of the room. And maybe losing an opportunity with a client. Then you really have to absorb things, because then it’s sink or swim. If you don’t figure it out, eventually a lot of doors are going to shut and close off on you. So yeah, my philosophy to music education is get in a room.

So I really learned on the job. I remember, I graduated Full Sail, I couldn’t fly a hook. I didn’t know how to fly a hook on a grid. Right? And it’s not that I wasn’t taught that, it’s just that you’re taught a lot of things and in a one-year program, you’re not going to absorb everything. And so then when you have a client on your back, like, “Yo, why is it taking so long to move the hook? Why’s it taking so long?” Something that I can do in five seconds right now, took me 20 minutes and I’m trying to figure this out. I just couldn’t figure it out. And yeah, once you start actually working with consequences, then you start to learn really quickly. Now that I remember that mistake I made, I’ll never make that mistake in flying a chorus ever again. There’s no better way than just doing it.

Speaking of DAWs, what are some of your favorite plugins? I love that it seems like you go to a lot of the same plugins. You’re not really chasing new toys all the time, right?

I wouldn’t say that’s true. I’m always curious what’s going on, but I just don’t care that much. I don’t care about the newest EQ because there’s a hundred EQs. But I do care if there’s a new plugin that does something unique that no other plugin does. That’s interesting to me. I’m developing a plugin right now, my first plugin actually.

I’m not going to give anything away just yet, because we’re still working on it and because it’s the first one, it’s also sort of an experiment in how long does it take to build something like this. So I’m still learning along the way, but I had no interest at all in trying to build a channel strip.

I only wanted to build something that was going to be a dope, interesting effect that I can use in my music creatively. I wanted things that serve a purpose that the plugins I have don’t. So in that regard, I’m always interested in the new stuff that does something unique, but if it’s just an EQ that is like, “Oh, it’s got a special knob that adds this, that no other EQ has,” well, I don’t care. They all kind of work the same.

But I do have some favorite plugins. I’ve been using the Slate stuff a lot, which I love. I think it sounds great and it works great, and I also like their business model which is really cool. It’s a subscription model. You pay your $15 a month and you get every single plugin. And if they add plugins, you get those too. Whereas when you’re in the Waves environment, if you buy a Mercury bundle when it’s not on sale, it’s like $7,000. It’s a lot of money to invest in some software that you don’t get updates on. And so, I like the business model that Steven Slate has developed.

It’s not that it’s that unique, I mean you see this whole thing happening with television and these premium channels. Now, everything’s like a subscription. We all understand the subscription model. Splice has their subscription model, which I think is great for sounds. You don’t have to buy a hundred dollar sound pack now. You just get your eight dollars in credits and you basically get an unlimited amount of sounds, and I recently dropped my own Splice pack. I love that business model, too, because it’s disrupting the existing space and I’m cool if it’s only eight dollars a month—I’m not thinking about that.

In my studio, I have a bunch of Slate gear. I wouldn’t work with them if I didn’t think it was dope and I didn’t think it made sense. But if you look at it, they’ve covered every single aspect. They have the mic, they have the preamp, they have the monitor control, they have your console, the Raven. They even have the desks now. Then they have all this software that you get in one bundle. Still, I think they have a lot of growing to do on the software side as far as having a similar suite to what Waves or UAD has but over time I think they’ll get there and their model will last.

Could you talk about your DAW of choice?

I use Pro Tools every day. I’m an avid Avid guy. Pun intended. But yeah, they also have some work to do with attaching themselves to the creator side of things. If you notice, there’s fewer engineers, or rather, less of a need for engineers. Because we’re not working in big studio environments anymore, most producers have to fend for themselves. They don’t want to spend $50 per hour on an engineer, right? If you’re an up-and-coming guy, that’s a lot of money. So producers and songwriters, they sort of have to learn the DAW and learn how to be an engineer themselves and learn how to mix. And most of them create in Ableton, FL Studio, Logic, not Pro Tools. And, by the way, these producers are becoming great engineers too.

Yeah, like Drew of The Chainsmokers cut the vocals for “Roses” in a NYC apartment, right?

Yeah, and I mixed “Closer” and “Don’t Let Me Down” in an apartment next to a noisy refrigerator. You don’t have to have the big studio anymore. It’s a myth.

So with all that, I imagine you meet a lot of young engineers, aspiring engineers, even just when you go to Full Sail to give a talk. What do you think sets some of the young up-and-coming people apart?

I like people who are resourceful, who pay attention to the little details. Somebody asked me what my favorite drink was and I just joked, I like tequila. The next day, this kid showed up with a giant bottle of tequila for me, which I thought was pretty cool. If somebody is willing to take the time to pay attention to those little details in just passing conversation and then actually go and execute on them, and say, “Okay, I’m going to get this guy this, or whatever.” And that’s not about anybody getting anybody gifts. It’s about somebody thought this through and they planned and they had to be resourceful to sort of separate themselves from the 30 other people who are just in line to ask a question or something like that.

So I think that stuff’s cool. But for me, I work from my house. I don’t actually have an assistant, mostly because I’ve never really needed one to that degree. I work basically 24-hours a day, and because I do a lot of work with artists in Europe and overseas, if I get an email at 2 AM requesting a change, I’m going to make that change right away. And I remember when I was coming up with Duro, by the time I started working with him, he had already had a hugely successful career. He’s not living in the studio at that point, day and night every single day. So if he would get an email late at night about this change, he would just forward it to me to go and make the change.

And so in lieu of not having a giant studio in a big commercial facility, I have what I believe to be great customer service. So if somebody works with me, I’m on call. I don’t care if I’m out having drinks for the night and taking a night off. If I get an email, I’m going to respond to that email and at least let them know, “Hey got your note. Will work on it first thing in the morning,” or whatever. And if it’s urgent, I’m not above taking the night that I had off and just going back to the studio and doing it when I come home. Because a lot of us creatives are in smaller spaces, you have to find ways to improve your product in other ways.

But I do encourage anybody who’s trying to get into it, whether they’re trying to be an assistant or an engineer or whatever, I do still think going and working in a studio is the most valuable thing you can do. Because more of us are not in major studios, getting your foot in the door in that environment is like boot camp, and it’s a necessary thing. If I had an assistant who just came out of school and just sat on my couch every day, they’re not really getting the full experience of the industry.

And that’s part of the other reason why I’ve been a little reluctant to have that. Okay, they get to work for me which is great, and there’s certainly value there, but there was so much more that I learned by working under Duro at a real studio. It wasn’t just about mixing sessions. You have recording sessions, you have an A&R coming by, there’s meetings happening. There’s all kinds of stuff happening.

It also seems like you’re quite busy with your company SKIO, a plug-in, a Splice pack, all on top of your work as a mixer. What else are you working on at the moment?

I just signed a writer and launched my publishing company and label, Waves With Words. Yeah, I do a lot of things, but I try to work smart now so that every single one of these things has teams in place, for the most part, that helps support where I need the support.

So with SKIO, our entire staff is in Vancouver. We’ve got a staff of about 15 and basically everything runs from there. I handle more of the big-picture stuff: Trying to close content deals, connecting the company with artists, labels, A&Rs, as well as tech partnerships, product sponsorships, endorsements, and marketing.

The marketing value that we bring to these companies, connecting the dots on those deals, that’s where I’m valuable. And for the most part, I’m already talking with these people.

So when I sit down to have a conversation, instead of it being a 30-minute conversation, it’s a 45-minute conversation and I’m able to touch on some of the additional things I’m doing. So it overlaps nicely with my existing workflow.

Everything that I’m doing, they all are synergistic with one another, or they all benefit one another. As a mixer, I want to work with brands and stuff, I’m using their products all the time and there’s brand deals that I can do there. Adding the value of SKIO, we have over 170,000 producers around the world on our platform now. I know that’s not a lot compared to how many Facebook users there are, but that’s a lot of a very, very narrow focus of users: Music producers. People who make tracks. And we’re still growing that rapidly, but that’s a lot of value that I can bring to deals I do with these brands.

Each layer of my business supports the next and ultimately, at its core is just me being a creative and wanting to make music. Whether that’s writing, mixing, or producing, I kind of do all of the above. Some days, I just feel like making a record and some days, I just feel like writing a song. It really just depends on how I wake up that morning. I’m in a really great place in my life where I get to do all the things I want, when I want, how I want, and I don’t have to worry about any responsibilities, really. Nobody tells me where I have to be or what I have to do.

It seems like you’re a real go-getter.

I love what I do.

I think it even applies to how you got to record additional vocals on The Chainsmokers’ “Something Just Like This” and “Closer.” As an engineer, when is it okay to add additional production elements like that?

The first time I really did that with a client was with The Chainsmokers. We are boys. And I felt like I had connected with them before they blew up, and we had built a lot of creative trust. You can ask them at some point what their perspective is on it, but we have built a lot of creative trust amongst one another, and so when I was working on their records, without asking I felt like I had some leeway to make creative decisions. At the end of the day, they’re going to make the final call, of course. But I felt like I had the creative ability to make changes to a song.

Maybe it’s change a drum sound or add a background vocal or change a kick, and either I would do it on my own or, oftentimes, Drew was in the room for the mixes, which is something I loved about working with them. I remember on “Closer,” I started working on the mix and the bass and the kick were fighting. And I said, “Okay, look, I can mix this and make it work. But I think you should just change the bass sound to something with less attack, and they won’t fight with your kick drum which has a ton of attack on it.” He just made that change, and he just gives me a new stem.

So it was a lot of collaboration that way. With them, I feel like we were in a creative space where I had the ability to sort of just make the call and then I would give them options. I’d say, “Okay, here’s one with the change, here’s one without the change. Which one do you like better?” And often, they would like the change. So that was how we would collaborate. To be honest, I actually did some of that on one major artist’s record once where everybody around her was so finicky about credits. What I found was at the end of the project, when I was like, “Oh, well I played the bass on this bridge. I created the arrangement on this song. I added these drums, these are my drums, these are production changes.” I’m hired as an engineer, I understand. But I feel like people in power tend to want to put people in a box.

But I’m a creative person, so I’m going to have an opinion and make changes. Then when it came down to the business of it, the A&Rs are there to jump in and say “No, you don’t get this credit. No, you don’t get paid for this. No, you don’t get that. We didn’t hire you for that.” And so, what I love about where I’m at now, is I don’t have that box, and I make sure that when I’m working with people that’s known. But there’s also other artists, like Kanye, who credit everybody. You look at a Kanye song, and there’s like a hundred credits on it. That’s because he brings in all of these amazing people, and they truly collaborate and work together. And everybody gets their just due, for the most part. He empowers the talent around him, and that’s why he always stays dope, because it’s the perfect environment for a creative.

A friend wrote in with a question asking, “How do you deal with the low end in your mixes?”

These are the questions that people want to ask, but it’s a hard thing to answer because every song is different. How do I give you a universal answer that is going to apply to every song that you do? The truth of the matter is, there is no magic formula. There is no secret. I think with low end the only thing I can say that’s a universal thing is you don’t want multiple instruments and multiple sounds fighting for the space. It’s really audible with low end stuff because you feel it too.

So the best piece of advice I can give for low end is to make sure that you’re making good production decisions for what element is going to occupy that space. Maybe it’s the kick drum, maybe it’s the 808, maybe it’s a bassline, but you can’t have all three playing at the same time, fighting with one another, or it’s just not going to translate very well. I try to make sure that there’s a frequency spectrum carved out for all those elements. So if I have a bassline and a kick, I’m probably going to have that kick side-chaining the bass if they’re occupying a similar frequency. So every time that kick hits, the bass gets sucked out. If it’s a live bass, it might only be side-chained on a multiband compressor. It might only be the low end that gets sucked out, where I still get the fret noise and the higher frequency stuff from the live bass.

Even with 808s, if I have an 808 layered with a kick drum, I’m probably gonna soften the attack on the 808, so that the kick drum is giving me my attack, and once that’s gone, then the 808 tail will extend. For me, low end is about one instrument that gets to occupy the space at a time. So make good decisions over what that’s going to be, and they can change roles throughout the song. But you’ve got to make sure that you arrange it and automate it in such a way that everything has its own space.

I love the advice about focusing your attention on good production choices.

Yeah, talking about production in general, I always love production that has pieces of ear candy every 15 to 20 seconds. Kendrick Lamar is amazing for that. The arrangement and production that he has in his songs, it’s him, and it’s his engineer Ali. I think they learned that, quite honestly, from Dre, because if you listen to any Dre album, you’re always surprised—there’s always something there every 15, 20 seconds, that is different that gives your ear something new, and your brain something new to process.

It’s not too repetitive, and it could be as simple as a drop. It could be a little sound effect, a car crash, a gunshot, a little synth layer that happens for one note. Or it could be like Eminem changing his voice. He’s done it in so many songs, but on “Real Slim Shady,” he’ll do the female counterpart, and he’ll change the voice. That’s a production decision. He wrote it that way, sure, but that’s also a production decision to say, “All right, you’re going to change your voice here.”

I’m not saying that it was Dre made the decision or Eminem did. But those things matter, and it totally changes the dynamic of how a song plays because I could easily just rap through that, say “and then she said,” and rap in my normal voice. But it’s just so much cooler if you change your voice and make it a little more interesting and a little more dynamic.

That, to me, should apply across the board. So if you’re having a drum fill, don’t fly the same fill. Maybe the next one’s a totally different fill. It just gives your brain something new to process.

What other new projects do you have coming up?

We just had this BTS record come out in May, and I wrote two songs on that with my writer, Candace Sosa, who I signed, who’s somebody to look out for. And then BTS put out a new record that just came out on August 24th that I wrote four songs on and produced one. I mixed a few of them as well. I think what they’re doing is really innovative and exciting. For a K-pop act to break through in America, I think is really special and I’m super proud to be a small part of that. I love what they’re doing, and I love their visuals, and all the music is great. It feels almost like there’s this Beatlemania around BTS. It’s crazy. The album that I worked on that they had put out in May went to number one in America. This is not number one on the “world” chart, this is the number one Billboard 200 chart. So, to have a number one on the [general] album chart—that’s a big deal for an album that’s 95% Korean language.

And then I’m constantly working on new stuff. I’ve just worked on Matoma’s record that’s coming out, I’m working on Armin van Buuren’s record. And my own artist who I’ve been developing, his name’s James Kaye, we have his EP coming out over the next few months. The first single is called “Coconut” which is out. I’m really excited about that. I co-wrote and produced it. We have six songs done as part of this EP, and they’re going to come out over the course of the next six months or so.

Amazing. Well thank you so much for your time and for sharing your insights with us!

James Kaye‘s first single “Coconut” was released on July 27th and his second single “Colors” comes out on Friday September 28.

BTS’ latest album dropped Aug 24 and their previous album dropped May 18.

If you’d like to learn more about DJ Swivel, check out his website.

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