My Beginnings
Some of my earliest memories are of music, and if you ask me just when I realized there was a deep, burning passion for music inside me, I couldn’t answer honestly – because as far as I can tell, the deep, burning passion was always there. All throughout my childhood, I would immerse myself in sound, spending hours upon hours discovering new bands and falling in love with one genre after another.
I grew up in Lithuania in the 80s and 90s, years when pieces of sound equipment like loudspeakers were hard to come by. Radiotechnika produced most of the equipment that was available in the local market,
and loudspeakers like the S30 and the S90 cost a fortune, much more than most people could afford even if they saved up their money. As a kid, I had no shot at affording these luxury items, so I made do with what I could scrounge up: speakers from old TV equipment. These speakers fell far short of the capacity that I could have expected from higher-end loudspeakers, but I was happy to do the work, to experiment with my own sound and learn how the equipment functioned.
Of course, I always thought in the back of my head One day I’m going to make my way as a DJ and buy any equipment that I want.
Early Adulthood
Right around the time that I turned 18, my whole life changed. I was planning on throwing a party along with my friends, and knowing that I had immersed myself in sound and light equipment, they bought me a modern lighting system, which motivated me to push myself even harder and to learn even more. I was getting ready to finish high school, so I needed a direction to heard in. It seemed like everything had just fallen into place for me: I was practising wood carving, which made it simple for me to craft enclosures for my speakers, and I bought some German hi-fi speakers, which were superior to anything else I had owned before.
I was making moves, plotting out my own lo-fi speaker and built-in amp, all the while still dreaming of a career as a DJ. I was living, however, in a small Lithuanian town called Biržai,
where there were not many opportunities for me to advance myself. I managed to remain motivated by building my own sound systems for home use, but I knew that I needed to get my hands on some professional equipment. To do this, I started looking for damaged speakers. It was around this time that my parents let me know they didn’t support my plans, but I persisted anyway, my focus singular and undaunted.
Buying three speakers to fix up, I got to work, figuring out shortcuts and learning all the advanced tech concepts along the way. When I finally got to the point where I was putting all the speakers into a single enclosure, I had to conjure up a special alignment and get creative piecing it all together. I worked a job the first summer after high school, saving up to buy my first amplifier, and slowly but surely, I was collecting all the equipment that I needed to chart my path as a DJ.
Social Skills & Networking
Perhaps because I had spent all my teenage years honing my wood carving and tech maintenance skills, it would be fair to say that my social skills were lacking. I was very shy, but because I knew I needed to meet people and form connections in Biržai, I stepped out of my comfort zone, enlisting a classmate to help me arrange a dance at one of the local culture centres. This was a scary experience for me, but I grew a lot from it.
Later in the summer, I met Mindaugas, who it turned out loved music just as much as I did. That was June, and a month later, Žilvinas got in on the fun too. We would all pass our free time listening to music, talking about music, breathing music, and dreaming about lives away from Biržai.
As the summer came to a close, I knew that I was moving away. My studies would continue in Kaunas, and although I promised my parents I would do well in school, my heart was still with the beat and rhythm that came out of my speakers. I was spending more money than ever before on sound and light equipment, and on the weekends I learned about DJing and the music industry. Even when I did move to Kaunas, I returned to my hometown often in order to practise my DJing skills, my social circle growing constantly.
Fortifying My Resolve
A couple years after I graduated high school, I was dreaming about changing my major to Music Technologies. Just as they hadn’t supported me tinkering with sound equipment, they didn’t support me studying music formally either. Because I knew I would need to support myself, I ended up finishing my degree in mechanical engineering. Thus, it was like I was living two lives: one during the week (the mechanical life) and one on the weekends (the music life). My soul felt freed every weekend.
The year was 2010, and my friends I decided to start our own DJ group: Flawless Beat DJ Team. Each of us brought different tastes and sensibilities to the group, though we focused especially on house, electro house, progressive house, tech house, and EDM.
These times were some of the best of my life: small dances, private parties, open-air concerts, collaborations with other DJs. We were living our team, even bringing our music back to Biržai and playing a couple of bars in Kaunas. This went on for about a year, until I left Lithuania for Finland, where I was going to be a part of the Erasmus exchange program, shifting my focus away from music and onto my studies while I was wrapping up my Bachelor’s Degree.
Continuing to Grow
After my Bachelor’s Degree, I kept on going – with both my studies and my DJ career. I spent two years earning my Master’s Degree, and in that time, I made it into the Work & Travel Program, which meant that I got to explore the United States. On top of that, I learned about laser technologies in Finland and practised alongside notable masters.
Of course, music was always on my mind. I DJed at the Erasmus Student Network parties, and I picked up on influences during my international travels. This was my life from 2012 to 2014, a period of slow growth, but a period of definite growth as well. I could not have done what I did next had it not been for these formative years.
Making the Leap
Landing an opportunity in the laser technology field in Germany, I left Lithuania once again. It was 2015, and for the first time in my life, I was drifting away from music. Although I looked for DJing opportunities in Germany, the language barrier prevented me from branching out. For that whole first year in Germany, I directed all my energy to my job in engineering. It wasn’t until 2017 that I heard about the Ableton Workshop, where I could learn about music production.
After Ableton, I felt reignited. There were no two ways about it: I had to devote myself to music technologies, devote myself with a fervour that I had overlooked previously. A year after that, I was going one-hundred-percent in on Flawless Beat, redesigning the logo and enrolling in Audio Producer Diploma course at Deutsche Pop.
Where I Am Now
After all the ups and downs over the last decade, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. I earned Audio Producer Diploma, and I feel ready to do what I love, to do what I always felt driven to do. What I want more than anything is to expand my career as a DJ and share my passion for music with people all around the world. Toward that end, I am going to continue to explore my interests in equipment and House music – and continue to put in the work, day in and day out.
To learn more about my music, go ahead and connect with me through Social Networks! I’m still growing, still learning, and still making my way, and I want you to be a part of my journey.
