Tenishia: multi-tasking diversity seekers

DJ’s, teachers and producers at the same time. Maltese duo Joven Grech and Cyprian Cassar are keeping themselves quite busy these days. Besides revolutionizing Malta’s EDM Scene with music production classes, they keep on rocking the global crowds with their Tenishia sets. And even with that kind of overloaded schedule, the two released three tracks within less than two months. June 21^st saw the release of their ‘Stranger To Myself’ and July kicks in with Roger Shah collab ‘Catch A Cloud’. As if that’s not quite enough work already, they’ve got another duo EP ahead. It’s obvious, Tenishia is playing the game swift, sweet and successful. Time to find out what’s their secret!

Your new track ‘Catch A Cloud’, a collaboration with Roger Shah, has just been released. After last years’ ‘You Are So Cool’ and ‘I’m Not God’ this is already the third time the three of you are working together. When did you meet for the first time and how did the idea of working together came into being?
Tenishia:”We met Roger during an event in Malta. Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz from Faithless were on the line up that day as well. At that time, Roger was doing a few collaborations for his upcoming album and asked us to produce a track with him. And so ‘You Are So Cool’ was born!”

What does it look like when three talented producers are working together on one production? Are there any arguments or do you agree most of the time?
Tenishia:”It actually flowed really well and we never had any arguments. First we come up with some riff and piano parts and send it to Roger, who builds up a rough track. Afterwards he forwards it to Lorilee, who does all the writing. Then, after all of us have agreed on the vocals – which on three occasions was very good straight away – we do our separate versions, using same riffs and vocals of cause.”

Can we look forward to some more cooperation’s with Roger and if so: what will the next challenge be?
Tenishia:”All three collabs did really well, and we got some very good feedback on them. So yeah, it is possible. Maybe we can get another remixer next time and he also puts his sounds in there.”

Besides working together with Roger you were quite busy with remixing and producing for and with many other producers. The list of them goes from vocalist Susanna and the band Winter Moods to Australian DJ and producer tyDi and it combines various kinds of music. How do you choose tracks you want to remix and what would be a nice challenge for an upcoming remix?
Tenishia:”Remixing is pretty cool. We believe every DJ, band, singer and producer has his/her own music identity hidden in the sounds and style of their productions, no matter what the music genre is. We do like sad songs and sad sounds because they’re the best sounds to send shivers down your spine. The challenge in a remix is to leave the identity of the original producer/singer and in the same time put in your own sound/identity. Whenever we hear a really good track that gets in our head the first time we hear it and we get that urge of putting in our own ideas, then we want to remix that track. We have a few remixes coming out and we’re very much looking forward to their releases. One of them is actually a remix we did for Markus Schulz!”

You guys keep on pampering us with many own productions. How do you guys, after all these hits, still keep your sound fresh?
Tenishia:”Our DJ schedule is busy every weekend, when we’re not playing internationally we will be busy on our home island, Malta, and I think playing at many events gives us a lot of ideas because the more you play, the more you know what the crowd wants and which sounds they like.  Imagine yourself being in the middle of the crowd at this big event and ask yourself what you want to hear and that is how we get our ideas. The other thing would be spending lots of time in the studio, searching our sound libraries and playing around with various Vst’s.”

For ‘Stranger To Myself’ you’ve been working with Polish vocalist Aneym. Compared to Kirsty Hawkshaw and Tiff Lacey, Aneym is quite an upcoming talent. Was it an easy choice to choose a new talent over the successful names?
Tenishia:“Both, new and experienced vocalists, have their advantages and disadvantages. Working with experienced vocalists like Kirsty Hawkshaw and Jan Johnston surely taught us a lot of lessons. It also helped our profile cause they are big names in the industry and have worked with big names like Tiësto and Paul Oakenfold. On the other hand new talents who are maybe not so known have a fresh sound that wasn’t heard or maybe not so much heard before. We have already recorded the follow up of ‘Stranger To Myself’ and we can tell you that Aneym is going to be big! We think the problem with some vocalists is that sometimes they do so much in such a short period of time and they sort of burn themselves out quickly, especially when they do not change their method of singing and will sound the same in a lot tracks.”

Meanwhile it’s common business for you to not just please the crowd of Malta but also play in many other countries. In January you even headed to Australia. Has there been any special gig so far that you would call outstanding?
Tenishia:”Every gig has its own story whether it is our own event in Malta or an international gig. However, yes, there have been some special ones, like our first ‘Tenishia Live’ event in Malta which packed one of Malta’s most popular clubs to the maximum and also leaving a few hundred people out as tickets were sold at the door.  Didn’t expect such a big attendance that night, cause it was our first event, but people really follow what we do here in Malta.”

It looks like you guys carry, or at least got the Maltese EDM scene fired up. Has it grown or changed in the past few years?
Tenishia:”We can’t say that we started the scene in Malta as the scene has been big since the nineties here, but we can surely say we have revolutionized it! In the nineties the scene was so good, that local DJ’s got big here just by doing one event after another. We think that’s the work of a promoter rather than that of a DJ/Artist. No one seemed to care about music production. In fact, when we won the ‘The Best Newcomer Award’, we were nominated with three rock artists! Nowadays all local DJ’s try to produce their own tracks and it was us that changed the views and goals of the Maltese local club DJ’s.”

Last year you told us you think about setting up a DJ school. What happened to that project? Are there any new developments and if so: Did it work out?
Tenishia:”Yes, production classes are going on in full swing! We still have to start DJ courses though, cause a few things held us back from focusing on that, too. We have an incredible amount of requests for DJ classes, but finding the time has been the problem. Hopefully we will get that going this summer as well.”

You guys have invited many great DJ’s to Malta for your Tenishia Night. When’s the next one coming up and with who?
Tenishia:”We did invite many DJ’s as our guests in various events. Generally we would like to invite our own vocalists to our Tenishia Events, too, but so far we promoted other events where we had different DJ’s. Next thing on our schedule will be promoting an Armada Night in Malta, but for now we can’t release any information about that.”

What are your future plans? What can we look forward to?
Tenishia:”Next year we’ll definitely produce our first album. At the moment we’re already looking for the vocalists. But before coming up with the album we’ll have a few more releases on Armada within the following months. There is an EP coming out on Soundpiercing which will include our track ‘Monsoon’, which was already supported by Markus Schulz on GDJB.“

‘Roger Shah & Tenishia ft. Lorilee – Catch a Cloud’ will be out on July 5th. For more tracks, check their releases on iTunes.