29-year old EDM producer Gene Takviriyanan has been making music under artist name ‘SABAI’ for just over two years - but he's certainly made his mark on the music scene. Originally from Thailand, SABAI moved to Vancouver at just sixteen years old, eventually attending college there before perusing music.
“I dropped out of college because I was like, I’m getting older now, I need to do music. I handed in a blank paper for all four of my courses. I was a year away from getting my undergrad. My parents were so upset. My dad didn't talk to me for a month because I'm the only child here. And being the only child in Asian culture, they want you to graduate.
“It took me six years before things started taking off. So during that six years, I was just really, really doubting myself. Like, did I make the right decision? Did I just become the biggest disappointment? It was really, really hard during that time.”
Since he began releasing music, he’s gained over 600,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and more than twenty million streams on his debut single “Million Days”. SABAI has learnt first-hand the realities of breaking into the music industry - and keeping up with it.
“I’ve been super passionate about music since I was thirteen. But I didn't really know how I was going to turn it into a career. I've been producing for about seven years, but I didn't put out any music until 2020, so I did six years of just behind the scenes, just trying to get better at it.”
“Million Days” took SABAI eight months to perfect, but it was an instant hit, being released under Monstercat’s label.
“It had twenty thousand streams in the first two days. And I was a brand new artist too, so all the plays came very organically.”
Inspired by other EDM artists such as Gryffin and Elephante, who he is currently touring with, SABAI’s songwriting process is more personal than what may be expected from an EDM artist.
“I create the instrumental first, and then I try to find a vocalist that would be a great fit, and I would send the instrumentals to that vocalist. And I'll tell her the theme of the song - what I want the song to be about. And then she'll send what she wrote back, and we keep going back and forth.
“I feel like I want my songs to be personal to me. I feel like I almost use my songs as a personal diary in a way.
“In five years, I want to be playing Tomorrowland. But I also want to have like a good foundation. I don't want to just play there once and then die off. When I say that in five years I want to be playing at these venues, I want to play there when I'm ready, not because I find a promoter who can put me there just because we're friends.”
His advice to aspiring artists? Always take the high road. “There’ll be times when you're presented with a choice, to choose an easy way and do something that will fuck over another artist. Don't do that because the industry is so small and it will always come back!”