tyDi On ‘Tear Me Up’ And His Musical Inspirations [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO]

I really liked the collaboration with Nash Overstreet from Hot Chelle Rae; he was super fun to write with. It’s actually the first track we’ve done together and he brought this fun, kinda quirky pop vibe to the track that I probably wouldn’t have thought to do before. I’ve always been a fan of the band he’s in and really loved it and thought and wondered what this is gonna sound like if I get this kind of super summertime pop feel and mix it with my style of dance music. I think it worked well and it was just fun to have a different creative input on the record.

The video was super fun; it came about in a really ridiculous way. I was on a conference call with my manager and my team about the video and they wanted to make it a house party. And, I was kind of making jokes with them about how cliche that is. I’m like sure you want the red cups and the chicks with the pillow fights and stuff like that, and they’re like, ‘Yeah yeah that would be great we want all that stuff.’

I was like alright guys we can do that, but we need a plot twist; it’s gotta have some sort of a plot twist. They were like, ‘What kind of plot twist can you possibly have in a house party?’ After about 30 minutes going back and forth my manager is like, ‘Hey, you want a plot twist, how about aliens suck everyone up?’ And I just lost it. I absolutely lost it for about 30 minutes to the point where we had to get off the call because I couldn’t continue the conversation. I was laughing that hard.

Then after that I just had my mind set. I was like, that’s it, aliens are sucking everyone up. Then later I was just thinking, what if aliens just sucked all the dudes up and leave me with the girls? So we made that happen.

I’m touring everywhere now that this new single is out and they can expect like my biggest records, stuff like “Redefined” and “Stay,” and you know, “Tear Me Up.” I’ll be playing those, and I love to do like sneaky surprises, like get vocals from some of my older records like the classics and mash them up over my new stuff. I’ll definitely be playing new material that people haven’t heard yet. I’m working towards a new record at the moment. I have a ton of new material. Yeah, a lot of stuff they haven’t heard before, my classic tracks, and the big things you’d expect from me. My shows are always really eclectic and not one show I ever do is exactly the same. I always try to bring out surprises.

I was about 15 in high school and I wanted to be a drummer in a rock band. I was really into bands like Blink 182, got the tattoo here [points to arm] and the graffiti art over there [points to wall]. So I was a huge fan of them and bands like Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional. Actually, I got a record with Dashboard Confessional on my last album. It’s pretty crazy. When I was younger, I always wanted to be like those guys and work with them and stuff. Even just meeting them would have amazed me back then. I was listening to music always when I was really young. Then I heard electronic music for the first time at 15 or 16 and I just went, “Woah, I could make all that with a computer on my own,” and decided then and there that’s all I wanted to do.

I was that loser kid in high school just making electronic music at lunchtime, and then I kept chasing it all the way through to college, did a degree in music and here I am.