When he uncaged Animals in 2013, dance music’s latest boy wonder Martin Garrix’s chart domination was sealed. Besides enjoying massive success at Ultra Festival and Coachella, his musician friend list is also on a roll — Ed Sheeran, Skrillex, Tiesto.... No wonder EDM enthusiasts in India have booked tickets to Sunburn Goa, at Vagator Beach between December 27 and 30.

The 19-year-old Dutch DJ-producer took time off from his two favourite activities — music and jet-skiing — to answer a few questions from t2 over email. Read it and then go back to pump up the YouTube views of Animals, currently at 702,405,402. Or you can spend a few hours looking up the many tutorials on the Garrix hairdo!

Just three years ago Christina Aguilera walked in and asked you to remix her song Your Body. Was it an unreal experience for a 16-year-old? 

Haha, well it wasn’t like she walked into my room and personally asked for it, but it was a very unreal moment when my team told me about it. Christina Aguilera is one of those huge pop stars that everyone sees on television and for her to ask me to remix that track was a really weird but awesome experience.

You believe in working on tracks from scratch. Is that your usual process? 

I don’t think there’s something like a usual process. I can come up with an idea when I’m on the plane from Amsterdam to Los Angeles and get really stuck on it, like with Forbidden Voices. But I can also meet up with some people and spend a week in a studio to create new stuff. It’s really hard to say. The hardest part for me is to finish a track. I get so much inspiration for new tracks every day. I start new projects all the time. :)

Would you ever sing on one of your singles? 

I don’t think that singing is my strong point, so I’m not really planning on it, no.

From a school student to becoming an international star, is it easy to cope with fame?

It’s not easy, but it has been a really weird experience, for obvious reasons. I think that I haven’t changed all too much and that’s mostly to do with my team and my parents and friends. They keep me grounded and they make sure that I realise it when something special happens. They’ll let me know that it’s very unusual for a 19-year-old to rent out a place in Ibiza for the summer, and that’s important too. They make sure that I don’t start thinking too highly of myself.

Who have been your mentors and what have been some of the landmarks so far? 

Tiesto has been my mentor, and the milestones have probably been the release of Animals, my performance at Ultra (in Miami) this year, and the upcoming label that I’m starting.

Was Tiesto’s 2004 Olympic performance an inspiration. What do you like about him? 

Tiesto was the first one to introduce me to electronic music with that performance at the Olympics. I got so intrigued by the whole aesthetic of the performance that he was giving, and it was nothing like I’d ever seen before. About eight years later, I finally got to meet the man himself and he turned out to be such a nice and cool guy. He’s incredibly helpful and involved with upcoming talent, he’s a real role model to a lot of people and that’s what I really like about him.

Animals. Tell us how the track came about... 

Hmm, the story is actually quite funny. I created the break for Animals a long time ago, but I never finished it. Then, one day I was going through my hard disk and found the break again, and fell in love with it again. I started working on the track again, and after a lot of back and forth with Spinnin’ (Dutch independent record label), it was finally finished!

You played the Spanish guitar before becoming a DJ. Was this something you wanted to pursue? 

Playing the Spanish guitar was a choice I made myself, and I really liked it for about eight years. After that, I became more interested in electronic music and now I obviously spend most of my time on that. My parents and friends have always been very supportive of my career choice, and I think that’s played an important role in the success that I’ve been having. Having a good home front, one that has got your back, is very important.

Justin Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun manages you. Is he a cool person? 

Working with Scooter is amazing, he’s got such an incredibly huge network of people, so he’s the right person to get stuff done. Like, for example, when I sent over Don’t Look Down to him, a couple of hours later he FaceTimed me and all of a sudden Usher was next to him telling me he wanted to do the track. Amazing!

What’s your idea of fun on the road?

All sorts of stuff. I love to go out on the water on a boat and go jet-skiing, or other fun water activities. Also we really like to just hang out at the pool or beach, or wherever actually... after a long day of travelling and a night of performing, relaxation is very necessary.

Finally, what sets Sunburn apart from the other festivals you’ve played at? 

What’s really cool about Sunburn is that it’s one of the largest, maybe even the largest, festival in India. India might be the most enthusiastic country in Asia when it comes to electronic dance music so this festival is obviously very special. What’s cool too is that it’s being held in different cities.

Garri-X Factor

Name: Martin Garrix, 19
DJ Mag ranking: 3
Real name: Martijn Garritsen
DOB: May 14, 1996
Born: Amstelveen, Netherlands
Education: Graduated from Herman Brood Academy
Twitter: 2.41 million people follow martingarrix
Facebook: 11,804,277 like his page on Facebook
Instagram: 5.1 million followers keep track of martingarrix
Hits: Animals, Forbidden Voices, Waiting For Love, Wizard, Don’t Look Down, The Only Way Is Up, Turn Up The Speakers
Govinda fans: Google Animals and Govinda for a hilarious video!
Fashion quotient: “I love to wear underwear, it’s very great. I love to wear socks, socks are very important in my closet. I got a new watch yesterday and I’m very happy with it. I love to wear shoes like Jordans, Nike, very sporty shoes. Just comfortable, especially when I’m on stage,” Fashion & Style magazine discovered.
Wildest ‘normal’ moment  in the crowd: “Well, you’ve always got the boob flash. But I’m not even going to say that’s ridiculous, because now it’s normal,” he has told Spin.
And he cannot: Dance!

Finding Martin

Scooter Braun (manager) got in touch with Martin pretending he was from his school and it was an emergency. He told Billboard magazine this year: “At first I was like: “Ugh, a teenager? People are going to come at me because I’m known for teenagers and pop.” But when I heard Animals, I said: “Let’s find this guy.” Martin was on vacation with his family, so I tracked him down at Club Med and called his room.”