Overwerk: The Electro Action Hero
Growing up in the small city of London, Ontario, Edmond Huszar aspired to go into graphic design. “I always thought I was going to start an advertising agency,” he remembers now.
But thanks to his talent for producing epic, cinematic electro house, Huszar—better known to EDM fans as Overwerk—has gone into advertising via a different route: by licensing his music to top brands like Gucci, Prada, Lamborghini and GoPro. His tracks have been featured in over 100 different commercials and promotional videos, none more famous that the mind-blowing clip for GoPro’s Hero3 action camera, which features his track “Daybreak” and has been viewed on YouTube over 32 million times.
Even without the income from his commercial placements, Huszar insists that he would continue to make all his original tracks available as free or pay-what-you-can downloads. “Have an impact on people’s lives in a positive way, and the money will come,” he says. “That’s kind of my philosophy.”
On the eve of his first US tour, we caught up with the 24-year-old Canadian phenom to talk about his early days DJing high school dances, his goal of one day composing a film score, and cake.
Have you played any one-off dates in the States, or will this really be your first time playing America?
Most of my shows have been around Canada, and then a lot in Europe. This is the first time I’m actually playing the States. I’ve had thousands of requests from my fans all over the US, so we kind of used that as a way to organize the whole tour.
What can fans expect from you on this tour? Will you have a live setup, or will you be DJing?
I do DJ sets, but every single set I play, I never plan. I just have my set list of my music and other mashups and remixes I’ve made, a lot of unreleased stuff. And then I just feel out the crowd. It’s an Overwerk set; it represents my music and my sound.
You got your start as a DJ and then moved into production, right?
Yeah, my start was really early on, my first year of high school. I basically went to a school dance, and the DJ had no clue what kids my age were into. So the next dance, I actually rented all the equipment myself, taught myself how to DJ two hours before the dance started, and then went from there.
On my computer, I have like 200 remixes from high school that I made.
That’s awesome. Do you remember what your big anthem was for that first high school set?
[Laughs] Basically, from an early age, I was into dance music and electronic music. Back then it was trance, hard dance—just random stuff you’d find on Limewire and Napster. Because iTunes wasn’t big, blogs weren’t big. It was just whatever random thing you could find. So basically, I was into dance music, but the school wasn’t. The school was into Ying Yang Twins, Pussycat Dolls, Chris Brown, T-Pain—generic pop stuff. And I was teaching myself production in high school, so I would remix all the songs that people were into and make like dance/club edit versions for the high school dances. On my computer, I have like 200 remixes from high school that I made: “Kiss Kiss” by Chris Brown, “A Milli” by Lil Wayne, stuff like that.
That sounds like a great crash course in EDM production, actually: just taking existing tracks and figuring out how to do your own bootleg versions.
Exactly. I was the bootleg master in high school. And then I started to sell CDs of my own productions for five bucks to my friends. It was just a fun thing that I did, just as a hobby. I was actually into graphic design since even before high school. That was my dream since I was a kid—to do advertising and video production. I was good at drawing and painting, so it seemed like the natural progression.
So all the artwork for your releases, you create all that yourself?
Yeah, I do all the Overwerk art. I do all the album covers, all the cover photos, all the graphic design myself.
You mentioned selling CDs in high school. How did you arrive at the decision to give away all your music for free?
I was just charging people five bucks because I had to go buy the blank CDs. I would make my own cover art and CD stickers. Five bucks was just covering the cost. The whole letting people pay what they want or giving it away for free is just: I want as many people as possible to access the content, and I just know I’ll make money in other ways.
Something that bothers me is that some DJs or artists will have a show, they’ll be DJing a set, their tour manager will walk up onstage holding up T-shirts, waving them around—and then instead of tossing them out, the tour manager will be like, “OK, 25 bucks.” Just give people a good experience, have an impact on people’s lives in a positive way, and the money will come. That’s kind of my philosophy.
Obviously, that philosophy has worked out for you: In addition to whatever money you make from your gigs, your music has been licensed to dozens of commercials. What was the first piece of music you ever licensed?
GoPro had used my music for some of their videos before they even asked permission or before they were even known for [using EDM in their videos]. They had a couple of ski edits that they used my music for, and then asked me afterwards. That was the first time where I was like, “Hey, I can actually license my music to people.” It wasn’t something I’d thought of.
Once the GoPro Hero3 video came out, it had a lot of exposure to people outside the dance world who also appreciated the music. They realized there’s a little extra dimension to it and that it would actually fit well with the commercial space. Because I try to make my songs a little more cinematic. I’d love to score a movie one day, so I feel like it’s already going in that direction.
That’s definitely one of the things I responded to in your music: how you use strings and these more orchestrated sections that feel more cinematic.
I guess I’ve noticed that people are only willing to accept ideas or sounds that they’re already used to. The majority of people will continue listening to the music that they listened to growing up, because that’s kind of what shapes you. So with my music, I try to incorporate a diverse range of sounds that are not just accessible to the EDM scene, that are accessible to everyone, so they can kind of feel the vibe. Who doesn’t enjoy a movie soundtrack? Who doesn’t enjoy some Hans Zimmer or Danny Elfman? That music connects with you, no matter how old you are.
You recently did a Reddit AMA. What was the most random question you got asked?
Man, there were a lot of random questions. Actually, one of the most random questions I ever got was from just my general messages. I had one person from France ask me what kind of desserts I like, because he wanted to bake me an Overwerk cake. He was asking what aromas and flavors I wanted him to incorporate in this cake that he could then bring to one of my shows. He was a pastry chef in culinary school or something like that.
Sounds like you’d better make sure your next tour includes a stop in France!
Overwerk is playing Create Nightclub in Los Angeles this Friday. You can pick up tickets here.
Follow Overwerk on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
