He’s an American musician, songwriter, producer, and DJ born of Kashmiri-Indian descent. He’s the man behind ‘Like a G6’ and one half of The Cataracs. He’s incredibly talented and one of the nicest artists I have ever met. Introducing Niles Hollowell-Dhar, more commonly known as KSHMR.
Let’s start at the very beginning – how did you come up with the name KSHMR?
Random word generator- just kidding. My family is from Kashmir, which is a region in India. And that’s about it- I know it’s not that crazy or original, but hey, it’s important to me.
Are there any exciting projects coming up that you can tell us about?
There’s always shows and festivals coming up, and I’m excited for all of them. I have some new singles coming out soon too that I can’t talk too much about yet. I also am going to be working on developing new sound packs, that will require a lot of work and a lot of collaborating with different people, but I’m excited to put those together and share them with the world too.
Check out some of KSHMR’s newest releases:
What was the most pivotal moment in your career?
Well in the beginning, it was this song called ‘Like a G6’. It was kind of like a fluke honestly- I was making a lot of tracks at the time that were similar- that had that sort of distorted sound. And somehow, that one happened to end up being a really big hit, and that changed my life forever. That song really took me from being the guy just trying to get his foot in the door to the guy who’s got the #1 hit in the country. After that my group broke up, and then that’s when I started to become KSHMR.
What artist or group would you love to collaborate with?
Such a good question. I would say, for sure, Brandon Flowers. I love The Killers- they’re one of my favorite bands. The Beatles are actually my favorite band, but unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to be able to get Paul McCartney to collaborate with me on anything.
Have you had a most embarrassing moment on stage that you feel comfortable sharing?
Oh yeah, I’ve had multiple. Back when I was in The Cataracs, I had just broken up with my girlfriend at the time. I was playing at a show that I knew she would still be in attendance at. Of course, the DJ before me opened a bottle of champagne on stage and sprayed it all over… and the first thing I did when I ran out on stage was slip and fall in front of everybody. Like I medically injured myself- it was that painful- but I continued the show. It just felt so embarrassing doing that in front of everybody, and knowing she was in the audience made it even worse.
The next one I have to share with you- I was in Germany. It was the last song of my set, I was outside performing at a festival, and it was raining. The last song I was playing had a huge build up to the last drop, so I jumped up on the table to get the crowd super hyped up. I then realized that I accidentally stepped on my USB was I was getting onto the table- like crushed it so hard that the wires were sticking out. Somehow, the song went into an emergency loop, so it literally was just going to loop forever if I didn’t do something. And since my USB was crushed there was literally nothing I could do, so I just let it loop for another minute or two, then turned the music down and said “Thank You” and ran off stage.
Photo credit: Jeff Kravitz
