A few weeks ago, Spag Heddy dropped his full-length debut album, “The Noodle Effect”, to critical acclaim, with his fans raking in those much-needed Spotify streams, and we were honoured to be able to interview him. Quickly becoming the most popular tracks from the album “Sorry” and “Hammer Time” are certainly becoming forces to be reckoned with.
Spag Heddy, real name Mischa Reining, is a talented Dutch-born artist who has been making waves in the dubstep scene since 2011. With influences like Skrillex, Funtcase, and Excision, Spag Heddy has crafted a unique and captivating style that seamlessly blends hard-hitting basslines with melodic elements, resulting in addicting successful originals and remixes. His music has received immense support from industry tastemakers and has been featured in the sets of renowned DJs such as Skrillex, Excision, and NGHTMRE. With a knack for creating energetic and mesmerizing performances, Spag Heddy has toured with heavyweights like Zomboy and Flux Pavilion, as well as performed as direct support for Excision and Zeds Dead. Spag Heddy continues to rise, becoming a shining star in the EDM world and solidifying his position at the forefront of the dubstep genre.
Answering our questions, via email, Spag Heddy went into detail about where he got his name from, his feelings about releasing his debut album “The Noodle Effect”, what it was like to work with a variety of artists, the album reception, and touring the world.
Hi Spag Heddy, how are you doing today? First off, your real name is Mischa Reining, so tell us how you came to perform under the name Spag Heddy.
At the time I made my first dubstep tracks, I didn’t really have an artist name. When I was gonna release my first song on an actual label the owner called me and asked what I wanted my artist name to be. All I could think of, at the time, was this joke me and my roommates had been going on about me being “dj spag hetti” because I was so skinny and ate instant noodles most of the time. Another roommate was “mc roni”. I went for it and the rest is history.
Where did you get the name of the album from, and why did you choose it?
The name came out of a brainstorm session with my team. We wanted a title that was on brand but not too “cheesy”. Eventually, we came upon “spaghettification” and “the noodle effect” which are the same things in astronomy. I liked this a lot because it means being stretched into a black hole, which is being stretched into a singularity, so you practically become timeless. Since the very beginning of this project, I wanted my album to be timeless music, not just simple dance-floor bangers.
It’s a huge collection of tracks, with a total of 17, overall. What made you decide to include so many tracks on the album?
It’s not that I wanted 17 tracks, these are just a selection out of a lot more songs that I potentially wanted on the album and that felt like it was a complete album. The thing is that there are a bunch of songs that I’ve made a long time ago but that never really fit on any label releases before. Together, with a few songs that I did specifically make for the album, it became this big playlist that we all went through and decided which made the cut and which ones didn’t. As you can hear I wanted a variety of styles and a good number of vocalists.
During the creation of your album, you had the opportunity to collaborate with Luxtides, Luma, Kompany, Micah Martin, Crooked Bangs, helloworld, Herobust, and Jantine. Could you share your experience working with each of these artists and shed some light on how these collaborations came about?
Luxtides, Luma and helloworld are all artists/vocalists that my management team 24-8 works with. With all of these vocalists really one topline was all it took. Luxtides’ vocal was originally for a different track but I made ‘Vertigo’ from scratch built around her vocal. ‘Voices’ was an old track that had a different vocalist on it, who pulled out of the project because I was taking too long (can’t blame her), but Luma’s vocal made it even better. With Kompany and Herobust, they were both situations of wanting to collab for a long time already, but it took multiple tries to really nail something. And we did! Micah I knew from our track ‘Dream & Disaster’ back in 2017 and we always wanted to do something together again. One day he sent a pack of toplines and one of them worked perfectly over the instrumental of ‘Never Thought I Had’. Crooked Bangs and Jantine are both vocalists whose toplines I got through my publishing company MusicAllStars. Both of them immediately caught my attention and just had toplines that worked perfectly for the instrumentals that I had laying.
You initially planned to release this in 2022. How come you had to push it back?
This is top-secret, highly confidential. Illuminati-level access is required.
In doing so, you dropped the first official single from the album, back in April, to apologise for the delay in its release, titled “Sorry”. Can you tell us more about the track?
‘Sorry’ is an old track of mine that is in the drumstep style that I am known for by many. Because it was so highly anticipated by many fans we thought it’d be a nice gesture to drop this one first, as a surprise.
It was your first release of 2023. What have you learned in the past year and how has your music changed within that time?
I have learned that attention spans in the EDM community get shorter by the day. Once you start rolling out the first glimpses of the album, and see all the releases from other artists that get dropped in between your first announcement and release date, it’s kinda wild to really see how short the shelf-time is of an EDM release. If my music has changed anything, it’s that I decided that nothing matters much and that I want to make timeless music, which to me is mostly melodic music.
“Sorry” isn’t the only release from this album, just last month you dropped “Never Thought” featuring Micah Martin. What made you decide that this track would be the next single?
We planned for three single releases in three different styles to give a teaser of the variety of the album, before the full album drop. First ‘Sorry’, because it was in the old school Spag Heddy style and highly anticipated by the fanbase, ‘Never Thought’ because of the amount of melodic dubstep the album has, and last ‘Hammer Time’ because the album would definitely have at least some dance-floor heaters.
The release of “The Noodle Effect” technically makes this your sophomore album as you originally released your debut album, “The Classics”, in 2017, and you also followed that up with a remix album, titled “Reheated”. How does “The Noodle Effect” compare to your previous collection album releases? Those six years surely helped to grow your artistic talent.
‘The Classics’ is not an actual album, it’s a playlist of existing released tracks I already had. Making it an ‘album’ was just a fun way of putting those popular tracks on Spotify, and easy to promote/share in that way. That is really just how that happened. ‘The Noodle Effect’ is made/curated as an actual album.
How does it feel to be releasing this album? What sort of feelings are running through you?
Pure excitement, thrill! It’s so good to finally be able to talk about this album and not have to stay silent. Also, since half of the album is melodic stuff I was nervous about the reception, but the first reactions were really positive and heartwarming. Ever since I announced the album the hype for it kept building up so it definitely feels like a big climax.
What’s next for you after the release of this album?
This is top-secret, highly confidential. Illuminati-level access is required.
We can only imagine you plan to include many of these songs, from the album, in your DJ sets. Tell us, what is it like to go out on tour? What can people expect from you during your sets?
Well, some of them. Not too many actually, they are just not dance-floor material. However, I might go a slightly different direction with my music, but for my live sets, people can expect the same hype and energy as I always bring.
Does it take you long to decide on your DJ sets? Do you have a process when creating them? How do you decide on what songs to include and when?
I’m not a fantastic DJ at all, so I have a sort of playlist template that I can always rely on, but it changes depending on the city that I’m gonna play. For well-known ‘bass cities’ I’ll go all out and play lots of originals and VIPS/WIPS etc. But if it’s a new city where people might not know me well, or a slightly more mainstream festival, then I’ll prepare for more well-known dubstep tracks and singalongs etc. and less of my own material. I’m always crowd-reading though, if certain key tracks go off I’ll switch it up at the spot and adjust to that vibe. Always good to have several playlists with variations prepared especially if you’re always nervous for sets like me.
You’ve toured all over the US with Zomboy and Flux Pavillion and been the support of Excision and Zeds Dead. Can you tell us what it was like to tour with them?
Everyone I’ve toured with has been great. From the artists to the crews, I’ve worked with fantastic people. Not everything will always go smoothly but that’s how it goes for literally everyone. From what I’ve seen people in touring life treat each other with respect and try to make it a fun time for everyone. I know it can also go very differently so I feel blessed to have worked with the nice ones at least. When a tour goes well it’s also immediately one of the nicest and most special things you can ever experience.
You’ve sold out many headline shows and performed at a variety of festivals, all over the world. Has there been one specific place you’ll never forget? And what makes that so special?
There are many places I’ll never forget because every place has its own character and feel. Since the US has such a streamlined EDM market it kind of automatically makes everything that was not in the US stand out more, so some of those places I think of now are India, China, and Paris. India and China because they felt like such different worlds, and Paris because it was the first foreign city for me where I played shows regularly and where the crowds were incredibly hyped and grateful.
This album is absolutely fire, from start to finish. We have no doubt that your fans are going to love it, especially when they hear it out on the road. Finally, do you have any words you want to say to your fans?
I would like to say that I appreciate everyone who buys my album or gives it a listen, likes/shares it, and expresses their opinion about it. Especially these days where attention spans are extremely short, it’s easy for a release to get lost in the void with all the other releases, so I’m hoping at least some of my tracks will make it to people’s hearts and become timeless in that way.
Thank you, Spag Heddy, for taking the time to answer our questions. We definitely need to find out how to get Illuminati-level access, maybe over time you’ll reveal those secrets, but for now, we are loving your new album “The Noodle Effect”. We’ll be sure to add your album to a variety of our personal playlists and we believe our readers will continue to discover favourite tracks from you.
“The Noodle Effect”, by Spag Heddy, is available to download and stream, right now, across all platforms, via Tomato Bass. We’re sure the 17 tracks will keep you busy but we also highly suggest you check out Spag Heddy’s previous releases as he continues to make statements in the EDM scene and continue to rise in the industry. He is currently on phase one of his “The Noodle Effect” Tour, tickets are available to buy here.
Spag Heddy’s “The Noodle Effect” Tour:
June 17 – Mardi Gras – Queenstown, NZJune 23 – La La Land – Brisbane, AUJune 24 – Mardi Gras – Ohakune, NZ- June 30 – Potts Point Hotel – Sydney, AU
- July 01 – Perth Mess Hall – Perth, AU
- July 13 – Celine – Orlando, FL
- July 14 – The Loft – Minneapolis, MN
- July 15 – Miramar Theatre – Milwaukee, WI
- July 28 – Exchange – Los Angeles, CA
- July 29 – Sunbar – Tempe, AZ
- August 10 – The Marc – San Marcos, TX
- August 11 – Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO
- August 24 – Hard Rock Live – Las Vegas, NV
- August 25 – Elektricity – Detroit, MI
- August 26 – Concord Hall – Chicago, IL
- September 13 – Soundcheck – Washington, DC
- September 14 – Trinity – Seattle, WA
- September 15 – Celebrities – Vancouver, BC
- September 16 – Palace – Calgary, AB