Interview: Mikey Lyon, Desert Hearts Crew

Intimate gatherings feed our culture these days: music as a traditional concert is a thing of the past. It’s the new school of cultural outings that palpitate with the fruitful elements of connectedness with us humans. With music festivals these days, we get fed properly with more arts culture. One thing that reigns, however, it the elevation of consciousness; love. Desert Hearts Crew brings just that to the table, and with a City Hearts LA show on Friday, Oct 3rd and a November 2014 line up announced for their 2nd Anniversary Festival installation, it’s a sure shot that left coasters will get to experience yet another joyous wandering in the desert. We sat down with DH Crew member Mikey Lyon to ask about the flavor they plan to bring forth:

LA CANVAS: How confident are you in the line-up for this year and how is this line-up different from the last?

MIKEY LYON: I’m extremely confident in the lineup for our 2 Year Anniversary and think it’s our most versatile lineup yet. We put an incredible amount of time finding the right balance that spans across the whole spectrum of House & Techno. Some of the best acts on the lineup are the young up-and-comers because they’re the most hungry and want to share their passion with the world. They’re putting everything they have into their sets and the dance floor picks up on that.

LA CANVAS: What kick-started this festival? Did you see a void that needed to be filled?

ML: We were tired of DJing typical club nights that lasted for 5 hours and always left us wanting more. We never thought about it as a potential void to fill, we just wanted to throw a weekend long House & Techno party with all our friends. The weather was unbelievably cold at our very first Desert Hearts, but the survival aspect of the whole thing is what ultimately brought everyone together and created our family. Word spread of our triumph over mother nature and our family began to grow.

LA CANVAS: Who are some of the artists you’d like to bring on board to the label from the line-up?

ML: The obvious choices right off the bat would be my core Desert Hearts Crew, Lee Reynolds, Porkchop, Marbs, and Deep Jesus. These guys are my brothers and I want to see them succeed doing something they truly love. Kevin Anderson just released his debut 4 track EP with us on September 30th and it’s seriously as good as it gets. Then my solo EP is coming out in early November just in time for Desert Hearts, then Lonely Boy is scheduled for an unbelievable release with us in December. Out of the rest of the lineup, I’d personally love to release tracks from Dance Spirit, Francesca Lombardo, & Avatism. Those guys know what desert vibes are all about.

LA CANVAS: This 2nd Year Anniversary Festival sounds like a great sounding board for new artists and a great way to build a community of artists. How eager were people to jump on board at first?

ML: I think Desert Hearts has always been an amazing jump off point for new artists. The whole thing is about music, love, & family, so initially when we were impressed by a DJ, it was like “Welcome to The Fam!” Now that we’re a bit more established, we have an insane amount of people hitting us up to play. I think headliners took a little while to really grasp the concept, but with the help of rave reviews from the likes of DJ T. & James Teej, people started taking us a little more seriously.

LA CANVAS: Who were the original founders of the DH Crew? How did you guys all come together?

ML: Along with myself, the original founders were San Diego based DJs Lee Reynolds, Marbs, Deep Jesus, and my younger brother Porkchop. One weekend we all found ourselves in the Mojave playing a renegade desert party thrown by our soon-to-be Desert Hearts co-founder, Christopher Kristoff. We all clicked musically and we thought it’d be cool to throw a collaborative party with our different crews. And so birthed Desert Hearts.

LA CANVAS: How do you go about picking the artists for the line up? Any artists you already have in mind for the next festival?

ML: One of the main principles behind our bookings is that we only book artists who genuinely want to be at the festival. We’re not interested in divas that are here to collect a paycheck and bounce. We want the Dance Spirits, the Clint Stewarts, & the Corey Bakers of the DJ world because they understand the big picture of what we’re trying to do. They’re here to camp out, absorb the culture, and spread the love just like everybody else. We absolutely have some artists in mind and have started bookings but there’s no way I’d ruin the surprise!

LA CANVAS: What other cities would you like to spread the “love” in? 

ML: The whole idea behind our City Hearts parties is so we can eventually share our festival’s ethos of “House, Techno, & Love” with the rest of the world. We threw our first City Hearts party in San Francisco back in August and it was everything we hoped for and then some. We’re all set for our first City Hearts LA party this Friday, October 3rd, and things are looking better than ever before. This next year we’d really love to expand our City Hearts parties to New York & Chicago. Even though they already have such well established House & Techno scenes, they haven’t felt the love and energy that we’re capable of bringing. But it’s only a matter of time. We Are All Desert Hearts.

Get tickets to City Hearts L.A. RIGHT HERE.