How/When did the Maji and Samer meet and form EvryDayDowners? What was the influence for the duo title?

Maji (Bill) was working at Chakra Records in Ybor City, Tampa FL when I met him about 5-6 years ago. It was a record store owned by The Edge night club that was going off at the time. I walked into the record store looking for a Paul Van Dyke tune. Luckily, Bill had a bin full of old Garth records, and I hastily went thru the bin every couple of days so I could start a record collection. Bill and I started to converse about the music, and he told me where I could get a pair of used 1200s. Our love for beautiful music made us friends. I asked him to teach me to spin. From there it began. I learned how to mix at the Edge, something that I see in retrospect made me learn how to play quicker. I was really glad to have the opportunity, as most people don't get to learn in a club.

When we decided to name ourselves, we decided that we needed something catchy. Evrydaydowners is a good title because it describes everything from our mental states to what we like to do when we have fun. In the end, we decided it was "catchy" and if we were going to burst out of the cheesy Tampa FL scene, we needed a title like that.

What was one of the more complicated tasks you both had to overcome while starting the Pangea label?

Getting distribution. It was the last step for our label, and the hardest to attain. We were already getting support from deep progressive house DJs like Chris Fortier, Chris Lake, Andy Moor, and Andy Jarrod to name a few, so we knew we had the skills, but we needed the outlet to get our music into stores. DJ Hardware had faith in our music, and decided to distribute our records. This put our foot in the door. It took 2 years, and i would tell anyone starting a label not to give up. Distribution is all up to the taste of the individual distributors. If u don't have distribution at first, it does not mean that u are not doing quality music. Those people are there to sell records, most of them don't now a damn thing about music and are quick to tell u why a certain record wont sell. Dave Christopher of Rabbit gave me some excellent advice one day, just make sure the music is good and u have nothing to worry about.

Do you both share equal responsibilities for the label and it’s outcome? Explain…

We share equally in responsibilities. Running a label is not the easiest thing, and requires a lot of office work (shipping, press sheets, promotional efforts etc.) as well as the music. As artists, The Maji and I are really lucky to have Pangea. We don't have to go thru the BS of asking other labels to sign our stuff and we get paid a hell of a lot more. The office work is a fair trade for the benefits.

Your recent single “This World” was a hit at the 2003 Winter Music Conference? How did it feel to see/hear the track gain so much attention during an event of such proportion?

It felt like justification. We had worked so hard in the previous years at the WMC. We seem to always get a boost there. The first year I was there, I met Atle Brown (Brother Brown) and we became friends. I guess he was trying to get his label more known in the states. He is the one that gave us the advice and push we needed in the beginning that made us take on the dance music scene. He really liked our first EP (A New Beginning/Argile Laughter).

A couple of years later, and loads of hard work later, it really felt good to hear Djs like Sasha, Chris Fortier, and Sandra Collins supporting our label. When Sasha (who is my favorite DJ) played "This World" at space, I was jumping up and down like a moron! I knew that we could have that kind of impact on our scene and was glad to see that I was right. Justification for sure. It was like a sign that I was doing the right thing being in this cut throat music biz.

Do you find it difficult to work on material together when you both reside at different ends of the country?

Not at all. We like networking both coasts, the contacts we have gained are worth gold. And I don't mind traveling to our studio in Ft. Lauderdale to work. We work on music and send the files back and forth to each other. Of course, we might be able to work more if we lived near each other, but we do benefit tremendously, gig wise, and contact wise, by being split for now.

Are there plans for collaborations with other artists in the future?

No collaborations at the moment. Just a lot of solo projects and remixes.

What is the selection process for the Pangea releases?

Well, we are a deep progressive label, so I guess that's the first thing I look for. Also, I always ask myself whether in 10 years I will still like a certain song and consider it timeless, or if it was just good for the time. The Maji and I look for timeless music, both for the label, and for our DJ sets. If we think a song is timeless than it becomes a contender. We are very picky with what we put on the label. We would rather put out 3 quality pieces of vinyl a year than put out lots of records and have some of them not perfectly to our liking. We are in it for the long run.

What’s in the pipeline for the Pangea label during the upcoming months?

In no particular order:

Joshua Collins “Project 3 EP” featuring Chris Lake, Rachael Starr and EvryDayDowners Remix (Pangea Recordings) **Out in August***

EvryDayDowners “Downtown” featuring Brian Stillwater Remix (Pangea Recordings)

Chris Lake “Hiatus” featuring Kinkade and EvryDayDowners Remixes(Pangea Recordings)

EvryDayDowners “Believe” featuring Jimpy’s Muzikal Journeys Remix
Pangea 008

Pete Gawtry “Contact Future” featruing EvryDayDowners Remix

What are your top 5 choons as the moment?

Yunus Guvenen "Invasion EP" Bedrock
Fretwell "Ember" Electrofly
Remy "Bang!" EP Additive
Joshua Collins "Project 3" Pangea
Avril Lavigne "Im With You" Leama and Moor Dub

How long would you say it will be before the music industry see's a comfortable level of positive stimulation?

I don't know honestly. Every time you think enough is enough and we'll be out of this sales rut, it just doesn't go away or gets worse. We are one of the few electronic labels that made some money off our music this year, but we do have debts as a business. I think it will take another year and an economic boom to get the positive stimulation we need to sell the numbers that used to be sold. Just look through your old bin and look how many labels don't exist anymore! Its scary.

For more information on EvryDayDowners visit their website at www.pangearecords.com.

Thank you to EvryDayDowners for taking the time to answer these questions.