Metodi Hristov: I've always been into challenging myself

Today Radio Intense is welcoming its dear friend - Metodi Hristov. Metodi is not just a familiar for us, he is a part of IAMT Music family. We talked to the master about his lockdown experience, his label Set About and future projects. Find out below what the techno star has to say!
— Hello Metodi! Thanks for your time for answering this interview. We know how busy you usually are. So, how is everything going?
— Hello, guys! Thanks for having me! It's a pleasure for me!
— How has COVID-19 impacted you? Have you learnt anything new during the lockdown?
— "The easy times giving birth to weak people, the difficult times giving birth to strong people"! I can't remember who said these wise words, but I always felt myself really close to this philosophy. Also I've always been into challenging myself. One the one hand I feel really bad about all the people died or struggling because of the virus situation, but in personal side I'm kinda glad about the "free" time I had during the crisis that gave me an opportunity to change my angle of view and to refresh my state of mind. When the quarantine came there was 2 options in front of me:
1. Demotivation (the easy one) which is equal to degradation
2. To be even more motivated and to mentally challenge myself. There is no bigger satisfaction than this to proove YOURSELF that you can handle it… That gives you power to be even more brave and to think about bigger challenges. But that's absolutely impossible in comfortable environment.

If we start thinking about the old times, pandemic like this would cause much, much more damage. So we have to be happy and gratitude for the time we live in and not only…
— I've seen on your Insta that you're already back to tour life. Did you miss DJing?
— I can't say I came back to tour life, because I had 3 gigs for 2 months and of course I miss DJ-ing a lot! Now I appreciate much more what I've had…like all my colleagues I suppose! :D
— Tell us more about the Bulgarian scene right now. What challenges is it facing?
— I don't know why, but here in Bulgaria we don't have so many infected people, therefore we have no restrictions like more of the other countries. This is good for the scene, but still it's nothing like before. I'll give you an example with our biggest party place during the summer - Sunny Beach, where only 30% of the hotels were open in less than a half of their capacity during the season. The indoor clubs can work in half capacity and outdoor 1000 ppl max. But as you know the conditions are changing everyday, so restrictions too. In a situation like this you can't plan a big event, it's extremely risky even for the small events.
— I cannot but ask you about your label Set About. How is you "baby elephant"? Any exciting releases soon?
— Our baby elephant is getting bigger and stronger every year and I'm extremely happy about it. We have a great support from Beatport since the beginning which is very important and I'm very grateful about it! Almost every release is in the charts and I'm supper grateful that the people are still buying music in these difficult times! We had a great artists during the first half of the year like Spartaque, Egbert, T78, Nakadia, Pavel Petrov, Simina Grigoriu and other less known, but very talented artists. The plan for the second half of 2020 is the same. At the moment I'm answering this interview we have one track in top 5 Beatport Techno chart - Egbert - Warpspeed (T78 Remix) and also both tracks from my "Montevideo" release are on 18 and 39 position in the same chart! Here is the moment so BIG thanks to my Uruguayan friend Alejo Fernandez who made an awesome video for my Montevideo track!

Actually we were thinking about to open one more label, because we have a lot good music to release, but instead we decided to release more often on Set About. Our good friend Vitalii (Spartaque) advised us to get this decision. And I'm super grateful about it!
— Did you experience any difficulties in running your label? If so, what were those?
— Yes, we had a lot difficulties around the management of the label! These things absorbing a lot of time. Time that we don't have with Gallya as DJs and producers.

Because of that we are super grateful to our friend Spartaque and his team who helped us in a very difficult period! They helped us to get our label to another level. They all are super professional and also I think we became friends even from distance. They managing 3 more labels and all 3 of them are super successful.

This by itself speaks to what kind of people we are talking about!
— As we have a lot of rising artists who read us, we want to ask you to share what is a recipe for success within the industry. Maybe you can give an advice for young souls?
— There is no recipe for success! My advice is to do what you love! The other will come by. It's a cliche, but that's the truth! :)
— Finally, what else do you have on your agenda?
— New merchandise related to my "Colorblind" release on Set About is coming very soon.
Also I'm working on several very exciting project, but it's too early to say more about it, but stay tuned, because really big things are coming! :)