INTERVIEW: MNTRA

From dusty record crates in a reggae-filled living room to sunrise sets on sandy beaches, MNTRA’s journey through music has been anything but ordinary. Shaped by a cross-cultural upbringing, a deep love for dance, and an unexpected turn into DJing during college, his path is one of emotional discovery and artistic transformation. In this conversation, we trace the moments — from quiet living rooms to festival dancefloors — that molded MNTRA into the deeply expressive, genre-blending artist he is today.

What inspired you to get into music, and how has your journey evolved to where you are today?

My musical journey, like most, began at a young age listening to whatever my parents were playing in the living room. My parents have such different tastes; my dad has always been into reggae & dub, my mom on the other hand probably knows every mo-town record from her era. I began to sit around the speakers and listen to whatever they were playing whenever they played it. My dad was a crate digger in his own right, I still remember being like 11 & him being excited to show me a youtube video of 8 Jamaican dudes in a studio hotboxing using an echo pedal on a chord stab. 

As I grew older, my relationship with music changed as I began to pick up dancing - mostly in the Indian / Bollywood cultural lane. I moved out of the country to live in India at a very young age, and so much of my musical identity also comes from being in another country in my formative years (12-17). Dance was my new found love & connection to music - it was my earliest form of self expression when I really think about it. 

Everything changed when I moved back to America for the end of high school & most importantly college. I attended UC berkeley and found myself in Greek life before the first year was over. While we did have quite an exciting & lively fraternity row, I was in the Frat with the Highest GPA. Our house was known for smoking weed & playing super smash brothers, not throwing the most exciting parties. I wouldn't get into any of the other “cool parties” & I was kind of a nerdy kid. It’s hard to explain but something in me wasn’t sitting right, I didn't really feel like I was a part of this majority upper-middle-class caucasian party scene even though I felt like I had something worth expressing. There was a DJ in my house who was graduating, and for whatever reason he decided to give me his little $100 serato mixing board when he graduated - Before then I was always the aux cord DJ.

Quickly after, I attended my first ever rave - Above & beyond in San Francisco. My life would never be the same. I remember coming back, sweaty & excited - I even gave a speech about “PLUR” to the 10 brothers sitting in the living room - everyone looked at me like I was crazy. I saved up that year and bought myself CDJ’s. By the time I graduated, I DJ’d just about every single fraternity house on campus - kinda crazy when I think about it sometimes. Top 40, EDM, Hip-hop, country, Rap, I spun everything open format and began to develop my chops very quickly. DJing became my homework & my mom never really understood that. 

Less than a year later, my friend Paris took me to my first ever “club show” - a Desert Hearts takeover at Public Works SF. It was here I discovered House music - for the first time I finally felt like I was a part of something. I remember somehow making it on stage & the main man himself Lee Reynolds christened me with the iconic DH necklace. The San Francisco music scene was buzzing at the time & the Dirtybird movement was on the rise. I found myself at every one of their events, watching artists like Justin Martin and Walker & Royce do things I didn't know were sonically possible. I attended Lightning In A Bottle Festival that year and practically didn't leave the Woogie stage for 4 days. Fast forward to now, so much has happened and my taste continues to develop. 

Your sets often feature unreleased tracks. What does it mean to you to play something fresh and unique for the crowd, especially in a live setting?

It’s something that means a lot to me, especially now after years and years of learning how to produce. It’s funny because I didn’t always feel this way. My best friends & band mates from Boiz House were always the producers; I looked up & learned so much from the creations of these 5 incredibly talented and diverse musical brothers.. I came from a traditionally “dj background” whereas my bandmates came more from a production focused world first. There was always this emphasis on playing their own tracks - I couldn’t even really string together a drum loop yet. Their sets were so cohesive & at times flawless. There was a connectedness in their music and message, something that is so rare and hard to find in a lot of music. I’m not sure when exactly, but at some point things flipped internally for me and it became a thing I constantly strived for - to get the freshest bounce of the latest idea I'm working on and test it out as soon as I could on a dancefloor. I have my best friends to thank; TCHiLT, Dernis The Kid, Sammy Legs, Malley & AiDO constantly pushed me to take my music further & to share that with the crowd no matter how developed the idea was. 

Emotional vulnerability is a hallmark of your sound. Can you share a moment when your music deeply resonated with the audience? How does that affect you as a performer?

Ah, this is such a tough question. There are so many moments that come to mind in a flash. My electronic journey was largely cultivated by Dirtybird & their renegade culture. In so many ways, all the moments I think of were not on stages or in clubs but rather out in nature or at campsites during unplanned sunrises. Moments where I remember looking around a group of friends celebrating a shared life and love of music. I’ve spent too many sunrises to count in my friends arms with tears running down my cheek, wondering how we are even alive on this little floating rock out in the middle of space. I started to really unknowingly tap into this emotion, I was at the most ease with my heart in some of these early moments & they most certainly impacted my sound. As time went on, I began to make music for these moments - maybe even unintentionally. 

If I had to choose a specific moment, I'd probably choose the time I played a sunrise on the beach of Same Same but Different fest. It wasn't a planned set & “the stage” was just a half completed dome in the middle of the sand. There was no set time, just 30-40 musical friends enjoying their last moments at the festival together. I remember just completing my album right around then and it was the first time I really played anything that vulnerable for a group of people on a dancefloor. Let’s just say I doubled down on the vision from that point on. 

You released your debut album on Justin Martin’s label, 'What To Do'. How did that collaboration come about, and what has it meant for your career?

Truth be told, it’s a combination of luck, inspiration & a DM. It was my first night living in San Diego; I just moved into a new space with a close friend and I had just finished setting the whole place up; a DJ den with squish and records on the wall and everything. That night Justin Martin happened to be headlining a boat party and my manager Zoe Shanks invited me out to it. We went to the boat party and somehow we ended up bumping into Justin. Completely star struck (this was the guy who inspired my probably single handedly the most from a musical, spiritual & emotional level for so long) my manager decided to invite him and about 40 other people back to my new place for an Afters. Justin came over and ended up djing for a couple hours in my mini chair to a den full of cuddling friends. I’m not even sure I remember the set, but I do remember running around back and forth making sure everyone was comfortable and had whatever they needed. Justin and I briefly chatted, he told me to send him some music anytime and that was that. 

Fast forward to that summer, Justin was the surprise guest at Desert Hearts Festival. He played a sunrise set that I'll never be able to forget. Things were tough for me at that time, I'd been making music for 7 or so years; I was broke and my band was on a much needed break. I lost direction & hope, I didn't know what to make, I didn’t know what to do. I was frozen. I always look at this period as the period I almost quit pursuing this whole thing. 

On a last ditch effort, I decided to buckle down and start writing from a deeper place, the heart - my original silly sound just wasn’t cutting it for me any more. I still remember the feeling of hope & possibility literally injected to me during Justin’s set - he played a DnB song that brought me to tears. I went home after that festival and wrote my first DnB song - ‘Spiraling’ and cold DM’d it to Justin. That was the first record Justin ever signed and it was the start of a truly beautiful friendship. 

The relationship has meant more than any piece of music I could ever release - he really is the best mentor and friend I could ask for. He consistently asked me to dig deeper & pushed me to reach a new level in my sound I didn’t know was possible at the time. He’s so nurturing and without a doubt in it for the right reasons. He has single handedly changed my entire life, and I'll always be grateful for the impact he’s had on my life. Justin is hilarious and is in every way such a great friend. I feel like I won the lottery sometimes, and I don’t even know how any of it could’ve been planned. Kinda wild. 

With your upcoming tour and festival performances, including Lightning in a Bottle, what can your fans expect in terms of new music and experiences?

After a long period of looking inward and learning to express some of my deeper emotions, the fans can expect a slight shift. I will always have that side of me but something new and fun is bubbling up to the surface. Expect some new, bouncy, multi-genre debauchery - but more refined than anything I've made before. I feel like I'm just getting started with exploring this new sound.