Meet James Mahler | Violinist/Producer/DJ

We had the good fortune of connecting with James Mahler and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi James, do you have a budget? how do you think about personal finances?
I don’t in fact. I was raised by a dad who is as frugal as they come so saving money has never been very hard for me. Combining that with the fact that I’m very driven to succeed in my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to have never worried about paying rent and such. I was taught to live below my means and I religiously stick to that.

I am very conscious about how I spend my money, however I don’t mind spending loads of it on something I deem valuable and important. For example I recently had two weddings booked in the Northeast part of the U.S. and I needed to upgrade my setup because they hired me for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and to DJ the reception. That’s a LOT of responsibility. I knew that my current setup would work having done several of these in the past but it wouldn’t wow anybody so I invested in some speaker stand covers, a flight case for my mixing board, and a new wireless unit.

The first wedding went fantastic (as of writing I haven’t done the second one yet) and the investment really paid off. I not only made great money from the
wedding itself but I also got tipped the most I’ve ever gotten in my life, $500.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
It is definitely not easy being a musician. I dissuade people all the time from getting into music because it’s such a crazy life. You really have to be obsessed with it or you won’t go anywhere past restaurant/bar gigs.

I have played since the age of four and I inadvertently created a very unique style of playing the violin. It’s very slidy with lots of little trills and fast fingering sections. I attribute it to my diverse musical background. I grew up classically trained but throughout my childhood my family would go to bluegrass and folk music festivals and I’d end up jamming with random groups of people or attend workshops to hone my “fiddling” skills.

When I was in middle school I discovered pop music and with high school came electronic music. From the moment I heard my first melodic dustep mix in my junior year of high school, I knew I wanted to produce music like that. Well maybe not exactly like that, but I knew I wanted to produce stuff with really cool wub sounds and just be able to create whatever was in my head. Now, I’m doing exactly that and I couldn’t possibly be more fulfilled in my job.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
It would totally have to depend on what that best friend was into but as far as food and drink goes, Savianno’s is one of the best restaurants there is in DFW. It’s got super delicious pasta and the best sangria on EARTH.

After that I’d definitely hit up Devivo Bros, everything you bite into there will be super delicious and it’s BYOB so you can drink and have a good time for quite cheap!

And if it was MY particular best friend, I would take them to Stereo Live and Southside Ballroom for some EDM shows. Dallas has a huge edm scene and it’s one of my favorite things about the city!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Definitely would have to shout out Misha Galaganov, a professor at TCU, for being the greatest violin teacher ever and really instilling a solid musical foundation in me. He was a stickler for quality so if I didn’t do something perfect, he’d stop me and explain what I was doing wrong and then have me try the same passage over and over and over again til I got it right.

It was painful in the moment and I even broke down in tears a couple times but now, people say I sound like a recording every time I play and it was all thanks to Dr. Galaganov.

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