Marko Leandro Interview at ADE 2025

Funktasy Magazine Exclusive Interview presents our one-on-one sit-down with Marko Leandro, Spanish DJ and producer, and artist of Velvet Bass Records. In this conversation, Marko discusses his love of house music, playing the percussions and being part of the Velvet Bass family.

So guys, we’re back at ADE 2025 day 3 for another exclusive interview with Funktasy Magazine. And today I’m really proud to announce that we’ll be hosting Marko Leandro, the newest edition of the Velvet Bass Family. We’re really excited to talk to him. 

How do you feel, Marko?

 

Super good. Thank you very much for having me here. 

We’re really happy to have you here especially because you’re part of the Velvet Bass family, here at Funktasy magazine, we’re always happy to host people within the community. So let’s just get start with an easy question.

How’s your first week your first week been at ADE actually? How have you felt being here? 

Oh, it was uh amazing. So actually, it’s my first time here in ADE and it’s not going to be the last for sure. It’s going to be the first of many. Um so yeah I have been great especially meeting all the new people you know new connection because all the music industry is here. So I’ve been you know making very nice connection with you know managers and artists and labels and magazines you name it everyone in the industry. So, it’s been amazing. Super super super super busy, but I love to be busy, especially in this week. But, it’s been an amazing experience so far. 

That’s really great to hear and I’m sure it’ll be one of many ADEs that we will be here together. So, let’s get let’s just get started. We’ll dive into your personal life a bit. What does a daily routine look like for Marco Leandro when you’re back home in your comfort zone? What do you do in your private time? 

Uh, in my private time, so I’m a big surfer, so I love I love sports. So right now I just moved to my hometown Cádiz southern Spain from the United States. Uh my hometown is on the coast. So we have good waves there. So I surf a lot. I looked around the beach. Uh I work out and pretty much uh every spare time I have I will I love to be active not just to do a sports especially also to clean my mind because in this business so I’m usually very very busy every day like producing music with emails, phone calls and I need to clean my mind too sometimes also to be creative and sports that helps me a lot. So I would say that is like my main focus area besides music uh like my personal life is sports for sure. 

That’s amazing, because it’s good always to have some creative outlet aside from the music to balance everything and to get everything in check. So, let’s get into your music. What is the distinctive Marco Leandro sound? What are the specific production techniques that you use or just what’s your musical intuition as an artist? What do you always go for? 

Yeah. Uh I’m kind of weird in in this in this aspect because my background comes from breakbeat. So I start DJing Breakbeat vinyls in 1999. My heart is in break beats you know the UK breakbeat and um especially in southern Spain is not a very you know main stream general mostly you only hear breakbeat in the UK and southern Spain. So that’s my main uh area when I started by and dealing with vinyls and also flamenco. So it’s like breakbeat from the UK and flamenco is kind of weird how I started but then it’s like my style of borrowing house and techno. So pretty much when I not when I produce but when I DJ I love to incorporate like flamenco sounds, afro house, breakbeats. So if I can incorporate a little bit of everything I’m so happy doing that I can’t every time but sometimes I can. But I will say it’s like my music style right now. You can say like house techno breaks something like that. Yeah. 

Wow. That’s quite a lot of layers. And would you see yourself transitioning fully into like breaks jungle more into that genre or do you want to stay more within the house four to the floor region of things? 

Yeah. I would say yes. House and techno especially for example if I perform in my hometown or in southern Spain absolutely, I can incorporate more breakbeat sounds because the crowd will be crazy because they love that sound. But mostly in my heart, in my production, in my music, I will say it’s more house and techno, you know, and even a little bit more housey, I love tech house, house, afro house, you know, like all the Sun regions of house. So I love house and of course I’m from Spain, so we have a lot of the house influence that is huge. Know people love house music there. Also I do percussion, live percussion. So the live percussion goes very well with house, you know, with Latin house, tech house, afro house. So it’s like I really really really enjoy myself every time I have the opportunity to play house music and incorporate for example um live drums. So that’s when the real Marco comes out my energy you know it’s like I love it. I love it. 

That’s really great. So since we’re talking about energy and you talked about also crazy crowds. Is there a particular crowd that stood out to you that you’ve played that was really like that really enraptured or where you were like wow this was a special crowd or anything crazy that happened?

Well, actually the last two weeks ago in in Budapest. So, um it was my first time there playing in Budapest and also I play only my music, my originals only melodic techno. Uh man, it’s like the crowd the crowd love it. The crowd didn’t stop dancing. I felt amazing because um when you see that people smile, they have that smile in their face and they’re jumping around. They’re like pushing each other. So it’s like all the crowd was super happy about it and I just play my own productions. My latest production is like that was the sensation was amazing you know iand the crowd went off with the music because my melodic techno many time is very upbeat. So it’s like yeah especially Budapest is like never been to Budapest but I fell in love with Budapest because wow those guys they know how to dance for sure. 

Yeah I can imagine. And um talking about your own productions, you just recently dropped a song that’s now number three, you said on the October charts of Afro House on Beatport. So tell us about that experience. How do you feel about something being recognized in the community? As a song that’s being played quite a lot. Is that something you’re proud of now? 

Yeah. Yeah, of course. Cool. Well, what can I say? Of course. Like thank you very much for everyone supporting my music. No, especially that track. So like I said with my music playing in Budapest when someone you know supports your music with listens or maybe I got many messages um through Instagram and my email you know like people like oh thank you very much for doing what you do or well I really connect with your song. So it’s like I see that support in beat port like people play my music buying my music. So it’s unbelievable because it’s like every artist you know we put a lot of effort every time you know in producing music be creative like investing in many techniques in machines so many years of hard work and then we finally see like the result you know like after the hard work. So it’s like the reward is amazing. It’s indescribable. So of course I’m super super proud and I hope to keep doing that. And thank you very much of course. 

I’m sure you will. I’m sure this is just the beginning of Marco Leandro. And just as a final question to end the interview off, is there something you’d like to tell the Velvet Based family about your future, your ambitions now? What are the next steps for Marco Leandro in the Velvet Bass world? 

Oh, first of all, thank you very much for having me here in this amazing label. So, um yeah, I would love to grow as an artist uh as much as I can with them. Um, also thank you, you know, for the for the opportunity for joining this label and Funktasy. Um, yeah, I’m super super excited. So, it’s like my my future is like, you know, I would like to keep releasing with them constantly also, you know, getting more bookings around the world like getting their name and my name, you know, known because their project is amazing. You know the idea they have to bring together you know the especially my part you know the electronic Funktasy is more than that no but it’s like my part is like electronic music like EDM so that part is like bring everything everyone together around the globe you know not only is the US and Canada just Europe like everywhere so it’s like their project is very ambitious, it’s very is very nice, I very much connect with their project, with their vision, so what can I say thank you thank you very much for having me here I can’t wait to see you know the future ahead of us. 

Amazing, that’s that’s really kind of you. Amazing. We’re really looking forward to having you to growing together. I’m sure this is this is just the beginning. So I really like to thank you for joining us here, Marko. And uh yeah, hope to see you soon and we’ll have fun for the rest of ADE this week. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.