DJ / CLUBWORLD / Relentless Beats
By Jim Tremayne Photos By Jacob Dunn
DJ TIMES
NAMM 2019
Thomas Turner
22
Phoenix, Ariz. – Since 1996, Relentless Beats has been a primary producer of electronic-music events in Arizona. But in more recent years, the Phoenix-based outfit essentially has conquered the desert playground, becoming one of the country’s top regional EDM promoter/ producers. Founded by Thomas Turner, a former raver who found his electronic-musical inspiration in the mid-’90s on a European vacation, Relentless Beats started with club and one-off events and eventually began to produce a series of major festivals. By 2018, Relentless Beats was producing over 200 events a year all over the state – in Phoenix and nearby Chandler (at the Rawhide Western Town and Event Center), but also in energetic college towns like Tempe, Tucson and Flagstaff. Drawing the globe’s top DJ talent for Arizona fans, Relentless Beats-produced festivals have become major regional events and they cater to all electronic genres – house, trance, techno, bass, etc. Notable festival events include Decadence Arizona, Goldrush Music Festival, Phoenix Lights Music Festival, Crush Arizona, BOO! Arizona, and Wet Electric. Also, under its new RBDeep sub-brand, the company recently kicked off the ORIGINS festival, which (as the moniker implies) offers deeper electronic flavors.
A market with a rich EDM history, Arizona over the years has produced a broad range of DJ talent, including recent DJ Times cover subjects Mija and Ghastly, plus Markus Schulz, who was voted America’s Best DJ for an unprecedented third time in 2018. As Relentless Beats continues its hold over this EDM-crazed region, don’t be surprised to see more talent emerge from the desert. We recently caught up with Relentless Beats’ founder Thomas Turner. What’s your background, as it relates to electronic music? How did you come to this music? I fell in love with electronic music after being exposed to European electronic-music culture in the mid-1990s, which at the time was non-existent in the United States. I quickly became obsessed with progressive-house music and the likes of Sasha and John Digweed, along with acts like Nick Warren, Hernan Cattaneo, Sander Kleinenberg, Paul van Dyk, Judge Jules, Ferry Corsten, Armin van Buuren and many others. Were you a raver? How did you end up becoming a promoter of electronic-dance music? Yes, I was at first a raver, then an electronicmusic enthusiast – and because of these two things, finally, a promoter. How did Relentless Beats begin? What were the early days like? I started producing small events in whatever space I could get to host me. I remember the first time someone introduced me as a promoter, I didn’t like it, because I thought it was a title with a
