From the suburbs of Lisbon to the stages of Coachella, Holly has spent the last decade quietly blowing open the boundaries of bass music. A shapeshifter by nature, he’s just as comfortable crafting club experiments as he is producing for global rap royalty like CL, Slow J, or Jay Park.

Whether he’s linking with Baauer on a Grammy-nominated album or launching a future-facing supergroup like VIER alongside Machinedrum, Thys, and Salvador Breed, Holly’s work speaks to a restless creative vision. One that never stays still for long.

Fresh off an appearance on our Adrenaline series, we caught up with the Portuguese-born, LA-based producer to talk origin stories, global influence, studio rituals, and why collaboration is still at the heart of his sonic universe.

Hey Miguel, how is it going today?

Hey, what’s up! Thanks for having me here, super happy that we are finally able to do this together. Everything is good, I am just taking today super easy and resting on this beautiful Sunday while getting ready for a good week.

There is so much to unpack here! Let’s start from the beginning. How did you get into music and music production?

I feel like I already have 20 answers to this question in other places around the internet, haha, but always stoked to talk about this. I got into music when I was 4 or 5 years old. My brother (who was 14/15 around that time) already had many CDs and records in the house, and we had this small boombox where we used to play records, and a lot of my time was spent building LEGO cities and listening to my brother’s records. My favorite was definitely “The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land” and I remember being super interested back then, already into sound design and the different textures and emotions that The Prodigy were able to explore. I remember we had other records from Spice Girls and Portuguese bands, but The Prodigy was definitely my favorite back then, and then later, for sure, the 8 Mile/Eminem movie soundtrack. Looking back, those records definitely set and influenced where my musical journey was going to head.

Music production came way later, when I was 18, again through my brother! Throughout my teenage years, all I did was pretty much school and skateboarding, and felt like my future was going to do something with skating, but I had an accident when I was 16 where I broke my arm in 4 places. I questioned a lot what to do and tried to figure out for a while what would make my life make sense, so I looked for that light in many things like drawing, painting, graffiti, and even photography. I was in arts in high school, so it was also easy to try different ways to express myself. Nothing fulfilled me 100% and one day my brother recommended that I try to make beats. I got FL Studio that week and asked some of my friends who were making beats back then to give me some sample packs, and since then, music production has always and will always be in my life.

Just like your older brother, DJ Ride, you grew up in Portugal. How did that landscape shape your identity? And do you feel Portuguese roots echoing in your sound now?

Just on a personal side, I think the tranquility, pace of life, and the traditional and family values that Portugal carries have shaped my identity in many ways. I feel like I am a very calm person, and I do appreciate the simple things in life like being with friends, good food, and nature, and those definitely come from my family education, but also because Portugal is super surrounded by those elements.

Regarding how Portugal influenced my sound, I think at the beginning, there wasn’t that big of an influence. Like I have always been a super big hip hop head regarding Portuguese rap and appreciate the electronic music scene here, but when I started making beats, definitely my influence came from other sounds around the world, like the beat scene in LA, or UK, or Asia. But nowadays I feel like my music is being more shaped by the music culture in Portugal. A lot of my friends here are also African descendent and they’ve been introducing me to how rich and beautiful African music is and a lot of the times I try to make my own versions of sub African music styles so they can rap and sing and in a sense the whole history that Portugal has with countries like Brasil, Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique is influencing my sound in a way that would only be possible by being born here.

Moving to Los Angeles is a big leap. How has the city (and the US scene in general) influenced your creative process, your collaborations, or even your sonic palette?

Los Angeles was influencing me in a deep way even before I started making music. I mean, skateboarding, Lords of Dogtown, and Baker were the first big influences to come from LA into my life. Even playing GTA was so amazing, and it felt like LA was this dream city that was worth being in a video game (still is). Later on, when I started making music, LA would again be part of influencing me in many ways that I am still trying to comprehend through what was happening at Low End Theory. All this to say that in a way, Los Angeles has always been an influential force in my life in many areas, and my connection and desire with being in the city has always been with me since a young age.

But moving there was a totally different game. I mean, just the culture, the way the city is structured, the diversity, the weather, and how amazing people have been to me have influenced many things in me. LA introduced me to many new ways of making music, to learn how to do sessions, to learn how to see sound and feel sound in new ways, to learn more about the world… It’s also a city that taught me how to respect life more, you know? It’s just so many people that move in and out of LA every year, with the biggest dream, and that just want to hustle, even though sometimes that means not respecting the person next to you. In a sense, being in a place where the hunger for success is so big made me more aware of respect, loyalty, friendship, and honesty. I feel like I could write about LA and my relationship with the city for a whole 10-page interview, but all I want to say is that LA is beautiful and I am super grateful for my life to be so connected with this special place.

I think it’s easy to go to LA and fall into less-than-good realities, but that’s also the beauty of the city; it always teaches you more about life than you think you know.

You’ve built an impressive cross-genre portfolio, producing for names like CL, A$AP TyY, Slow J, and Jay Park, while collaborating with KNOCK2, Zeds Dead, and Baauer. What has working in hip-hop taught you that you didn’t learn in bass music, and vice versa?

I think hip-hop taught me how to feel more with my heart, while bass music made me feel more with my brain. In hip-hop, it’s all about the feeling, textures, how good does it feel to listen to this loop for 4 minutes? How real does it sound to you? Is honesty there? Those are always important things that hip-hop brings to me. Bass music, I would say, it’s way more technical, which is amazing, and it’s one of the music styles where you can go the craziest in your production skills, but sometimes so much technicality makes you lose the feeling. I’ve definitely fallen into that trap before. On the other hand, I feel like bass music taught me how to be a more futuristic and forward-thinking producer, and see where in the future exist things that the present doesn’t see and apply them to the moment.

Speaking of bass music, VIER, your newly formed supergroup with Machinedrum, Thys, and Salvador Breed, is already turning heads. What sparked the project, what’s your shared philosophy, and what’s next for the quartet?

Man, I am so proud of VIER! It’s so crazy that we are together making this beautiful music. The project started in a very organic way.

Travis/Machinedrum and I were in rollout mode for our latest EP “River of Heaven” and we were in Groningen doing an interview with Thys, and we spent a couple of days there, and of course, we ended up hitting the studio and making some ideas. Around that time is when I also met Salvador, he’s been a really good long-time friend of Thys and Machinedrum, and came to see us and hang out for those days too, and helped with some ideas. A couple of months after, we kinda had this idea of finishing and releasing the songs, but we had so many good ideas that we felt like coming up with a project/group would be the greatest way to release the music, and here we are.

I feel like our philosophy is just based on curiosity. Like, what’s possible? Where can bass music go? Where can club music go? What doesn’t exist yet? How do we challenge each other, flipping ideas and bringing everything in a cohesive way? We do feel like our philosophy is also based on friendship, love, personal and spiritual connection, too, in a way. But I do feel like our curiosity to try to see what’s possible in music is one of the main creative forces we have.

What’s next? Our first EP.

Speaking of collaboration, you co-produced Baauer’s Planet’s Mad album, which ended up with a Grammy nomination. How did that collaboration come about, and what impact did it have on you personally or professionally?

I remember Baauer playing some of my music back in 2017, and I went to NYC in 2018 and remember asking my friend Branchez who was there that would be dope to make music with. He told me to hit up Baauer, so I was like “Perfect, he has played my music, knows who I am, so I will just send him a DM”. We ended up connecting, and right away, I felt like a super strong bond with him. He, to me, is one of the people I trust the most in music, and I consider him a very special friend. We also have super similar creative processes, which had a huge impact on me back then. Like, I do sample a lot! You know? I love sampling. It’s my instrument. But sometimes in bass music it’s not seen with the best of eyes, and when I met Baauer and saw that we basically work the same, it was a validation to me too. To me, Baauer is one of the greatest, so to see that we work in the same way was like “Yeah, no one can tell me anything now regarding the amount of samples I use now”.

Even deeper than that, I feel like working with him specifically on ‘Planets Mad’ leveled up my production skills and mindset a lot. He was sending me all types of beats and styles, and that made me explore and make music I never made before then. And also just made me get into his mind and try to understand how he thinks. I think there’s definitely a big difference in my production before and after starting working with Baauer, and I am super grateful to him for that. We also have some new music that is super fire.

You also traveled the world and played some of the biggest festivals on the planet, including Coachella, EDC Las Vegas, EDC Korea, and Shambhala. What was the most memorable show you did? And, why?

The first one that comes to my mind was this Machinedrum B2B we did at Coachella. It was insane. I feel like it was one of those perfect sets, you know, the crowd was just with us and we took them on a journey, and our selection and technical side and even vibe/charisma was so on point. A lot of the time, you do a great set but might not be for the place you are, and sometimes you don’t do the best set but still works with the environment you are in, but to do both well at the same time is a very close feeling to what nirvana is.

About your Adrenaline guest mix. Is there a track in there that stands out to you personally? Something with a story behind it, or a moment that hit differently?

Ya many! I love all the new DJ Ride IDs I added. Love those new ones. I also love this Mavado mashup I have there. All the new VIER is also dope. And the Baauer collab ID yeahhh.

Finally, what’s next for you? Any solo projects, new VIER material, or collaborations we should be watching for?

I am just trying to live the best life possible and take over the world. I am still far from that reality, but thinking and working for it every day. At the moment, I am producing and working on a lot of stuff with 88rising, pushing VIER, and making tons of songs here in Portugal. But most importantly, trying to be a better person every day. I think there’s a lot going on, so just pay attention and hopefully it will blow your mind <3