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"Dan Black has 2 million YouTube views under his studded belt for his &amp;quot;Symphonies&amp;quot; video (click here to see it), he just finished touring with Robyn and Kelis and he&amp;apos;s even got a celebrated mashup, &amp;quot;HYPNTZ&amp;quot; (mixed with&amp;#xA0;the Notorious B.I.G.&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Hypnotize&amp;quot; and Rihanna&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Umbrella&amp;quot;). Plus, the&amp;#xA0;Brit-bred Parisian just nabbed two MTV Video Music Awards nominations for &amp;quot;Breakthrough Video&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Best SFX (Special Effects)&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;Symphonies,&amp;quot; putting him on par to compete with Eminem and Lady Gaga.\r\nSo how come you may not have heard of him? Well, retire that notion because&amp;#xA0;I spoke to him so you can&amp;apos;t make that mistake again. And if that isn&amp;apos;t&amp;#xA0;enough, read up more on him at danblacksound.com -- or, better yet, vote for&amp;#xA0;him at vma.mtv.com.\r\nUsMagazine.com: I want to start by saying congratulations on being nominated for two&amp;#xA0;VMA&amp;apos;s for your &amp;quot;Symphonies&amp;quot; video! How are you feeling?\r\nDan Black: Good! I&amp;apos;m in the middle of a tour, so everyday I&amp;apos;m in a whirlwind&amp;#xA0;of things to do. I&amp;apos;m not given much time to think about it. But when I was told, I was confused and pleased, all at the same time. The people&amp;#xA0;I made the clip with are super good friends of mine, so it feels&amp;#xA0;especially good, and they work with me on all my visual stuff. So if I&amp;apos;d&amp;#xA0;made the video with a random director, I&amp;apos;d feel good but less good. But because it&amp;apos;s people I know really well, it&amp;apos;s like a double whammy&amp;#xA0;of good!\r\nUS: You just wrapped your All Hearts Tour with Robyn and Kelis.&amp;#xA0;How was that experience?\r\nDB: Amazing! It&amp;apos;s such an unusual mix of people, but I guess there&amp;apos;s a&amp;#xA0;common thread of creating dance-filled crowds. Despite Robyn, Kelis&amp;#xA0;and I coming from really different backgrounds musically, it works&amp;#xA0;amazingly well. We are sold out everywhere. Independent of anything. I&amp;apos;m a massive fan of Kelis and Robyn. So it&amp;apos;s super fun to watch them play every night, let alone share a stage with them and get paid for the same audience. It&amp;apos;s a triple win.\r\nUS: You&amp;apos;ve been inspired by R&amp;amp;B before, sampling pieces of Rhianna&amp;apos;s&amp;#xA0;Umbrella and taking inspiration from the Notorious B.I.G. How are you&amp;#xA0;inspired now working with Kelis?\r\nDB: I&amp;apos;m a massive, massive fan of the Neptunes, in particular. And I remember when her first album, Kaleidoscope, came out and&amp;#xA0;Super Thug, it was because of her. This was the late 1990&amp;apos;s and I&amp;#xA0;thought it was a massive game-changing event. And the album came out,&amp;#xA0;and with the stuff she did with O.D.B., I became a super fan. So it is&amp;#xA0;practically surreal and amazing to be on a bill with her. She&amp;apos;s an&amp;#xA0;artist that practically affected me when I was younger.\r\nUS: How is it now? Are you getting to know each other?\r\nDB: Not really. I&amp;apos;ve hung more with Robyn. Kelis, in quite a glamorous&amp;#xA0;way, appears and then disappears right after the show. I&amp;apos;ve spoken to&amp;#xA0;her briefly, but now that we&amp;apos;re in New York maybe we&amp;apos;ll have more time&amp;#xA0;to hang. I&amp;apos;ve been spending time with Robyn. She&amp;apos;s from Sweden so we&amp;#xA0;have that whole European thing in common.\r\nUS: What can we expect from you in the future?\r\nDB: When I made my last record it was all in a bubble -- in a cellar in&amp;#xA0;Paris -- and now I&amp;apos;ve played live and have seen what people connect to, and&amp;#xA0;bring some of that energy in more. I&amp;apos;m going to start writing on the road, which I&amp;apos;ve never done before. It&amp;apos;s kind of fun to be able to come off stage and sit in a bus with my laptop when I have an idea sparked by the show.\r\nUS: What was your latest idea?\r\nDB: On stage, I use live looping and each night it&amp;apos;s kind of different,&amp;#xA0;so I thought it would be cool to do that on a whole track.\r\nUS: Were you touring by bus?\r\nDB: It&amp;apos;s spilt buses. So Robyn and Kelis are slightly higher up the&amp;#xA0;food chain so they have sleeper buses, and out here we are having to&amp;#xA0;drive eight hours to the hotel and then wake up and do more driving. But&amp;#xA0;the pluses way outweigh the minuses.\r\nUS: Has Kelis&amp;apos;s son, Knight, been on tour?\r\nDB: He has been around at some of the sound checks, but he has to be&amp;#xA0;kept away from the noise. He&amp;apos;s a very young boy to hear all that!\r\nBy&amp;#xA0;Ian Drew&amp;#xA0;for&amp;#xA0;UsMagazine.com. To read more of Ian&amp;apos;s blog,&amp;#xA0;click here, and don&amp;apos;t forget to follow him onTwitter."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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