A Voice of Reason in the Trance World
An Interview with Producer Bixx on His New Album and the Power of Trance Music
BiXX is a DJ, trance music producer, mentor, and American entrepreneur based in Mobile, Alabama. First exposed to dance music while mixing funk at college parties, he later discovered European dance sounds at Atlanta’s iconic Limelight and fell in love with the driving energy of trance, inspired by pioneers like Paul van Dyk, Paul Oakenfold, and Armin van Buuren. Guided by passion, persistence, and a desire to share life’s most meaningful moments, BiXX now channels his artistry into The Voice of Reason, a 17-track debut album that released on September 5, 2025.
BiXX talks to 6AM about his debut album The Voice of Reason, the inspirations behind its 17 tracks, his collaborations with vocalists, the influence of his late father, and how his uplifting style of trance connects with techno fans.
Hi Bixx! Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to 6AM. How are you doing?
I am doing great. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with your audience. Warning. Lots of inspirational comments to follow.
Just to start off- Our audience is typically house and techno heads but we’re also big fans of trance. As a trance producer, what would you say to the techno fans on the relationship and similarities of techno and trance? How would you convince them that trance should also be in their playlists? Do you feel in anyway that your take on melodic trance can resonate with techno fans as well?
Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts about my new album. I don’t listen to pure techno very much. It is often a little too hard for me. Although I do love the tribal feel the bass line creates, like everyone eventually gets the same heart beat. I am a fan of the newer melodic techno sounds. Like techno with a melody. So think of trance as more melody forward. And trance relies on multiple layers of music all working together. Like a big melody, counter melody and other complimentary sounds like Fairy Dust.
When you listen to trance, listen to the new layers of sounds that get introduced as each new section of the track plays. Then all these different sounds work together in perfect harmony. Many are call and response sounds. To a trance fan who understands how trance tracks are built, all these layers working together is like a drug. The trance audience is smaller than the techno audience, but they are super loyal and the music becomes a drug they cannot live without.
Last of all, in terms of my uplifting style of trance, think of it this way. Think of uplifting trance as an emotional trigger. Like an on off switch. Allow yourself to feel. Allow your emotions to kick in when you hear an uplifting trance track. This will break down your walls, the walls of defense that we put up from the cruel world. Once our walls break down, it opens our heart to hear the big beautiful melody in the drop. Like we are surrendering to the music. The breakdown breaks down our walls, and the melodic drop builds us back up in a happy way.
You just released a 17 multi track melodic trance album titled “The Voice of Reason”. What was going through your head when you decided to make a full 17-track album instead of just putting out singles or a shorter EP? That’s a big commitment in today’s scene.
This is a great question. I try to take a different approach. One of the tracks on the album is The Road Less Traveled which talks about taking the more difficult road. What is that old saying the more pain the more the gain? My approach to this album is the same approach one would take when writing a book. I figured out the title first as it pertains to how I have tried to conduct myself over my business career as a leader of people in my company. Being the Voice of Reason. I wanted a musical vehicle to deliver many of the life lessons that I learned the hard way. Lessons that I feel are super important to living a life of continuous learning, improvement and positive growth. When I am growing and learning, I am happy. And when I can teach and collaborate with others to create something meaningful, it gives me great purpose.
Once I got the album title figured out, it became more of how do I filter down the number of tracks from about 25 to 14 main inspirational messages, plus 3 acoustic versions of the dance tracks on the album. Plus, I love to create and I love to work. Work is fun and rewarding. It became more about enjoying the process and the relationships I built with each artist that I worked with. To enjoy the journey. The process was so fun and rewarding that the high # of tracks was rather easy looking back on it all. In summary, I rarely take the easy road.
One of the tracks in your album, is “Believe In Me”. It is dedicated to your late father, and you’ve mentioned he was the one who told you to be a voice of reason in the world. How did that advice end up shaping not just the title but the direction of the entire record?
I was very fortunate to have a great father in my life. As we all know, we don’t get to choose our parents. My dad was always that calming voice during my childhood. I appreciated how he would rarely just tell me what to do or not do. He would speak to me about my choices and the consequences of each choice. He would offer advice and then allow me to make the decision. I did not always make the right one. This molded me into the person I became, which helped me in the business world and to lead and bring out the best in people. I was having a conversation with one of my mentors, he suggested I do an album and call it The Voice of Reason because of what my father had taught me.
During the branding process of creating the BiXX brand, I decided that most of my tracks would have inspirational messages. Once I got super excited about the title of my album, the flood gates of ideas opened up. I was able to come up with about 25 inspirational ideas in a couple of hours. The album would write each track as a chapter in the book. A book of many of my life lessons. What I did not realize is how each inspirational narrative I wrote for the vocals tracks would inspire each vocalist. For example, Susana got super inspired to write the lyrics for Believe in Me because she could relate to the people during her younger years who believed in her, even before she believed in herself. Especially her parents. Natalie Gioia is such a beautiful person on the inside and outside. She created the lyrics and the vocals for Beauty Within, a track about external beauty fades with time but internal beauty never dies. A lesson taught to me by my mother. I had similar experiences working with Cari JSKA and That Girl. Plus it gave me the opportunity to really connect with these artists on a deeper level, which I enjoy. The whole process becomes much more than a musical transaction.
In summary, Believe in Me was a tribute track to my father, who always believed in me. It shaped the whole concept for the album. My father passed in 2023 at 92 years old. To anyone who has ever lost someone close to them, it really helps to keep their memory alive.
You’ve got collaborations on this project with Susana, Natalie Gioia, Cari, That Girl, and JSKA. Since many of these are long-time partners, can you walk us through how those relationships influenced the way these tracks came together?
Ram Boon is a friend and mentor to me in the trance scene. He owns Nocturnal Knights Music, a trance label. I mentioned to him the Believe in Me concept and he suggested I work with Susana, one of the most iconic voices in track. As fate would have it, her track with Armin van Buuren, Shivers, peaked my interest in trance almost 20 years ago.
What I did not realize about Susana is that she is not only a singer song writer, but she is a coach to other vocalists in the music scene. When a mentor like myself meets a coach, great things happen. We truly inspired each other. The track turned out beautifully. Then I sought help from the great Paul Skelton to help create an acoustic mix. And Susana and I created a beautiful music video with the help of a great director and cinematographer, Valeri Sibekin. The video is finished and will be released soon. Susana and i are currently working on a follow up track, with another big inspirational message.
I met JSKA while listening to an interview on a trance show called Trance.Vibez from Johannesburg, S.A. I sponsor a segment called the BiXX Artist Spotlight, designed to recognize and appreciate hard working artists in the trance scene. It is a tough business that does not always show enough appreciation to the artists. So we show appreciation on Trance.Vibez. I loved JSKA’s (Jessica Daugherty) story. She is talented, hard working and very humble. Plus I learned she sang opera as a child. I contacted her after the interview and asked if she would do a track with me. I offered to fly to her hometown of Derry, Ireland to work with her in Liam Melly’s studio. I have always wanted to visit the beautiful country of Ireland. We discussed the inspirational nature of the song topic and i asked her if she would sing a short opera verse in the breakdown. She agreed. With Liam’s help, we created the vocals and the sketch for To Find Myself. Jessica and I remain friends and check in with each other now and then.
I have worked with That Girl on 2 previous tracks. There is Purpose and Walk on Water. She has a beautiful voice and is a powerful lyric writer. I approached her with the Glass Ceiling idea. That each one of us creates our own built in glass ceiling. This means our fear and self doubt creates a ceiling that restricts our growth. So we get stuck. Recognizing that our fears and self doubt are only thoughts helps our awareness that we can go as far as our mind allows us. She did great work to write and sing the lyrics in Glass Ceiling. I also hoped that she would learn from this experience about her own Glass Ceiling.
I was introduced to Cari through Ram Boon. I had fallen in love with 2 previous tracks Cari wrote: What Matters and Angel. Angel is about Cari’s daughter and she wrote that track shortly after she was born. What Matters is a big inspirational track about What Matters in life are the ones we love. I knew she could create a big inspirational track. She is also a piano player and producer so I gave her total freedom to write about anything important and inspirational. She delivered Your Time Will Come which is about not giving up. She sent me the vocals right after my father died and I had a health scare, causing me to doubt my musical journey. I knew right when I heard it that if this track helped me, then it would help others. It is so powerful I did a Club Mix, a Sunrise Mix (album only) and an acoustic mix. The acoustic mix delivers that triumph of the human spirit feeling to end the album. There will be a music video for the acoustic version.
I had worked with Natalie Gioia on previous tracks: Cry For Peace and Beautiful Chaos. She is such a beautiful person and a very skilled almost operatic style vocalist. I asked her about writing the lyrics for Beauty Within and she delivered the vocals in less than 1 week. I felt that I disappointed her in that the dance version of this track did not have a long beautiful breakdown, so I promised her an acoustic version, which is nothing short of stunning. We also recorded a music video which will be coming soon.
The closing track “Your Time Will Come” was inspired by the final scene of The Shawshank Redemption. Why did that moment resonate with you so strongly, and what made it the right way to close out this album? How does the title and the track itself coincide with the final scene of the movie?
I just love this question. I have watched The Shawshank Redemption at least 10 times. That scene on the beach at the end of the movie when Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman hugged each other gave me such a great feeling, that triumph of the human spirit feeling. The music playing during that scene while the titles were scrolling down the screen was so uplifting and magnetic. I did not want that feeling to end so I kept watching as the titles kept scrolling. Normally I would turn the movie off by then.
I think it is important to ask yourself, what feeling do i want the listener to have after finishing listening to the album. That no matter how difficult things can get, keep working hard, stay the course and don’t give up. Life often knocks us down and sometimes very hard. But if we just hold on, Your Time Will Come. The acoustic version of Your Time Will Come leaves the listener with that Triumph of the Human Spirit feeling. Hopefully, a perfect ending to an inspirational album that triggered lots of inspiration and emotions. Now the listener is read to go take on the world with greater confidence and optimism.
Thank you so much for taking the time. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Thank you again for the amazing opportunity. I look at the listening to my album as an investment in your time. The best investment you can make is investing in yourself. I hope the readers will take the time to listen to the album. Pay attention to the inspirational message in each track. I guarantee there are some messages that will help you. I created a Mentoring Monday motivational video about each track that was released. I further explain the message in the track in much greater detail. They are on my BiXX Audio Youtube Channel. We are all growing and evolving humans who need outside stimulus to help us grow and improve. Perhaps The Voice of Reason will be a fun way to learn, to feel and enjoy the music.