Through the massive influx of people trying to make a cultural impact within the electronic community, a group of individuals in Denver have risen to make a difference – Club Studio Time has truly made their mark. Whether you have seen a clip of their many memorable sessions on TikTok, or seen the full energy on YouTube, Club Studio Time has attracted many eyes to them. Already having worked with Deadbeats during Zeds Dead Fourth of July week, WAKAAN artists like Sully and G-Rex, to even a bunch of underground artists – their mission has stayed true on wanting their audience to discover their next favorite artist.
After encountering the magic in person, we got a chance to sit down with Club Studio Time founders Bondok, Kai, and Elan for an exclusive interview. We got to learn more about the origins of the project, the astounding growth and impact in the electronic scene, and also what’s in store for the future. Dive into why Club Studio Time has been the hottest event to encounter while you are in Denver!
In Conversation with the Club Studio Time team
seradopa: What is clubstudiotime’s origin story? Where did the idea come about for everyone?
Kai: At least on my end of things, I’ve been building brands and working on marketing stuff for products for other companies. And music has kind of always been a passion for me. Ever since I went to college at CU [University of Colorado – Boulder], I think most of us started either there or went to our first Red Rocks show. I started doing that and knew I wanted to do something in music.
Since then, worked my way through industry and management. I’ve worked with a couple of amazing artists, Crucible Solar, started with a kid named Defend. Then after that, I got involved with a group called NND with Bondok.
We stopped doing that with everyone and that went its own way. I talked to Bondok, “Hey, let’s do our own thing, our own idea.”
And the idea came from [how] we would do these kinds of videos for the artists that I managed. I talked to Bondok and we’re like, “Well, what if we built a system where we can do it for multiple artists on a little bit bigger of a scale.”
Bondok: Essentially where the story starts with me is that I like to build things, from groups [and] communities, or have like a sense of belonging with people. Usually after college, or in your structured setting, a lot of people find difficulty in meeting new people.
Originally, I worked with a company called Mountain Kids here in Colorado, and they opened my eyes to just being great community leaders. I wanted to do something in our own little version for music. When Kai and I got together, [we figured] that doing clubstudiotime would be kind of a pillar within the community of EDM, at least here in the Denver scene. To show people, not just the artists that are up and coming, but [to] be able to have a safe place for everybody to have fun.
I wanted to try to foster what I learned from the other company [and] bring it over here so that it [allows] us to come together.
seradopa: How long have you all been in operation?
Bondok: We started recording early last year, but our official posting was in April. That’s when we started essentially all the social media and [continued] from there. February was the original date for when we started recording the sessions, then April is when we started posting.
seradopa: Dang! You are officially one year and three months in now!
Kai: Then after our first session, we brought Elan in. And I’ll let him talk about his origin and why he’s here.
Elan: Kai and I are brothers actually! So I came up a couple of years after Chicago, into [the] Denver area. We’re from a small, mountain town out West. And I was working with the companies that he was with, mainly focusing on photography, videography, social media, and anything that revolved around that. It was always of cars and shows. Kai took me to the first show [at] Red Rocks.
And that’s when I got into the music industry with photography and videography. It’s always been a passion of mine. So, fast forwarding through school at CU and doing Communications and Advertising like Kai had done… As this project started, I just came into handling the videography and photography side of it. Creating as much content as I can, alongside Bondok. From there, I would just do all the shooting, all the editing, all the creative work designs – Kai does most of the design stuff. And then handling anything for social media. That’s my realm of expertise.
Kai: Myself and Bondok did the first show together ourselves. Immediately, we’re like, “Oh, crap! We need someone that can really focus on capturing the show in the right way.” We asked Elan to join in as an equal partner. And that’s how it ended up being the three of us as equal partners in this little adventure.
seradopa: What would yโall say would be the turning point that helped aid in the rise of Club Studio Time?
Kai: To be honest with you, at least from my point of view, it was surprising to us at the beginning. When we started, we didn’t think it was going to be anything crazy or huge. We stayed true to ourselves and made something that was unique. Really, we didn’t realize it was unique until it started catching [traction]. Then we did it because we wanted to work with as many artists as we could in a nice streamlined way.
A white wall was the easiest way to just put up sound and do all that stuff. and then I think a big one for me that I realized makes this stuff help rise is the white background because a lot of the content in our field is dark, black, and flashing lights. When you come across our stuff, it pops off! That’s probably is one of my best answers. But other than that, it was quite surprising to us!
I’ll have to shout out the artists too that we [brought] on early like Swamps. There’s a really good homie now, spellthief, who’s been a friend forever, like just our friends musically. They’re just talented people and mixed with our visual aesthetic and their music. Our combined powers seem to work really well. I’m always proud of that!
Elan: If I had to say the short answer – honestly, our friends. We couldn’t have done it without them. We wouldn’t be anywhere without our friends and the artists who have believed in us. Bigger artists now believe in us and support us and reach out and say they love what we do. It’s very humbling. And we’re just very grateful for that!
Bondok: What I would think would be kind of an essential turning point that got us into the mindset of saying, “Oh, this might be actually something,” was with one of our TikTok videos with spellthief. Once that just continued to grow and essentially [became] our very first video to hit over six figures in views.
And with that, I believe it showed us the possibility of what we can do. We have found our niche of how we’re able to show people, all these artists, that the reach was there, and were able to connect many people with just what we’re trying to do. It kicked us a little bit into high gear, excited, seeing all the potential that we could have, and then from then on, it just kept stacking and stacking.
seradopa: Have you personally seen the impact it’s been making amongst the developing artists in Denver you put on or any of the other rising underground artists that go on clubs to your time?
Bondok: We’ve had many of our earlier underground artists that have reached out to us after they played their session, and their content week has gone up. They would go to a show, or even play their own show, [and they] had random people that they never knew just come up to them and just say, “Hey, you know, we’ve seen your set on Club Studio Time, You did amazing!”
They were just getting all this love from a random person. We’re getting it from multiple artists saying that kind of stuff. And they’ve been stopped by random ladies who’ve been watching our videos, or even headed on as they were walking past and just showing the camaraderie and the love that essentially the community that we’re building is great. And I love that feeling!
Elan: We’ve had a lot of artists just reach out back to us after their session. Artists from early last year, had people reach out and that they wanted them to come to play this show for them or come get on this lineup. It’s just super cool that they are getting the recognition that they deserve. Because they’re all super talented!
Kai: I wrestle with this question in my head a lot. A lot of times I come from like, the artistic side of mostly everything. I always like to think of just working together with someone and making something cool. People want to see the impact of what coming and working with us does. Artists have mentioned to us, “I’ve gotten shows because of Club Studio Time.” Swamps tells me he thinks of us all the time for what we did.
We do it all for free too. We do it out of our pockets to try and help these artists.
A good example is the Riddim XXL showcase. A lot of our friends are in the riddim scene. It felt like with Riddim XXL showcase, we put our favorite artists who are in that scene on the map because of that video. It’s the biggest video on our page right now. And it’s cool to see that we were able to make spellthief, JOX, Kindly, and all those guys on the forefront of that wave right now. So that’s the biggest example I can think of right now.
seradopa: How has the community that you have built been with Club Studio Time? Do yโall see familiar faces at your events or get any praise that arises?
Elan: One of the most that’s one of the fun parts is walking around. I mean, I’m walking around with a camera, and then halfway through the show, someone is like, “Yo, what’s up?”
And we’re like “You’re here again!”
Some people have been to every single one since we started. They really support it. It’s awesome!
Kai: We see familiar faces! The RSVPs are kind of a way for the general public to be able to come and enjoy the music. We also split it 50/50. We want the artists to be able to bring their friends into the community as well as much as possible. Because I think that’s what makes the best videos is when all the artists have all their friends there as well. And then their friends kind of repeat come sometimes and, and we’re such a small room.
We probably talk to everyone at some point during the session!
We see a lot of friends and made a lot of friends. It’s kind of like a bunch of our homies coming through our home once a month and checking in and seeing what’s up. Since we aren’t like a full-blown show show, it feels like a Hangout, too. A lot of people network there!
Bondok: With the community that we’ve built with Club Studio Time is great! They foster much love, generosity, and kindness towards each other. And as well as us and the artists as well. We couldn’t ask for anything better from the community. People drive in from all over Colorado, just to come to our once-a-month meetup. So there’s this consistent couple that comes in from Colorado Springs every month, and I’ll see them sometimes they’ll make it towards the end of the session. But it’s okay. As soon as they arrive, I greet him at the door and say, “Amazing to see you guys again. Let’s make this quick. Go on in there, enjoy some music!”
And then from there, you know, they go in there have some good times make some great memories. That’s what we love to foster.
seradopa: Where did the idea including limited-exclusive merch come from?
Kai: We’ve worked for brands where that’s been our marketing strategy before. We’ve worked with Anti Social Club and a couple of those hypebeast brands. We’ve always loved the fashion industry. We love shoes, we love all that stuff. But something interesting that I didn’t really realize is, I always wanted to do a brand like that.
But it’s just the three of us. We’re editing, filming, throwing these shows, we’re doing all that stuff. It ended up being a necessity for us. Where we just needed to be able to make some branded stuff by hand.
So both were interested in that kind of marketing strategy, but at the same time, it’s a necessity for our bandwidth. To be able to do that type of type of stuff, at least for me. I kind of didn’t realize that it works well for smaller kinds of businesses and allows us to do stuff that we want in a limited capacity because we’re limited man hours too you know?
Elan: It did fall into that, with only three of us trying to handle the entirety of the company in the brand. Then wanting to do some physical products for people to wear and wrap and feel stoked when they get to get one and wear it out. We do a color for every session. And we do a little limited run because of our bandwidth.
And I mean, mostly, it’s bandwidth now.
Some people have almost gotten every t-shirt. They like to come and collect the t-shirts, they want each color that we do – which is cool to see!
Kai: I think just a childhood dream. [Laughs] Personally, I’ve been trying to develop a clothing brand for I don’t know how long. Six or seven years, you know?
Elan: We’ve tried a couple. [Laughs]
Kai: Our other younger brother is a product engineer. We might get him in a little bit of involvement in some things. I have some ideas about physical products that might be cool. Really, it’s just kind of the limited stuff. Yes, it’s limited, but a lot of the time it’s done because it’s more high intent. You just have to do those types of products limited because it’s easier on the bandwidth and it’s a lot of work to stir it up.
Bondok: With the exclusivity of our short run of clothing it allows people to foster more of a connection with Club Studio Time. The only way to get these prototype shirts that we have is by coming to an event, being able to show face and meet us, and then, you know, say “that I was there.”
Because when we do the online store, it’s going to be completely different. We have to essentially keep the exclusivity of the actual merchandise different than the online. The online will be essentially for the masses. But the limited runs of at-show sessions for the unique drops, make people say I was there for that session!
It’s usually the first 10 people who come in and check in are the ones that just wipe us clean. So it shows a lot of love for us!
seradopa: Any goals or sneak peeks you can let us know on what to expect for the future of Club Studio Time?
Kai: I’ll be short on this one because our ideas are very close and dear to our hearts until we want to talk about them.
We have a ton of cool stuff coming up! Cool stuff with collabs with some bigger brands in the spaces, hopefully. We talked about some physical pieces we’re working on. People keep asking us for full production runs of clothing where we really want to dial that in. We want the clubstudiotime shirt to be the Club Studio Time shirt.
And I know it sounds crazy that it’s just a shirt, but we’re really trying to pick it apart in a way that it’s our shirt, you know? Lots of cool artists were going to work with coming up. But yeah, that’s that’s kind of my answer!
Elan: Maybe some night experiences down the line – further down the line for sure.
Bondok: Essentially for the future of Club Studio Time, we had a great run for our first year but the second year is going to be even better! We’re enjoying our time and we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to have this interview with Electric Hawk!
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