“I wanted to champion and be a platform for people that want to break the mold, do something interesting and cool because… that was the spirit of what attracted me to dance music in the first place.”
This is a transcript of an on-site interview held Sept. 12, 2026.
the oven had the incredible chance to chat with deep house mainstay Valentino Khan after his evening set at Goldrush: Midnight Riders. Lexi and I asked him questions about his new record label, his first hit, and his favorite moments throughout his career.
The full audio interview is available for streaming.
Related: Check out the full Goldrush: Midnight Riders gallery
Q: Could you give us a little overview of how you started your career and how it brought you over here?
– I stumbled into this career, to be honest. I was just making rap beats in my bedroom growing up. And then I heard dance music one day.
One of the first people I heard was Justice. I heard Waters of Nazareth by Justice, and then I was like, ‘oh, maybe I’ll try to make this music.’
Well, to have a career, you need to- um, you need to DJ and go on tour, I was like, ‘Oh, cool’ and then, it’s kind of beautiful. It’s like gradually- gradually just kept doing it, and here I am still doing it. Very thankful.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your record label that you just launched?
– Yeah it’s called EXTRA CREDIT.
One of the main reasons I wanted to launch it was, I think we’ve gotten to a very formulaic place and I wanted to champion and be a platform for people that want to break the mold, do something interesting and cool because… that was the spirit of what attracted me to dance music in the first place.
When I first got into it, everybody was doing some really cool and interesting stuff. In a lot of ways, everybody was kind of blissfully ignorant and didn’t know what they were doing and just trying things.
I think that, like, you know, mentality of experimentation and trying to do things outside the box, outside the norm, like, we need to keep that alive. It’s very important for this scene in particular.
Q: So we’ve seen a lot of artists starting their own record labels right? Even in dubstep, you got PhaseOne who started Sounds of Mayhem, and INFEKT started PORT ZERO and all that… What’s your opinion on, like, all of these different record labels and how different they are from the larger labels like Monstercat and Disciple and Spinnin’ and those record labels?
– I think it’s important, if you really are passionate about making something that, like, creates a community, or gives a voice to people that might not have any voice at all, or even just a reduced level of a voice.
And like you said, that can scale across a number of different platitudes, but… If you really feel like you’re doing something meaningful and impactful, then go ahead and make a record label, you know.
Be honest with the people you’re working with and try to sign some cool shit to your label, because we don’t need, like, the same thing over and over and over again.
I think that the cool record labels are giving us records that fit into DJ sets, but also are things that are unique in a lot of ways, you know? So yeah, I say go for it. If you’re an artist, you have the means and you have the passion for doing it, yeah do it.
Q: What would you say that your biggest influences are outside of EDM?
– I mean, in a lot of ways, I feel like I’m influenced more by… rap records than dance music records just because of the simplicity of a lot of them. You know, they’re also very complex in terms of production and lyricism, you know, we’re talking about various hip-hop records.
But I think that there are certain records that are extremely simple but they hit hard, and I always try to go with, like, if I have two ideas- idea A, idea B- and they’re both equally as good; or relatively speaking, I’ll always go with whatever idea of those is simpler, just because I feel like if it’s more digestible I understand it better in my brain.
You’re thinking about it less, you’re just feeling it, you know? I mean it’s more of a guttural reaction.
Q: What’s your favorite festival you’ve ever played? And what’s your favorite venue you’ve ever played at?
– Well, I’m here at Goldrush at the Rawhide Western Town and Events Center. But that’s one of my favorite festivals. I mean, come on. How could you not love this place?
I mean, playing EDC, it always feels like it’s kind of playing the Super Bowl of dance music festivals. I mean, even apart from festivals, it’s just like going to really cool places in the world, like playing in Paris or Tokyo or Mexico City. You see, Mexico is another good one, too.
Like, a lot of these fans are really passionate and they might not get to see you more than maybe once a year in their country. So it’s really impactful when you’re able to go out and do things in all these other different territories. It’s really cool to just see the world that way.
Q: So when you had your first huge song blow up, how did that affect your career and how did you handle it?
– You know, I always view my career as a very gradual climb. I think if you want to point to, like, one song that blew up, it’s probably my record Deep Down Low. I handled it fine, I think.
When I made that record, I just wanted to honestly make something that I thought people played at after parties, like Skrillex or Diplo or Boys Noize or something, to play, like, late night.
I wasn’t even trying to make a successful record, and all of a sudden, it’s like, you know, especially that year (2015), at Ultra, you had like, Calvin Harris and Avicii and Axwell Ingrosso and Afrojack, and all these really, really big names playing the record. That was never my intention.
So in terms of how I handled it, I was just- I was really happy and pleasantly surprised, to be honest. And then I just wanted to build on that and, I don’t know, make some interesting stuff throughout the rest of my career.
Q: Who is your dream collab? Who do you most want to make a record with?
– I would love to make a record with Gesaffelstein. I don’t know if he’d ever do it. But, like, his music has always been very, very cool and interesting. It’s just, like, it’s such a… I think, like, that sound, it’s just so dark and heavy that it really appeals to me. Without being, like… like, he’s found the right balance between having this dark heavy sound like annoying to your ears, you know? He’s a great producer.
Q; What is your dream festival that you want to play at, if you haven’t already?
– I don’t know… I’ve played a lot of the big ones. I mean, yeah, it’s everybody’s dream to play EDC.
I can’t think of one that I haven’t played that I would really love to play. I’m sure if I thought about it long enough, maybe it’ll come to me. I’ve never- like I was just saying, actually, a second ago, like, I’ve never gotten to play at the Gorge. I’ve been booked for it a couple of times, but through various circumstances, I never got to play there. So playing at the Gorge would be cool. It’s a really scenic environment over there.
Q: What is your favorite thing about performing at festivals specifically?
– I mean, my favorite thing about performing at festivals specifically is, like, the crowd, and sometimes you’ll run into friends, especially friends that, like, might not live where you live.
It’s cool to be able to cross paths with them in a completely different state, and I think that sometimes spending 10 minutes, even with someone else that you’re cool with, is as valuable as spending, like, you know, a week with someone, just given our crazy schedules, you know?
Q: Have you ever had a favorite fan moment when touring?
– I’ll say, a crazy one is… I played at this Halloween party in San Francisco, and we started inviting people on stage, everybody’s spilling drinks, it’s getting crazy.
All of a sudden, I see a guy way in the back of the crowd, and I stopped the music. I was like, ‘Yo this guy’s got a fucking wolf on his shoulders!’ He literally got, like, a wolf dog, like a big ass wolf.
And he parted the crowd, like parted the sea like Moses. He comes on stage and then we start turning up and he’s got his wolf dog on his shoulders. And I was like, ‘What’s up with the dog, bro?’ And he’s like, ‘She’s a burner, man. She comes to all the shows with me, man.’
And I’m like, I did not think a wolf was going to show up in San Francisco.
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Edited by Pedro Rojo
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