Scottish sensation Ewan McVicar recently sat down with Mistajam on Capital Dance to deliver a raw, honest look into the highs and lows of a global DJ career. The conversation spanned from the heavy toll of industry burnout to an exciting, genre-bending new project that looks set to become a national anthem.
Reflecting on his massive closing set at Creamfields last summer, McVicar revealed he had to undergo a major mental shift to overcome a period of creative exhaustion. "I think I’ve been through so much in this musical career. It zapped my energy—all of it," McVicar admitted. "I didn’t like my records; I wasn’t happy with my team."
The turning point came when he decided to re-evaluate his own catalog from a fan's perspective. "I was just like, ‘You know what, I wonder if I listen to my own tunes when I’m not playing them, what I would feel like?’ And I started listening to my own records again and I was like, ‘Mate, these are class.’ That’s what I was saying to myself—‘These are class!’"
This "mental switch" proved transformative. McVicar noted, "I didn’t know it was that simple... as soon as I got a team behind me that I trusted and loved, I could think about the good stuff and I fell in love with my music again, man." He offered a grounded perspective on the pressures of the industry, adding, "You’ll have these ups and downs like every person has. And you have burnout and you get tired. But sometimes you just wake up one day and you’re like, ‘I’m going to smash this today.’"
Looking ahead, McVicar teased a surprising departure from the dance floor: a collaboration for Scotland’s World Cup anthem. "I might be making something for the Scotland World Cup," he revealed. "It’s not going to be a dance record. It’s going to be what I want to achieve from a Scotland record. Chanty things!"
The project features Clanadonia, a band of "tribal Scottish drummers and bagpipers which is insane." When Mistajam joked about him playing the finals, McVicar was emphatic: "You’d have to cancel my residency for that mate, because nobody is stopping me going there."
Listen to Capital with Mistajam Monday to Saturday from 16:00 - 19:00 across the UK and on Global Player.
