Mike Vinyl.
Music stays. Quiet is rare.
Mike Vinyl on XPANSION, the underground and finding the courage to let his own music go.
Michael Gelsinger · Mike Vinyl
Behind the decks, Mike Vinyl still finds the moments that explain everything: reaching people, dissolving everyday life for a few hours and experiencing music together. Alongside them come empty hotel rooms after the party, economic questions and his own perfectionism. In our five questions, he speaks openly about both sides — and why what he wishes for today is not necessarily another project, but more quiet.
Mike Vinyl is an Austrian DJ, producer and event organiser associated with Injectionmusic in Steyr. Our conversation takes in XPANSION, SHINE, supporting new talent and his vinyl EP Bloodline. We received his answers on 4 November 2026.
The loneliness after the ecstasy
You’ve just celebrated ten years of XPANSION at Stadtwerkstatt. Was there a moment that night when you thought: this is exactly why we still do it?
That moment actually happens almost every time. When you’re behind the decks, feeling the energy in the room and realising that music can reach people, take them out of their everyday lives for a few hours and bring them on a journey, that’s simply wonderful. Especially when the message behind it is understood.
Of course, there’s another side too. The moments when you wonder why, after all these years, you still put yourself through it. You get older, priorities shift, family and responsibility take on a different importance. Then there are the economic realities, which don’t exactly make things easier today. And there are those nights when, after a great party, you’re lying alone in a hotel room and suddenly feel a strange emptiness.
But there’s also that original force. Something that’s difficult to explain and still keeps driving you on. Something stronger than any rational consideration.
It may sound poetic, but the thought of one day falling asleep in the middle of it all — in the midst of what has accompanied me throughout my life — feels incredibly liberating to me. Not having to stop just because the years pass. Instead, ideally, staying true to that passion until the very end.
XPANSION is certainly something very close to my heart. At its core, it’s a reduction to the essentials. To why we started in the first place. And that was, is and always will be the music.
The economics of rebellion
With SHINE, you’ve also created a space in Steyr for the 30-plus generation. What does a night need to offer today to make someone want to go out again after a long time away?
I think it’s above all a sense of carefreeness. Music has this incredible ability to trigger memories. A single track can suddenly take you back to a time you thought you had long forgotten. Sometimes it opens a real Pandora’s box, with all the images, feelings and stories that go with it. And it happens all by itself.
We try to create the right conditions for that. SHINE thrives on a harmonious combination of style, music, atmosphere and many small details. People should feel comfortable, let go and simply enjoy an evening again without having to overthink things.
SHINE deliberately takes a different approach from XPANSION and appeals to a broader audience. I’ve always seen myself as someone who crosses boundaries. My heart belongs to the underground; that hasn’t changed to this day. At the same time, I’m also an event organiser and have to deal with economic realities.
In its most original form, the underground was always rebellious, uncompromising and, to a certain extent, self-destructive. It didn’t emerge from economic considerations, but from an attitude. That’s precisely what makes it so valuable to me. But that attitude also costs money. And at a time when almost everything is measured by its economic viability, preserving those spaces of freedom has become increasingly difficult.
For me, SHINE is therefore not a contradiction of the underground, but in a way also a bridge to it. We want to get people excited about going out again and perhaps spark some people’s curiosity for more. At the same time, formats like these can make projects possible that could hardly sustain themselves — vinyl releases, for example, or musical visions outside the mainstream.
For me, these two worlds don’t have to work against each other. Ideally, they make it possible for one another to exist in the first place.
And that was, is and always will be the music.
Underground as an attitude
Your lineups feature established names alongside artists from the region. What convinces you to give someone their first slot? Can you tell us about an encounter that later developed into something more?
The local scene has always been enormously important to me. I think anyone who still believes today that all you need to do is book a big international name and the party will take care of itself hasn’t really understood how things have developed over the past few years. A functioning scene isn’t built by individual headliners, but by people who support it over the long term.
What convinces me about an artist is above all authenticity. Someone has to stand for what they do. I have far more respect for a commercial DJ who plays their music with complete conviction than for someone who decorates themselves with the underground label without actually living that attitude.
It’s not about which genre someone plays. It’s about how seriously they take what they do and whether they’re prepared to really engage with it.
I’m probably quite strict about that. That certainly has something to do with coming from a different school of DJing. Back then, we had the opportunity to develop over years, make mistakes and sometimes be genuinely bad. That was part of the learning process. At the same time, we also had an unconditional determination to master our craft.
Standing on a big stage wasn’t the original goal. At best, it was the consequence of doing something with passion.
One encounter has particularly stayed with me: Florian Meindl stood in front of me back then and said he could do something. And he really could! (laughs) I supported him early on. Those moments are lovely, because you can feel that someone brings something of their own.
Talent is important. But talent alone isn’t enough. What matters is what someone makes of it and whether they’re prepared to follow their own path.
The burden of the unfinished
You released your own music on vinyl with Bloodline in 2025. What idea did you particularly want to capture on that record — and how do you know when one of your own tracks is finished?
In many ways, Bloodline was a breakthrough for me.
When you don’t release anything for a long time, a peculiar kind of pressure eventually builds up. Especially if you experienced very early on how quickly things can develop.
I was only eighteen when my first release came out and suddenly a lot happened very quickly. DJ enquiries came in from all over Europe, and all of a sudden there were opportunities I could barely handle at that age.
Looking back, that might sound like a luxury problem, but at times the pressure really blocked me. I even had offers from US labels to release music and didn’t accept them because I was never completely satisfied myself.
The paradox is that the desire to do something particularly well often resulted in nothing at all. Countless unreleased tracks are sitting on my hard drives, many from exactly that period. Music that perhaps should have found its way out long ago.
With Bloodline, I began to free myself a little from that perfectionism. Because when is a track actually finished? Probably never. You could always change, improve or reinterpret something.
But for me, techno in particular doesn’t live from flawless perfection. It lives from the moment, from energy, from rough edges. Sometimes the real perfection lies precisely in the imperfection. And at some point you have to have the courage to let something go.
Perhaps I was simply too timid in that respect for a long time. I can certainly say that with a smile today.
The next record is coming up in the near future, together with my studio colleague XPLCT.
More quiet
When you move between booking, events and your own music, what would you most like to free up more time for? What would you like to try next?
I need interaction with people. As much as I love working in the studio, I can also lose myself in it. If I work on music alone for too long, I eventually lose all sense of time and space. Sometimes I forget to eat and don’t even notice how many hours have passed.
That’s why moving between the studio, events and encounters is actually very important to me.
Fundamentally, though, I’m at a point in my life where I’m very grateful for what I have. And I have the privilege of having spent so many years doing something I truly love.
Music has never been just a job or a hobby for me. It’s an essential part of my identity. I consider myself very fortunate to still carry that enthusiasm so intensely after all these years.
I know people who are constantly searching for something to fill their time with. For me it was always the other way round: I had more ideas and passions than time to put them into practice.
So if I could really wish for something, it wouldn’t necessarily be a new project or the next big challenge. It would be more quiet.
Because creativity doesn’t come only from movement, impressions and encounters. It also needs retreat, emptiness and moments when nothing has to happen. And that quiet has sometimes become the rarest thing in my life.
Mike Vinyl
Interview by email · Editorial and image art direction: SCENE:ID. Ness Rubey, Injectionmusic