Alejandro Gándara Lago (Ponteareas, Pontevedra, Spain, November 25, 1993), better known as ALEX25, is a Spanish DIY producer and disc jockey of electronic dance music.
| ALEX25 | |
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| ALEX25 in a studio photo. Year 2020. | |
| Personal information | |
| Birth name | Alejandro Gándara Lago |
| Born | Nov 25, 1993 (age 28) Ponteareas, Pontevedra (Spain) |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Education | |
| Education | Associate Degree in Sound for Audiovisuals and Shows Associate Degree in Telecommunications and Computer |
| Educated at: | IES Audiovisual de Vigo and at IES Ricardo Mella de Vigo |
| Musical information | |
| Years active | 2010-present |
| Genre(s) | EDM - Progressive House - Electro House - Dance |
| Instrument | Production - DJ - Voice |
| Label | Independent |
| Web | |
| Website | www.alex25.eu |
Biography
Childhood 1993 to 2004
Alejandro Gándara Lago was born in Ponteareas, Pontevedra (Spain) on November 25, 1993. His family is originally from Spain. He is an only child. Alejandro is the fourth generation of the name "Alejandro" in his family.
From a very young age, ALEX25 was genuinely excited about the lights of the festivals and fair attractions, along with the fireworks. This predilection for lights and flashy things was also expressed around the age of six when he had a clear inclination towards electronic gadgets with backlit, color LCD digital displays. All those things that emit light in the dark, such as fluorescent tube bracelets or certain watches were always among his favorite objects.
In the musical aspect, during childhood ALEX25 used to have the habit of play with toys listening to music in the background, but without any preference or favorite musical style, so it was not until late childhood and early adolescence when he began to define his musical preferences. It should be noted that one of the things that fascinated him the most and used to watch carefully as a child were the music videos that appeared on television, which were broadcast by specialized music channels.
Adolescence 2005 to 2009
ALEX25 began to take a special interest in electronic music from the age of 12 when he owned his first 128Mb MP3 player. Back then, ALEX25 used to spend time exclusively listening to music songs before bedtime and also used to spend time listening to the music that was broadcast on the radio. It was around that time that he discovered the dance radio station Máxima FM that broadcast on dial 104.7 FM for the Vigo area. This discovery caused a huge impact on ALEX25 that led him to listen to the radio station on a daily basis and from there to become more and more interested in electronic dance music.
Many of the songs that most attracted his attention between 2006 and 2008 were house songs, with lyrics, pleasant sounds, and dealing with everyday situations or issues in which anyone could be reflected. It was in fact around 2007 where dance and house music had the greatest boom, due to the growth of both electronic music culture and the best-known artists of the moment. ALEX25 developed during his teenage years, and in later years, his taste for these musical genres (which today are included in the acronym EDM), being this a key period. In addition to radio, ALEX25 used to listen to new songs released through dance compilation albums published in those years, including the Pioneer The Album, The Annual or the Maxima Fm Compilation among others. A common hobby for ALEX25 was to mentally recall the most popular songs throughout the day. It should be noted in those years while I was studying, that in the third year of the compulsory high school education ALEX25 got an A (10/10) in the subject of music.
All that interest led ALEX25 to start DJing and doing his own mixes with PC mixing programs at the age of 15. A year later, that interest led him to buy his first DJ controller to carry out the music mixes, because he instinctively felt a need to transmit to other people all that music that he liked to listen to.
2010 onwards
At 16 years old, ALEX25's fascination for electronic music made him constantly connect with all the most famous content that was invading the internet at that time, such as the videos of festivals such as Electric Daisy Carnival of the year 2010 held at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, the Energy The Network festival or the Tomorrowland festival whose broadcasts were broadcast on the Be-at.tv website, which at that time was the main website for DJ mixes in video both live and recorded. All that only further confirmed the passion he felt for electronic dance music and what he would like to dedicate himself to in the future.
Electronic dance music and its forms of expression used through the lights, digital things, multitudinous situations, modern things, and the striking are ultimately for ALEX25 where converges many things that he already genuinely liked throughout from childhood.
Alejandro decided to formalize his passion for electronic dance music on January 11, 2010, creating the stage name "ALEX25" which is the result of putting together the abbreviated form of his name Alejandro as "Alex" and the number of his day of birth, 25. At the same time, he also created the gesture with the hands for his name that represents himself and the number 25, which is performed with the index and middle fingers of the right hand raised with the palm of the hand towards the body and the five fingers of the left hand raised with the palm of the hand facing out.
From that moment on, ALEX25 became the artistic name that encompasses all the electronic music creations that he publishes.
During the course of 2010, when he was 16 years old, ALEX25 made several publications, such as photographs and photomontages, in which he appears making the gesture with his hands and the artistic name already appears in them.
The first video on YouTube as ALEX25 was published on November 19, 2010 in a different channel than the main one, and in it he appeared mixing music for 10 minutes along with some of the first photographs of that same year.
In 2011, when he was 17 years old, ALEX25 made the move to music production due to his curiosity and motivation to create new music. He did it without having any knowledge beyond the music classes of the compulsory high school stage because until that moment he never attended extracurricular music activities such as the conservatory. To face this challenge, he used two sources of information, on the one hand, the Internet, consulting tutorials, videos, recommendations, and opinions about what instruments and programs the most famous producers used, and on the other hand, he began to buy magazines of Computer Music and Future Music in Spanish where the ins and outs of music production and exclusive interviews were taught.
Influences
Most of ALEX25's musical influences come from vocal progressive house music that became popular between 2007 and 2012, although there are also influences from songs that became popular in electronic dance music prior to this period. It is difficult to find other reference artists that influenced ALEX25 in a clear way since he has always been a person who has listened to many different producers and disc jockeys, and although the most relevant ones were cited, there are many important songs that influenced him, that they are attributed to a multitude of artists who appeared and disappeared from public life very quickly during that period of time.
In terms of composition, ALEX25 has a greater preference when creating for those ones-pleasant, defined, tonal sounds; female voices, synthesizers, violins, pianos, arpeggios, simple structures, and catchy lyrics. As for the lyrics and the message that is conveyed with the song, he likes those that do not generate controversy and that tend to address issues that anyone can go through. In fact, there is a great influence on this last aspect of American English pop.
Hobbies
Apart from electronic dance music as his main hobby, ALEX25 is a great follower of Formula 1 and everything that surrounds that world. He is also fond of everything that has to do with the space race and science, mainly the advances made by NASA and SpaceX.
As for music, he likes to follow the main events and musical competitions, among which are the Eurovision galas, MTV, and the Grammys.