It was a quiet night outside of The Middle East.

Not too many people were passing by, as the cold of New England’s winter rolled down the streets with the threat of snow.

For the first time all day, in the busy town of Cambridge, MA there was silence.

But then, if you turned slightly to the right and through the doors of ZuZu, The Middle East’s almost hidden gem of a restaurant turned nightclub- you’d see an entirely new side of Cambridge’s nightlife.

From the door to the back wall, ZuZu was packed with a 21+ crowd that was amped up and ready to listen to some of their favorite local producers put on an energetic electronic show.

With a makeshift stage full of turntables, computers, and speakers, along with an electrifying video show bouncing from wall to wall, ZuZu was no longer the typical quiet restaurant. It was a full force nightclub.

This was Sunday Sets- a locally produced show where some of Boston’s latest and greatest producers could come together to put on a show. This week’s lineup? BioKoi, Stock, Primal, and NFNTM.

And the crowd loved them.

But who were the people behind their stage names? We sat down with the headliner, BioKoi, to find out a little more about the man behind the music.

So to start- who is BioKoi?

BioKoi, also known as Jamie Boccia, is a 23 year old producer from Beverly, MA.

But before he was BioKoi, he was just Jamie- a kid with a love for music and a drive to create it.

“My family has always been involved in entertainment,” Boccia told us. “Either music or dance [they were] just always putting on shows. I definitely had the upbringing of just a musical household and [because of that] I’ve been playing instruments my whole life.”

When Boccia was a toddler, he began picking up on his family’s musical habits, and even tried to join in when his grandfather serenaded them.

“Theres photos of me and my grandfather when I was like barely able to reach a piano, just trying to play keys.”

By the time he reached age 10, Boccia had become well versed in guitar as well, and after lessons from his grandparents taught him the basics, he eventually expanded his knowledge to include bass, which he now says is the instrument he plays most consistently.

But how did a background in strings and piano translate to a career in electronic music? It all started in high school when Boccia began attending shows.

“[Electronic] music I really kinda got into around high school. I wasn’t really finding myself fitting into a sort of clique, so going to these [type of] shows brought me into my tight knit group of people,” he explained.

It was these friends that helped Boccia realize his love for EDM and inspired him to start making his own tracks.

“There was very few of us from Beverley that were actually attending shows, and we all kinda felt like we weren’t really finding exactly what we were looking for in the traditional high school [environment]. One of my buddies was a DJ and I was over his house one day and decided to mess around with his controller and just caught the bug from there.”

After high school Boccia went on to attend Bay State College in Boston, where he completed a degree in entertainment management with a specification in audio production, and began really defining his sound and launching his career as a musician.

“I’ve been DJing for around five years now,” he explained. “I started BioKoi around three or four years ago and have now played around 10 shows.”

“I originally went by Cloud Nine, but there are so many DJs with that name, I tried to think of something unique. I liked how BioKoi sounds, and it is the perfect representation of my sound. Kind of slippery like a koi fish but kind of electronically enhanced. And it just sounds cool, so it stuck.”

The movement of koi fish aren’t all that inspire Boccia though, he is mainly inspired by many other DJs and musicians spanning other genres.

“In the sense of DJing, I love Bassnectar. He plays the smoothest sets that i’ve seen consistently. I definitely take inspiration from how he mixes to how I do mixes to make it more engaging for me.”

“As far as production and sound design, I’ve been really into Tsuruda, he makes a lot of crazy low-fi, old school like JDilla stuff. Also definitely, Ivy Lab. Basically anyone from London I’m super about.”

“I also really love Tame Impala for sure, and that kind of stoner slacker rock. It was pretty recently I got exposed to that realm, but it was something I was like ‘wow I kinda wish I had found this earlier because it was something I was looking for without knowing it existed.’ And I was a huge metal head before I got into electronic music. So like Tool, Disturbed, that’s where I got that aggressive low end desire from.”

It is these bands, along with Boccia’s own personal style that have influenced his current completed tracks- all of which can be found on his Soundcloud and eventually his Spotify.

“I’ve made about 10 completed tracks, and have some stuff i’m working on, but isn’t completely finished.”

“I have a few collaborations in the works,” he shared. “One with Primal, and one with a homie I met through the internet that’s coming out hopefully soon. We are still doing some finishing touches on that.”

But out of all of Boccia’s tracks, his favorite is actually a throwback. A track titled “Illinois” that was the first track he wrote that he felt “wrote itself.”

“I didn’t really have a plan for it, but it was the first song I felt accomplished with and okay to release. I feel like that’s the biggest thing for me. Learning how to cultivate my own sound and constantly improving. I never felt like what i made was up to par with what I wanted to release, but that was the first song that I was like “This is a good bar to set for myself to reference back to it.””

As for how he came up with the name? He doesn’t have a method, and actually would prefer to not name any of his tracks, but instead have the crowd come up with a name based on the vibe and rhythm they feel.

“I would love for the fans to be able to name their songs. I would rather have the song name come from what you first think of it.”

“I would love if, even not the whole set, if for one track everyone has a simultaneous rhythm, that’s always been really fascinating to me. Even if it’s only for a few seconds. It’s nice for me to go from like toiling away in my bedroom to seeing that translate to people enjoy it or noticing little things i’ve thrown in.”

And, even though Boccia is relatively new to the scene, he still has his fair share of horror stories from gigs gone wrong.

“My first legit gig I didn’t even have my booth monitors on. It was in like a weird church that had been turned into the venue so the acoustics were not set up for that kind of stuff at all, and there was a crazy slapback, so I was hearing stuff so out of time and the first few transitions were so rough,” He explained. “I was like ‘oh my god this is my first gig and I’m already crashing my career.’ But luckily the people who were running it were also pretty good friends of mine so they were able to help me out.”

“Another time, at a party, I don’t know how it happened, but a guy got super mad and ripped out the meter for our electricity and the whole house went blackout. And we had just moved in and I don’t think we had hadn’t even paid electricity yet  and we were like “Oh no did they shut it off on us? Was it midnight or something and was that the cut off?” but then we found out what happened,” he laughed.

“Luckily somebody at the party was studying electrical so he helped fix it. I don’t even know who it was [that broke the box] it was just some mystery person.”

But that’s not even the craziest thing to happen at one of Boccia’s sets. A separate time, BioKoi his friends ended up front and center in a Wall Street Journal article, which Boccia sites as a career highlight.

“I was in Allston for a few years, and we did house parties under the vault,” He explained. “We actually got a Wall Street Journal article randomly. We were doing an after hours techno event, and they happened to be doing a piece on the underground scene in Boston. Online you could see a photo of our basement on the Wall Street Journal. It was crazy.”

And with a Wall Street Journal under his belt, it would seem that BioKoi’s career could only go up from here. But, Boccia doesn’t determine his success by the size of his shows or his inevitable rise from ZuZu to playing festivals. Instead, he’d like to make a career and help his fans escape their reality- even if only for an hour long set.

“I don’t mind playing smaller gigs, obviously I want to increase just ot be able to survive off of it, and yeah I feel like everyone wants to play a festival but I would be okay if that wasn’t the end goal. I just want to be able to help somebody forget about lives for a little bit and lose themselves.”

Be sure to check out BioKoi on SoundCloud, and let us know what you think about his tracks, or any questions you wish we had asked in the comments below!

And also sure to also check out our interview with BioKoi’s friend and opener Stock- coming soon!