Join DJ Tennis on Sound Advice, the weekly interview series covering artists’ journeys and their creative process. In this episode, we discuss the 15-year anniversary of DJ Tennis’s record label and party series, Life and Death, how to stay original in today’s music industry, and how he uses SoundCloud to grow his audience and craft his music.
Welcome to Sound Advice, the series spotlighting artists’ creative process and their SoundCloud journey. We’ll get the inside knowledge straight from the source on how musicians, producers and creatives are leaning into everything SoundCloud offers to elevate their sound, get heard and catapult their careers. Sound Advice is now available in audio format on the SoundCloud Stories profile.
Our guest on this episode of Sound Advice is beloved Italian DJ, producer and life of the party Manfredi Romano, better known as DJ Tennis. Manfredi kicked off his career in music as a tour manager for indie and punk bands like Sonic Youth and Black Flag, followed by organizing left-field electronic music events around Italy in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s.
This naturally led to DJing, and now decades later, DJ Tennis is living the eternal summer: headlining festivals and clubs around the world, from Bali to Paris to Los Angeles. We caught up with him to get some travel advice and find out what he’s been cooking at his Munchietown events. We discuss the 15-year anniversary of his Life and Death record label, which puts out house music with a post-punk aesthetic and is heralded for introducing Tale of Us and Anyma to the world.
We find out more about how DJ Tennis uses SoundCloud to workshop ideas, go through demos and build a devoted audience through DJ mixes. He also drops some key knowledge on his music-making process and how to build a sustainable career in an ever-shifting industry. Plus, we get the exclusive info on what's coming up next, including a restaurant in Ibiza with Seth Troxler and loads more new music.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO EPISODE OF SOUND ADVICE FEATURING DJ TENNIS
LISTEN TO “MISBEHAVE” BY DJ TENNIS ON SOUNDCLOUD
Things We Talked About In This Episode of Sound Advice
How DJ Tennis Is Inspired By Touring To Make His Tracks, Like “Misbehave”
- We begin the conversation with DJ Tennis thinking about the summertime, and how he maintains his schedule as a touring DJ. Between a busy season playing in clubs and at festivals around the world, DJ Tennis likes to strike a balance between life on the road and time in the studio.
- Here, he talks about how he likes to use his summer gigs to road-test new material, and how that process allows him to work on and decide which tracks should get a formal release. A track “doesn’t have to be a banger to be released, but it has to be something that I love over time,” he says.
- One of those tracks is “Misbehave,” his latest track with vocalist Campbell King. DJ Tennis talks about the making of and inspirations behind the track, and how it represents his creative arc.
What Being a Punk Rock Tour Manager Taught DJ Tennis About the Music Industry
- DJ Tennis started out in the music industry as a tour manager and agent for punk and hardcore bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat, before becoming a DJ, producer and label owner. So what of that early life in music has he brought over into his work today?
- Here, he reflects on what lessons he learned from being on the road with bands, how the physicality of the daily tour grind has informed how he views musical community-building and the differences between working with live bands and electronic artists.
- Taking it further, there are ethical, philosophical and aesthetic elements of that early life that he’s brought into the running of Life and Death, his now 15-year-old record label and party series Here, he gets into how it’s inspired collaboration, and how thinking about shaping scenes rather than focusing on individual career trajectories has helped the label make an impact.
- Part of that scene-shaping is maintaining a healthy connection to his audience while also giving himself room to experiment and grow as an artist. Going into more detail, DJ Tennis talks about using the element of surprise in his DJ sets, his love for micro-genres over the needs to always diversify his offering, and how to use risk and spontaneity to cut through the DJ attention economy.
- Giving advice to fellow artists on this, he says, “Make what you like rather than trying to imitate what's already successful, because by the time you hit on that [successful thing], it’s already old.”
DJ Tennis on Managing DJs, Using SoundCloud and The Communal Joy of Sharing Mixes
- DJ Tennis has managed successful dance music acts like Tale of Us, but he himself shares that he doesn’t have a manager. So what advice would he give to artists coming up today, who are weighing up the pros and cons of building a formal team around their artistic persona?
- Here, he suggests taking as much time as you need to figure out who you are creatively before committing to that — DJ Tennis shares that he was in his late 30s to early 40s before he felt he hit his stride — and even if you don’t get a manager, have people around you with different skills that can support you. “A good performer knows their limits,” he says.
- Throughout his career, DJ Tennis has used SoundCloud to share his ideas with his team, peers and collaborators, and has become an important platform to him. Here, he talks about how SoundCloud “broke him in the market” and how he uses it as a “creative and promotional tool,” from sending tracks to DJs through private links and messaging, to keeping track of his works-in-progress on playlists and discovering new music through the algorithm.
- One of the biggest elements of his success on SoundCloud has been the ongoing life of some of his best-loved DJ mixes. Here, he shares stories about how hosting DJ sets on his page has brought him new experiences, gig opportunities and sweet moments with fans around the world.
DJ Tennis on Harnessing Creative Risk as a DJ, Producer and Label Owner
- As well as running his Life and Death record label, DJ Tennis has released his original music on labels like Aus Music and Running Back. So how much emphasis does he put on where music should live once it’s made? “It’s a mistake to think about the destination [of a track] before enjoying the production process,” he says. “Because thinking too much about that means you lose some of the joy of creativity.”
- Here, he goes into more detail about his process and why trying to pre-empt the wants and expectations of others can lead to disappointment.
- This also extends to his philosophy as a DJ. Across genres, he’s drawn to a balance of energy and emotion, with psychedelic elements — across house, italo disco, post-punk and more. Here, he talks about how he likes to share a DJ set and how to gain the audience’s trust.
- This summer, DJ Tennis is as busy as ever: with new music on the way, a restaurant opening in Ibiza with Seth Troxler and shows in the US and beyond. To round off the conversation, DJ Tennis shares some new names on the Life and Death label — from Jordan Brando to Fundido and Rudy With A Hoodie — and what he’s most looking forward to for the rest of 2026. You can check out DJ Tennis’s upcoming tour dates here.
Links and Extras
Follow DJ Tennis’s journey on SoundCloud.
Press play on DJ Tennis’s latest track, June 2026’s “Misbehave,” featuring Campbell King.
Follow Life and Death, DJ Tennis’s record label and party series.
Hit play on DJ Tennis’s 2025 track with Eliza Rose, “Playa Paradiso.”
Listen to “Love Child,” DJ Tennis’s collaborative track with Luke Jenner of The Rapture.
Hit play on DJ Tennis’s collaboration with Red Axes, “Redrago.”
Explore some of DJ Tennis’s wide-ranging influences, including Aphex Twin, Fugazi and The Cure, to name a few.
Listen to the Ibiza Summer Anthems playlist on SoundCloud.
Never miss an episode and follow the official Sound Advice playlist on SoundCloud.
Getting The Most Out of SoundCloud
Learn more about using DMs to connect with fellow artists and potential collaborators.
Learn more about how to make a custom playlist on SoundCloud.
Learn more about unlimited uploads, available with an Artist Pro subscription.
Learn more unlocking access to unlimited distribution, available with Artist Pro.
Learn more about getting heard with SoundCloud’s updated algorithm, available to Artist and Artist Pro subscribers.
To discover additional features a SoundCloud Artist or Artist Pro subscription offers, visit here. To catch up on past installments of Sound Advice and make sure you don’t miss out on future episodes, visit here.
CREDITS Host: Vivian Host, Executive Producer: Mike Spinella, Producer: KC Orcutt, Audio Engineer: David “DibS” Shackney, Coordinator: Trevor McGee, Editorial Associate: Lauren Martin
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