The age of the Internet has produced the Martinez Brothers. At the tender age of 17 and 20, they are creating hits and dominating dance floors at major nightclubs all over the world. The accessibility of dance music allows talented young DJs to develop faster than ever before. The brothers are the beginning -- they are maybe the first to break out, but there will be many others. I give props to their father, Steve Martinez Sr. While sitting with them, I was awed by the honesty and respect he instilled in his talented sons. There was a time in their career when many people heard about them because they were those kids DJing. Now it’s not talked about, except maybe by guys like me telling a story. They are respected amongst their peers and are a driving force in the New York house scene. The only thing stopping me from proclaiming them the future is that they are so relevant in the present.

About six months ago, I was interviewing Eddie Dean and Rob Fernandez, and every so often they were mentioning Victor Calderone, and this one and that one, and they were saying the Martinez Brothers, and I hadn't heard that name. Then all of a sudden I started reading about you guys and found out that you're how old? Steve: I'm 20 now. Chris: I'm 17.

You're so 17 that we had to do this interview when you got out of high school. C: Yeah, I just came from school.

What's it like being a DJ, doing major clubs, and then going back to school in upstate New York to a small town? How are you treated by the people around you? C: It can be good and bad. Of course you have the people who think that it's cool, and they look us up on the Internet and all that, but then you also have the haters who say, "Oh, he thinks he's cool because he's a DJ."

Do you think you're cool because you're a DJ? C: No, I'm not like that.

Your father Steve Sr. is here; he's old school and he taught you those values. What I've heard in the last couple of days is that you guys are totally respectful. But you're 17 years old, you're not even allowed to be in a club, except as a performer -- yet here you are DJing at major nightclubs. So is this your future? Or is it just a phase you're going through? C: Music is definitely my future ... it's everything to me. It's in my blood.

How does this affect your studies while you're in high school? Is it hard to stay focused? C: Yes it is.

But you realize that the things you learn in school high school are valuable later on. In any business, knowing how to deal with people and being well-rounded is important. And you're also learning this from your dad -- what's it like having your dad who has been through this. Your dad is an old Paradise Garage-head -- what's it like having him help you and steer you? S: I think it's kept us level-headed because he's had his experiences, he's learned from them, and in turn, he teaches us those values. We were brought up in church, so all of those values and discipline have been instilled in us since we were very young. It's helped us up until this point, and I'm sure it will continue to.

I grew up in a world that was all about respect. You either had respect and gave respect or you never really deserved it because respect has its own rewards. You guys are really young, but you're mentioned in the same breath as people like Victor Calderone, who you DJed with on New Year's Eve. How do people your age stay grounded? How do you look in the mirror and not say to yourselves, "I'm better than the next guy?" S: We're just not those types of people because we just do this for fun to be honest -- it's just something that's fun for us. We enjoy it. And we don't think we're better than anybody. We just all want to have fun together. So if we play with Victor Calderone we don't look at it as if we have to compete with him.

Most DJs are very territorial and very competitive with each other. This is the future, and you're going to have to deal with that. And at one point, it's going to be a business. So with your youthful exuberance and advantages now, is it something you've discussed, that you must stay true to your school? S: Definitely -- we stay true to our roots. Our roots are family, my dad's here now, and he's always there to just make sure everything is going the way it's supposed to go.

Steve Sr., when did you realize that these kids were real? You've listened to the legends, the Junior Vasquezes and the Larry Levans. All these people you grew up with or were part of your scene. Now all of a sudden you've got these two young men who are your sons -- when did you figure out that this was no joke, that these guys might be the next big thing? Steve Sr.: In 2003 actually. But a lot of people don't know that they're musicians first. They've been involved in bands all their lives. Other bands would call my house asking if they could use my kids to fill in for their percussionists at a very young age. They'd pay them $150 bucks a night and use them to play congas, etc. So they were freelancing musicians at a very young age ... they grew up playing percussion. Steve started playing drums at the age of 3, and Christian followed, so by 2003, they had run that whole band circuit, and they were restless, and they started to listen to a lot of music. I remember taking Steve into my room, and even Christian at times, to listen to the midnight mix on 98.7 Kiss, which at that time was hosted by Timmy Regisford, trying to introduce them and talk to them about my time.

I used to come home with mix CDs, and I told the kids, "This is some music that I listen to, tell me what you like." And they really liked it, and they ran with it, so soon enough they were on the Internet, doing a lot of research. I didn't know this, but I would come home, and they said, "Dad look look, this is what we found." They did a lot of research on labels, finding out who would arrange records, and they really got into the foundation of disco music and started to follow DJs. They would download this or that. I told them this was the foundation of music -- this is stuff that David Morales would drop, or Larry. I would tell them that there were so many great DJs -- but it wasn't so much about the DJs then, it was more about the clubs, but now as time has progressed, it's all about the DJ. So they were online doing a lot of research, learning the history of the music and playing with virtual DJ and getting really good at the online program. They did everything backwards.

I guess that with the Internet -- the modern way of disseminating music -- you guys are on the tip of the iceberg. I think that you guys might be the first and that you're leading a new generation. S: I think you're definitely right in that aspect because there are a lot of young kids who have come up to us saying, "Now we play house music, now we listen to house music too," so I think that in some way we're starting a trend.

That's what I like about the phenomenon of the Martinez Brothers -- that it's going to open up a world of "yes you can." You can be on the main floor when you're a 16-year-old kid in the middle of nowhere. The Internet travels everywhere ... they can learn skills the way you did it and know that because you guys did it, they can do it. S: Yeah, just a couple of weeks ago, there's a kid who told us that saw what we did, and now he makes tracks and now he wants to be a DJ too. So yeah, hopefully, it'll open up a new demographic to the scene.

What is like when you guys meet the guys who are making this music? Little Louie Vega, Frankie Knuckles, David Morales, etc. Do you feel like peers, or are you still young bucks? S: A lot of them are our peers now. When we met them, it was like ohmigod, we love your music -- because we looked up to them. C: Every time we would clean a room or something, we would just pop in their CDs, and now it's like, we're cool with them. Its crazy how one day you're cleaning a room and listening to their CD, and the next thing you're texting them, "How are you doing?" It's dope. Never would've thought.

Check back later for more with the Martinez Brothers.