The first thing you need to know about Martinez brothers Steve Jr. and Chris is that they may be young — 19 and 16 respectively — but they’ve both been involved in music for more than a decade.

“We played percussion at jam sessions, in church, in studio sessions,” Steve tells me over his mobile. “We would go to Brooklyn, to Connecticut, all kinds of places. People would just call my pop and be like ‘Dude, can we borrow your kids?’”

Born and raised in the Bronx and recently relocated with their family to upstate New York, The Martinez Brothers have stepped up from playing in pick-up salsa and Latin jazz projects to DJing in some of the finest house music clubs in the world.

Despite being mostly hip-hop heads at first, they have their father — once a regular at hotspots like the Paradise Garage — to thank for expanding their musical horizons. Hearing Steve Sr. play mix CDs like Jazz in the House, Kenny Dope’s Disco Heat and David Morales’ Mix the Vibe is what kick-started the boys’ interest in more soulful sounds.

 “I just watched my dad bugging out and thought the music was so hot,” Steve recalls. “From then on we started buying more of those compilations and learning. I remember being in school, putting my hoodie on in math class, and studying those CDs.”

They were obviously fast learners, beginning their DJ careers on CD decks in late 2003. Less than three years later, they’d rocked numerous house parties, played a private jam with infamous Garage and Loft resident DJ Victor Rosado and made their New York club debut playing downstairs at Club Shelter, thanks to an invite from Dennis Ferrer.

 “We met Dennis because Chris had written him at his MySpace,” explains Steve. “They began corresponding, and one day Dennis basically said, ‘Yo, I’m playing at the Shelter tonight. Would you like to play with me?’ Christian said, ‘That would be awesome, but my brother has to play with me.’ Dennis was really skeptical — he always tells me, ‘Man, I thought you were going to suck! I didn’t even want to let you play.’

 “Anyway, we had to get there at three in the morning because that’s when they stopped serving alcohol. We started playing and everybody just swooped downstairs — it packed up quick — and started vibing. It was like ‘Oh my god, there’re these two kids! What the freak?’ Not only that, after we played we got to go upstairs and see Timmy Regisford who is my favourite DJ of all time.”

Not only that, when they got upstairs, Regisford played an early, rough mix of “My Rendition,” The Martinez Brothers’ track that would later be “cleaned up” at Ferrer’s studio, released on his Objektivity label in December of 2006 and played by house and tech DJs around the world through all of 2007.

Now on weekends and when they’re not in school, The Martinez Brothers are booked to play their mix of soulful house, techno, minimal, classics, acid and disco at high profile clubs in NYC, Europe and beyond. They’ve also come to represent the next generation in underground house, generating much excitement in a scene that was sorely lacking in fresh faces.

“I was at The Shelter a couple of weeks ago, late in the morning and I saw a lot of young people, which was hot,” says Steve. “I think there was more of a divide before, but it’s getting better, partly because the techy sound and the soulful are becoming more integrated.”

No doubt they’ll add to that shift as they prepare to release their remix of Norwegian folk singer Ane Brun next month on Objektivity, to be followed by an original EP and a mix CD for Defected. As they gather loads of DJ experience, The Martinez Brothers will be recognized for far more than their ages.