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-- Paul Van Dyk - Oct 2025 RA interview

Paul Van Dyk - Oct 2025 interview

Paul Van Dyk shares his thoughts & explores the future of trance in this recent 25-minute video interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRF7oylrGvU

Enjoy peeps... saved you time with a transcription courtesy of AI + scripting!



PVD 0:00
Everybody has a different definition what trance is. To me, it's about electronic music. It is relatively easy, especially with the modern day technology, to make one big track. If you pair this up with proper PR and the right Tiktok moment, you can leave a little mark in terms of having a longer lasting impact. I think you need to have a certain approach to the music. When I was in hospital, the professor was like, asked me, so it's like, where do you think this is like going? And I said, Well, I would like to be back on stage at one point.


RA 0:35
Hello. Paul van Dyk, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining us in your very busy schedule. I heard before this interview that you were once Germany's most frequent flyer.


PVD 0:48
I was, I think, number two. I was told I was once, but, yeah, I'm not flying Lufthansa that much anymore, so I guess I kind of got scaled down a lot. Okay?


RA 1:01
What truth did music teach you?


PVD 1:06
Well, I grew up in East Germany, so it's like the only way for me to connect to the outside world was listening to Westburn and radio stations. So to me, music is much more than just an audio file. To me, music is the connection to the free world is the connection to everyone else. And so in a way, it's, it's an audible manifestation of humanity.


RA 1:34
That was a really great answer. And I actually wanted to return to that later. You have established a legacy for yourself that you know of as the godfather of trans music. You have paved the way for a genre that you know has a huge legacy. However, your manager told me that you actually don't like being associated with the word trance or with the genre trance, and you consider yourself rather an advanced electronic artist. Can you tell me more about that and what the difference is?


PVD 2:06
Well, I think it's I prefer a more open description, because everybody has a different definition what trans is, as much as what techno is or what minimal techno is or melodic house. You know, like everybody has its own idea about these sounds. And to me, it's about electronic music. And I always try to kind of break the boundaries within my own comfort zone of of music. And so one journalist once came up as like so you basically be an advanced electronic musician. And so that's where that terminology came from, in a way, because it really describes it. It doesn't narrow what I do. It doesn't pitch and hold me into just something, and it gives me the freedom as an artist to do what I would like to do, and that's making music


RA 3:04
you've played, at least from an outsider's point of view, in a similar style for almost your entire career. Maybe you would disagree with that, but what's kept you engaged with this particular style for so long?


PVD 3:17
Well, I think when number one is like you know, to some extent, you probably write probably right, because I'm actually an artist, and I make my own music, so I don't have a ghost producer, and my sound doesn't change by changing the ghost producer. So it has a lot of me, and that sort of connecting element is the energy, is the drive, but also the melodic element, something that captures you on an emotional level. And that combination is, I would say, probably what defines my music in some sort of way. I mean, I've been a music journalist for like, a decade, and I do see this trend now of trance, obviously, kind of an umbrella term, coming back into style. It feels like an inherently nostalgic genre. Do you feel like it has evolved? Well?


PVD[/B] 4:12
Trends definitely has involved there, like so many phenomenal artists who come up with, like, great stuff that's like, future orientated and moving forward and pushing the boundaries of this genre every day. I also obviously noticed the sort of like the reoccurrence of, like, certain records from the transient genre, but it seems to be more like stuff that was like played by some in the 90s, rather than something that is up and now, I mean, universal nation was a great track in the 90s, but there has been also a hell of musical development since then. So why people still pushing the boundaries on that particular track? I'm not sure. But yeah, you know if it, if it. It say, encourages people to listen to what's actually current in our musical realm, then I'm fine with it.


RA 5:11
You mentioned before we started recording the interview, that you felt like a lot of contemporary trans artists are playing records that you wouldn't even play in the 90s. Can you just tell me more about about that?


PVD 5:27
It's quite interesting that you see some of you know, the DJs that label themselves as techno DJs, or DJing this these days actually play music that was like, you know, let's say, considered being trans music at the end of the 90s, but for the core trans fans, we didn't even play that music. We didn't even hear that music. So it's kind of like almost a revival of the B sides of the 90s. And so it's kind of interesting for me, obviously, as someone who has been with this music, and loving this music and and seeing the development of the style for so long that that particular, yeah, style somehow sees a reoccurrence, and suddenly it's called techno, and being considered really cool, if it wasn't even considered cool At the time when we were listening to stuff that's Trancey, yeah,


RA 6:24
well, I want to take a step back briefly talk about your debut track from 93 for an angel. I'm sure you've talked about it to death, but it is one of Trance Music's Defining anthems, and I'm very fascinated by how this one song has influenced the genre so much to the point where I still see articles written about it today. So I was just reading comments on the YouTube video for this song, which has like 83 million views. It's like absolutely insane, and some of the comments are really poignant. One person wrote that you're the equivalent of Elvis Bob Marley or Madonna, but in a different genre. Someone else wrote, Paul's music is a soundtrack to my life. Another person said, I've seen this guy's sets. They're unbelievable. Thank you God for allowing me to witness them. I mean, really, like people are so passionate about your music and what you do. First of all, I guess, how, how does it feel to to know that?


PVD 7:38
Well, it makes me very grateful because, when I was a kid, and I was behind, you know, what they call the Iron Curtain, and there was like, not really a perspective for me in my life, music was the only gateway for me and being able, for the majority of my life now, to actually make music, and also To live from the music and live with the music. The only people that enable me to do this, the people that sort of listen to my music, that sort of, you know, kind of pay for my music, come to the shows and, yeah, grateful is the only thing that sort of comes to mind with it, and on the other hand, is as well, not really that I would need it, but it's also kind of like, you know, always pushing me to be even better next time around. But


RA 8:34
what do you think separates an artist or musician that has brief success, which we see so much in the industry with someone like yourself who has left really an enduring fingerprint on so many people's lives.


PVD 8:50
Well, it is relatively easy, especially with the modern day technology, to make one big track, if you pair this up with proper PR and the right Tiktok moment, then you know, you can leave a little, a little mark in terms of having longer lasting impact. I think you need to have a very clear artistic idea as well, and a certain approach to the music. It's not that you can manifest this idea in words, it's just something that you feel there's something that drives you as a person, and that shines through in your music. And I believe this is even though it's a word that's used very often in in not the best way, but that's really authentic. And I think this is what people actually connect to, and this is when people follow you, maybe longer than just one track?


RA 9:43
Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. I want to talk about your most recent album. This world is ours. It came out earlier in the year. Tell me about the album title.


PVD 9:54
Well, this world is ours. Is it's pretty much about me. So. Of like, you know, on a sort of like thought line of what is AI doing with us as humanity. You know, we have, like, very early stages of what AI is, and it's already influencing us massively. Now, if you kind of like, dig a little deeper, you will find quite a lot of experts that say there's a self awareness flick. When AI thinks it's its own entity, then we actually really have an issue. It's like, you know, if, if, whatever that, let's call it the thing knows it exists, then it will identify threats. It will identify opponents, and that will be, first of all, as humans. And right now, I don't see a point where this actually topic is anyhow addressed, where anyhow this is approached properly. And so, yeah, so by thinking through this, there was, like, a lot of like inspiration to kind of make music in a certain way and approach it in a certain way, even to the point that I kind of, like, I made a little bit of an experiment. I typed into an AI generator, write a poem, and it came back with something so amazingly human, really, that it scared me, and I got an AI generated narrator to speak the poem, and On the album, there's this little thing called the poem, wow. And it's that, and that sort of, like, shows the actual real danger, because it's so beautifully human. And the way how the guy speaks, you just want to hug the guy, despite the fact there is no guy to be hugged, because it's aI generated. So it's like, in a way, it's like, it's also to remind ourselves, like, what differentiates us from algorithm, it's our humanity is empathy. That's where the album comes from, and that's where the album title is coming from.


RA 12:12
Yeah, really poignant, I think, very true. You said in a past interview that you see your music as a way to escape from reality and a way to receive positive energy. How does that square with seeing music as a pathway for political change? Like, can those two things coexist?


PVD 12:36
If somebody is charged with positive energy and a smile on their face, they walk through life differently, and that, in itself, actually will enable more friendly dealing with each other, you know. And so therefore, I truly believe there's, you know, it's all interactive. You know, it's like if you go out, if you go to a club, that's not out of social life, that's not out of society, that's a part of entertainment. And so it's like, you know, we all interact constantly with each other, and that positive, emotional and energetic drive that you get from electronic music, from an event, from festivals, this is something that leaves an impact,


RA 13:21
yeah? And I do, my hope is that in the future, or even in the next few years, as AI does become more of a thing, these spaces are going to be even they'll become more and more special, because it's like the only place where you're really having, like, human to human interaction,


PVD 13:38
yeah, by the way, it's probably also just a question of time that we have aI generated DJ sets or something like that, but still, the interaction then will still need to come from a human to human, you know. So I believe there's, you know, more positive than negative, but we have to be aware of it, and we have to kind of like, take out what separates us from a machine.


RA 14:05
I've seen you DJ in a shirt that says, Make peace, not war. You've been pretty outspoken about, yeah, about conflicts, geopolitical conflicts, in the past. I also learned that you were part of the rock, the Vote campaign in the US a long time ago. I mean, I'm American, and I was pretty, like, delightfully surprised to see that I think you and Bono are the only two like non American musicians to ever engage with us politics. You know, in those early, early years when you were growing up here, electronic music seemed to really represent this. It was like an audible expression of freedom because of its total, you know, freedom from the rules. And you know, in the last 30 years, it's become such a huge industry, which you're a part of. Do you think it's. Embodies that that energy.


PVD 15:03
Some of it still embodies that energy. But obviously a lot of what we see in here is kind of catering to a very short attention span. To me, some of the best pieces of electronic music, they still eight, 910, minutes long. As an example, on the album, there's a track called against the algorithm, because there was no way to make it any anyhow, shorter than 10 minutes. So it's just like this. The music still exists. It's a bit more difficult to find, because if you just consume your music on Spotify, then you're basically a victim of the algorithm, and you just get the same sounding stuff on and on. And it may be, despite the fact that we have much more outlets, maybe it's even more difficult to find that music these days because all the channels are stuff with the ever same sounding stuff.


RA 15:54
Yeah, it's I was asking somebody recently what music they listened to, and they just, like, literally didn't know what to answer, because they said they just listened to Spotify. And I think, because I'm a music journalist, I, you know, my experience of listening to music is different. But, um, yeah, I do think that that is becoming more and more like the norm.


PVD 16:14
I was asked this, like, you know, question also before. So like, you know, back in the day when there were maybe 100 new releases every week, you know, on vinyl. And he went to the record store, maybe I, I bought 10, and maybe two or three of the records actually made it into the set the next weekend. The promise now we probably have, I don't know, 10,000 100,000 new tracks every week, but it's still only two or three tracks that make it into next week's set, so the quantity just jumped. The quality, not necessarily.


RA 16:52
You seem like a very passionate person, and without you know going into detail, I know you suffered from an accident a few years ago that left you with some serious health issues, and I think at that point, you know, you didn't necessarily need to continue touring like you were already really established and successful. What's compelled you to continue your career at such an intense pace? I mean, you're still really, you know, I'm right now we're doing an interview squeezed in like an hour between other interviews and a flight, which is incredible.


PVD 17:29
Well, I think it's really, it's my passion for music and the importance, the importance of music in my life that sort of like, you know, kept me going at the end of the day. I remember at one point when I was in hospital, is like, the professor was like, treating me. Mainly, he was like, ask me, so it's like, where do you think this is like, going? And I said, Well, I would like to be back on stage at one point, and then he asked me, So when do you think this is going to be? And I told him, specifically, I would like to be at EDC in Vegas. It was a very ambitious target to do that, but it was also something that sort of gave me a lot of drive and a lot of push to kind of never give up, despite all the love that I received and all the energy that sort of like kept me going. But like, you know, for myself, that that wish to be able to do again, what I love doing was something that really drove me because, you know, in the beginning, when I was delivered into hospitals, like they told my wife, I most likely don't remember who I am or who she is, and I effectively had to learn to eat, to speak, pretty much everything. It was like pretty much all gone. And the first five, six weeks, I was in the wheelchair, not knowing if I will ever be able to walk again. So it was very, very drastic. So for me to have that ambitious goal, to be on stage again was a very driving component of of healing. I guess you know, when you ever go towards something, you may be able to, you know, unlock some resource of energy somewhere.


RA 19:23
That reminds me. I just finished reading this book, and now I'm blanking on the name about this. This guy wrote it, who was in he was in Auschwitz. But basically, the takeaway from the book is that people who have like, hope and a vision for themselves in the future, the ones who actually end up enduring longer than anybody else


PVD 19:48
Yeah, and a very important part, and luckily enough, I had that is actually love, if you have somebody to fight for. And I had that as like, you know, I totally understand, like when I was on horse. Hospitals like, you know, the you always get the question, so how much pain do we have on a scale from like one to 10? I always said 100 and I understand everyone who just says, Look, I gave up. I can't do this anymore because I I had neurological injuries. So my analytical center was always telling me, you in massive pain, despite the fact that may or may not have been. I mean, I broke my spine too, so, yes, I had pain, but my brain was over exaggerating that information to a scale that was unbearable. And love was really the thing that sort of, like drove me to the point of, I can do this, you know, and, and I think this is, like, something that's really, really important, and maybe also one of the reasons why I'm so grateful to still be here and to still be able to do whatever I love to do, and even the things I don't like, but you know, at least I'm able to do them.


RA 20:55
Yeah, wow. It's a pretty amazing story, I guess you know on some like, closing notes. I mean, what do you want to see more of like? I mean that in a broad sense, I mean in music, but also just in the world that we're living in.


PVD 21:18
I would like to see more understanding for each other, more empathy, not discriminating someone because that person maybe has a different view on certain things in the world, and not discrediting someone because he sort of thinks of certain things in a different way than you. It's about interaction. It's about communicating with each other and finding a common ground. And I think we need much, much more of this. Like, you know, you just need to pop up your social media and you see five, six topics that are topics that are so, in a way, insignificant, but still so hyped up, and they create gaps in societies. And I just wonder why it's like, you know, we have some serious challenges on this planet, and we need to kind of try and solve them, but we can only do this together. It's like, it doesn't make any sense that one corner of the world is trying it and the other ones don't. We need to get everyone involved. We need to get everyone to communicate with each other, and empathy is the key, in a way, trying to understand. You know your opponent,


RA 22:27
It's your last dance ever - what do you want to hear?


PVD 22:34
Wow. CB, by Luke Howard, I don't know that.

I don't know it's like, you know, there's, like, there has this genre popped up. I don't even know if he's affiliated with it or not. It's called, like, Neo classic. And I would he's completely different than that. But probably still, the I don't know closest to describe that. That was, by the way, also my first dance at my wedding.


RA 23:03
Oh, that's really sweet. Thank you so much for your time. It's been really great talking to you.

very interesting. thanks for sharing. I didn't know Ra covered trance. I thought they were too trendy for that. And perhaps there was a time where they were....

The track that he mentions in the interview "Against the algorithm" is actually pretty neat.

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