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Matt Darey Interview will Appear in this month's Amplify Magazine
Here is a sneak peek.
Matt Darey has been one of the pioneers of trance music since its early days, beginning production work in 1994 and becoming a major influence on the following generation of trance DJ’s and producers. The Leicester-born Darey was a marketing student when he had his first hit. Released as part of a half-hearted university project, Overdose ironically became a runaway success and launched Darey headlong into the world of trance production. Since 1998, he has sold well over 2 million trance singles and albums and has been responsible for some of trance music’s most popular remixes and productions. I got a chance to interview him Saturday, October 21, 2006 outside of Club Cyber.
Aliases: 8-Bit Trip, Bi Boy Action Squad, DJ Bardot, DSP, Li Kwan, Mash Up, MDM, Mudblood, Paul Austin, Spacebaby, Sunburst, Tekara, Xstasia
In Groups: Lost Tribe, M3, Orgasmatron
Biggest Hits:
Lost Tribe – Gamemaster
Matt Darey – Liberation
Matt Darey – Beautiful
Tekara – Breathe in You
Sunburst - Eyeball
S: So you live in London now [not Leicester], did you move to London for your career?
M: Yeah to seek my fame and fortune, yeah. We have these awards called the BPI awards [Brit Awards] and I took a demo tape down there and stood outside and I met this guy Seymour Stine, the guy who signed Madonna to Sire Records, who’s like their top guy, I met him through this other guy I met outside and within 24 hours we both had 6 album deals. I never actually recorded one album, but I spent all the money. [Laughing] From student rags to riches.
S: So promote yourself: talk about your label, your website [and] your radio show.
M: The record label, Darey Products, has been around for a few years now and its really kind of just to release my own stuff, because with the record label I was working with it got to the point where I realized: I could do better.
M: Running your own record label now is just so easy. We don’t even do vinyl anymore because our distributor, as will most of them, went down the pan. Its really just digital download. There’s nothing to it: you just send everyone a link nowadays and then put it up for sale a few months later after you send it to the DJs. The main job of the record label is to promote the tracks and nowadays it’s easy to get them to the right people, and obviously they self promote. That’s the beauty of club music, it just promotes itself: make a decent tune and people will play it, don’t and they wont, you know.
S: So how many downloads do you sell for a track? Is it more money than vinyl?
M: When we released our last single, ‘Eternity’ we noticed we got 1500 downloads in the first week, half that the second week and half that the third week. We also noticed that after the first week it was on some of the file shares, after the second week it was on all of the file shares and after three weeks everyone had the track.
M: The whole download thing is a bit of a nightmare with the file sharing to be honest. Its ok for guys like me who have sold a million albums, sold loads of singles and had hit records, you know, I’m ok, I do it for the love of music now, but for the kid starting out it’s a real problem. If your downloading this new kid’s track, how is he ever gonna leave his day job and take music seriously. It is a serious problem because you will see in about 5 years time your gonna see less people making music because they are gonna be working in the cities to make a decent living. It isn’t a short-term problem, so BUY IT KIDS.
M: For people who are already established its ok for us guys. When I made my very first record, back in the rave days, I made it myself, pressed it myself, took it around to the record stores myself, and made enough money to give up my day job, whereas a kid now cant do that, they get file shared.
S: Lets talk about the radio show, Nocturnal Transmissions.
M: I was listening to the radio shows around and I thought, no one’s playing the music I really like; I like music from quite varied genres.
M: I really thought there was something missing. I only started the show officially in April, and it has been growing in popularity each week. We started on Episode 34, when we got syndicated from an internet show, and it has grown from there.
S: There was a rumor a few years ago that you didn’t like to DJ and would rather make production in the studio than play out. Was that true?
M: It was actually more of a case of I used to rather be on the other side of the decks, I thought going to a night club and working, you know what I mean its kind of like … , I didn’t realize how fun it would be. I produced my tracks in a week, like Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday, then I’d go out clubbing on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, in London you can go out until Wednesday. I was just going out partying every night, getting hammered and having a great time, and I couldn’t see the point, I’d rather be on this side of the decks on the podium, you know, giving it the large one. Then I disappeared for a few years, I kind of burnt myself out doing that, then I thought, I was still able to go out clubbing, but I wouldn’t want to get wasted all the time, because I have to concentrate on my job. So it was actually therapeutic for me to start DJing which was good, and it’s great fun as well, I didn’t realize how much fun it would be.
Learn more about Matt at www.mattdarey.com
His new single, Matt Darey – Always is available for download purchase now.
You can download the full interview soon from www.dougtheslug.ca/aqvayak/ in the releases section.
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Check my website for tracklists from any of my past gigs.
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