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Got a question: ASK Armin van Buuren or Dave Lewis a Question!! (pg. 3)
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| ShadoWolf |
Armin: boxes or briefs?
Armin: you graduated with a law degree... do you have any plans to trade in the turntable for the briefcase? (i.e. practice law) |
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| RobVox |
| quote: | Originally posted by RaVVaR, ShadoWolf
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Updated, thanks!
RobVox |
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| Fresh Prince |
Hey guys, being an avid AvB fan :p I'll try save you some questions
already been answered by Armin or others.
Congratulations to Robvox for getting the interview, I wasn't so lucky :(
My question to Armin: Please try ID the IDs from your livesets I've posted on AvB forum? Thanks!
For Dave: Get me Dance Valley V.I.P. pass please :)
01: Start to finish how long does a track take to create; walk us through the creation process?
Armin van Buuren:
"All my biggest tracks are made in four hours. Really, it’s true, ask anybody else.
All the biggest tracks are made in four hours."
02: What about this rumor: collaboration with gabriel & dresden, can you tell us anything? Do you have any collaborations with any other producers coming up?
M.I.K.E.! :p
03: Communication 2004: will there be a single release?
Armin van Buuren:
"[20:17] yeah, but ehm... is it communication 2004?"
:p my fav.!
I wonder what it really is.
04: Clear Blue Moon, Communication, Blue Fear, Rapture (AVB Remix) any thoughts on your style from then to now, plans to re-visit some of those sounds? Vocal Trance?
Armin van Buuren:
"Trance, let’s face it, the rift sound of trance is dying. I still play a few of those records, but the formulaic rift sound is over. Because you know, we’ve heard that. But there are a lot of other great records out at the moment. That are on a line between progressive and trance; it’s great. What Markus Schultz is doing..."
05: Thoughts on Scooter and Dj Sammy as concerning Trance, its time we know the truth.
Armin van Buuren:
#1
I've never called the music I play trance, its just the people that give it that label, I call it electronic music. Dance music will always remain, I just hope it develops into a more underground feel, and people like DJ Sammy and all those people, respect to them but thats not trance.
#2
"It's very important to try to help the genre itself to evolve. I consider Paul Oakenfold to be the godfather of trance, and he is just one of the most important people for electronic music, in general. Many people make trance into a formula, but trance isn't a formula! It's a genre that is strongly based on emotion. It's still a very young genre. I'm not talking about commercial trance that you would hear on the radio; I don't consider that to be true trance music. I'm talking about true trance."
#3
Well, I think it's unfortunate and a bit of a pity the people call the music that Lasgo and DJ Sammy make trance. No disrespect to those artists because I think they are great artists, but that's not trance - it's not the trance that I call trance."
07: You say trance must become more "underground." Please define what you mean by "underground.?" Your plans to help trance become more "underground?"
Armin van Buuren:
"Basically it's just giving it a label, and the trance that I call trance is the old trance sound from '95-'96, the productions of Matt Darey, Oliver Lieb, Oakenfold, you name them. For me that's the classic trance sound. I know that a lot of people think that commercial, formulaic music with a vocal breakdown and big a riff, that's trance, but it's definitely not trance for me. I think the old classic trance sound needs some improvement but it's still working for me and for big crowds. I play for a lot of sold out venues every week, so I don't see the trance sound disappearing. As a matter of fact, I think it's really interesting that you feel that the progressive and trance are sort of growing towards each other, with the production of progressive far better than trance. So I see the future of trance as an ideal combination of the production of progressive with the upliftingness of trance records."
08: When doing a big tour (say in the states) how many records and cds do you bring along.
This was discussed on the AvB forum, 4 cases, ie. some 300 records.
I think 80 rec. go into a case.
09: Rap v. Trance (including the drug implications): do you want trance to be as big as rap is today
Armin van Buuren:
"I like some of the productions (rap & hip pop), it’s amazing. It’s not something I would play of course! No, it’s good. Some of it is really good I think. I listen to it but it’s not my favourite.
I don't use drugs, I am against any form of drug use. But, if people ..... I don't wanna bother with peoples lives... People wanna take drugs thats fine with me. I think we just have a more liberal attitude towards drugs in general in Europe. I don't know, I can understand the concern. I am in doubt about the whole rave thing I don't think it is going to work anyway because you cannot just stop it like that. It will only make the scene illegal and get illegal raves back...."
11: Who would you consider to be some of the rising stars of 2004?
Armin van Buuren:
"There’s a lot of good talent out there, a lot of good people making music. Perry O’Neill, Markus Schultz, Ozgür Cän; he’s one of the up and coming guys…Ruzvah Delavhari is another."
13: Favorite club in the States that you've mixed at?
Armin van Buuren:
"That is a difficult question and I will tell you why and you may think it’s a political answer. Because, If I say a favorite venue then all the other venues would be offended. That is not the real reason. I mean I just played on a boat from Stockholm to Helsinki and there was about 400-500 people, small crowd but a big floor. I was playing a four hour set and the sun was coming up, this was 36 hours ago. The sun came up slowly and we were on the ocean and there was big chunks of ice because it’s so cold there. So you see this boat and I was playing on the main deck and the captain was on the floor above me so I could see from my DJ booth when I turned around I could see the sun come up with all the chunks of ice, and this big ship going through the ocean playing this really good music and I was like ing hell, Jesus Christ, so I can not really say what is my favorite venue. I mean that was a magic moment, the Columbus booking was good, New york was good, Miami, everywhere I go. I just did a tour in Australia, last month, in January. I did six hour sets in every major city in Australia to promote the album as well. Every six hours there were at least 1500 people, can you imagine? 1500 people! If there is a good sound system and there is a sound system and 1500 people you don’t care about the venue, you just go."
14: If you met someone who has never heard of trance before, or just doesn't know much about it and they only had time to listen to two tracks, what two tracks would you mix for them? What ONE track best suits your style at the moment?
Armin van Buuren:
"Theres alot, honestly... If you listen to my sets you'll probally know what my favorite records are. I always have a tune of the week, theres alot of good records out at the moment. I am really strongly against the top 10, for every moment theres a great record."
15: When you are making a track, do you have any idea weather it will be huge or suck before you try playing it somewhere?
Armin van Buuren:
"Sometimes I do. I usually have one or two tracks I'm currently working on which I'm testing if the night is good, and I want to surprise people with something new. But on the 76 album there's also some downtempo stuff which I obviously didn't test on a dance floor. So there is a difference between being a producer and a DJ, because as a producer I try to create a different sound that would be interesting for me as well, just a chill out track."
16: Armada is getting big : lots of armadanights (ibiza, wmc, the netherlands,...) & you have your own tent at dancevalley. How does it feel? Did you guys expect Armada to be such a succes, and so soon?
Armin van Buuren:
"We started a label about a year ago. A lot of small record labels have seven or eight people working for them. We decided to start with only two people on the payroll. We support everything from progressive to techno. There's this new wave coming, I call it progressive trance, we really want to focus on this new sound,
Armada is my label, set up together with Maykel Piron, ex-head of A&R at Warner, and David Lewis my manager. And the label was so successful, the first week of sales for vinyls and stuff was so good, that we thought we could expand our horizon. I just started a new label called Electronic Elements. We are releasing more of the left side, more progressive, deep kind of trance productions, its still trance, but the new 2004 sound."
19: What was your inspiration to start mixing Trance?
i.e What songs did you hear that made you want to DJ for a living?
Did someone refer you to Trance or did you discover it by yourself?
Personally I think Ben Liebrand said it best:
"Armin van buuren, who I was fortunate enough to meet already years ago, in a time when he was inspired by my mixes, is now an inspiration to practically every DJ who is into qualiity trance music, and also an inspiration to me."
Armin van Buuren:
#1
"If you look at everything now, it may seem there was a really good schedule designed for me to be in this position, I was a really big fan of electronic dance music, I think it had a lot to do with the atmosphere in Holland at the time. Holland was one of the first countries to adopt dance music into their culture and we were the first ones to have really big raves. I grew up in that atmosphere in the early 1990s, and I was very interested in how dance music was made. I invested a little bit into equipment and I started making my own tracks, but didn't think anything would come from it, so I started with my law degree and all of a sudden one of my tracks blew up and that's why I am sitting here right now. It's one dream. it's great, every day something new happens. It's fantastic."
#2
"I listen to so much music. Everything from Pink Floyd to Sting to George Michael, the Orb, Depeche Mode, U2, you name it! I recently bought Firebird from Delita. Jean Michel Jarre, classical things, BT, Chicane, everything! I like, I bought the new Dido album, I buy everything. When I go to a CD store I always end up with a pile this big and I go home and I don’t turn on the TV, I just listen to music. That’s what I like. I like listening to music. I like to hear what other people have, what ideas and stuff. I think it’s important to always have an open mind to other music.
My parents always used to listen to a lot of different music, especially names like Mozart, Jean-Michel Jarre and Klaus Schulze.
Fav. trance tune I think Li Kwan – Point Zero. Some of the old Oliver Lieb, BT stuff. There’s a lot of records.
If you would go to me to my vinyl storage room and we listen to records, then we would be there for days.
Tracks that got me started in the music business:
Age of Love - Age of Love (Jam and Spoon remix)
This is one of those "trance avant le lettre" records which set path to follow back in the 90's
Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight (Ben Liebrand remix)
Both the original as well as my remix are one of my favorites, the original for it's suspensfull build-up and liebrand's remix for providing the extra icing on the cake.
Sade - Love over pride (armin van buuren remix)
An exclusive remix made by me some 12 years ago in my earliest days of my musical career, featuring the drums from Public Enemy."
20: How did you start DJing (how did you get your equipment/records/record deal/etc.?) Did you start out small and progress into your current status or did you try to accelerate your DJ career quickly?
Armin van Buuren:
"I bought some equipment, started experimenting, I DJed at a local club, local student bar, nothing big, I had to clean the toilets afterward. Just like everybody. I played parties-when I was in elementary school, I played sets, whatever. I always fiddled around on my dad's turntables. But I think everybody does that, there's nothing special about it. And then I made a couple of hits."
21: You graduated with a law degree, do you have any plans to trade in the turntable for the briefcase?
(i.e. practice law)?
Armin van Buuren:
"I got my degree in December 2002, so I am a qualified lawyer."
Law was his choice when he lost out on a ballot to be admitted to the medical faculty.
Now a qualified lawyer specialising in copyright laws, Armin continued to pursue his dream while studying. |
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| ShadoWolf |
copyright law, eh? very interesting!!
Followup questions to follow... |
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| RobVox |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fresh Prince
Hey guys, being an avid AvB fan :p I'll try save you some questions
already been answered by Armin or others. |
Thanks for the update, I was aware of many of those answers and plan to ask questions in a new way, possibly regarding subjects already coverd, but with more detail. Thank you for the easy reference.
RobVox |
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| Wildfir3 |
| could u ask him if "Umek vs Speedy J - Gatex vs Krekc (Armin van Buuren Edit)" is actually his edit? cuz i can't seem to find any info on it anywhere :) |
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| RobVox |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fresh Prince
Hey guys, being an avid AvB fan :p I'll try save you some questions
already been answered by Armin or others. |
Okay, I refined the questions, and will continue to do so, so keep them coming.
RobVox |
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| RobVox |
The interview is about a week away now (29-05-2004) so keep the ideas/questions coming.
Thanks.
RobVox |
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| Guardian<>Angel |
Ask:
Armin: You think there is an age when people should stop clubbing? Seeing some of the older people in the club can be scary.
Dave: Hardest thing about managing?
GA |
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| Photo_bot_2k1 |
what would be funny is if he read this thread online and came to the interview ultra prepared for all your questions
lol ;) |
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| Oli |
| Q: "Was i sick on your shoe? if so, very sorry, but it was genuinely food poisoning and i was ill for 2 days, if thats any consolation.." |
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| SillyR |
I have a question:
Why did he come all the way to Hawaii for vacation and he didn't bring one single record? Couldn't he do a little gig for us? Just one.... :p
Aaaargh.. why do DJs come to Hawaii for vacation and never to spin?? :whip: :whip: |
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