1. You have been in the EDM scene for a while now. How long exactly have You been a Dj/producer for ?
Dj Observer: I have been a DJ for 10 years now. In the beginning I was mainly in Austria, and from time to time in Hungary. Meanwhile I can say that I have better and more faithful friends outside Austria than inside my home country. That's a pity… but electronic music has not become accepted apart from the charts and the underground scene in Austria so far. As a producer I am working since 3 years, I have made the "electronic music producer" course on the "SAE-institute" in Vienna, followed by my first own production. Well, I just made it to a national ("Super Austria") compilation with this… 4 years ago I met the most important person for my career, Daniel Heatcliff.
2. What first hooked You into this ? I bet it was an elusive chooone ? or was it the nature itself ?
Dj Observer: I haven been interested in music since my childhood, when I recorded the chart show with Simone Angel on my tape recorder in front of my TV. The next day I went to school with my walkman, which was as bulky as a shoe box, listening to this tape… When I was 16 I went out, had my first contact to a professional DJ, and suddenly I noticed that it is my big dream to enthuse the people being a DJ myself.
3. Ok, so far so good, we do know a bit about Your past, now, please tell me what upcoming projects have You got lined up that You can fill us in on ?
Dj Observer: This summer I will perform for the Juicy Ibiza opening @ Privilege, but before I will go to Belek/Turkey for 2 weeks to play for the "X-Jam", where school classes will travel together after their final examinations just for party at the Magic Life (all inclusive) club. This month I was performing with the Chemical Brothers at the Heineken Green Room in Vienna, which was really a huge and good party. And during the summer, there are some forthcoming festivals where I will support for example Tiesto in Romania, and Paul van Dyk in St. Pölten/Austria. I am really looking forward to play with Paul again.
4. I have seen lately You are a very busy man nowadays, a man with a mission, a man with a plan... but what can You tell us about the future, in terms of productions ?
Dj Observer: Last January, Daniel Heatcliff, David Barnes, and me founded our label, events and promotion company "Navida Music". We currently have a lot to do, as our productions and remixes, for example for Markus Schulz's project "Dakota" and for Solarstone's project "Haylon" are very successful. Also our first release on "Black Hole" with the name "Fake Call" is part of the playlists of the World's most famous DJs. With "Steelfish" we are going to release on Robbie Rivera's "Juicy" label. Many people are asking themselves, what our general style is. Is it Trance ? House ? I characterize my style as "Advanced Electronic Dance Music", which is not excluding any specific genre. I just play what people like to listen to, I think this is what is tagging a good DJ. But back to steelfish: this summer our first vocal house track with Jenny Casparius "Hot Like Fire" will be released. On Discover Records we have one more project "Dust & Heatcliff". Elian Dust is my Trance-pseudonym. As in Austria Trance is unfortunately not existing, I decided to release the uplifting Trance stuff as "Elian Dust". This year I will release the follow up to "Eastern Dawn" under this name.
5. Remix wise, do You remix choones into an EDM format or is there more that You would like to give the listener something to listen to ? (ie: Roger Shah has the Balearic sound, Tenishia the Progressive style etc etc), giving that extra something to a track in order to make it sound the way You love it. In Your own words mate, what's so special about Your remixed choones ?
Dj Observer: I just bought myself a Mac Book in order to produce a bit more at home. Our studio is in Linz, Lower Austria, and unfortunately I just make it there once or twice per month. Daniel is doing most of the work there, but we are just complementing one another and I must honestly say, that it is just possible to be successful in a team. Nowadays, time is very short-dated and you always have to adjust to the forthcoming styles. I am going to make more deep things in future, maybe under a new pseudonym or even as DJ Observer, which I have not decided yet. But I guarantee you that we will release some very hot stuff this year.
6. When it comes to music, being an "Observer" Yourself, what is that special thing that makes You feel being "Observed" by the top EDM leaders, such as Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, one of the 2 prolific names that You had several encounters in the past in top notch places, such as Ibiza and Miami lately ?
Dj Observer: On the one hand I have been in this business for a pretty long time so far, and I already played at the biggest events in Austria 10 years ago. In this country there were no producing artists like in Germany or the Netherlands. So it came, that the promoters only booked artists who played at the bigger parties. And this system doesn't give new comers the chance to play together with the best DJs. But in the meanwhile the promoters noticed that it's not the only way just to look at the names. Some of them are actually looking at what the artist is doing. For example some Austrian promoters heard that I was supporting Paul van Dyk in Hungary, and suddenly I was requested to play with him in Austria as well. On Ibiza and in Miami we played with Robbie Rivera at the Juicy Event, so it was obvious that we also released on Juicy.
7. Speaking about that, You were in America, Miami, to be more precisely, not too long ago, for the annual Winter Music Conference, therefore how did you find the trip ? Are there any interesting experiences you would like to share with us ?
Dj Observer: As I already mentioned, we are releasing on Juicy Music so I told Robbie before the WMC that we want to fly to Miami. So it came that he asked us to play at his party… Sometimes in life things happen by accident, and especially those things are adjuvant for the career. It was my first time in the US and I was always fascinated by this country and it's history and population. You can't report those incredible impressions, you have to experience it. I played with Daniel on the Nikki Beach and it was overwhelming. Every 5 minutes there were people coming to ask "damn, who the f*** are you?". This was really exciting to get such positive feedback as a newcomer. Willie Morales told me that he is playing half of our productions in his sets and he wants to have a "DJ Observer & Daniel Heatcliff" remix as soon as possible. I believe that we finally found our distinctive sound in our productions.
8. What do You hope the average listener takes from Your music ?
Dj Observer: I always try to build my sets up and to keep the voltage up. Sometimes I don't manage it, because then I reach the climax, people are shouting, and I just give more and more. But this is even big fun. Never to give the crowd a break. I always hope that people are open for new music and from time to time it happens that they are screaming when we play one of our tracks. I love that...
9. Your song "Fake Call (3 PM Ocean Drives Mix)" along Daniel Heatcliff, one of my favorite remix right now, where did the inspiration for this song come from ?
Dj Observer: We created that track after our latest equipment update in our studio. We just tried out a few new plug-ins while we remixed the track of "Solarstone" respectively his project "Haylon". We just played with the pitch of this number. And as it finally did not sound like a remix anymore we decided to make our own track out of it. The 3pm ocean drive mix just arised after our stay in Miami. We had a meeting with Mark from Black Hole Records precisely at 3 pm to talk about our follow up to "Fake Call", so we named the B-Side this way.
10. What does the remix of Robbie Rivera's "New Direction" mean to you and Daniel ? What new direction You gave to the original track, please share that with us, thanks :)
Dj Observer: Our remixes were always very straight – a good mixture between that what we like to play ourselves, House and Trance… Concerning that remix we wanted to go more into detail. The vocals were perfect for a deep track. We just overlayed a few effects to create that thing a bit more spherical, the strings and the classical piano in the break should go more into the classical direction and I always imagined to have a video with a string orchestra and a "Bösendorfer" piano in the background.
11. I have seen Your official website the other day, saying that English version, will be released soon, what can You tell us about it, please give us a brief about it, since there is no date on there.
Dj Observer: I am more than less a "one man show". In the meantime I have a few persons around me who does some work for me, but still I am a person who prefers to make everything himself. The homepage will be finished this summer and it will be a bit more extensive as usual. Besides the monthly radio mixes we will have a video section and a really big audio section. I am not the real "MySpace"-fan, I always focused on my own website, so my page will be renewed every 2-3 years.
12. Since this is the very first time I am having an exclusive interview with You, I was always wondered about one of Your old remixes of the well known British superstar "Gareth Emery - More than anything" of course along Daniel Heatcliff... Who came up with the idea, how was the feeling thinking about it, any support from various Djs ?
Dj Observer: I got to know Gaz at Amnesia/Ibiza, funny story… we both were at the VIP area and I talked to Brian Cross (since a long time an important and good friend), when we got a few drink vouchers. Gaz stood beside him and Brian introduced us. When I left the party I gave him my last 2 vouchers and he was very happy about that. We stayed in contact and since my former girlfriend was studying in Derby, his hometown, I always wanted to go there, but for many different reasons it never worked. Actually we wanted to make a track together, but as it was easier he offered me to make a remix for this track. I still love to play this track as I am emotionally grabbed by the E-guitar-part...
13. Being labeled as one of the most successful Austrian Dj of all time, also having several TNTs (top notch tracks) to labels such as Navida Records, Juicy Music, In Trance We Trust and also having so many gigs in so many places around the world with so many Djs that always made it in the annual DjMag.com TOP100 in the last 10 years or so... Where do You see Yourself in let's say... 5 years from now ?
Dj Observer: 5 years, is a long time, in 5 years so many things can happen. But I would say that we made a big contribution to the EDM scene in Austria and I can afford to retreat a bit. My partners Daniel and David are 5 years younger than me. I would like to pass my experiences and maybe to coach a few young artists and to work with them. I am not forced to stand on the turntables until I am really old. Of course I have fun with that, but if it is still the case in 5 years…? Let's see. For me it's important that Navida and our work in Austria is successful and that we also get known outside Austria. Because there are some guys in the EDM scene who come from Austria. Not only DJ Ötzi... :-D
14. Slowly slowly, I see myself reaching the end of this exclusive interview, which I am willing to ask You, to share some last words with the TranceSound.net community or anyone reading this interview, what would You say ?
Dj Observer: I am very proud that I was given the chance to make an exclusive interview for TranceSound.net and I must honestly say, that I make some interviews for foreign magazines or radio stations from time to time, but you are from a country where the EDM scene is a basic component in the community and this makes me really proud. I would be glad to meet you on one of my next gigs, for example in Ibiza or maybe soon in the UK! Thank you for the interesting questions, I had much fun in answering them!
PS: And if you meet me one day, just call me "Obsi" ;-)
Interview made by Cosmin Lukacs (TranceSound.net admin/founder)
Links:
Dj Observer official website
Dj Observer @ MySpace
Cosmin Lukacs official website
Cosmin Lukacs @ MySpace
Navida Music official website
