Zone Magazine Issue 037 Spring 2023

What label has been the best to work
for?
I started releasing music in early 2009 on smaller
labels. The more I progressed as a producer, the more
recognized were the labels I could release my tracks on. In
spring I just had finished my track called, Adiabatic‘ and sent
it to Paul van Dyk’s label Vandit Records with no hope that
they would ever listen to my stuff or even reply to my mail.
Therefore I almost forget about my demo submission to them
and was really, really surprised when they answered a few
weeks later and asked me if the demo still was available for
signing. Of course my answer was yes, and this was just the
beginning of my release catalogue on Vandit. I felt really
welcome to the label (and still do) which is one of the reasons
why I prefer releasing my music there. Another reason is the
quite familiar atmosphere with the label team and the other
artists as we all support each other and his music. The result
of this support are collaborations with other Vandit artists like
Marc van Linden & D-Gor, Rafael Osmo, TH3 ONE and Jardin.
I know from my own experience with
mental heath, and talking and
reading about others, it’s a hard thing
to deal with when you need to DJ
and perform. How do you care for
yourself in this case?
I’m in the happy position that I to date never had
any mental health issues. I try to live a healthy life with no
drugs and smoking and no alcohol excesses and with enough
time to relax my body AND soul to almost never be stressed. I
hope that my lifestyle helps to avoid these problems. And
making music is also one of my secrets. While doing this
interview, I’m already looking forward to my next studio
session.
Please if you could tell us about your
brother. I worked with him for a long
time, and he seemed a great person.
He left us a few years ago now, but
he will always be remembered here
at Zone Magazine and at Redbox
Records, both his music and writing
will be missed.
It’s almost six years that my brother Andreas sadly
and unexpected passed away. I really miss him to date and
it’s still hard to speak about his death.
It’ s almost 25 years ago that we both decided to
start DJ'ing. I already had a few tracks on vinyl and we tried
to mix these few ones on two borrowed turntables. Of course
our first mix tapes were pretty awful but we supported each
other to improve and soon our skills improved more and
more. Before we started learning DJ'ing together, he played
the bass guitar in severals local rock bands but when I started
collecting trance, house and techno vinyl he got more
interested in this kind of music and so one day he came to me
and told me that he had quit as a bass guitar player and
wanted to focus on electronic music from that day on. We also
started to go to local techno and house events at that time
which also was really funny. We also sometimes produced
together and finally realized a fun psytrance track that got
released as our Liquid Trance side project.
During that time I also introduced Andreas to Zone
Magazine where I had gotten in contact with due to my
releases on Redbox Records. He directly started working for
the magazine, writing countless articles and doing many
interviews.