Dixon and Gerd Janson
Steffen Berkhahn, AKA Dixon, and Gerd Janson are two of the hardest-working and most celebrated DJs in Germany. Ranked #1 on Resident Advisor’s yearly “Top DJs” poll from 2013 to 2016, Dixon deploys his subtle and meticulous edits in sets that blur the lines between house and techno. He’s also the co-founder of Innervisions, the Berlin-based label synonymous with house and electronic music that traverses the line between the progressive underground and the commercially viable. A music journalist and RBMA lecture host-turned-DJ, Janson, like Berkhahn, co-owns a record label and spins in clubs around the world. His label Running Back is responsible for blistering analog house releases, and he is a remixer and producer of note, both on his own and as Tuff City Kids with Phillip Lauer. He also co-headlines the long-running Liquid club night at Frankfurt’s Robert Johnson with Thomas Hammann.
In their lecture at Red Bull Music Academy Berlin 2018, Berkhahn and Janson discussed the highs and lows of their jobs as label bosses and full-time DJs, the joy of the All Night Long concept and the ever-changing nature of the electronic music landscape.
Hosted by Christine Kakaire Welcome, everybody, to this very special lecture as part of Red Bull Music Academy 2018. My name’s Christine, and I’m here with two absolute pillars of German house music. Both active for 20 years, or perhaps even more. Both label heads, both A&R, both incredible DJs and both, at certain points, have been called the people’s DJ and also the DJ’s DJ. So we’re going to talk about that a little bit today. Please welcome Gerd Janson and Dixon. Gerd, how does it feel to be back on this sofa as lecturer rather than a journalist? Gerd Janson Hi. Very surreal, or absurd. Christine Kakaire OK. Gerd Janson Don’t really know the difference between both of them. Yes, it’s frankly pretty weird. But in your trusted hands... Christine Kakaire In my, well let’s see... Gerd Janson It will be alright I hope. Christine Kakaire I’m sure it will be. Gerd Janson And we have Steffen here as well. Dixon Hello everyone. Gerd Janson So I think I’ll be fine. Christine Kakaire I think you will, I think we’ll all be fine. But I actually wanted to start by kind of picking up a conversation that I had with Steffen the other night, when we met. I think the context of it is pretty important. It was a party at the Innervisions office, just before you were playing your headlining set at one of the Red Bull Music Festival parties, and it was really interesting because in one ear you were telling me something which I was surprised to hear coming from you, that you felt like you were someone whose caught in between states. Somewhere between popular and unpopular, loved and hated, commercial and underground. Hearing this from one side and on the other side seeing the fruits of your labors, seeing the entire Innervisions ecosystem in front of me. So I’d love to ask you a little bit more about what that state feels like for you. Dixon I guess, as with everything in these times that we’re living in, things change very fast, or can. I think in my career it was very often that there were certain doors open that it took me a while to enter. So I do think actually that’s maybe something that I learned over the years, that you should not be too fast, or should not run through your career or your life in general, and you should reflect a little bit about it, and very often when a door was opened that was the moment for me to reflect on it. Should I do a residency in Ibiza? The offers are there for four years, I guess, and I still haven’t decided. Obviously I didn’t do it yet, I don’t have a residence in Ibiza. It’s always the same routine, you play in Ibiza, and then it’s the end of the season, and then for the next year there’s people coming and asking you if you might do something on a regular basis next year, and then you immediately say no. Or at least me. Then you reflect about it and it’s not black and white anymore. But so far I decided not to do anything. The point of it is that I had to learn in my life, in my career, don’t answer an email straight away, leave it there maybe for a day before you answer. Don’t answer that question straight away, give it a little time to reflect on it and see the good and bad in it. A lot of the doors mean you don’t know what is behind it. You don’t know how it is there. Still don’t take every possible door that is open. Learn to say no, and see what is good for you. Christine Kakaire Why is your first instinct to say no, to these types of possibilities? Dixon I think I’m fighting with two different things. One thing is that I don’t want to repeat myself. I’m actually bored of stuff that I’m doing after a while. I want to move on. So I don’t want to be too confident in the position that I’m in and I want to try and test other things. The other thing is that I do believe that you have to find yourself and have to see actually what you are. So that’s maybe the hardest actually, to objectively criticize yourself, or see what are your limits. I, for myself, I do believe that I’m actually a good DJ, and I can do what I want to do in that field. As a producer for instance, I consider myself as a beginner. You know every track I edit, remix or do, it feels always like beginning from scratch and I have so many extremely talented people around me that I’m thinking like, “Alright this is your field.” Well I do it occasionally, but it’s not my main profession. It took me 15 years to realize that I always thought “Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, with my knowledge as a DJ I’m going to be the best producer in the world.” I’m not. And I think it’s important to look at you and find the limits you maybe have. Define them, and then see how far you still can go. Other than always just going with the flow and just doing everything. I think that’s OK in the beginning of your careers. Just try everything. I mean you have to find yourself. But once you tried a lot of things, it’s time to actually... And this is what a lot of people don’t do, to actually sit down or take the time to reflect on what you’ve done and then see where you want to go. It’s not only about, “Do I want to be a DJ, or a producer, or a party promoter?” Or whatever. It’s also about, in my case, a DJ in that field. What kind of DJ do you want to be? If I would be someone that would be hands in the air, partying, drinking all the time, and that is part of my success, is that really what I want to be? If that is OK with you then yeah, go like this. If you realize, “Well that’s what the people maybe want from me, but it’s not really me.” How to fight this? How to just bring to the DJ booth what you are. There’s always times in life when you have to reflect on this. Christine Kakaire I remember hearing and reading about your approach to DJing, it seems to be consistent with what you’ve just said about taking a step back, looking at it objectively. I remember reading once that you said that you aim to have two ‘wow’ moments in every set, and that for the first half an hour you can throw in something a bit weird and a bit wobbly because people will be invested at least for an hour. They want to hear what you’re going to play. Also I want to open this up for Gerd as well, this approach of just taking this overarching approach, being self critical about yourself as a DJ, as an artist. Is this something that you can also identify with? Gerd Janson I think I’m the complete opposite, of Steffen. If he’s a no man, I’m the yes man, I think. Although I never answer emails. I’m still struggling at putting the finger on what I actually do. I still have a hard time saying I’m a DJ, although I guess that’s what I do for a living now. I’ve never been asked, maybe minus the part of being self conscious about everything and anything I do, I never really saw it as a career for myself, or treated it as such. I always went with the flow and I think I’m maybe taking too many opportunities to try out things. Christine Kakaire You mean like... Dixon That’s actually a key discussion between us, right? Whenever we talk we end up talking about this. How much can you do? Why? How long did it take you to decide, finally to not be a journalist anymore? Ten years? Five years? I don’t know. Gerd Janson Ten years at least, I think. Dixon I think we talked about it for four years or something. Christine Kakaire I mean did you feel like it was something that was holding him back or just something that he didn’t need? When you were having these conversations between you. Or did you feel like it was about time that he invested in himself as a DJ and as an artist? Dixon He is definitely a yes man, and I think there were a lot of people that are just expecting from him to always say yes. It was this kind of... Gerd Janson I said yes to this as well, right? [laughs] Dixon I thought that my key point was that he had to say no at some point. Also that there’s just so many time that you have. Also, now with kids and you have to just see what you want to do in the short time that you have. How many times did I get an email at 2:30 AM in the morning from Gerd about something that was obviously business related. I knew he was sitting at his desk somewhere and it’s 2:30 AM in the morning and I was like, “OK, with the weekends that we have...” Gerd Janson I was in a different time zone. Dixon Ah yeah, Australia, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gerd Janson No I think it became, at one point, I started being a music journalist, purely out of being a fan of music. I was interested in this and I never thought I ever wanted to be a DJ or let alone a music producer or something like that. So I was already and always interested in words and writing, so I thought OK maybe this is something I could do or where I could invest time, and being part of club culture in a way that I bring something to the table. But at one point, if you also start to run a label and be a DJ and be more active on that side of things, I think it becomes incompatible, if that’s a word, at one point. Because you can’t go on interviewing people, and writing reviews, and being critic and at the same time being active on that field yourself. I felt people could always say “Yeah, but look at the crap he’s putting out.” I always believed you can do everything, all the time, blah blah blah, and that’s where he maybe is right. At one point you have to make a decision. Christine Kakaire And I believe that decision was made around five-ish years ago, that you stopped actively working as a journalist and you were working for Groove and Spex and also for Red Bull Music Academy. Is the timing of that... Gerd Janson Yeah I think around five years. Maybe it was even earlier that I decided “Oh I need to stop this,” but that’s the yes man again, where it’s hard for me to cut things loose. And I like the people working here, so... Christine Kakaire And how has that cleared up for you, in terms of clearing space, clearing time, clearing more opportunities for creativity? Have you noticed a difference since you stopped? Gerd Janson No. I think I’m unfortunately even busier than ever before, because then I just say yes to other things. Do more remix work, or take on other projects, or even play more than I should maybe. I’m still struggling to find a way, or to manage myself. Christine Kakaire I mean Steffen you also have an incredibly busy schedule and many arms to the projects that you’re involved in. You mentioned the other night that you have slowly started scaling down your DJ gigs and appearances. Do you feel like you’ve found a balance or you’re getting closer to finding your balance? How is your career sitting in amongst like your health and your family and things like that? Dixon Even with being the no man, there still is millions of things that you do, and I think one of the problems of the process is that you have to make decisions like a year ahead. Right now maybe we do bookings for May, June, next year. You never really know what kind of state you are in there, or your family, or your kid, or your parents. There’s so many factors where I’m sitting here now and I make a decision for you and I’m thinking like June, I think this is actually perfect. But then you are there and for some reason one factor is different and you feel like you did everything wrong again.
I think five years ago I started to scale down ten gigs per year. So I was, five years ago, with 150 gigs. And obviously that’s my main work. I have to travel there, I perform there, so this is taking three, sometimes four days a week. So scaling this down is having a huge effect on my life. Now I’m with probably 100 a year, and I think also last year already, and I think for me that’s a good number. But how to actually do them? I tried once to have every month, one weekend off. So at the end of the year you have 12 weeks off. It sounded really good and it started really good in the year but then at a certain point you realized “Alright, if I do this, then I always have this strange break of 12 days,” where you settle in, where you’re with the family again, adjust to everything and your body adjusts to everything, and then after 12 days it’s so hard to go on again. Other than doing maybe three months no gigs, and then have a standard routine. Which is acceptable for your body, your wife, your son, and then you do this one year, and then the next year you come out of the summer and you feel so down that you want to have this one weekend off now. There’s not a perfect answer, because everything around you changes and it’s not just you, it’s the business that changes, the people that you are with change, the people you work with have changed and the only constant for me is my family, actually for the last six years, seven years. But they also grow up. My son is different now with seven than he was with one. It’s a constant struggle. Gerd Janson But we do make it sound like it would be the equivalent to work in a gravel pit or something. Which, it isn’t. I still think it is Willy Wonka’s ticket to the chocolate factory. Christine Kakaire Well I mean to kind of riff off of that analogy of the Willy Wonka experience, I wanted to talk about... I mean you mention that you’re scaling down the number of events but at the same time there seems to be this escalation. Like the Lost In A Moment parties for example, which I haven’t experienced but it seems to be a very, almost utopian... Going into castles, going to islands, perhaps to go back to what you said, Gerd, about Willy Wonka, sometimes those experiences haven’t worked out. I know that you had a couple of issues with some of the bigger events that happened in the last couple of years, so what’s your motivation? Actually, while we’re talking about that, maybe we can bring up photo number three. This isn’t one of the Lost In A Moment events but this is from earlier this year... The screens just behind you. The Innervisions party at Royal Albert Hall. So you might be doing less, but in terms of scale, you’re kind of reaching bigger and bigger. What are some of the costs to you perhaps? Some of the challenges of taking this Innervisions project and all of these off shoots into bigger and bigger spaces that are off the beaten track? Dixon I do think that when you have 100 gigs a year, there’s a couple of numbers that can be just super strange, like this one. I think we got this space offered two years ago if I remember right. It is again one of the doors that I spoke about earlier. We got it offered and at that time we were saying basically no. We felt that this is just too big, this is not going to work out, it’s going to look horrible if there’s... I think there’s space for 5,000 people, what if there’s 3,000 people, and also what do we do there? We are just a dance label, blah blah blah. There’s certain issues that we had. We were like, well it’s a great opportunity, but, no. Once it was gone, we thought, “Alright, actually are we stupid? This space, people will come for the space itself, it’s going to sell out, it’s going to be fine, why did we say no?” We thought it was a missed opportunity, but then a year later, all of a sudden they said, “OK we have this one date, are you ready to do it now?” And we said yes. For the sake of it actually, we still felt like, “It’s going to be wrong. It’s not going work. This is a seated arena, the people are gonna sit and watch what we are doing?” But, after about 12 months of thinking about it, it was like “Alright, let’s try it.”
And I think if you... It’s maybe also this is what I said that, I don’t want to do the same over and over again. If you play the same... We do festivals every year, maybe every two years, usually you would play the same festivals. There’s a certain routine that is great but it’s also boring at some point. To break it up and to do something else, what chances do we have these days? There was time that what we were doing was so underground and so different that everything that was a little bit normal was changed already. Now it’s so normal that in every city there is clubs, they’re good or not, but there’s a structure everywhere. They only thing that you can do is to go to strange places. So that’s what we decided three years ago, let’s try this and do... Maybe four... Let’s do parties somewhere else. This for instance, that example there, [points at image on screen] looks amazing on pictures, it was the hardest struggle we had this year. Just for organizing it, working together with a state-financed house, where no one cares at all. Where you have contracts... Just one point, there was five concerts there. We agreed with the venue that doing all the performances, the doors of the actual room or hall have to be closed so that people who come late cannot enter during a performance. Well, two hours before the show it was clear they are not going to close the doors. And we were like, “It’s in the contract.” and they said like, “No.” They had certain reasons for it, and there was millions of stuff like this happening in that location where on a normal club or normal festival, there’s such a routine and you know that if you request something, the answer is yes or no, but if it’s no then it’s a no, but if it’s yes then it’s going to work. We had to learn a lot there, which in my opinion led to an evening where I was super unhappy, I couldn’t enjoy the moment, absolutely not. But the next day I was again thinking how crazy it actually was, and how special and how much thought we put into it that sometimes didn’t work out, but I didn’t do it for the show the next day, or the two shows that were there the next day, so it’s important to have those experiences if something goes wrong or something is out of the normal line. Christine Kakaire I’d love to talk a little bit about spaces, I think this is a nice moment to take a diversion because I know that for both of you, as DJ’s, you had the opportunity to hone your skills, hone your taste and I guess hone your ability to read the interaction that you’re having with people as residents in particular spaces. Gerd, perhaps we can talk about Kesselhaus, in Darmstadt which is I believe is where you... Gerd Janson Yeah it’s one of the places, or actually the place where I started to DJ. I don’t know if it’s that interesting to talk about it because maybe three persons in this room have ever heard about it. But I know that in this day and age it’s also very attractive to talk about lost places and spaces that actually no one, or almost no one, experienced because in the internet you can look everything up now and have YouTube videos, but I think there are no videos from this place. It’s more like a symbol of what I liked about this culture. It’s like, it’s clubs. I mean I applaud the effort in the Royal Albert Hall, but I would never do something like this, I mean, I would if I get invited to play here, I would probably do it. But, I would never go through all these efforts to make something happen in there. I think that’s also one of the biggest differences between us. I just don’t want to be held responsible for something like this going wrong. Kesselhaus was just a simple club in an old boiler room, not related to the other Boiler Room thing. I just went there every week. The big night was a Monday, and there were DJs playing there every Monday. Sometimes they had guests, but it was usually the same crowd of people. And there were a bunch of other clubs near Frankfurt who followed the same system. We went there every week, or every other week, and certain records you could only hear in those places, on those nights, and you were waiting for them to be played. Like I said, you could only experience it right then and there or you were trying to find out the name and actually went to a record shop and hunted it down.
So this was all in the ’90s. And yeah, I think just this philosophy of how you build a night there and how you play, but I think it’s really hard to do this nowadays because you just had the same crowd of people coming every single week. Now you play to different people all over the world who are maybe a little bit like your crowd because they’re informed by the internet. But I still think it’s a very different way of playing. These days you have to cram everything into 90 minutes or two hours usually and then you go onto the next thing. If you’re given the time and space to play a night from the beginning to the end it’s of course very different. You can steer it much more in any direction you want. Christine Kakaire But you’re also still doing a residency at the moment at Robert Johnson club in Frankfurt. Gerd Janson Yeah but I think I’ve for instance, played more of Panorama Bar here in Berlin than I play at Robert Johnson. I think that’s also where the times have changed dramatically because people also want to see, of course, different DJs. I think this kind of thing, playing every week in one club every Friday or every Saturday might work in some places, some spaces around the world, but I think people would be bored now after a while. The attention span... Dixon The definition itself as a resident, as you just mentioned, changed completely. Back then a resident was every week there. That was a residency, if you were there every two weeks, well you’re the guest DJ. Now residence at Panorama, what is it, every three weeks? Once a month? Gerd Janson Almost once a month, yeah. Dixon So that’s not what we learned was a residence. That you are a guest in that club. Now we use this as a residence because the whole system changed so much. Gerd Janson I’m actually more of a regular, so. I like that word better. Christine Kakaire Do you think that, that opportunity is lost, for up and coming people to have that regular weekly education? The kind of things that you learned, do you think that the opportunity to do that is now lost? Gerd Janson No I don’t think so. It’s different but they learn. I see young DJs that I like a lot and I think they just learn it differently but also over time I think, in general, if you take DJing seriously as an art form, or whatever you want to call it, then you still need to invest time in it. I think a lot of talks about it are very clichéd. You read a crowd, how do you read a crowd? But you just learn how certain moods work with certain records. And you do that over time. You can learn the basics in your bedroom, which was another term from the ’90s, the bedroom DJ. To actually really, really, learn it, you have to do it in front of people. You have to play music to people to see and learn how they react to it. Dixon And how they react if it’s day or night. Or is it late at the night or is it early in the night? Gerd Janson What kind of drugs they took. I mean a booze party is very different to a party with psychedelic drugs. The music. Dixon And how they react in a bigger space, smaller space, there’s so many factors. A good soundsystem, bad soundsystem. Actually, there’s a lot of good soundsystems now a days. We hardly need to worry about the soundsystem anymore. [Gerd shrugs / laughter] Gerd Janson It comes down to taste, you know. I think there’s no certain industry standard as the whole thing grew into an industry. That’s why this weird separation between overground and underground, to me it doesn’t really work anymore. They’re all on Instagram. That’s maybe the... And I don’t want to be nostalgic at all because I think if you look back too much you get a stiff neck. The main difference I think is the industry standard. There is a standard now for everything. The way you dress, the way you dance. Which is fine by me, but it’s just different. Christine Kakaire Steffen, I wanted to ask you about specifically doing these... It’s not so much a residency but you’re doing these All Night Long sets. You’re in the middle of this series of worldwide bookings. What are you getting from it? It’s something that you clearly don’t have to do, but why do you need to do it? Dixon To be... Gerd Janson I think that’s because he then feels like a resident again. Dixon Yeah. In a way, yes. But also as a resident you don’t play open to end anymore. At Panorama you might play ten hours but it’s just ten hours out of 30, or whatever they are open. This is how I started, this is how I learned stuff. This is what gives me the freedom to play all kinds of music. Even if every DJ would say, “Yeah I played two hours and I can do what I want to do.” But it’s not true, you follow a certain formula, depending on where you’re playing right now. Which is what the DJs should do. It’s the mix of doing exactly what you want to do and of what could work here. And as an All Night Long, you set the rules different. As simple as that, I get so much amazing music that is between 95 and 110 BPM and I hardly play them on a festival in Leeds. My main primetime slot in front of 5,000 people, I tend to play my house stuff there. Which is good, I’m a house DJ, that’s fine. To have the chance to play seven or 12 hours is where you can just let yourself go. Also, it’s a way of stopping thinking. When you, or at least when I play two or three hours, I overthink a lot of stuff, and there’s a certain time in DJing where you let loose and I hardly let loose when I play two hour slots. It’s maybe 25 records, and you have your ten favorite records of the moments that you actually play anyway. Then there’s 15 records left and then there’s just five records that kinda work, that make you play your favorite tunes that don’t really work but you want to play them, so you need the other 5 tracks that you have in your pocket and you know, “I have to play this, they’ll all go nuts, it’s gonna be fine.” And then there’s ten records left that change every set, so it’s not really easy for me to let loose on that basis. But when you play seven hours, after three, four hours I’m like “Alright, just let it go,” and then I let it go and that’s what I’m missing on the daily... I’m playing maybe three hours in Ibiza on Friday, then I’m playing in Athens, again three hours I think. Sunday is Sub Club with four hours. Four hours, for me it feels right. I know that after two-and-a-half, three hours, I’m into it. Yeah. Christine Kakaire You’re known for putting together a lot of your own edits, or rearranging certain tracks. You, [points at Dixon] well actually, both of you. Both of you, but I’m directing this to you Steffen, I think particularly when Innervisions began, kinda mid-2000s, you were kinda known with your DJ sets for creating your own edits. Was that a way to escape the restrictions of these two or three hour sets, do you think? Or was it more functional than that? Dixon It’s both. Sometimes it’s making tracks more functional for me, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are more formulaic... More like a formula. There’s certain tracks where I don’t like the length of it, or that the original... Especially in deep house, whatever the exact definition of it is, but in my opinion I play a wide range of house music and one part of deep house, and especially there, the tracks very often for me are too stuffed and the producers are hardly taking out things. You know, it’s always one layer over the other layer and then maybe a break and then the layers are still on there and then it goes to the end. So I’m very often, in my opinion, make the tracks breathe more. I’m not sure if that’s correct but sometimes I make them just shorter, sometimes I take out certain parts, and in some cases I actually additionally put something into it. Last example would be the LCD Soundsystem rework I did where I played the track twice and I was like, “That’s the track I want to play but it really doesn’t work like this, and even if I cut it in certain situations or in certain places then it still doesn’t work for me.” So I basically contacted them and asked them if I could get the parts and it took some while but then I got the parts. I would still call it an edit but it has a completely new beat, certain elements are new, certain melodies are new. But I still have done it in a way that if you’re not a music nerd you might not even realize the difference. And I think that’s a lot of cases like this that I play. I think both of us we have very upfront music and we play stuff... [Gerd makes a face] Yeah, come on. [laughs] And you play stuff for two or three months that is out then and then I play an edited version of something and it works and then the fans or other DJs get it and wonder why it’s not working the way they have it. And yeah, it’s part of why I’m doing all these edits, to make it more fitting. Christine Kakaire I think that’s a perfect opportunity to listen to this particular edit, which is called the “Dixon Retouch,” by LCD Soundsystem, and the track is called, “I Used To.” And I believe this is from earlier this year? That it was released on DFA? Dixon Yeah, it came out in summer I think, or earlier. Christine Kakaire Okay, well, let’s have a little bit of a listen to Dixon’s “Retouch” edit. (music: LCD Soundsystem – “I Used To (Dixon Retouch)”)
Gerd Janson I think what I do is mildly schizophrenic then, compared to what Steffen is doing, but for instance this LCD Soundsystem remix is something I also played a lot. I think I wouldn’t have played the original. And he is a DJ, compared to me, if I’m allowed to make the comparison. Steffen is very elegant in the way he builds everything up and everything comes together and there’s a big drop. And I think I’m more sloppy and all over the place and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s also what I try to do with my record label. If I like something, of course in a certain range, I think I haven’t put out a classic drum & bass record yet, but as long as it’s a certain kind of dance music that is somehow related to house, techno or disco, and if I like it, then it gets a stamp of approval and I put it out. And I think that approach to remixing is similar. You look at it, for the original, and you just ask... It’s similar to DJing. You look at the song, or the track, what would you change or what does it need to have an alternative version? It’s not always better than the original, it’s just an alternative. Most of the time it’s not better. Christine Kakaire I definitely want to play a remix that you’re involved with. Maybe we can bring up photo number eight before we have a listen to that, if you turn around. There we go, very sweet. Who is this gentleman behind you? Gerd Janson The other handsome person on that picture is Phillip Lauer, and he’s a colleague of mine. I don’t know, ten years ago or so he invited me to come to his... Or even more than ten years? It’s foggy, the memory. He invited me to come to his studio to work on music, blah blah blah. And at that time I had a remix request from Roland Appel from Munich, and then that was reason to see if we can work together. And he’s very musical, he’s very quick in replaying melodies, and that was the first thing we did together, and that’s also where the stupid name comes from, we record as Tuff City Kids and we’re neither tough nor kids anymore. Christine Kakaire And you don’t live in the city. Gerd Janson And we don’t live in cities, yeah. We live both in very small towns on the countryside near or around Frankfurt. And I think when we did that remix I read a tag on a toilet wall in a club and because I thought it’s a one-off and we needed a name we just used it and from then I think we have done maybe, I don’t know.. Did you look it up on Discogs? Christine Kakaire A lot. Gerd Janson Yeah, I think around 100 maybe, 100 remixes, or even I think they’re not all on Discogs, so maybe it’s a bit more. Yeah, and we basically treat it as a job. Christine Kakaire Yeah, I read about that, that you meet up one day a week, you go into the studio, you spend a full day there and you graft, you do a lot of work that day. Gerd Janson Yeah, I don’t see it as, maybe people would disagree, but I don’t really see it as an artistic effort. By the way, the German Finanzamt [tax office] also doesn’t see it as an artistic effort because you charge 19% VAT for a remix, if it’s an original production you have to charge 7%. Because they see it as an ”auftragsarbeit,” which is “made to order” in English. Steffen, this is giving him a headache. “How can you agree to do so much stuff?” Of course it has to do with me as a DJ in some way, the way we approach it. But I see it as another project almost altogether. Christine Kakaire Do you have a favorite remix or project or song of each other’s? I’m putting you on the spot here. Gerd Janson I really like that LCD Soundsystem remix. It’s true. [laughter] Christine Kakaire And perhaps Steffen’s favorite will be the one that I’m about to play. Gerd Janson Yeah, I asked him to remix something on my label years ago. Christine Kakaire “The Voice From Planet Love?” Gerd Janson Yeah. Christine Kakaire Which is the track that we were listening to as everyone filed in. But I’d love... Gerd Janson And I think I even asked him years ago to do an original track for a compilation I was putting together for Rush Hour, which is called Music for Autobahns, and it’s kind of car-listening music. But he never lived up to the task. Dixon Nope. Christine Kakaire He didn’t answer that email. Well, let’s have a listen to one of the more recent Tuff City Kid remixes, which actually wasn’t on Running Back, I believe it was on another label, on Hot Creations? is that correct? Gerd Janson Yes. That is an example of where you have an alternative to the original but it’s not necessarily the better song. Because it’s from a dance classic by S’Express, “Theme from S’Express.” It was a big radio pop chart dance record. Christine Kakaire That perhaps many of the people in this room don’t know anything about... Gerd Janson I’m not ashamed of anything. Christine Kakaire Let’s have a little bit of a listen. (music: S’Express – “Theme From S’Express (Tuff City Kids Remix)”)
Gerd Janson We got asked. Like I said, made to order. And then we tried to do an up-tempo version of it. If they pay, we play. That’s the rule. Christine Kakaire [laughs] The tagline for this interview. I’d love to ask the both of you, because we’re talking about two well known... In this case, a well-known classic hit, LCD Soundsystem a well known band, and this crossover between so-called underground dance music and how these intersections can lead to bigger profiles and more attention. So I’d love to talk a little bit about fame and how it factor... Gerd Janson You would have to direct that question... Christine Kakaire No, I’m going to direct it towards the both of you. I’ve got a little clip to play, it’s only a few seconds long, and the first part of it, there’s not much audio, but it’s taken from, Steffen, your Sónar set, it was an RA party, and it’s just the beginning part of when you come onto stage and you start playing. I think it’s a pretty interesting illustration of what being a famous DJ can look like. So it’s clip number four, please. (video: Dixon b2b Âme at Innervisions / OFF Sónar 2018)
Dixon I don’t really know exactly when it started but I guess it was going along with this whole Resident Advisor top 100 chart thing where I was in the top ten for about eight years or something, when always number eight, seven, six, and that no one cared about actually. But the moment I became number one on that it changed, somehow, everything. In a rave no one came up to me before that and said like, “Ah that’s so amazing you are number two on the charts.” But then it changed all of the sudden. “Yeah, you are the best DJ in the world, blah.” Obviously in the first moment that’s amazing, but at a certain point certain things came with it that I didn’t really like anymore. For instance, what you just mentioned, that whenever I start somewhere to play all the phones come out. That’s the reason why I have in my contract, it wasn’t possible there, that all the lights go off when I start. So I usually tell the light people, or my tour manager Bjorn’s job is to speak to them before and say, “Ten minutes, no lights at all.” As you maybe realized there it wasn’t a mistake of the clip that there was no sound in the beginning. I on purpose took time to let a certain pause between the DJ before me and me, and I wanted to get this tension away of people like, “OK, now the craziness starts, now he will begin.” So basically I try to always play the first two tracks where for sure people will not scream, so to calm them down a little bit. And if it’s indoors it’s also coming with no lights, and then from that point on I go with the flow. But I hate this first moment of taking over. I’m not this kind of DJ that... I probably even don’t look in the crowd for the first 10 minutes and I try to avoid that. And it was something that I had to learn that I want to do it, I don’t have to do it. I could go with the play and raise my arms and say, “Yeah, now I’m here, now the party starts.”
But I went the other way and said to myself, “It’s better for my set actually, and for my performance, if I have this ten minutes of keeping it cool and then building it up from there again.” Otherwise if I start from scratch then I have to play a big hit at the beginning and it’s hard to follow a big hit. So it’s easier and better to program it a set if you start low. As bigger the stage gets, as more your fear is that if you start low then you lose the people, but the good thing in my situation is that people are there for me.
So even if you give it a half an hour of, let’s say, nonsense, they still will stay. They might be bored but as everything in DJing, if you risk something... I think I read this in a DJ Pierre interview 20 years ago, he said in his record case... And I don’t have a record case anymore, I have just USB sticks. But you always have the bombs in there to win the crowd back. We all have them. So you don’t need to worry to go a risky way before you pull the bombs.
I have to say it sounds now very... “I have a tour manager and he’s going to talk to the light guys.” Reality is, for the light guy... Gerd Janson He couldn’t make the sun go away. Dixon Yeah that’s what I’m saying, it was outdoor there, we couldn’t turn the light off. But reality is that the light guy is there to make the lights. So if you tell the light guy, “Ten minutes, no lights,” he’s like, “What the f---?” So reality is always that after three minutes the light comes back. And I’m standing there and i’m saying “F---!” but that is what it is. We discuss this so often, we send emails to festivals already beforehand and all this. It never works. Christine Kakaire Do you think that perhaps also because you were the number one DJ, according to Resident Advisor, for four years, do you think that these requests from you about, “These are the optimum conditions,” do you think that maybe, I don’t know, they’re being received as like, “Oh, it’s the number one DJ being precious? Dixon Yeah, I mean you have to ask the people. But I felt more the aspect that people expected it to be the best party of their life now, because now I was number one on a website and not number two anymore. And now obviously their night will change dramatically by that. And that pissed me off actually. I know I’m an entertainer, and I like to be that entertainer, I love it, it’s not just my job, I think we always love what we are doing, but I don’t want to deliver in a way that people might expect it. And therefore I’m trying to hide that light that’s put on me there in all these locations. I’m trying to keep it low a little bit. Christine Kakaire And I have to ask, were you relieved when the poll went away? When the top DJ poll... Dixon I was surprised. I was also relieved. As I said, the craziness started with that poll. So I can’t say I didn’t like it. It was amazing for me that it was there, and it was also amazing to see that people voted for me. It’s nonsense but still people do it. But at a certain point it was, speaking from a number one position maybe, it was useless for me. I think we had a lot of discussions about it after this, obviously the whole scene was talking about the fact that they stopped it and there was good reasons to do it, because the charts affected a lot in the industry and not necessarily only in a good way. On the same time, I thought they took it away just in the moment were there was a lot of awareness for not the big 20 names that are in the business or big 50 names. There was maybe times where every year the charts looked the same, but just when the outsiders at that moment came into it and changed this formula up, just then it stopped. So I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be number one anymore and it would have been refreshing to see changes that are... When you see festival lineups now you see that they are changed. And I don’t think it’s because they stopped the polls, I think it was just the moment for that now that things changed. I think it would be still interesting to see what happens, because it was a reflection of what happened. Christine Kakaire Gerd, are you upset that you never got to knock your friend off the perch? You were climbing for a few years. Gerd Janson Yeah I was trying to get him every year. It was impossible. Christine Kakaire But did it have an effect for you as well as a DJ? I’m sure it must have. Gerd Janson To climb in that poll? Christine Kakaire Well, just to be... I was going to make a sports analogy... Gerd Janson No, you get more money and more gigs, that’s the truth of it. But I would sign what Steffen just said, I think they stopped it at a point where it became a much more mixed up crowd in there. So maybe it’s a missed opportunity, maybe not. But actually I believe DJing is not a sport. So to me it’s flattering to be in there, and of course once you reach the top spot you have to keep it, but yeah, it’s a weird thing. I remember climbing every year and at first it was like, “Oh nice, people like it. Even higher, yes.” And then one year you go down a few places and then you’re like, “What happened? What did I do wrong?” Yeah, it’s a weird thing. And then, to your first question with the fame thing, if I can add, I became a DJ because, again not to be nostalgic or how it used to be better, but I thought, “Yeah, I can do this,” because back then you were on the level of a bartender. You were really on that level. They were serving the drinks, you were serving the music and people were still dancing more with each other than nowadays everyone is transfixed onto a stage or a DJ booth or whatever. I’m not saying that’s bad, it’s just how it developed, but I find it a bit cringey. Dixon I think that, as he said, it’s not a sport what we’re doing so there’s no number one and whatsoever, still people judge. People love to judge. People love to hate, people sometimes love to give love. And festivals, especially festivals I would say, clubs not that much, but festivals try to judge in a way who they’re going to book. So with this poll now gone what is left for festival promoters to judge? Because ideally we would think it’s all about the music but it’s not. They don’t know about the music. What they know is about who is selling tickets and who is going to fill the festival and that’s more an issue in the festival scene than in the club scene because clubs are smaller so it’s easier to make them full, so maybe they could be more critical and judge you more based on the music. So what’s left is Instagram now. This is how festivals are booking their lineups now. And it’s not that they are more open now. There are maybe five exceptions in the world, but the rest of the festivals they have no clue and just booking on, well, now Instagram. So speaking about this poll, if it’s good or not, I’m not sure if it’s good. My initial intention was, and how they explained why they don’t do this anymore, I was like, “Amazing decision.” And actually it took courage to do it because for that website it was a big part of it. So I was initially behind it but now I feel that it’s got even worse without it. Christine Kakaire OK, let’s talk about this idea of DJing and fame and I’m going to have to play a couple of clips from a video game, [laughs] talking about how fame can also bleed over into other areas. Earlier this year Grand Theft Auto Online: After Hours came out featuring appearances by four DJs, The Black Madonna, Tale Of Us, Solomun and Dixon. So we’re going to play a couple of clips taken from people who have played this game where you feature, so if we could play clips six and seven back to back, and then we can have a chat about that afterwards.
Dixon Not from us. Christine Kakaire Tell us about how that came together. Dixon I was in India, I’m always doing the first two months, I’m taking them off and I’m trying to go somewhere where I basically get my mind and body fixed again. And that means also on those locations I rarely read emails or answer anything, so there’s always one day every seven days where I’m going through all the important stuff and then I reply and then sometimes it’s just a one-minute reading and then I’ll get off it to get not too much involved in business again. So I got the offer to do this and I was reading it and I thought the idea was that I do a mix for the cars that people are driving in that game. And I said, “No.” So I was sending this back, just a short email, “No,” and then my assistant Leander I think it was, got back to me and said, “I’m not sure if you read this email correctly, it’s not about just delivering a mix there,” which I rarely do, I usually stopped doing any mixes a couple of years ago. It’s about being in that game and I didn’t really understand what it actually means and then there was the concept of, OK, there is a nightclub there, you are DJing there and people can actually in the game attend that nightclub. And I was like, “This is stupid but also funny.” So I answered, “All right, it’s maybe interesting, let me think about it.” I started to think about it, which was not my intention in India, but that was such a crazy offer that I started to think about it and I just... Maybe comparing it to Royal Albert Hall I was thinking this is crazy. In ten years, I will not get this offer again. In ten years, if I’m looking back on what I’ve done, why did I say no back then? It’s actually fun and I have to go to New York and they put all this... I’m going into this suit where they track all my movements and I’m actually playing there and they make my face and all this, even if I think it didn’t work out well. [laughter] I thought that the experience itself is so amazing and my son might even play it in three years, that I couldn’t let this opportunity pass, so I said, “Yes.” Then it became clear that I actually have to make a mix for it and that the mix is going to be played in the car. Basically, I don’t know, I guess a lot of people know this game, I realized that actually when I say that I’m going to play at “blah blah blah festival” and I’m sitting in a car with the driver whatsoever he is saying, “Yeah, whatever.” When I said, “Yeah, I’m going to be in that game,” everyone is like, “Really? That game?” I didn’t know actually know how big it is. I have to deliver a mix, and the mix is for the cars, when you drive with the cars in that game you can switch between certain music channels and one of the channels would be a channel that I mix music together, and they wanted to have a mix for the club, and I offered them to do two different mixes because I thought that when you’re driving around in a car it’s actually something else than when you’re in the game. But maybe even I was too lazy, or the timing was not perfect, and at the end of the day it was one mix now. After realizing it’s going to be one mix I thought that I concentrate more on the car, because I thought that in that game, if you play it, you drive around... Or the people that play that game drive around in a car all the time and maybe go into the club once or twice. So the car is actually more important. I did a mix that is more car friendly than club friendly. But, yeah, I think that I knew from the beginning it’s going to be big. It’s a crazy opportunity to experience that actually, but there will also be a lot of bad mouthing in the scene, like “How not underground is all this anymore and how stupid is it to have a DJ in a video game and look where he’s coming from, why is he doing that?” But, yeah, I thought that for me it didn’t matter actually because it’s this one-shot opportunity that you have and you should just go with it. Christine Kakaire How do you deal with criticism like that in general? Because I think it goes hand in hand with a rising profile and popularity that people are gunning for you in certain senses and I would imagine that that’s something that you’ve had to contend with, people feeling like they know what your motivations are or where your head is. How do you absorb that or do you deflect it? What’s your approach? Dixon No, I don’t deflect it, it’s not that I don’t read anything. Yes, I do read stuff online, and I read criticism. Over the years, I think in the beginning it touched me a lot, but over the years I realized it’s just an opinion. I’m always questioning myself if I’m actually happy with it. And if I feel that I put enough into it to say that this is me, doesn’t matter how you accept it now but this is me. And I learned also that criticism inside the club touches me way harder than online actually. Because if a dancefloor is emptying out, or if a person, even if he or she is drunk or whatever, is telling me, “You should play more this,” or whatever it is, it could be even nonsense, it touches me more than when I read later on that the performance was not good, he didn’t play big hits from the beginning, or whatever. So the personal contact is still way more effective on me than reading something online. Christine Kakaire So this is a question for Gerd. You’ve jumped the fence, I suppose, from being a music critic to being somebody who is potentially the target of it. How has that transition been for you? Because music journalists are very opinionated. What has that transition been like for you? Gerd Janson Pretty easy actually. So I think I could never go back to being a music journalist again or I think I used that analogy that my ink pot was empty. If you write about music, and even if it’s the music you love, at one point you used all your vocabulary to write about... I mean, as much as dance music is always changing and evolving and stuff, at the end of the day it’s music made for nightclubs, so there is only so much you can put into it. A lot of it doesn’t have any words or messages, so at least with classic band stuff there was always the lyrical content that could be talked about or this concept album about blah blah blah. So yeah, I wouldn’t even know what to write anymore. Or did you ask me what I think about music journalism nowadays? Christine Kakaire I mean you can talk on that as well. [laughs] Gerd Janson No, I don’t want to. If you want to become a journalist and write about something, this is one of the easiest points of entry, because almost everyone has a music taste of some sort. But I think to be good at it you need to be passionate for it. At the beginning it was more like fan boys like me trying to meet their heroes or putting emphasis on certain things. And now I think it’s, again, the industry standard. Certain websites are way more important than I would think certain papers have been at any point in their existence in that field. Having said that I think it’s super important that there is music journalism or criticism. It’s a feedback loop to what artists and DJs are doing, and as soon as you step up and do something then you have to live with people judging you for it. Otherwise you do it for yourself at home and never have anyone listening to it. I know that some of my colleagues, they get very upset with it, and obsessed at the same point. “Why again a bad review and a rating and why is that?” They expect some conspiracies behind it, like a lot of people in journalism these days. I think you need to live with that. Because you also like to be number one, if you’re number one. So you also have to deal with some people who think the chart is upside down. Dixon But also I do think the criticism of fans is much more heard these days due to social media than it was ten, 20 years ago. And music journalism, the criticism there, is less important now. And that balance is super strange because at least in music journalism you think there is some foundation of the person that is criticizing you and you expect that... At least you expect it. Gerd Janson Or an editorial. Dixon Or an editorial in that website or in that magazine. Where it is with fans, you know... Even if it’s fan pages and you somehow think that fans know so much about you that if they’re criticizing you there’s a knowledge there. And then you realize, “Alright, this person is two years a fan and he hates what you’re doing now, but two years ago it was amazing.” And, you realize, “Wow, I’m doing this now for more than 20 years and yeah I changed over the last two years, but I did this all my career. You know, if you did like this what I did two years ago, you probably wouldn’t have liked what I did four years ago.” But, it’s coming to you. You... At least I can’t avoid it. But, I learn to live with it. Gerd Janson But it’s also very human, you know? The first time I went into a nightclub, an underground nightclub, was in maybe in ’91. And I remember meeting people there who told me it used to be better. [laughs] So, yeah. Dixon Berlin is over for the last 20 years. Gerd Janson Yeah. Dixon So, it’s a circle. Christine Kakaire I think we should talk a little bit about Berlin, because Gerd you don’t live in Berlin but, as you mentioned earlier you spend a lot of time here, you’re a resident of Panorama Bar. Dixon Regular. Christine Kakaire Regular, semi-regular. It would be interesting to know what your observations are, because as you’ve said, it’s the same for me since I arrived, people are like, “Oh, you should have been here two years ago that’s when it was really good.” How would you characterize the changes that are happening in the city whether it’s musically or just in the city in general? ’Cause I know of course Steffen you live here. Dixon Can you start please? Gerd Janson I mean, Berlin to me, growing up in West Germany in the ’80s and then the ’90s, it was some place of importance, but when techno started to become big and bigger there was almost this city rivalry between Frankfurt and Berlin because Berlin was much more about old industry, industrial places, warehouses, in possession of the only truth. And in Frankfurt, the whole thing, because it’s a banking city and a money city and there are not many unused industrial places or spaces, so techno there happened in an already existing scene of discothèques, so it was much more a weekend, Friday night, Saturday night thing. I mean, I have a love/hate relationship with Frankfurt anyway. I don’t feel like I’m from there. I grew up in the countryside, I also went to other bigger cities in that area. And at that time every city had like a different approach to it. If you went to Mannheim and went in a club called Milk! people, they were completely different and also dressed differently, they all looked like, I don’t know, breakdance kids in surf wear or something like that. And in Frankfurt they were wearing these more like, I don’t know, flashy, sometimes Native American type of clothes. Yeah, it was really like that. It was very different. And I think the first time I actually set foot to Berlin was in 1993, and there was this big rave series called Mayday. And it was in Halle Weißensee, here. My friends talked me into it, because I was like, “Oh I don’t want to go there, I don’t like big parties.” So that was my first step into it. Then I think I even went to Love Parade a year later, and then I haven’t been to Berlin for almost, I don’t know, eight, nine years. And then, only after that, so that even if my friends were going to places like Tresor and I don’t know what were all the other clubs, Walfisch, and E-Werk and all these... I always watched it from afar. So, I can’t really pull the, “It used to be better” card. What I can tell you is from my perspective as a DJ, playing every weekend, going... And, I’m sorry that I have to add to the mystique and cliché of that place, but going to Panorama Bar on a Sunday for instance, that place still reminds me of why I once got into this, or why I’m passionate about dance music, or why I think DJing is fun, you know. Christine Kakaire I guess for the benefit of people who haven’t been there, like what do you think of those essential ingredients? Is it the soundsystem, is it the shutters that open at the perfect moments? Gerd Janson It’s the door policy, because everyone who makes it in there is so happy that they immediately start having a good time. I mean, that’s maybe part of it, but I think another big part again, as snoozy as it sounds, you get a sticker on your phone so you can’t take pictures, so people are less concerned with “How does this look later in my feed” or whatever that is. I’m not really good at this social media stuff. Christine Kakaire That’s the right term. Gerd Janson Yeah. But they can let loose more than in other places, it seems like to me. But it’s always been the policy there, so it feels natural there. I see it sometimes in other places where they try to enforce that policy, “No pictures” blah blah blah. And then it just adds to the stress because you have bouncers who are just busy with putting flashlights into people’s... Fighting flashlights with flashlights. You know, and I think that makes it much more of an itchy situation for everyone. Christine Kakaire Steffen. Dixon But I think the difference is now days that this club that is ... I don’t know, what was one of the prototypes of the last ten years of how clubbing should be, is a standard. You know, every taxi driver knows it. Not even that, probably everyone in Berlin knows it, it’s in all the newspapers. It’s a cliché by itself already. And 20 years ago we didn’t have that. We had discothèques, and then there was the other places. And now this is the discothèque. And the good thing is that besides that amazing venue, there’s also other things happening here that I might not even know, because I also am traveling on the weekend. But I’m sure it is happening. There is all this other officially non-existing clubs here, or party series, or clubs that happen every weekend. I think the difference in Berlin to other cities is still that... I guess if you go to Lisbon and you go on Resident Advisor, you actually see what is happening in Lisbon. If you come to Berlin and you look at Resident Advisor, you have the impression that you know what is happening, but there’s so much more. And this is still amazing.
And, my little card out of how I can judge it is that I’m from Berlin. I’m actually born here, I experienced it from the very beginning, and it is my hometown, and this is just what I experienced and what I’m close to. So on the same time I can hardly judge it, because it’s you know... I guess I can better judge London, where I’m going four times a year and I see how it changes as an outsider coming there, then living in Berlin here where the process is much... It’s like being in the mirror and looking to yourself every day, and you don’t realize that you get fatter because you don’t see the micro steps. Then when someone else, someone sees you after six months and he says like, “Hey, you gained weight.” And you’re like, “Oh really?”
And, that’s maybe the same with the city. You know, you don’t really see the changes because you live here every day. And, it’s harder to judge it than maybe for you. Christine Kakaire Perhaps. I think we’re gonna wrap up soon and at that point we’ll open up for questions. But I wanted to cycle back to the beginning. You said you’re a no man, you said you’re a yes man. What are your... What would you like to say yes or no to? Where do you think the next period of your long and storied careers in both of your cases... What are you gonna be saying yes to in the future? Gerd Janson To one free weekend next year. [laughs] Dixon No, I think that a lot of stuff that... A lot of things happen to me. It’s not that I was trying to reach that stage or I didn’t want to be in that game a year ago, so it’s hard to say that I don’t have any dreams that need to come true. You know, it’s .. I think the only thing that I want to keep is that I move on. That’s important for me. Gerd Janson That would have been my question, when do you stop as a DJ, when’s the right age to? Dixon I don’t know I thought that I stop at 35. I think when I was 29 I said to my, back then girlfriend, now wife, I said 35 it’s over. Obviously I’m 42 now, so it’s not over. Right now I’m feeling I don’t want to celebrate my 50th birthday in clubs. On the same time when I was 30, 42 sounded like, you know, “You’re way to old for all of this.” And, at least I feel still kind of young, and I don’t know if this is maybe the same feeling at 50.
So, at least for me it’s not that there is no date that I want to stop, it’s like, “No, no, I’m going at it forever.” No, there is a date, but I don’t know when it’s gonna be. Christine Kakaire Well, maybe we can check back in in eight years. On your 50th birthday, but thank you so much to Gerd and Steffen. [applause] So, at this point we’re gonna open the floor to participants, especially if you have any questions for Gerd or Steffen, please put your hand up and a microphone will come round to you. Audience Member Hi. What are the elements that you say that make a great club track? What elements do you usually try to... Gerd Janson What are the elements, you mean how a club track or a record we would play in a club has to be composed for us to say, “OK this is great to be played in a club?” Audience Member Yeah. Dixon Well, the beat is important. Gerd Janson Yeah but you almost can’t generalize it because, of course, there is this painting by numbers for club music, you know, the build up is usually a minute, right? Or one minute and 30, and then comes whatever element it is that you decide should be the carrying element of this record, a bassline or a piano, blah blah blah. And then one and a half minutes later there comes the big break, and then you bring it back in after the break and then you do one and a half minutes of an outro. That’s usually how a club track is. Having said that, there are also records that don’t work like that at or who are not arranged like that. It is sometimes hard to really say why it works in a club, although it defies every rule of a club record. Dixon I do believe that I still play house music because of its openness. I think compared to techno, for instance, and my colleagues that play techno, for me yeah it’s stupid to say but it’s the same for the last 20 years. There’s some technology, there’s elements are maybe louder or less louder, but if you listen to a track that was ten years ago it’s very similar to today. Where in house there’s much more influence from all other genres, you know. There could be a rock influence from LCD Soundsystem. There could be a hip-hop influence, there could be a pop influence, there could be a techno influence, there’s all these influences that you can squeeze into that tempo between, for me, between 115 and 125. And that chance for me as a DJ to go in one month into a more electro direction because more stuff from that genre is now influencing house music is refreshing, after maybe six months of ethno-percussion house music. And then after electro there might be some rock influences that are very strong. So, I don’t think that, especially in house, you really can say there’s elements that we need. For me personally I need change. I need you to surprise me. And still is house music, so hardly in the last 20 years someone reinvented the wheel of house music. But, at least the influences change all the time and that’s what makes it interesting. Yeah. Audience Member Hi. I guess it might get really stressful to play that much and tour that much, and is there a special way you deal with it and stay healthy? Both of you. Gerd Janson Like I said in the beginning, you know, I still think it’s a privileged lifestyle and it’s like, you make a living by playing other people’s music so it’s also a cliché, but you do it by your own design. No one forces me to play as many gigs as I do, you know. I can say, “No, I want to only play 100 gigs a year.” Less or more, you know. But I can only tell you how I do it. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. And that helps. Although it doesn’t help with being in the mood to do it. It helps you with the traveling, but of course no one wants to go on a party four times a week. Maybe when you’re young, but after a while, you know. So it has job elements. I think it is more about looking at yourself and what’s good for you, and how you can approach the thing. But it is also... I think this whole kind of DJs complaining thing, it’s like ridiculous, you know. Of course you can only complain about the situations you’re in yourself, but other people really have to work for their money. Dixon Yeah, but I do think that you still have to deal with it, you have to manage it, and for me, for instance, it is that I take two to three months off. If I don’t do this and I’m in this circle again, every weekend... I usually do take off the first three months of the year. And it’s good for my body, but it’s also very good for my mind. And taking off doesn’t mean that I’m not traveling anymore and I’m not DJing anymore, but now I’m going into the studio and I’m doing, I don’t know, more label work. No, it’s really taking off. And I always feel after the summer that I’m dead actually, and that it’s more maybe not my body but my mind. I can’t hear house music anymore. And it’s always hard to go through fall for me. And maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m doing the... I never thought about it, but maybe it’s one of the reasons I’m doing these All Night Longs always before and after the summer, because then, at least for my mind, while I’m working I can play other music too. I get out of this typical routine, and besides that what’s important is good flight management. Yeah, it’s the worst... Maybe it’s not 100% what you asked, but last Sunday I was supposed to play in Mykonos. So I played on Saturday in Paris all night long, which means there until 7:30 AM or something, and then I had a flight at 11 AM. No it was at 1 PM. And, it was changed to do a flight at 11 AM. So, I decided I don’t take the early one because I played all night long, I take the second one. Which, was leading to the fact that I took actually the last chance to go to Mykonos. And, there was some weather issues in Athens, I was flying via Athens. So, we spent about six hours on the airport in Athens to wait for our flight to Mykonos to leave. And, once it was clear that we were not gonna make it, it was clear that I actually slept only three hours, spent six hours on the airport in Athens, then the promoter, it was the closing party of the season there, and the promoter was like, “Oh, we’re gonna get you a jet. Wait, wait. Don’t go to the hotel in Athens yet.” So, we waited until 2:30 PM and it was clear there’s no jet that’s gonna have a chance to land in Mykonos. And so at the end we stayed nine hours in the airport. I went to bed at 3:30 PM, and my flight back was at 7 AM. So, I thought to myself, “Wait a minute. I was traveling all this time now. I was staying all the time on the airport. I was so tired the next day. If I would have played in Mykonos, I would have got the feedback from the people, I would have been hyped, so my flight back would be probably easier than it actually was then.” I slept five hours in Athens, and the next day was horrible. And that’s also an experience that I made that with traveling all this time, usually the last gig when I’m flying home, I come home and my wife tells me, “You actually look OK for what you’ve done.” And, then I sleep for the first time at home, for let’s say 9 hours, where you would think, “Yeah, alright, now I’ve slept, now I’m feeling better.” But then, the next day my wife looks at me, she was like, “Now you look really f---ed up.” Because, somehow your body tells you... I don’t know, you go with the flow. And, the body understands that maybe now is four days of not that much sleep, and you catch everywhere a little bit of sleep, but once your body realizes, “OK, now it’s time to sleep.” He wants that sleep. So, the most difficult day for me is always the second day at home. Audience Member Thanks. Audience Member Hello. Dixon Hello. Audience Member Steffen said that the festivals book like based on Instagram, and this is a horrible reality I think. But, look at Gerd, and there are people like Helena Hauff, they don’t have Instagram at all and it works out. I mean, they’re playing everywhere and Helena as well even as a headliner. So, is there a chance that we get out of this evil thing basically? Dixon For every rule there’s exceptions. I mean I would say that yes it is possible, but he is a really rare exception. [points to Gerd] So I guess that if you would name ten DJs now, I guarantee you that seven of them don’t want to be on Instagram, but you somehow do it, you just go with the flow. And, for me it’s... Well, it’s not horrible, no it’s not. But it’s something that I would like not to do, but it feels like a reality. And I think there’s maybe also one thing that I wanted to say and didn’t have the chance yet. That for me it’s very important to set myself rules and break them. So it is for me clear that I’m not gonna play more than 95 gigs next year. And if I play 100 then it’s OK, but at least you have this mindset of, “You want to do less.” Or you tell yourself, “I don’t drink anymore.” Or, you tell yourself, “I don’t want to produce a track that is trance anymore.” I do think it’s important to look at what you do and try to force yourself to do a little bit better, and if it doesn’t work out, I believe that it’s still better than if you would have never set the rule for you. Audience Member Yeah, but if you have a look at all those participants who are young and trying to set up their career, and then we are all getting influenced by this social media thing. I think it scares me out as fuck to be on it. Because I feel pressured simply when I have a look at all these social media things. What would you say to all of us, instead of just trying to set your own rules, because we are still in a position where we don’t... Are all like DJ number one. Gerd Janson You’re young, it was made for you. Audience Member Yeah, but I don’t think so. Gerd Janson It wasn’t made for me. Audience Member I mean, it scares me to be honest. Sometimes I’m exactly posting stuff because I know how... Yeah, because it’s part of the game, but still you know it was actually... Yeah. Dixon I’m not sure if this is the correct answer, but I don’t think that... Well, he knows that he’s not doing everything right, I know that I’m not doing everything right, you know. It’s a lot of things are just like trying and trial and error. And, but one thing I think that you should follow is that if you decide to do something, then do it proper. You know, like the way I do Instagram is totally nonsense, because there’s official ways to do Instagram, I don’t do it. I post every ten days, I don’t know, there’s certain things to do at certain times, but whatsoever. You know, I just do it. Which, is in a way stupid. If I decide Instagram, why don’t I do it in a proper way. And, it’s the same for everything you do. If you decide to be a producer, then don’t just do it as a hobby and I don’t know, that’s my opinion, and study meanwhile, or have another job meanwhile, it will not push you enough to do that what you really want to do the full way. So for me in everything you do it should be all or nothing. And, yeah. So my Instagram for instance is not the perfect of example of... It’s one of the rules that I have and that I break you know, because in that case I’m too lazy. Audience Member You were talking about rules on Instagram, but I wanted to ask you, what are some of you guys rules for when you’re mixing? You were saying that, for example, you like to start your set with like 10 minutes of pitch darkness and to let people, I don’t know, maybe be unexpected, then after that build it up. And I wanted to ask you, what other techniques do you use when you’re playing in clubs? Do you play, for example, ten songs with very hard percussion, and then a very instrumental track with no drums at all? Or what are some of the rules that you like to use, or how do you even break your own rules sometimes? Dixon What are the rules? Well there are some, but sometimes you don’t even think about them. I mean, I’m trying to let the complicated record shine, so you know, all of us we love the hit and we love the other record that is maybe not a hit. And, I think that the hit is a hit because it works by itself. The complicated record should not be the record where the people leave the dancefloor. So, it would be a big mistake for instance to play the hit and then the complicated record. So, for me it’s always like, if I decide I really like this record now, and I know it’s not a floor-banger, I edit it first. [laughs] And, then I don’t play before... I lead to it. Yeah, so make the people even want something else, and I also have this, usually this three to four record... I wouldn’t call it rule, but it’s just a reality. So if I want to play this new electro-ish vocal record, then two records before and one record after, lead to it, will be maybe electro already or have influences and then comes the maybe even cheesy vocal record. So basically taking the people by the hand and guiding them to whatever you feel like you want to do. And, that is usually connected to three, four records, and then I change the genres. So, I don’t stay too much into... I hope that I still play a wide range of house music, and it’s usually three to four records from one genre. And, what are the other rules? Do you have some rules? Gerd Janson I don’t have any rules. I think I do it the opposite way. I have this bouquet of tracks that I like, and then I just... I mean, you have a point. In some situations you need to start slow and then you take it from there. But I always try to... Yeah, I consider myself to be the driver of the party bus, you know, and I look in the rear mirror to see what they are doing. And, then I try to feel it out. So I always saw it as a bit of a give and take. Steffen as a DJ is more powerful than I will ever be, because he’s better in steering it into directions he decides he wants to be in. And, I’m more submissive if you want to put it like that. Yeah. Yeah, more submissive. How many are actually DJs here? Because... [some participants raise their hands] Ah, OK. It feels like we’re talking about DJing the whole time. Christine Kakaire Anymore questions from the participants? Yeah, there’s one over here. Audience Member Hello. I’d like to direct this question to Steffen. You highlighted a lot of annoying difficulties you’ve been facing throughout all these years, but eventually you’ve been doing this for at least the last 12, 13 years. So I’d like to understand more about why then you are doing this? Thank you. Dixon I love the challenge actually. First of all I love being a DJ. I love to play records, and I loved it when it was in the beginning when it was in bars in Berlin, and there was 50 people there and 30 of them talked and 20 maybe danced. And I still love it now when it’s more people. And I also love the fact that I went, in my career, through a lot of different phases where I had to question myself, or had to learn actually. Actually it’s also still a learning process, you know. I think certain ways of describing playing on a festival would have been different if you would have asked me five years ago and if you asked me now, ’cause I learned way more now playing festivals and I experienced situations, and through that I changed. And if all the challenges would be not there and all the, I don’t know, f---ing up a Lost In The Moment party, or realizing that people think now you’re a trance DJ instead of a house DJ, and all these things that you’re facing, it drives me actually. And, it’s not driving me to convince something, it’s driving me to go into further movements, directions or places. Even if I don’t see any goal of what to do still, I feel that the things I’m doing are not so boring yet. If, for instance, one of my favorite clubs in the world is Robert Johnson. If I would play every weekend for 15 years in Robert Johnson, I guess I wouldn’t like it anymore. It just wouldn’t be me. But going there back once or twice a year and experiencing the craziness of it, and the loveliness of it, it’s healthy. So yeah, I think the changes in my life keeps it healthy for me and makes it even unquestionable if this is what I really want to do. Obviously you are sometimes... I don’t know, you are tired, you know, as we mentioned there’s all those things, but in all those situations there would be the questions like, “Why don’t I open a restaurant?” You know, it’s just not there. I’m a DJ and that’s what I am. And, that’s what I love. Christine Kakaire Unless there’s any other final question? No. Thank you again to Gerd and Steffen for being here.
[applause] And that was the Dixon retouch of “I Used To,” by LCD Soundsystem. I want to talk a little bit more about remixes or reedits, whichever language you’d like to use, with the both of you. Because to me it sounds like LCD Soundsystem but it definitely has that quite epic arcs that I would associate with the kind of music that you play or the kind of music that Innervisions puts out. How does it feel, how does it sit with both of you, I’m going to ask you about Running Back as well, to be associated with a particular style, a particular sound, a particular aesthetic? Is it something that you’re happy with, something that you’re not happy with? Tell me about it.
[applause] The swift fade out there. That was the Tuff City Kids remix of “Theme from S’Express.” Where? How? Why? How did this come about?
I kept rewinding and watching that because I just found it so interesting that obviously you’re a hugely popular person within electronic music, but just this situation where seeing the performance as a performance within itself, for the crowd and for the people behind you in the DJ booth. Everyone’s filming, everyone’s trying to capture this moment. When did you start to get a sense of this fame machine that was sweeping you along and does it affect you?
(video: GTA Online: After Hours)
[applause] Dixon in Grand Theft Auto. Where can one purchase one of those Dixon shirts? Do they exist in real life?