Artento Divini is definitely one of the most exciting upcoming names in the trance scene. It’s not certainly a matter of luck or coincidence that his latest track Griffin, out now on High Contrast/Be Yourself Music in Holland, has been selected to become the official anthem of one of the most important summer festivals in Holland, the globally known Pleasure Island. This year the event travels also to Czech Republic to host a special edition and you guessed it right and on this event the main theme will be the AWESOME Griffin.
i:Vibes: Hello Artento, first of all thanks a lot for letting us taking your time to this interview, first of all things, how are you doing and what have you been up to before sitting down and answering the questions for us?
A: Artento No problem :) Things are going terrific at the moment, as well in the studio as DJ-wise I can’t complain. At this very moment I’m still enjoying the vibe of the party I played at last night, which was called Grotesque. I’ve become one of their residents and I have to say that it’s always a joy to perform at their events, the atmosphere and the people are just awesome. Production wise there will be two brand new remixes out on the second of August, one of them will be out on Armada’s label AVA and the other one will be out on High Contrast, the label that will also release my next single ‘Sanctuary’. Can’t tell much about the remixes yet, but all I can say is that you will be surprised.
i:Vibes: We would love to know something about if this Latin artist name means something :-) and if you have of course latin origins?
A: Artento My name doesn’t really have a meaning to it, though I can tell you how it originated. Artento Divini has an Italian sound to it, which is more or less because my mother’s father has some Italian blood running through his veins. And in Italian ‘pay attention’ means ‘attento’, and my first name is Ard, so combined it became Artento. Divini was taken from the English word ‘divine’, this was actually meant as a joke, but the name stuck to me and here I am today, still known as Artento Divini. It’s also a name that works when I collaborate with an other artist, such as my aliases Miller & Divini (me and Jochen Miller) and Divini & Warning. That last one has been living out of the spotlights for quite some time, but me and Melvin Warning actually teamed up again a couple of weeks ago for the first time in three years to see if we still got the vibe… and I have to say we still have it! So that’s one to look out for.
i:Vibes: Where did you grow up, and where do you live now?
A: Artento I grew up in Doetinchem, a city in the east of Holland, near the German border. I've lived there until I was twentyfive, then I moved towards the center of The Netherlands. Nowadays I live in Utrecht together with my girlfriend. It's quite convenient to live in Holland's third big city, mainly because you can reach almost every other place within two hours by car. The airport is also very near, I can travel there within an hour so that comes in handy whenever I have an early flight. This way I don't have to spend too much time travelling; if I get out of bed I can get to Schiphol, check in and reach the gate within seventyfive minutes.
i:Vibes: Are you part of a family with any kind of musical roots or you are the only one to get involved with music making?
A: Artento Well, to be honest: not a single person in my family has a musical background. I kind of coincidently ended up in music, I played keyboards in school band until I was twelve years old but then I quit music as soon as I discovered how much I liked mountain biking. I didn’t do anything with my musical talents until about four years ago, when I started producing dance music.
i:Vibes: You had a very successful presence in sports as cyclists. Would you like to tell us why you decide to get involved with cycling and if you can tell us your best moment in your cycling past?? Do you recommend others to try it too?
A: Artento When I was seven years old I used to train five days a week in the local swimming facilities. During the weekends I competed in races and throughout the summers I used to keep my body in shape by pedalling many miles on my bike every day. When I reached the age of twelve, they had just created the very first mountain bikes and since I reckoned mountain biking way cooler than just pedalling, I joined the local team. After a couple of races in which I competed, I was noticed by the coach of the national team, who invited me to join them when I was fourteen years old. So after that I spent my time cycling as much as I could. I would definitely recommend this sports to everyone who likes some good action and is not afraid to be covered in dirt.
i:Vibes: What was it that made you start producing and dj’ing, and what has been your biggest achievement so far in your musical career?
A: Artento When I was nineteen my parents kind of had to push me to spend more time on my homework and finish my school, make sure I would get that diploma. I had to cut back from about twenty-five hours of training a week to ten hours, the rest of the time was used for studying. This meant the end of my cycling career because I couldn’t keep up with the extremely high level anymore, so when I didn’t get to race the big races anymore, I decided to quit. After that I needed something new, so I ended up learning how to DJ, mainly because I love music and I wanted to do something with my talent. One thing led to another and here I find myself nowadays playing clubs and festivals.
i:Vibes: Please list for us the Top 5 dj’s or producers you respect the most and why?
A: Artento First of all there is Rank1. Benno de Goeij is one of my biggest examples in producing, everything he creates just sounds amazingly good. Number two: Paul van Dyk. The man has been around for ages and still manages to produce and play original, good stuff. Place number three: Roger Sanchez. It’s such a joy to listen to his music. The fourth place is taken by David Guetta. Every track he produces is spot on and becomes an instant hit, he merges lots of musical genres into his very own sound. And last but not least there’s Deadmau5. The things he has achieved in such a short amount of time by creating a complete new sound… respect!
i:Vibes: You had releases on various labels and now you work more closely with High Contrast/Be Yourself music. How is it to be on such a successful label, considered the respect they have in the industry and that they hasn’t been around for that many years?
A: Artento BeYourselfMusic is a company that lets me be me. Dick, the A&R manager, knows how to guide me into the right direction whenever a track needs changes. They also work on you as an artist, you’re not considered just a number that creates tracks which is the case with many other labels. BeYourself is always on top of things when it comes to placing their releases into the correct market and whenever a track doesn’t perform as well as suspected, they will always try their utmost best to clear up why it didn’t catch on that well. Not that that happens all the time, but you know what I mean. It’s just nice to know that your tracks get the right marketing and treatment, especially when you have to produce a follow up to your previous single. High Contrast has also opened some doors for me when it comes to the bigger events, they took a huge part in me playing Trance Energy twice in a row, which has given my career an amazingly big boost.
i:Vibes: If you should choose 3 tracks from your back catalogue of productions and remixes, which one would made it and could give us a small comment about each of them?
A: Artento The first one is ‘4LB’, which was produced by me and Melvin. It was our biggest hit and the L and B stand for the names of Lorette (my girlfriend) and Babette (Melvin’s misses). The second one has to be ‘Biding My Time’ in which I used male vocals for the very first time, which worked out extremely well. And the third one has to be the remix of ‘Who’s Next’. I actually used a hardstyle synth in this one and as it turned out it works extremely well on the dance floors. Markus Schulz has made a private edit of ‘Who’s Next’ which he still plays in his sets, as for myself I did a special mash up with an old Prodigy classic. It will appear in one of my future radio shows, no doubt about it.
i:Vibes: Your latest release is ‘Griffin’, a track that has been chosen as the theme of the big party Pleasure Island in Holland. Please give us the backstage of the production of this massive anthem, and how does it feel to have a production selected as an anthem for a party?
A: Artento It took quite some time, I spent many hours in the studio creating this one. We changed the track’s theme at least six times before we were completely satisfied with the result. I played this one at Trance Energy in February containing a different theme, which was the second to last version of ‘Griffin’. It’s always hard to create an anthem for a festival, especially when other people get to decide whether it’s got the right feeling to it or not. Once it was finally approved by everyone who had a say in it, ‘Griffin’ immediately became Tune Of The Week in Armin’s radio show ‘A State Of Trance’. He even played it again in his show after that first time, which came as a huge rush to me, it’s nice to get this kind of recognition, especially when you’ve worked on a track for so long. This also made me listen to the track in a different way; once you’ve heard it in the studio over and over again, you totally loose the feeling you have with your own production. By the fact that everyone now plays this track, it gave me a whole new perception to the track as well.
i:Vibes: In which countries you have performed so far and where did you meet your best crowd and worst crowd??
A: Artento I’ve played in Brasil, Russia, Curacao, Scotland, Poland, Estonia, and so on. I’m aiming at more foreign gigs in the near future, my agency is doing a great job putting me on so many line ups abroad. Global DJ Bookings’ Fleur handles all my business, a good booker is essential nowadays. For enquiries you can contact her through fleur@globaldjbookings.com But to get back to the foreign gigs: I loved all countries that I’ve been to, but the crowd in Poland is just one of the best experiences a DJ can have. I’m a resident DJ at Club 139, which is were we shot the footage for the video clips of ‘Biding My Time’ and ‘Who’s Next’. To be honest, I didn’t really have such bad experiences abroad… yet haha. I do think that the Dutch crowd can be a little bit too critical at some times, but that’s also a good challenge to make them dance and to put smiles on everyone’s faces.
i:Vibes: What tracks (productions or remixes) are you currently working on and will be out after Griffin??
A: Artento Like I said my new single ‘Sanctuary’ will be out somewhere in August. Again I used the vocal talents of the same singer that were used for ‘Biding My Time’, I’m especially psyched about the remix, which has become rather surprising. And ok, I will give you some inside info: the one that will be out on AVA (Armada’s sub label) will be a remix for Moonpax vs Snatt & Vix, this track has a ‘Griffin’ kind of feel to it and I mixed up the chords of the original to give it its own, new dimension. And last but not least, unfortunately my remix of Marco V’s ‘Automanual’ won’t be released, so that one will survive the summer maintaining having the label of ‘bootleg’ written on it. Sorry guys!
i:Vibes: Do you use actively online social networks, or is it not something you’re a fan of??
A: Artento I surely do. Of course there’s my own website http://www.artentodivini.com, my Facebook account can be found at http://www.facebook.com/artentodivini and you can follow my daily occurrences on http://www.twitter.com/artento_divini. I also have a MySpace account, but that one has kind of slowed down at the moment, MySpace has become more of a ‘bands’ kind of website. And or course I know there are dozens of other sites that can be used for this, but I’m sorry people, I just don’t have the time, so please follow me through the above named websites haha ;)
i:Vibes: Those where the questions Artento, thanks a lot for the time and the interview, we wish you a great summer and the best of luck in the future, speak soon!
A: Artento No problem at all, enjoyed your questions and I would also like to thank you for your support.
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