Paul van Dyk was in London this weekend for his Gatecrasher set @ Heaven, and i:Vibes catches up with the German DJ and producer at the chic Asia de Cuba, in London's St. Martin's Lane Hotel for a quick chat.

The interview took place on Saturday the 27th, and Paul talks a bit about his upcoming productions, the current scene, and the top guys at the moment. The interview lasts 12:55 in a 32kbps stream as a compromise for modem dialups and broadband users.

Paul van Dyk speaks to infinity @ St Martin's Lane, London (27-Apr-02)

Please click on the above for the real audio interview of Paul van Dyk. Unfortunately, the recording is contains a lot of background noise as well as some distortion, and some parts may be inaudible, hence the script (generally correct) has been posted below.

First of all, we welcome Paul van Dyk to this i:Vibes interview, and Paul has just played a gig at Gatecrasher last night at Heaven

So Paul, how has the last few years been like for you, since your release of For An Angel, which was a massive success.

Paul: They've been happy, enjoyful, and exhausting... (chuckles)

And your gig last night at Gatecrasher, its the first time Gatecrasher has held a night in London, How's that like for you, is it a different experience from when you play in Sheffield

Paul: Well Definitely, its a different city, its a different club, and its a different vibe as well, and uhhh.. it was really really cool, and I really enjoyed myself.

How does that compare to your last gig in London, which was... 2 years ago at Home, your Essential Mix.

Paul: Wow, was it 2 years ago?

I think so!

Paul: Ummm, how was it..

The Crowd as well

Paul: Yeah I mean, I think, especially in the UK, few things have changed, especially with the way people enjoy club music in clubs. Its either really boring, and its like kinda.. well i'm not calling it progressive house, I call it regressive house, coz it just absolutely doesn't go anywhere, and its just boring for 10 minutes, and the next 10 boring minutes comes up, or its just really really cheesy, its just one of those extremes. So uhh.. actually within a combination of playing in a positive sense and eclectic sense from like cool housey thing to cool breakbeats to some high level techno to some trancey stuff, i don't think too many DJs are doing that thing over here, the people are not as used to a DJ set like this, as they have been probably 2 years ago.

And you just played at WMC in Miami, and also numerous gigs in North America, how does that compare to the scene in Europe.

Paul: I never compare those scenes. Because they are very unique, all these scenes. You don't even need to compare the scene between the states and here, you just cross the road, Heaven is different from any club around the corner and the vibe is completely different. To me, DJing is about interacting with the crowd, to see whats going on. At the same time have a very clear idea about my music, about the sound and the music i like to play. With this I tend not to compare, as it is unique and very individual and its always a new challenge, I don't have a prepared set, its always new and its always fresh.

.In terms of production, what is your sound heading towards this year, with your recent City production and all.

Paul: Right now, I just finished a whole film score for a Mexican movie La Mano del Zurdo and I'm just writing, its gonna be a film title song for an Australian movie called One Perfect Day. I'm not thinking of these when i'm in the studio, I just sort of have that vibe and idea that I bring across, and I work till i feel its across. It's uhh.. the thing I'm working on right now, is an interesting, joyful, progressive, vocal house track with a lot of vocals .... with a lot of techno. (hehe). Probably some people would say some trancey elements in it too. Well this is electronic music, and you can't pin it down to 1 genre.

And uhh. Your track My World, which was originally released in mid - 90s seemingly saw a remake in 2001, and people have been asking about the confirmation of the existence of that.

Paul: Well, eventually, once a year, we do a special event in Berlin, which is called Paul Plays Paul, coz alot of people are always demanding "why doesn't Paul play more of his own stuff", and obviously I'm one of those people who can play for 10 hours of my own records. And people demanding that all the time, so we do this one event each year, and as I said its called Paul Plays Paul.. And for the last one, in 2001, I kinda sorta remixed, reworked a few of my older things, and that actually is a rework of My World, it absolutely off, but... its just me having it.

There is an interesting project coming out which is actually happening. It is gonna be released somehow. We are working on a DVD project right now, which umm...
Some people emight know that I had a buncha legal trouble with my former label, and it took some time till everything was finalised, and cool... and the outcome was that I did win the whole thing, and I even got all the rights back; publishing as well as licensing. Now we have the direct input on how to kinda release or rerelease some of the back catalogue, and we were planning on doing something interesting which is like a full on mix of Paul van Dyk over the past 10 years so its like having songs out of each individual period, and basically filming visuals with it and for it, which fits the time, the title the whole vibe of it. This is going to be a full on music, journey, pictures, all types of things on DVD, and this Mix is going to be on that DVD.

You've been rumoured to be working with vocalist Jan Johnston, is there anything you want to say about that?

Paul: Oh right.. well we might do something, but I'm not talking about any collaborations till they do happen, well obviously Jan is one of the most talented singers, and you know... it is definitely one idea.. there are like many more interesting collaborations going on, in planning.. and as I said, once they are ready, we will talk about it

And you are planning on releasing Vorsprung Dyk Technik 2.

Paul: Well you know I have done a lot of remixes since then, and they are in the process of getting all the legal rights to release it, and if everything works out well, there will be some very special things like the Alanis Morisette and the Robbie Williams thing I did...

Is that the track you did for New Years Eve?

Paul: Yea.. it was stuff which was limited to a very limited amount of people.. like 2 or 3.. if this works out, then this will be on there, otherise, I've done so many remixes which will be on there..

And will this be like VDT 1, with a triple album and a vinyl pack as well..

Paul: I think it will be a double.. a double CD

And uhh.. so, I mean, what else is coming out on Vandit in the coming months..

Paul: ummmm....The next thing which is coming out is the Ralphie B, the track is called Massive and we have absolutely outstanding remix by Filterheadz.. its just mindblowing, and we have a remix from the German guy Mirco de Govia, which I have introduced on Vorsprung Dyk Technik (he meant Politics of Dancing) he has like 1 track on there. We have like the David Forbes coming out with the German remixes... with Kyau & Albert Remix.

Is there your remix of Massive?

Paul: No, well nothing is planned yet, so.... and uhhh, and Second Sun Empire is coming out from our American guy... and I'm already playing the followup, which is an amazing lovely vocal track, which is going down... and its called "The Spell", and its probably one of my favourite tracks right now, its just really outstanding... I'm so proud of them... They just gave me a dudgy sounding CD in New York a year ago, and I was just listening to it and I saw the potential, and they really have this thing going.. But they couldn't do it right, so i just kinda like told them to take a bit of time, do this and this, gave them some advice, gave them some sort in the financial side, and the progress they've done in the past year, is outstanding... I'm so excited to see what's going to happen, from a music lover point of view.. They've done such amazing stuff in the past year, I can imagining them blowing up. We're actually getting them over, for the people flying to Berlin in the next couple of weeks. Our next event is in June. We have Terry Lee Brown Jr. playing, with me and Second Sun live, the first time ever in Europe, so its going to be really cool.. so yea its really quite exciting.

We have Nu Nrg coming out which is our project from Italy, they're doing some really outstanding stuff. Its another thing we signed, and they're just getting better and better all the time, its just really exciting that way. The project is Nu Nrg, and the track is called Dreamland.

Well, there's a lot of people having big talent out there right now. To be really honest, the records which have been released, and there might be exceptions.. But I'm talking very general here. The most records which have been released in the last 6 months have been really average. Actually..yesterday when I came in, I got this full on package from UK Promos and I took 2 records with me, and I didn't even play them, coz I didn't feel they kinda hauled up..
Theres some really cool stuff on the kinda.. mellow house kinda thing, really high quality music coming there, but obviously you can't do a full-on DJ set with that kinda thing. There's this record called M Factor - Mother, which is outstanding, but again its not a main time peak time track, but its outstanding, but everything which comes in my direction is either a really cheesy remake of something we had already or something really aweful, worse than ever trance bullshit. In this way its kinda disappointing. Somehow, sometimes, I feel that people expect me to play only my own stuff, as well like yesterday night, I played some of my really new stuff which peopl cannot know, because none of the films are out, and none of these tracks have a clue what they are..

Coz noone has a clue what they are.

Paul: Yea and they're just freaking out. Well you know.. even if they don't know it, and even if its different and you know... I developed it further on from the past, it still has the Paul vibe with it, and it absolutely went through yesterday. I wish there was more interesting records which are enjoyful to play out....

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Ended. Apologies for the cut, but we ended with the usual formalities, and i:Vibes thanks Paul van Dyk and Markus Nisch for this Interview before Paul zooms off to catch his ride to Liverpool to play at Cream.

http://www.paulvandyk.de