Boys Noize – Interview – September 2009 [PART 2]
By: Dickon Stone
Rockfeedback: Obviously now people know your tracks; the stuff of your own that you play out isn’t that new unheard record you’ve always hungered for anymore; do you still get the same buzz from playing your own material as playing something unknown?
AR: “It’s funny ‘cos I tested all my new tracks from Power in all my shows for the last half a year, and they got a very good reaction without people knowing it was my new track, and of course I couldn’t tell them, and that’s the most exciting moment for me; to play something that people don’t know and if you play it at the right moment and it goes down well; then that’s ideal. Now people have heard the promo or whatever, and people know the album, for me it’s a bit less exciting, as a DJ I like it more when people don’t know stuff and go crazy, but it still excites me to play it ‘cos it’s mine. “
RFB: So even though now people know your tracks, you still get the high of making a room go mental from something of your own conception?
AR: “That’s the thing, when I’m in a studio and I’m alone, nobody else hears this stuff; I don’t show my tracks to anyone. I’m the only one who says ‘I like it’, or not; and that’s my only intention; for me to like it. So when I’m in a club and I see people like it, there’s a new energy and it moves me; I love this.”
RFB: How did you have time to run the label AND write the album? Has the album been a long time coming or is it something that has happened now that the label is truly established?
AR: “I have a partner who I work with at the label. Some of the tracks I’ve been working on were first thought about 2 years ago, for example, ‘Starter’ was the first idea I had when I did my Snoop Dogg remix, and then I listened to it over a year later and I still liked the idea. The same with ‘Jeffer’, which was a very old idea, and some tracks that I did like ‘Trooper’ that I did in one day, maybe even only a few hours… And the same with ‘Transmission’. There were always a few days between gigs where I would wake up, do some office stuff and then hit the studio; I work really fast; I have been producing for 10 years now so I never have any trouble with my arrangements. I dunno, I don’t sit down and say “Now I’m going to start my new album”; I collect ideas constantly. At the beginning of the year I took 8 weeks off without any shows, and I went to India and took some ideas with me like ‘Nerve’, and just the beats from ‘Kontact Me’, and ‘Gax’ which I only had the main riff to, and roughly the beats… I was looking for something to take it to the next level; I built that break in ‘Gex’ that makes it so special. There were always ideas for the album here and there, but also tracks I did in one or two days. But yeah, ‘Starter’ and ‘Jeffer’ are over 2 years old.”
RFB: You obviously listen to a LOT of music, but in terms of contemporary artists – besides producers on BNR (Boys Noize Records) – what out there excites you?
AR: “There’s so much out there at the moment; lots of deep house, lots of good techno; right now I like techno label from Berlin called Ostgut Tonträger that I’ve been following for a while; quality techno from people like; Len Faki, Marcel Dettmann, stuff like that. I also listen to a lot of electronica stuff, but it’s more about frequencies; not stuff you can really dance to, yeah, and…
[Alex pauses. Thinks. Thinks more…]
RFB: You’re not telling me apart from that it’s all BNR you listen to?
[He laughs in an admitting way.]
AR: “Well, when guys like Strip Steve give me their new stuff I just think; “this is great”, and they have huge talent and I don’t think they can do anything wrong; they have their own sound and I think that’s something very important. You can’t go into a studio and say “I want to make a track like THIS or like THAT”, you have to find your own sound. It’s important to do something that’s not already out there. It’s not an easy job but that should constantly be your aim.”
Watch Boys Noize perform at the 2008 MELT! Festival below
Artists in this article: Boys Noize