Huge Burning Man for the Dutch duo as their ‘Greece 2000’ remix goes mental
Interview : Dan Prince
Bart, Mike welcome to DMCWORLD, where in the world are you right now?
“Amsterdam/Utrecht, Netherlands. We just came back from our performance at Burning Man and are enjoying all the luxuries of our homes (like indoor plumbing!).”
Well you have the Buzz Chart people jumping around with your remix of the classic Three Drives ‘Greece 2000’ – tell us the history of the release…
“We actually made this track as a bootleg for our Burning Man set. We knew that we were playing before Paul Oakenfold, so we wanted a classic trance track that would get everyone on the playa raving their asses off! After sending the track to some DJs we got a mail from Armada saying they wanted to do a official release, so that’s how it got turned into a ‘remix’.”
There were a few problems for people gaining access into Burning Man which eventually got sorted. Once you got in, what were your highlights of that experience?
“Yeah, it took us 9 hours to get from Reno to Black Rock City! Sorry to hear so many people had issues gaining access. Our highlights were definitely our performance and the overall art/creativity there! Our gig was on Thursday and we arrived on Monday, so we were kind of warming up all week long for the big event. Our timeslot was in between Diplo and Oakenfold so we knew the crowd was going to be crazy, but we were simply amazed by the energy the party people there brought!”
You are very honest about how you started in the world of producing…you were fans of the Olav Basoski sound, created a lot of “bad filterdisco stuff” and had a lucky break when Olav signed one of your early tunes – and even did the mastering and EQ-ing for it. How long did it take you to find a style and technique you were comfortable with?
“Yeah we were absolutely in love with filterdisco when we got started. This was back before usb’s and cdj1000’s and we were still playing vinyl. Besides bad disco tracks, we also did some decent ones, but as we progressed with our production skills we also started to do more melodies ourselves and not just sampled old disco tracks. We eventually got Logic and lost the samples all together. We think it took us about 6 years to get to where we are right now, and we are very comfortable with our style and technique!”
Who were some of the other producers that caught your ear back then?
“We always loved Raul Rincon and Axwell, who was still doing funk tracks back then.”
Word on the grapevine tells us there are lots of new projects with a certain Mr Paul Oakenfold. What can you tell us about all this…?
“Well after our last collaboration ‘Beautiful World’, we spoke to him at Burning Man and we can let you know there will be another collaboration for sure. We love working with him and are very much looking fwd to our upcoming project! We are also looking at a tour with him at the end of this year or beginning 2014, so that would be amazing! He is a great guy and fun to hang with!”
What is it about Oaky’s style of production you admire?
“He’s just a classic hero. He is very hands on and we mail ideas back and forth. We love his ‘no fuss’ approach and respect the fact that he is still putting out some big tracks and remixes that still stand the test of time!”
What is coming out next studio wise?
“We just released our remix for Bass Kleph & Chris Arnott on the Australian label Onelove…which is doing very well with support by Tiesto and many more! Our ‘Greece 2000’ remix will be out on the September 16th so that’s a big release for us. We hope to have a video to go with it, featuring our experiences at Burning Man. Our next original will be a collaboration with our longtime buddy Kid Massive and will be titled ‘Amrock’. The track will be out in a month or so on John Dahlback’s label, Mutants. We hope to have a preview soon! We are also working on collabs with Olav Basoski, Feenixpawl and our Dutch buddy Billy The Kit. Also a fun fact, we are working on remixes for Inna and Scooter D.”
Tell us about your studio set up…
“It is pretty basic actually. A Mac G5, Fireface800, 2 Genelecs 8040, an SSL Compressor and Logic 9 with a bunch of plugs.”
Who excels where in the production process, who is better at what?
“Bart is definitely more the precision instrument. He can work on a kickdrum for hours or refine a hihat for a day. Mike is more the DJ’s producer and end result orientated.”
Do you ever argue about music?
“We can have discussions for sure! We always try to find the best result in a track though, so we rarely ever ‘argue’ because we respect each others opinions. When it comes to DJing there are very few tracks that one of us will love and the other one will hate. We do have a system where if one of us really dislikes a track, we will simply not play that in our sets. This would be something to argue about if it did happen.”
What is the current top 10 you are spinning?
– Paul Oakenfold & Disfunktion – Beautiful World
– Robyn – Dancing On My Own (Disfunktion Bootleg)
– Deorro – Five Hours (Original Mix)
– John Newman, Arno Cost & Firebeatz – Where’s Your Love Again (Disfunktion Mashup)
– Three Drives – Greece 2000 (Disfunktion Remix)
– DBN, Dohr & Mangold – Tromp It (Original Mix)
– John Dahlbäck – Cobra
– Andrew Bayer – Need your Love
– Tiesto – Lethal Industry (Disfunktion Rework)
– Maarcos – Blaze (Dirty South Edit)
Best and worse thing about living in Amsterdam?
“Best: It’s like a small beautiful village
Worst: The Dutch weather.”
Who are some of the producers you are giving high fives to right now?
“Paul Oakenfold, Tiesto, Hardwell, Olav Basoski, Kid Massive…”
It’s your birthday – who are the 3 DJs you invite to play and what artist do you get to come and perform 1 song?
“The artist would be Jason Mraz, love his voice and his music! DJs would be Steve Angello for the big energy he always brings, Oakenfold because he would be great to have drinks with and probably Billy The Kit because he’s amazing live and he also plays very eclectic which would work at a wedding.”
Funniest thing that has ever happened to you at a festival or big event?
“Bart was chilling at Burning Man during the day and he heard our track ‘Beat My Drum’ being played as soundcheck track on our stage. So he went to see if Mike was there testing the system. Turned out it was one of the stage builders who liked the track and had no idea that we were at Burning Man hahaaha…”
Tune of the summer?
“Dragon Sound – Against the Ninja.”
I was lucky enough to see you at Nikki Beach a few years back, a great set and a great way to close the party! Where have been some of the stand out gigs for you in 2013?
“Besides Burning Man, we did a few big parties in the Netherlands, last of which was ‘Dance At The Park’. This was just insane, 15.000 party people on a Sunday accompanied by some amazing weather. Pure bliss! We have also been lucky enough to go back and play at Club Mass in Seoul for a 2nd which is always just amazing. The energy there is just… wow!”
You are headlining at Ultra and you have to pick one record to close the set. Pick a tune from all time…over at DMCWORLD we think you are going to choose Daft Punk ‘One More Time’…
“You might be right Dan!”
So we head over to yours on a Sunday afternoon, chill time. Away from dance music, who are some of the artists you are loving right now that soothes the soul…?
Mike: “Michael Buble, Majestique, Alan Braxe…”
Bart: “Tycho, The Echelon Effect…”
What is your earliest memory of music from when you were children?
Mike: “A lot of disco stuff that my parents used to play. My mom is a real discohead! Also Being a DJ at the first ‘school parties’ when I was 6 or 7 years old. This just meant you would stand next to the CD player and quickly change CD’s in between songs. No mixing back then.”
Bart: “My dad played a lot of Dave Brubeck and Motown.”
It may not be good for our image but Disfunktion really love…
“Cheese!”
And finally, what did your family think of your choice of career, what did they really want you to do with your lives…?
Mike: “My family has always told me to do what I love. So when I was almost done at the university I talked to them about pursuing a full time musical career, and they were 100% supportive! I still finished my degree, so that must have helped. But I think following your heart and doing what you love is the best advice I ever got. I still love what we do everyday, not something everyone can say. unfortunately.”
Bart: “Same here! There have been some arguments for sure hahaha, but being the stubborn guy I am, I continued with Disfunktion. They are very proud of both of us!”
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