Huge new Trance Anthems out and the master returns to Eden in Ibiza
Interview by Dan Prince
What was the first piece of music you heard this morning after rolling out bed?
The first piece of music I heard this morning was when I jumped in the car and turned on Radio 1, which was the Skrillex, Diplo and Justin Bieber track which is surprisingly tolerable considering Justin Bieber is involved in it.
Huge congratulations on the major news that Judgement is returning to your spiritual home Eden every Friday. I have to admit, everyone is a bit baffled with what has been going on down at the venue, a mighty Dutch owner comes in, leases it out to Gatecrasher who royally cock it up, then the Dutch are back promising new glory for the place. You buggered off to Es Paradis for a season…have things settled down finally? Will San Antonio finally get the great late Eden back on the map?
I think Eden is a great venue and it was a shame that we were in a position where we couldn’t build on what we achieved in 2013. But at the same time, as with everything in Ibiza, every season is a new chapter and one can never be complacent.
Have the owners done any changes inside the club since last summer?
The club hasn’t had enormous changes but there were vast amounts of money spent on the venue in 2013 and it still looks incredibly fresh. This will be its third totally refitted season. Whilst there will be decorative changes and a very impressive new back room, the essence of the club, which is just fantastic, will be the same.
A new fresh sound for Judgement this summer. Tell us about your hand picked line ups…it looks like a lot of thought has gone into this season’s DJs…?
The line ups were thought about very hard. Trying to sit in between the current wave of house and our roots of trance and finding DJs that fit squarely in the middle – not so trancey and banging as to arguably not appeal to the San Antonio crowd, but not so housey as to be doing what everybody else is doing.
What are your thoughts on San Antonio in 2015. On one hand you have Ocean and sunset strip doing so well but on the other last summer so a bar closing every week due to lack of numbers. Are you confident in this great town for the future?
San Antonio needs the same degree of investment that Playa d’en Bossa has received. I think when Sr. Matutes, who owns so much of Ibiza, develops the waste ground between Kanya and Café Mambo, which is an enormous piece of real estate immediately adjacent to the sea, then that will be the injection that San Antonio needs to make it a really incredible resort, particularly considering that the natural bay of San Antonio is the best on the island. Of course Ibiza will always need a youth resort and that facet should never be taken away – it’s important that San Antonio is the gateway to Ibiza for most new entrants to the destination. At the same time there’s big scope for San An’s facilities to be improved, and I think if you look at Magaluf in Mallorca you will see where they’ve built various expensive hotels and generally spent quite a lot of money on the resort. This should be influence for San Antonio. Whilst I don’t want to be too specific, I do sense that the local politicians are very introspective and need to get out and see what other competing resorts are doing.
What are the 5 big tunes in your box this weekend…
Junior J – Music Is My Life
New Judgement resident, Junior J, gives an incredibly uplifting take on the C+C Music Factory classic.
Zomboy – Far Too Loud (Rumours of Delirium Jules Mash Up)
A mash up that works quite amazingly quite simply, and I make a lot of mash ups for my sets.
Five Knives – Savages (Chris Lake Remix)
Lovely old skool vibe with an incredible build up.
Kryder feat. Cajmere – Percolator
Samples the Cajmere classic and takes it into 2015.
Robbie Rivera – The Scream
Has a fantastic slow down part reminiscent of French Kiss with a really hypnotic groove.
Ibiza…your favourite beach, restaurant and sunset bar…
Favourite beach would probably have to be Cala Gracioneta because it’s the closest beach to our house. Favourite restaurant: Can Tixedo, which serves a kind of tapas fusion. It’s on the road to nowhere, somewhere between San Antonio and Santa Gertrudis, is really reasonably priced, has very cool people and has an art exhibition permanently installed with changing pieces. Favourite sunset bar would have to be Café Mambo, I’m old mates with the entire Mambo family.
Looking back at the last 15 years of Judgement in Ibiza, what are some of the nights that stand out for you?
A lot of the stage diving, where both the dancers and the DJs stage dived and were carried across the dancefloor by the crowd would be one particular memory. Except for me. After various people had done it I jumped from the booth out into the crowd, the crowd dissipated and I hit the concrete.
3 bucket list adventures you wanna do in your lifetime?
I’ve lived my life to the full, I know it sounds like a cliché, and I struggle to think of things that I really want to do that I’ve never done. It would be more a case of bucket list journeys rather than bucket list activities. I’d like to do the kind of motor home thing, get a Winnebago and travel across the US and do it across bits of Europe as well. Also spend an awful lot of time going round Europe on a very slow boat sleeping on it for months at a time.
A brand new album out last week, Judge Jules Trance Anthems featuring the likes of Paul Van Dyk, Tiesto and Armin Van Buuren – that must have been a joy to put together with so many classics at your fingertips?
My new album Trance Anthems came out and it’s currently #7 in the national charts, it’s done very, very well. It’s always good to put together an album that documents your musical history and some of the tracks that I’ve been most readily associated with.
Thoughts on the global trance scene in 2015 – America is getting into it, Asia is loving it, little pockets are springing up around Europe – it’s one of those genres that will always be with us huh?
My sound has evolved from just being trance now. What I play has plenty of trance influences but I try to distance myself from being too pigeonholed in one particular genre. However it is amazing to see that trance is doing well, albeit in pockets around the world.
Where have some of the stand out gigs been for you these last couple of months?
The last couple of months have been a very good period for DJing actually. I’ve honed my sound down to something that very much consists of my own mash ups and productions so that an extremely high percentage of what I play would be those, probably in the region of 75%. I’ve been doing a combination largely of UK gigs but I was also in Dubai recently and going over shortly to South Africa, Morocco and I should be in Asia soon, so an assortment.
As you embark on another Judgement adventure at Eden, what will you be happy to achieve the most at the club by the end of September?
I simply think that re-establishing the brand in its spiritual home and being the premium night in the venue will see me smiling.
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