Proteus, welcome to DMC World. You are one of the world’s most respected Hard Dance DJs, winning titles at the Hard Dance Awards in 2004 and 2005 and always getting voted into the DJ Magazine Top 100 List.
What music did you listen to as a kid?
“When I was very young my dad used to play lot of different music at our home; everything from Prog, Rock, Reggae to 70/early 80 Heavy Metal. It was really good for me because I learned to be very open minded for different music styles. The first records I bought in the mid 80’s were old skool Industrial Metal and different synthesizer artists like Vangelis and Jarre.”
Why did you want to get into DJing?
“I have always been a big record collector and I started collecting records at a pretty young age. After I started to go to my first rave / warehouse parties here in Finland in the early 90’s I was thinking that it would be great to play my records out too.”
Who were your DJing heroes when you were eying up the slipmats?
“When I started to DJ in 1995, I really didn’t have so many heroes. There was a Finnish DJ called Eliot Ness who pretty much brought the whole techno sound to Finland in the late 80’s, I suppose he was my first hero and later after him Karim, Gary D, Lenny Dee, Ian M and Max Alien Trax.”
You have played at every major festival the world has seen, what have been the best?
“Well, obviously Dance Valley in Holland. Dance Valley has something unbelievable in it’s atmosphere every year and it’s always the highlight of the year to play there! Also Global Gathering is unbelievable.”
So Helsinki, what is the club scene like there right now, what are the best places to hang out in?
“The club scene in Finland is going pretty well and we have many parties going. That is fairly good considering that only five million people live in the whole country. Though, comparing it to the UK scene, the Finnish scene is probably 100 times smaller. The best places are definitely found in Helsinki and for harder music fans I recommend to check my club called ‘Sade’ and FINRG events and a club called Fury.”
Tell us about your artist and label collective FINRG…
“FINRG is a collective of good artists and friends and it was created by guys from Carbon Based and DJ Rx – about 5 years ago. We have several artists like Carbon Based, Rx, myself, Alek Szahala, Nomic, Swoosh and Pain On Creation who are our recording artists and we also do lot of merchandising. We also have our own artist agency too. FINRG also just released it’s brand new sub label called Hybridize and it’s run by our more fresh talents like Swoosh, Epyx & Cyrez and Substanced.”
Who are the best other DJs from Finland?
“I think the best other DJs are Rx from FINRG, Neon from our ‘Sade’ club, Orkidea who is big trance name and Leo Laker who is big in really hard Techno.”
Who have the prettiest girls, Stockholm or Helsinki?
“Helsinki of course…though Swedish girls are very gorgeous too ha ha!”
What are the best bars in Helsinki?
“The best bars are definitely rock / metal bars. We have many good ones, but the ones I like to go are called Tavastia which is the best place to check out live bands whilst drinking and Lost And Found where you can meet a lot of musicians from different bands.”
Ok. Hmmm. Well let’s move on. What is the best production work you have done?
“Well I have to say that my album ‘The Nature Of The Beast’ is the best because when you put all the tracks together, it reflects all my different styles from hard dance to industrial and psychedelic.”
Tell us about your club night ‘Sade’ in Helsinki, what have been the highlights?
“I have now been organizing ‘Sade’ for more than ten years and I used to do it every second month – now I do it about four or five times a year. ‘Sade’ started as an underground warehouse event and I changed it to a proper club night in the year 2000. We have had loads of great nights and many famous artists and DJs playing, but the highlights have been when Lab-4 played live and also when I had Kevin Energy and DJ Fury in 2001 playing at one of my the bigger events.”
What is the best and worse things about living in Helsinki?
“Ha. The best thing is that Helsinki is still quite peaceful and an easy going place to live and we don’t have huge traffic jams like you guys have in UK. On the other hand, Helsinki is very isolated from ‘middle Europe’ so I have to always travel a lot if I do gigs in other countries. Also, as record collecting wise, I have to order a lot of music from elsewhere because we don’t have so good record shops in Helsinki and Finland generally.”
What is the most beautiful / interesting tourist thing to do there?
“Maybe it’s just the really beautiful nature we have here that is something you can’t find in other cities and countries anymore. We have lot of great landscapes just near to Helsinki and in Summer time Helsinki is very beautiful because it’s located at the coast.”
Best restaurant in Helsinki?
“There is very good restaurant called Lappi Restaurant that serves only traditional Finnish food, like Reindeer Stakes with mashed potatoes. Also, they have good Finnish beers!.”
What will 2009 bring for Proteus fans?
“2009 should bring a lot of new hard hitting music from myself because I’m producing a lot of new tunes at the moment. Also, I would love to do more live shows next year and tour as much as possible. If you are heading to Finland in some point, I am starting a new monthly club in Helsinki for fans of darker stuff and I’m also doing a new event called ‘Graveyard Party’ – what is not is for fans of happy music, like the name sounds ha ha. And of course I will continue to do my ‘Sade’ club.”
Just how many tattoos do you have?
“I have 6 tattoos and two of them are big and one is really big ha ha! I would love to have more but my girlfriend won’t let me.”
What one record has never left your box this year and what have been the best clubs of 2008?
“A bit obvious maybe, but it has been one of my own tracks “Venla Part 2” – it has been in my box all year now and I still play it as an end of the night track at nearly every gig.
Best clubs of 2008?
“In the UK, ‘Frantic’ and ‘Goodgreef’ and also Switzerland’s ‘Mad’.
