Clubbing Magazine

Behrouz - I do it from my heart.

San Francisco-based producer and DJ Behrouz is difficult to label as he is like the music he creates and plays: organic, emotional, mystical and entirely unique. A veteran DJ recognized worldwide for his long running residency at San Francisco’s Release Club 1015. In addition to his residencies at Release and Church nightclub (Denver), Behrouz was recently appointed to a bi-monthly residency at London’s Turnmills nightclub As a studio producer, Behrouz’s “Safe from Harm” remix was among 2002’s most popular tracks and his original production “Azab” is featured on Carl Cox’s new compilation cd “Fact-Australia”. Moreover, his Yoshitoshi remix “Feel So Good” was featured on Deep Dish’s Global Underground 025 Toronto CD and he’s currently in the studio. He has also mixed and compiled the first two of Yoshitoshi’s popular “In House We Trust” compilations. Clubbing Magazine talked to him when he attended the SMC in Stockholm.


You are the resident DJ at Release Club in San Francisco, how did that come around? - Well I’ve been DJ’ing for 15 years and used to be the resident DJ at a club called DV8 in San Francisco for 7 years and the promoters for that event started doing Release. They started at this small club and once started it went bigger and they moved it to a location called 1015. The club was going down and they took it over and Saturday night was happing and they asked me to be their resident DJ at the main room and that is where it all started and that is how I developed my sound. Could you describe your sound – I see it as a combination of East and West cost house music. - Yhear - my sound is somewhere between East cost and West cost combined together. Meaning that a lot of sounds coming from the West cost is to mellow, it’s housier, deep but at times it doesn’t go anywhere. East cost is pumpier. So I try to combine both together and you get a good set. It’s just the way I like it. It’s the best of two worlds. You get the deep but you get the goodies with it as well. That type of sound to me would crossover from deep house guys to progressive house guys, because you can play it depending on the mixes. When you produce tracks and makes remixes, do you approach them differently? - Defiantly - I like to do all kind of stuff. I don’t just stick to one sound; I don’t take the same element of one of my remixes or from one of my productions, replied to another one. Maybe certain elements, just to make sure that people know it’s me. But I take every record, every remix I do and every original production I do as an experience I have in life, if something has happened – try to make it into a story – and to me it’s art. You make music from your heart that will touch other people. That’s how I like it – sitting every day making tracks – it’s like painting.

	How did you and Deep Dish hock up? - I have heard their production and we met each other at the Winter Music Conference in Miami 8 years ago. I was trying getting them to come to San Francisco as resident DJ´s, they weren’t as known as they are now and we did it. They became resident DJ´s once a month at Release. So we developed a friendship and realised that we liked the same sound and that was it – they totally help me out with what I wanted do and pushed me as far as – if you want to make it then you have to produce music and it doesn’t matter how good a DJ you are. The fact that you have to produce to be recognised as DJ still applies to day. - These days it even harder – you have to be a good DJ and a good producer, everything. 10 years ago – you did one track that was amazing and that’s it you blew up and people know you. Now you have to have15 hits before people get to know you.

How do you see yourself? - Foremost I’m DJ and I love DJ’ing and I do it from my heart. I tell people when they ask me how long did it take you to make this track. I tell them over 30 years. Because I’ve been DJ’ing professionally for 15 years - not in my bedroom but playing in clubs 2-3 nights a week. Back in the days when I started DJ’ing I played from 21.00 until 04.00 in the morning – I didn’t play two hours set, you played music. It wasn’t - I would play house or progressive – you played everything. But you program it nicely – so in a way so the music builds up and you have the peak time. It was amazing and a lot of young DJ´s doesn’t know that and they just starts out with playing a two hour set and that’s it. I get to play in clubs for 10 hours and know how to take people on a journey. You've also done a couple of the “In House We Trust” compilations. -Yhear – I’ve done the first “In House We Trust” compilations and MV and I did the second one. For the first one I only had a couple of days do to it and it wasn’t done on a computer, but it was done live on my mixer and decks. It was an experience – next time I know I have to take more time out – but it was great. In the industry people make mix CDs, compilations – but now it’s just becoming computers making it. I like doing it live, use the records - show me what you can do with it. People do edits, try to make it different – but it’s all done in a computer – it’s not the original anymore – I’m a bit of the old school – more like a real feeling because you can listen to the DJ and you can tell what he is playing at the same time.
Audio part Listen to parts of the Behrouz interview here, where Behrouz talks about the club scene in the US – dealing with drugs and new laws. Length: 3.55min, mono 32kbps Size: 921Kb Format: MP3
Text and live photos by: Christian Almind	Related feature: Record shopping with Deep Dish