Clubbing Magazine


Paul van Dyk is one of the most respected and loved trance artists in the world. His signature anthems like “For An Angle”, “Namistai” and “Another Way” is world known and he continues to release these fantastic anthems on his new album “Reflections” with tracks like “Nothing But You”, “Spellbound” and “Connected”. But his new album is also a reflection of his life and his perspectives on this; some personal, some of it is a politic view on what is going on in our world at the moment. This is emphasised in tracks like “Time Of Our Lives” and “Kaleidoscope”. I talked to Paul Van Dyk in Stockholm after he had done an hour long press conference, where he told about the new album, his experience travelling around the world and especially his encounter with poverty in India.
We have just come from the press conference and when I listen to you today I hear a somewhat changed Paul - a more political, more direct and a more mature Paul, e.g. talking about not making party music anymore. - No no - it has nothing to do with not doing party music, it still about fun. It’s not about us changing our lifestyle that wouldn’t make them feel better at all. It’s the fact that music shouldn’t be meaningless and still about having fun, about excitement and when I play it’s full on banging. But at the same time as an artist there is a deeper meaning to it and that is something that I’ve experience that in India and it’s difficult to put into words – you have to see what I saw and I think everybody who is half right minded would have been moved by it and changed by it. So that defiantly something that has changed – I think I had this instant maturing thing – I ‘m not so naive anymore. The title of the album “Reflections” can be understood in two ways – reflection of life, what is going on - but also musically – I see you reflect on influence of music as well, you go back and take some elements that had influenced you. - Mhhh yhear – When I go to the studio I never think “ok I’m doing this or to impress this person or I’m trying to do this”. It just happens. When I worked with DJ Tomekk – the Hip-Hop guy on “Knowledge” – the idea was to make a song which involves urban flavour of Hip-Hop but as well merges with urban flavour of electronic music and that was the idea and the aim, not being cool and make something with a Hip-Hop guy. The same with the Indy band Vega 4 on “Time Of Our Lives”, for me it was very important to merge the vibe and the flavour of musical genres with each other and create something unique. Without being rock music, not just being purely electronic music, trying to make something and this actually doesn’t come as a clever idea in my head – It comes out as a natural progression as an artist. When I listen to the new album it’s very diverse in style. - When you get older you get more self-confident and the other thing it is reflecting on being more self-confident as an artist in terms stretching it future into this direction or that direction, or touching rather serious issues like hunger, political issues. But at the same time an example the song “Homage” is pretty much about my private life – it’s very direct and personal as well. Another really political song is “Kaleidoscope”. There are a lot of things on there and it’s important to do. I’m 31 now and it’s actually time to wake up and to realise what is going on – I know people that are 50 and they didn’t really wake up. I’m afraid that the majority of the people who lives in Europe and in the Stats still didn’t woke up – And I see this is my little window of opportunity.
	On “Reflections” Paul van Dyk has collaborated with Vega 4 on “Time Of Our Lives”, DJ Tomekk on “Knowledge”, Second Sun on “Crush” Hemstock & Jennings on “Nothing But You” and Jan Johnston on several tracks.
	How did your collaboration with Jan Johnston start – she is featured on 5 of the songs on the album. - I meet Jan the first time when I worked on BT´s album “ESCM” where she did the vocal for “Remember” – I’ve met her on and off over the years – and two years ago she suddenly turned up at a gig I did in New York. She is such a great talent – pretty much beside one track – I think never ever did somebody take her vocal properly – you always having her doing this fucked up tweaky bullshit – you also always feel it’s an instrumental track and someone is putting vocals on top for more commercial relevance. And this is not fair to her – because she is a beautiful artist – so I said to her let’s approach this a little bit different and this is what we did. The lyrics we wrote very closely together – I had the music ready – I told her the song should be about this and the out come of the song should be this and I would like to have this and these fraceses in it as well – and we went back and forth until we had the final tracks ready. I understand that you are going to produce Jan Johnston debut solo album?' - It’s the plan – but you never know what going to happen – and it looks like it still. It both make sense doing a Jan Johnston artist album and her doing collaborations on my album, it also make sense to take her off the calendar being on this record and that record – so therefore some kind of exclusivity is evolved. Everything that came out with her the last couple of months is produced last year – so you can see how long this whole thing takes – and there are still records coming out with her being on the vocals and this is going to harm her profile as an artist and this is something we actually tries make her understand. On the “Out there and back” album your wife did the vocals on “Together We Will Conquer” – why not on the new album? -My wife was too busy – I said do you have time and she said “no - not now” and then it was too late.
The first time we met we talked about a track called “I Don’t Care” what happened to that? - “I don’t care” turned into “Homage” it became even more personal and focused on my relationship; I know I’m missing so many magical moments – You don’t even want to know how often I’m sitting in a hotel somewhere in the world waiting going to the gig knowing all my friends and my wife are having a nice dinner and I should be there instead on the other side of the world. As much as I love everything I do with music as much I hate being away from home – I’m a really a homey boy.
Paul Van Dyk prefers to captivate his fans through his music, the level of which can be gauged at any of his regular 10,000 capacity gigs and by the fact that the media refer to him simply as “God”.
You have also done a remix album for Mix-Mag – I thought that you didn’t want to do this kind of mix CD´s and on the cover it says “Return Of God” – how do you feel about that? - I still wouldn’t count this one as a proper mix CD – a proper mix CD for me is something that you sell – this was pretty much a snapshot of what I was playing at that moment and it’s a giveaway for the people who enjoy my music and to get it with the magazine they buy anyway. In the next Mix-Mag I will be on the front cover and the article, which in general isn’t that good, I basically said “I don’t really feel comfortable with the label of “God”” – I remember a few years back there was a cover of Sasha saying “Son of God” – that’s making Sasha my son – this is really weird – it’s strange.
	*The “Reflections” formats.*
	I understand a special version of “Reflections” is released in Japan and a SACD are going to be released as well. - The Japanese CD is going to be a double CD and includes some of the tracks from the singles – because they never really release singles in Japan so that is a special format. The SACD format is around the double the price of a CD and I know that a lot of people don’t have DVD or 5.1 system anyway – so I think it’s unfair to sell them something that they don’t even want and at the same time they have to pay double – so I insisted having the normal CD and the SACD – so the people who are really sound freaks they can go ahead and get it. You have released your previously album as double CD’s are we going to see “Reflections” as a double CD in Europe and in the Stats?. - Not really – It has to do with the approach of this album – it makes much more sense to focus on the tracks on the album instead of having 10.000 mixes of them on a double CD and the other thing is – there are huge economical crises within our area. As much as I can do to lower the price in my end a double CD will be expensive in the stores. So I will guess some material has been left on the cutting floor? - Yhear - of course I had much more music than actually could fit on the CD – so we had to kick a few out.
*Final Scratch and a computer instead of records*
And finally - You are now using Final Scratch instead of using records when you DJ. - Yes - The chance of the airline losing my records is much higher than my computer going down. Most things I have as backup on CD so I can play CD. It’s actually much more reliable and safer than records and the airlines.
Final info Paul Van Dyk has just released the 3rd single from the “Reflections” album. The track “Crush” is the collaboration with Second Sun and we are also going to see the single release of “One Perfect Day” a title track that Paul has done for the movie of the same name. The “Reflections” album is sadly not released in Denmark, but you can get it as import.
	Related features: Paul Van Dyk: I don’t care…… Paul Van Dyk goes global Review: Paul Van Dyk - Reflections Review: Paul Van Dyk - Crush
Thanks to Paul Van Dyk and the Vandit crew.	Photos: Paul Van Dyk: SMC - Stockholm - 23rd of September 2003 Paul Van Dyk: Okyo - Copenhagen - 8th of November 2002 Paul Van Dyk: Vandit night - Berlin - 5th of April 2002
Interview and live photos: Christian Almind