Kate: By the sounds of it you had a great season at Privilege in Ibiza this past summer and you’ve even talked about doing Spinclub parties around the world, have you had any so far?
Chris: No… the planning is still in the making (laughs), some things take longer and I think next year will be the launch of maybe the first Spinclub party, and um… it’s a little different concept. It’s a concept with a role of resident DJs and always one live act in the middle of the night coming on. It’s basically always the same DJs including myself, and this was the concept which we had in Ibiza which was working amazingly well… and I will try to see how that is going to work in the rest of the world (laughs).

Kate: So you plan to have the same resident DJs you had in Ibiza then?
Chris: Yeah that would be the point behind it; it would be these DJs, since we had a good season in Ibiza. The good thing was these DJs didn’t know of each other before the season and they all became good friends, so the main thing when I do a night or if I want to do a party or something like this is that the people involved all get to know each other well and have a good time together. If you as an artist have a good time it always projects on the crowd and this was working really well this summer so that’s is why I would love to continue with these kind of people and always add this element of a live act who fits into this certain vibe as well.

Kate: You have a long history of supporting new talent, from your remix contest on C.L.R. to the DJs you hand-picked for your Spinclub nights in Ibiza this past summer. What was it that made them stand out in your mind?
Chris: Well it’s definitely the 3 residents which I was very happy that they agreed to be part of the Spinclub thing, all 3 have in common that I met them in completely different parts of the world, Benny in Holland, Angel Costa which I had a little tour in Spain with at the beginning of this year and Nick in New York, and what they all have in common is their passion for DJing and for just performing the music without having really that priority to be a big DJ… you know? It’s like they are DJs because they really feel it, like I want to make music and I want to play music and umm… they are all just getting into producing music as well and it is so interesting for me to see because they all do it not because to get famous or to earn a lot of money or to do whatever, they do it because they really have it in their heart. They all come from a little bit different directions so it’s not necessarily the music which I would say like “oh I need to get them because they are playing such great music” they do play great music but not necessarily for my tastes needs to be great, If that would be the case then I would be playing the same music obviously, I’m not playing the same music as they are but I really like the way they perform the music and they have that effect on the crowd. That is something that you rarely see, or maybe I rarely see because I rarely get to see other DJs in general, but that feeling for the crowd and to play for the people and not necessarily only playing your own music no matter what the crowd does.

Kate: Have you started working on the second (Demon) chapter of Stigmata yet with Andre Walter?
Chris: No we haven’t started working on it. It has been a little bit difficult, since the whole Stigmata series, the first chapter, was done between 96-97 and 2000… it’s been awhile since then and we’ve been talking about continuing this chapter but within that time the music has changed and the music which I like and I like to play and I like to do has changed a bit as well. So it is a bit difficult and we are still thinking about how to get the idea of Stigmata and the point behind the music, which is sort of a dark kind of hard vibe, into sort of a modern production method, umm… So that it does not sound like the old stuff, still sounds fresh but still will not disappoint people who like the old stuff…. and not disappoint us as well of course (laughs).

Kate: Speaking of Andre, do you think you will ever perform a live act with him like you have been doing with Speedy J?
Chris: Umm… No it’s mainly because Andre is more like an introverted kind of person… he’s not really that much outgoing and never really had a tendency to perform on a stage, he’s more of a, very much studio guy, doesn’t even like to travel much so…umm… there are enough reasons for him not really wanting to go out there.

Kate: Are there any upcoming releases for any of your labels?
Chris: Yeah, I am basically already started working in my new studio which I moved into two months ago… and I am working on my next 12inch on my own label C.L.R. 16 right now which I hope to get finished within the next two weeks so the release should be somewhere beginning of next year. Besides that the plan is for me to work on an album for myself, I have no idea in what time span this is going to be possible. And an overall plan for next year is to do a new album together with Speedy J.

Kate: You have a new mixed CD recorded live at the legendary Womb in Tokyo, what influenced your decision to do the recording there?
Chris: Well they asked me to do it! (laughs)

Kate: Ah ok - as simple as that! (laughs)
Chris: I played Womb the club about three times before and I know for their series of live mix CDs, I was actually the third one to do it. I do like the idea, my last mix CD was also a live recording in Belgrade, about two years ago. As they were asking me, it was for me a total must because I do like the club.. the Japanese people, especially in Tokyo are quite crazy….party people, and I did like the idea to record it there, because it would fit the series of mix CDs I am releasing anyways which always have that live element… I want to keep that going and have probably perhaps in half a year a new live mix CD. It was very professionally made, like the whole recording and also the recording of the crowd…of the atmosphere with loads of microphones located in the room. It was probably the most professional recording I have seen so far, and I was really happy with how it turned out, how it sounded…I was happy that I didn’t do any major mistakes or anything like that, so I am just really happy and proud of that CD.

Kate: You started a technical column earlier this year that was to appear in a number of publications worldwide including Kick Magazine here in Canada, I saw the first article but nothing since, is this something you are still doing?
Chris: (laughs) Yes the person who is working for me in our office, responsible for these columns, she is already very mad at me as well (laughs), because she’s basically telling me to keep on writing these columns. But the thing was, this year I was moving my studio, I was preparing for Spinclub, I also started an Internet radio show called Noise Control already last year… which I did the last show also before the summer, sadly, and of course it is always that I have way more plans and ideas than time to actually accomplish them, or get them accomplished, and this year was especially hard due to 15 continuous weeks on Ibiza, which made the whole travel plans for the summer a nightmare, plus playing all these festivals. It shouldn’t sound like excuses but there was loads of stuff going on, and I always like to write a column when I have some urgent tech issue or something new which I really want to talk about… and I basically sort of said everything I wanted to say in the last columns and I wanted to wait until this little spark comes which inspires me to write the next one, that didn’t really happen so far but actually this week I had a good idea about something to write about, also of course about new technology, so I think the next one will not be too far away.

Kate: In that same article I read, your theme was good vs. evil – and you said you feel sometimes (quote) ‘torn between two worlds’, referring to vinyl and what you’ve been using mostly these days – Traktor and Ableton. You’ve obviously been a DJ who has embraced new technology, what do you feel has been the most exciting new product/development in recent years?
Chris: Well it’s definitely got to be Traktor by Native Instruments. I started to more work with this as Joachem and I, Speedy J and I, started to think about and plan our Collabs tour, due to the fact that we were using a lot of hardware and machines which needed to be synched, it started to be a bit more difficult for me to just put turntables next to it and play off the turntables, so we were really trying to find a way of including other people’s music, mixing it with our own music, and because I was working with Final Scratch a long long long time before and Final Scratch and Traktor basically morphed together at Native Instruments who did an amazing job developing the software, and it is exactly the right software which we needed. Partly of course because we were also telling them a little bit what we want and what we need and partly because of different inventors of different sides came together, like Final Scratch was a whole different invention and Traktor, these programs came together. It makes a lot of sense and that is such a big step into a new direction of performing music on a stage, which of course has a lot of critics talking about “oh a real Dj needs vinyl” or “a real DJ needs to beatmatch his tracks and synch them”… I am way beyond that problem by now, I don’t see this as a problem at all anymore, I see the big advantage, the big positive side on the other hand.

Kate: I remember reading many years ago that you had never owned a pair of turntables at home… is this still the case?
Chris: Right, yes that’s true. Well I do actually have two turntables now, one is in the studio and one is here at my place, but in the first 3 or 4 years that I was working more, let’s say, professionally as a DJ, and working like in a club and really actually getting money for that, I did not have even one turntable at home which was due to the fact that I always had a key to the club where I was playing so I didn’t really need to buy a pair of turntables for myself every time I wanted to listen to records I just went there or practiced mixing there or whatever.

Kate: Better sound system I am sure too! (laughs)
Chris: Yes (laughs) better sound system definitely. Well not all that great at the time but good enough… and by the time I moved to Frankfurt and had other gigs and different gigs I didn’t really bother getting turntables and eventually I got one because I wanted to listen to records at home…but I have never really had a DJ set up at my home really.

Kate: What do you hope to accomplish with respect to your career in 2007?
Chris: Well I definitely want to do another season in Ibiza because I thought that was an amazing start for a new night, and it was very exhausting, a very hard summer for me, but still the nights made up for it…. I do get a lot of inspiration out of this for the studio. I would say one thing is to maybe get the Spinclub parties on the road and maybe also for myself, really digging deep into my studio and find hopefully new ways and sounds and tracks.

Kate: You have undoubtedly had a busy tour schedule worldwide for quite some time now, are there any countries that you haven’t played yet that you hope to visit?
Chris: Well China is one! I’ve never really been to China, so that is one which I might be going to next year, so that would be interesting. I have never really been to the continent of Africa so that would also be interesting if something there could be worked out.

Kate: You’ve stated before that with the emergence of new technology that DJ’ing is now much more accessible to people, and that consequently the competition is getting harder for the new generation especially. As a result of this increased competition, do you see marketing playing a much greater role these days in the overall success of an artist?
Chris: umm… yes actually I must say sadly that there is a lot of marketing going on in order to get out as new DJs, especially when you like at these DJ top 100 lists, this is a list you can really have big big discussions about because suddenly you see names on this list that you have never heard of in your whole life before and umm… you see these names maybe 50 or 60 places in front of people where you would expect, for example a guy like Richie Hawtin, or Dave Clarke I think who was not even in the top 50…. And then there are people in the top 5 where you must think they can only be there because they have done an amazing job marketing or getting word out to all their friends and families to do some internet voting. Suddenly you have all these DJs and you are not sure, are they actually doing a good job, are they making good music? And people are influenced by things like that and maybe they go out and not have a good night and lost interest in electronic music. That’s the biggest fear I have because people who you know who are really doing it for the love, they don’t really care with where they are placed in whatever lists because they love the music.

Just a few last quick questions…

Kate: Before your career took off as a DJ you had done the preliminary testing to obtain your commercial pilot license, have you flown any type of aircraft since then?
Chris: never have actually!

Kate: Oh I thought maybe you had done some flying as part of the testing!
Chris: I actually did the testing well and managed to pass all the tests which I was really happy because I think at that time only maybe 0.3% of all the people who did the test actually managed to pass the test, so I was really happy to pass them…. but I don’t know if it was fate but I was supposed to start with Lufthansa, my pilot school, and the moment it was supposed to start, in that week, they basically closed down the pilot school due to financial problems they had at that time, and they didn’t really think they needed any more pilots in the next year… so they can sort of find a new way for their pilot school. So that was in 91 I think or 90 even, where they closed down the pilot school for, they just said a year, and they offered me that I could start in exactly one year like we are just going to close it down for one year while we think of the financial issues and structures but that in one year I could start, and within that year basically I decided that this is probably not the thing that I wanted to do and that I really should do what I more believe in which was music then.

Kate: Do you have anything on your Christmas wish list this year?
Chris: Umm… (laughs) we started actually, because most people I know, or the people who are close to me all have our birthdays in December, so we started to not give presents for Christmas but we give each other the presents for the birthday. I am just looking forward to this Christmas because it is going to be my first Christmas with my daughter; she is now 11 months old, so this is going to be a lot of fun. I mean she is probably still too young but I think future Christmas’ will be fun because Christmas is much fun with kids.

Kate: What is the last book you read?
Chris: The last book I read was Georges Simmoneau, do you know George Simmoneau?, he is a French author, he is already dead but he wrote a lot of books about a detective called McCrea and that’s a really nice read actually.

Kate: I am not sure what it is like in Germany yet but here in Canada we’ve just gotten our first big snow fall of the year, do you have any ski trips planned for this season?
Chris: Yes… (laughs) I am actually a heavy skier, I used to ski a lot when I was younger… even teaching skiing and financing my ski trips by going with groups to the Alps and stuff, and every year in January we are trying to go away for 3 or 4 weeks to Switzerland and this is planned for this January as well… but we need snow for this so maybe you can ship some over! (laughs)

Kate: (laughs) That’s the end of my questions for the interview, thank you for taking some time to speak with me…. I also just wanted to mention that you’ve been an influence for me behind the decks for many years now, and I hope to see you again soon!
Chris: ah thank you, it is always nice to hear that!

Special thanks to Betty at Pacha and Leslie at Mute for coordinating this interview!