Exclusive Interview with Markus Schulz

Siam2nite had the opportunity to have an exclusive interview with Markus Schulz, shortly before his performance at MAYA Music Festival on 7th March.

We had the pleasure to interview you back in 2012 when you visited Bangkok on the occasion of the “Scream” album world tour. In the meantime you have been voted to America’s Best DJ for the second time (2012 & 2014) and you are ranked in DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs for the 11th consecutive year. In 2014 your released your 5th and most recent studio album “Scream 2”. What can you tell us about the album and its creation process?

 

At the outset, I certainly didn’t expect or indeed plan the Scream story to spawn two albums.

 

It was strange to begin with, because usually when I finish an artist album I feel creatively spent, and need to take a break before delving into the studio again, usually by exploring with the Dakota material.

 

But after completing the first Scream album in 2012, I still felt the creative spark; so on this occasion I didn’t actually stop working. Scream was an interesting experiment in terms of track volume, because normally you may make between 20-25 tracks, and eventually the list will be whittled down to around 12 for an artist album. But in the digital age, you aren’t limited to a 78 minute pressed CD anymore. So we decided to put everything out there, and hope that there was enough variety that everyone could take something from.

 

But when the album finished I was like, ok, here are 23 tracks that I’m going to deliver for Scream, but I’m going to keep on working and translate my ideas into music.

 

While the first Scream Bus Tour was going on in 2013 across the US, I was so inspired by the experience of travelling from city to city and interacting with the fans at the shows, which prompted me to put the idea of a second chapter in motion. By continuing to work on projects, I had the foundations laid down for half of Scream 2 by the beginning of May that year.

 

With every artist album, you want each to demonstrate your progression as an artist and a songwriter. I feel more confident now in working with singers and being able to shape the beds around their lyrics, whereas in the beginning it was incredibly daunting for me. And what I’ve always tried to express with my work is the strength of the melodies, even as production techniques have evolved over time.

 

And by the beginning of 2014, the second chapter was completed, and the overall Scream story concluded just before Christmas with the remixes.

 

Scream 2 had a really nice balance, with an almost 50/50 split between vocal and instrumental. Some of the instrumentals I feel are among the best I have ever done, and I can sit back a year later and be proud of the resonance delivered by the likes of Remember This, In the Shadows and Destino. And of course the vocal tracks provided so much attachment, the likes of Erase You and Blown Away.

 

For someone that is not yet familiar with your sound, what tracks, remixes or mix sets would you recommend as an introduction?

 

That’s a difficult one.

 

In terms of importance I guess The New World (from Do You Dream) was a watershed moment at the time, because of my association with the Transmission events in Prague. I know that I meet so many fans, particularly those based in the eastern European countries, whose first discovery of me was thanks to that track. That area remains important to me today - Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria etc. - and Transmission is our annual gathering together.

I get asked many times in interviews about my favourite all time trance track, or the one track I wish I could have made myself, and my undisputed choice always has been Perception by Cass & Slide. It reminds me so much of my time living in London; the period where I had to truly discover who I was as an artist. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to pay tribute to the original with my own version, featuring the amazing Justine Suissa on vocals. The lyrics are so incredibly moving and powerful - “rise up together” is a slogan I think we can all live by.

And in recent times, the track which has most likely connected the most is Remember This, which got nominated for Best Trance Track in this year’s IDMAs.

Remixes… some of my proudest ones are actually the oldest - the likes of Telepopmusik’s Breathe and OceanLab’s Satellite. And of course there are the bootlegs that I made exclusively for my livesets - the likes of Rank 1’s Breathing.

 

DJ sets - the easiest thing I could recommend is for people to head to http://markusschulzpodcast.com and subscribe to the free weekly Global DJ Broadcast radio show. It’s something I’m incredibly proud of and I love reading all of the interaction on social media every Thursday. Once a month I’ll feature a recording of one of my recent livesets through the World Tour, and occasionally we also have some specialist theme / concept shows which are among the most anticipated every year - the Classics Showcase and the Sunrise Set.

 

And if fans want to dig a little more, then there are lots of exclusive bonus sets on my Soundcloud page at http://soundcloud.com/markusschulz - the likes of my 5 hour set for our annual Coldharbour Day is available there.

In 2013, you and Ferry Corsten teamed up as Production & Touring duo “New World Punx”. Your debut show was held at the prestigious Madison Square Garden. What can you tell us about this new project?

 

I have to tell you, that night performing at MSG was beyond my wildest dreams. I’m a huge sports fan, so to be able to go into the home of so many iconic sporting events was a huge honor.

 

Ferry and I had been friends for quite a while, but nothing quite like the day to day closeness between us now. We would always enjoy each other’s company when playing at the same festivals, but our opportunities to develop a friendship didn’t extend beyond that.

 

Back in 2011, our families rented a villa in Ibiza, so we were all living together for a week, and that’s when we really bonded. We both realised through the conversations that we had a lot of similar ideals and were at a point in our career where an injection of something fresh would be fun.

 

So the following year, there were a few gigs where promoters booked us on the same lineup, and the success and feverish reaction of that led to more demand for us to play sets entirely back to back and improvised. So New World Punx was essentially born a year before the MSG show, but because the demand was so huge, we had to give the Markus Schulz b2b Ferry Corsten concept a name.

 

We’ve had so much fun ever since. The most important thing to stress is that New World Punx is not a replacement for our own individual careers, rather a compliment. We try to restrict the number of NWP shows to around 15-20 a year, because the less often they happen, the more special they are.

We launched the NWP label last year with the release of Torque, and we have our very first vocal single, featuring Cara Salimando, coming out a couple of days after the Maya Music Festival takes place. The track is called Memories and it acts as a really nice encore song. It’s like us being able to say to the fans, thanks for supporting, thank you for the memories from this night.

While light, upbeat melodies are trending in EDM and Trance, you prefer a deeper and darker sound, which earned you the nickname “Unicorn Slayer of Trance”. How would you describe your own music in a few words?

 

It was actually a fan that came up with that name, believe it or not. It wasn’t something where I had a team in the background actively trying to come up with a marketing gimmick.

 

Even though most people would associate me as being a trance DJ throughout my career, the type of trance I’ve played wasn’t the typical 138+ supersaw formula. Somebody years ago tagged me as the “anti-trance trance guy”. As years went on and trance started to become dominated by vocals and love songs (not that there’s anything wrong with them but too many in one dose doesn’t have the desired effect), and I tended to steer away from overloading my sets with those tracks, or the “rainbows and unicorns” feeling.

 

So one night a fan tweeted me and described me as being “the unicorn slayer of trance”. I retweeted it and it really caught fire. Within weeks people were making their custom unicorn slayer t-shirits and wearing them to shows. Now it’s gotten so big I don’t know where it’s going to end. I played a show at Avalon in Los Angeles a couple of years ago and they had a full life-size unicorn statue at the front of the club!

You started 2015 with an original and fresh project: Each month will be highlighted by a new instrumental production - each track dedicated to a particular city or event. The first track - release in January - is “Bayfront (Miami)”. Can you reveal what’s coming next? What else is on your agenda for 2015 and what are you currently and focusing and working on?

 

On the rare opportunities to take a step back and examine my tour schedule throughout a calendar year, I am incredibly blessed to have the ability to connect with so many incredible fans in the world’s most beautiful cities.

 

What’s different about this compilation is that it’s not just one city being showcased - it’s twelve - one for each month of 2015. And the unique feature is that each city is being represented by a new instrumental production by me.

 

The important aspect about the tracks is that it’s not just about the city itself, it’s about the particular event, and the fans in attendance. For each particular city, I’ll be recording the set with the crowd noise, and combining them for the album itself.

 

So come December, it will be a nice way to close out the year and reflect on the adventures throughout the journey.

 

We did Miami (Bayfront) in January to mark the open to close solo set at Club Space and the Groove Cruise, and Bucharest (Bine Facut) was the focus for February thanks to the recent revolution of Romania, and being able to witness the emotions of the people on the streets a few months prior. March is dedicated to San Francisco, with a track called Golden Gate, and will be highlighted by another open to close solo sets at one of my favorite venues to play, Ruby Skye.

 

But that won’t be my sole attention production-wise this year. I’m gearing up for my next vocal single featuring Delacey called Destiny - and it has generated so much reaction at the gigs I have played since Christmas. It’s a song I’m incredibly proud of, because along with the production, I was involved with the songwriting process from scratch. It’s due to come out in April.

You are looking back on a sensational career of over 20 years as DJ & Producer. You have played all over the world at the biggest clubs and festivals - including Sensation, EDC, Ultra, Electric Zoo, A State of Trance and Tomorrowland. What were the best and the worst gigs you ever played and what was the funniest thing ever occurred during any of your performances?

 

Along with the passion of the fans, the most important drive and desire in my career is to build a legacy that encompasses significant moments, and the gigs play a crucial role in that. So things like playing open to close at Tomorrowland for 12 hours is something that contributes; the residencies at Ministry of Sound in London, Space in Miami and Amnesia in Ibiza, the arena shows like Transmission and Bal en Blanc, the solo sets in Los Angeles,  Toronto, Buenos Aires, the connection with Montreal, Mexico City and so on.

 

Ultimately, I am one of the lucky ones, because I get to do what I love for a living.

 

The worst gigs are always the ones where there are technical faults, which can be unbelievably frustrating. Funny you mention Electric Zoo in New York. The very first year of the festival in 2009 I was playing the main stage, and when I began my set there was a fault with the mixer. The first 10-15 minutes felt like a trainwreck, and it was difficult to keep a smile on the face for the fans while all of this panic and chaos was going on in the DJ booth trying to get it swapped out. Thankfully we got it sorted and had another hour to make things right.

 

Funniest thing that ever occurred… there was a phase a few years ago where go-go dancers were regularly falling off stage at my gigs. Maybe they were dancing too much!

 

There was a gig I played in Buffalo around four or five years ago, I think it was around a week before Christmas. During the set, there was a fire performer on the left side of the stage. She spilled the kerosene she was using and part of the stage went up in flames!

 

The craziest part was, everyone thought it was part of the show and started cheering. I had no idea what to do really - do I just keep playing while all of that is going on? Then they came out in an attempt to put out the fire by using bottles of water. I was thinking, oh my god, we’re going to burn this entire place down by the end of the night, literally!

 

Eventually they found a fire extinguisher to put it out, but it was one of the craziest things I’ve encountered during a gig for a very long time.

 

Did you keep your previous Bangkok performances - and Thailand in general - in good memory? What can the Bangkok crowd expect of your upcoming performance at MAYA MUSIC FESTVIAL?

 

Absolutely. I actually went through my tour dates archive and couldn’t believe that the last time I played in Bangkok was at Levels back in December 2012. So when you have a gap of that long, it means that you have to reward the fans who have continued to connect and support you.

 

I’m really looking forward to coming back. This will be my biggest ever show in Thailand, and I’m very happy to be part of the Maya lineup. Looking forward to seeing the fans there, and hope they look forward to hearing Destiny!