ATB
ATB is well known all over the world for his huge hits - 9PM, Don’t Stop, Let You Go and more recently, Humanity. He’s currently embarking on a world tour which takes him to over 20 countries including Australia, where he’ll play at Global Gathering in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney on the 30th November. ATB took some time out to have a chat with us here at Beatz Radio…
Tim: Now, ATB, I here you're currently on a massive world tour, where has it taken you so far?
ATB: I’m doing a lot around America, North America, and South America. We do a couple of things in Asia and also of course Europe - my home town - and all the years its European countries, but to be honest, I’m really looking forward to coming back to Australia because it was a long time ago I played in Australia.
Tim: When was the last time you came here?
ATB: I think it was something like 11 years ago to be honest. It was under another project name and at that time it was my first, a little bit successful project name, Sequential One it was. It was something like a hard core Techno thing. These things went really well in Australia but my style has changed a little bit and I’m really happy to come back. I don’t know why there was no chance for me in the meantime to be in Australia but I know we had it and I think a lot of people are waiting on it and I’m very excited.
Zac: Well we are very excited to have you here!
How do you think the scene fairs up in Australia in comparison to the rest of the world?
ATB: Um, I will see. Ha ha…To be honest I will see. What I recognize when I travel around the world is that the difference between the crowds and all these things are not that big. All the people who love this kind of music have the opportunity to unite, you know, oh crowds you know, its always a great feeling to play this kind of music because I think when you’re in love with electronic music or Trance or however you want to call it, you just have one goal when you go out to one of these things. When you go to see a DJ your really in love with, you go out to get in a good mood and to dance. And this is what I’m looking for when I’m on the stage. I see people going into another world you know, or just forgetting their other problems - just dance and have fun. This is what I want to see and I really do expect this also from the Australian crowd and what I have in my mindset is the Australian crowd was really in a good mood always when I played and I really expect it this time also.
Tim: Would you say that’s what you like most about touring?
ATB: There are a couple of things I really like. Of course sometimes all this touring can be really, you know, like always sitting in a plane, or just seeing the hotel. It can be boring but on the other side you have the opportunity to see so many different cultures and see so many things. Sometimes you see nice things, sometimes you see very sad things and poor things, but this I think is very important to open up, and to have an open mind. I started with all this traveling 7 years ago and I don’t want to miss it even today because it’s very interesting to see the things in South America and North America… or in Asia to see what’s going on there you know. It opens your mind - you see a lot of different political things… you see a lot of landscapes… and it really opens your mind. And this is also very important for my being in the studio. When I'm back in the studio I have so many things in my head that would just be coming out of my fingers and of course it turns into the music and this is very, very important. You get a lot of influences by traveling and I never want to miss that influence.
Tim: Your latest album was Trilogy - or at least that’s what it was called here - It's a little bit more cruisey than some of your previous albums; would that, as you say, be an indication of your style as an artist these days or was it just one of those things “hey I made some dancey albums and maybe I wanted to try something a bit different?”
ATB: I’m always trying to do different stuff you know. The last album was very, ah, it had a lot of real instruments on it like guitars and all those things and this time I really loved it because I hung around with some people, with some song writers, with the old school song writing style - just sitting around with guitars and writing music. I liked it this time, but when I go to do the next album I always try to change it, you know, from the beginning to the end, so I do really different things. So the next album will be very electronic, with real instruments and all these things. I think it’s very important for me to change the music, to change the style always; otherwise I wouldn’t exist now for 10 years from album to album. The music always changes a little bit and ah, so we’ll also do it for the next album, and I think you will be surprised when you listen to the next album because it’s really different again.
Zac: Really looking forward to that actually….so, tell us a bit about your musical influences, Andre. What actually drove you to become a DJ, to produce dance music itself, what actually got you into that?
ATB: Um in those days, I think it was 1992 or 1993, I admired a lot of music, but at the time it was not ambient, nobody categorized the music as ambient. There was still no ambient existing at this time, but I was listening to Jardin Solar, don’t know if you know him. He’s a French, electronic producer. He’s done something like this chill out, meditation music, you know, and I really loved the kind of melodies and harmonies he used. I loved this instrument, the synthesizers, just synthesizers, you know, and sometimes just pads and all these things. I really loved it but this time I tried to do the same music but more danceable. This time, most of time, I started to go into clubs but the music was really different this time in the clubs and I tried to mix this medium. I listened at home to this like kind of meditation music, or nice melody synthesizer music to mix it with the beats I’ve listened to this time in the clubs. So maybe from this time it was very important for me always to mix these nice melodies with a very danceable beat underneath it and this was the thing that you could always find in my music. You know, I always tried to mix these things and I think this was my main influence this time.
Tim: So you would say that with disc number 2 of Trilogy, that was more the meditation style music?
ATB: Ha ha more the meditation part and I really love this kind of music you know. Still to this day I love the ambient things. In my private life, I just listen to that kind of music. Of course I’m also listening to pop music, rock music, the normal radio stuff but when I just couldn’t forget the old things or to come down and relax a little bit I have ambient music on my ipod. It’s very important for me to have the opposite thing in my life, you know, to calm down, and to find new ideas, and to….its very important this kind of music in my life.
Tim: Absolutely. Now I do have to ask you...with Renegade, you worked with Heather Nova…How did that come about?
ATB: It was nearly the same thing as when I worked with Enigma. With the enigma guy, you know, I just sometimes said ideas, and I like the guy, you know, I just wanted these things. I thought about it, I love her voice, and I would never say “oh it just never happened” or “we don’t have the contact” or something like that. I just said “I want to work with her” and in the end it happened. It was great because I knew a guy from my older record company who knew her at the time, and I just called him “ “is there any way to get in contact” and blah blah blah and yeah, they called her and she was very excited to do a really different thing, because it’s a different thing, her music is really different to that what I do. She was also interested in mixing up two of some really different styles and so the things happened. I really love her voice. I know that there are people who hate her voice and there are a lot of people who love her voice and I love these things, you know, some people hate it, some people love it…but I fell in love with her voice from the first moment and I was very happy to have the opportunity to work with her. She’s a really nice person, she’s really professional and um, yeah, she’s beautiful so it was great working together with her.
ATB played Global Gathering, Sydney on 30th November 2008
Author: Beatz (10/11/08)