By The Destroyhhher
Dj Hell is pretty much up there among my personal top 5 producers and Djs of all time due to his hard work ethic and dedication towards techno and the now dismissive genre known throughout local media folklore as electroclash, yes this man was one of the catalysis behind electroclash as stated by Larry Tee.
I've been following this wonderful label from 2000 and have been collecting Gigolo paraphernalia since then. I along with many others agree that they would consider Gigolo Records as the benchmark of good dance and electronic music from
I would like to be bold and say that Gigolo's releases will become timeless, ageless classics throughout probably the next 7 generations due to it’s uniqueness within sound and personality that is injected into every single, album or compilation from the artists signed to Gigolo
Hell (Born Helmut Josef Geier, born in Altenmarkt an der Alz on September 6, 1962) is man of many labels such as King of Electro, Man of the Year (as voted by FHM Germany), and my personal favorite.....The Anti Superstar DJ!
He is the head honcho of Gigolo since it’s inception in 1996 after working for another famous dance label Disko B. Since then, former artists who came from the stable such as Miss Kittin and the Hacker, Tiga, Fischerspooner and Vitalic have become successful solo artists in their own right all thanks to Gigolo Records
His latest album "Teufelswerk" is probably the most daring work to come from the Munich Machine since his last album NY Muscle and we got to have a little Q n A with DJ Hell about turning 40, new acts on Gigolo Records and of course.....Diddy from Badboy Records!
NF: Hey DJ Hell, congratulations for releasing your new album "Teufelswerk". So in your own words tell us how "Teufelswerk" came abouts?
HELL: The idea to write music in the kosmische style was in my head for a long time, and I ended up doing a double album because I had all of these great songs and I wanted to use as many of them as I could. I'm only releasing an album once every five years or so I had a lot of material after awhile, and a lot of it seemed to either go in this kosmische direction or a techno direction. The concept just all came together, and I named the album "Teufelswerk" because it translates to the "Devil's Work", the work of me, the work of Hell.
NF: It's been a good 6 year gap between "Teufelwerk" and your last album "NY Muscle". So what's been happening during that time frame?
HELL: Writing songs for the record, spending lots of time in the studio and playing all over the world collecting ideas for my album and the Megachurch of Gigolo.
NF: Teufelswerk is roughly translated "The Devil's Work." So with a career spanning over 3 decades, do you think that your contribution to electronic music was somewhat demonic?
HELL: There's definitely a dark element to my production, kind of melancholic and powerful. But as most people know, house music affected my career and the way I write just as much as techno has, so I think there's also a certain amount of soul that should go into the productions as well. Everything has elements of romanticism or some emotion.
The new album is split up into 2 CDs "Day" and "Night". Is this a reflection on how you felt during certain times while making this album?
HELL: The music just came, and there were so many tracks that I decided to put them all out, as a double album. I think both albums are great on their own, but together they really paint the whole idea of my creative power. To me, Night and Day resemble the marriage of all my ideas into one final project... all my work over the last years.
NF: Now you got Peter Kruder (from Tosca and Kruder & Dorfmeister) who is known primarily throughout the Downtempo and dub circles to produce the 'Day' CD. How was his input with the making of "Teufelswerk"?
HELL: Peter and I have been friends for a really long time, and I knew that I wanted to use a lot of instrumentation on the Day side of the record and that I needed a recording studio that would lend itself well to the instrumentation, so I decided to work with Peter. Peter is a great engineer and producer, and he brought in Roberto Di Gioia and Christian Prommer, the main instrumentalists you hear on the record, to play all the string arrangements, thing like that.
NF: The Angst / The Angst pt. 2 is a beautiful song. How did you and Peter Kruder came to conceptualize the making of that tune?
HELL: Thank you. I had the idea for something very light and beautiful, with a subtle electronic pulse underneath, something driving and still organic on top. I had the melodies in my head and we worked out who would play what. Then we had the idea to use this choir on top of everything. We recorded them singing all together and also experimented with solo parts. We had soloists "sing" words from books we had in the studio, then we cut up the recorded phrases and manipulated them... the idea was to use the vocals more as sounds.
NF: Speaking off subject, I've listened to Peter Kruder "Visions" and it feels like a complete departure from his usual styling of downtempo music. Your thoughts?
HELL: 'Visions Ltd' is a great track, and to me it still feels very much his style. I think it's a really classy track, very sexy. Maybe it's from working with him so much recently and seeing what he's doing in the studio that makes me think naturally, "oh of course, this is Peter, 100%", I don't know, but I think it's a great track and I'm very happy to present it to the world on Gigolo.
NF: Lets talk about the artists that you collaborated with on 'Teufelswerk' starting with Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music.His vocals were featured on “U Can Dance” another beautiful song from the album. Tell us of the process that was involved in making of this track and did you and Bryan meet face to face?
Bryan Ferry
HELL: I wanted the best of the best for this record. I was in London and Ferry was also in London at the time working on some music. He had this great track, and he offered it to me to work with. So I worked on it and in the end he ended up really loving it and we agreed to use it on the album. Ferry is a legendary voice and I am really happy to have his voice on my record.
NF: Now rapper and Hip Hop mogul P.Diddy makes a vocal appearance on “The DJ” which pays homage to Chicago house. Now I believe this was not your first time that you met P.Diddy. Tell us about your experiences with P. Diddy in the past?
Diddy
HELL: Right, we've done a few remixes with Diddy on Gigolo, one track was called "Let's Get Ill", and another is called "I'll Jack You vs. I'll House U", and features Felix da Housecat. Diddy and I met in New York years and years ago and spent time together in the studio and he was in the music video I made for "Keep on Waiting". Diddy is someone I really admire in this industry because he is working 24 hours a day on his belongings and has built a kind of empire. He's also really into techno, doing parties in Miami and going to Ibiza. I think he's like a new Warhol.
NF: Now I heard rumors that P.Diddy maybe releasing a dance record. What are your thoughts on that and will you be on board if it eventuates?
HELL: I think there's no limits to what someone like Diddy can do, he makes every idea imaginable. He is doing parties and booking DJs like Claude von Stroke, and Diddy is a huge supporter of techno, so I think that a P. Diddy dance record has the possibility to be huge - just like most everything else he puts his attention on.
NF: Tell us about your upbringing in terms of what music you grew up listening to when you were young?
HELL: My parents listened to more traditional German music, sometimes my mother would get a dance sampler, but I was largely educated by the radio in the early days. I come from a small town in Bavaria, so I didn't really have so much exposure to the entire world of music until I was old enough to begin going to Munich. Then I got into things like glam, 70s space rock, punk rock and new wave, and then in the late eighties and then early nineties my life was completely changed by Detroit techno.
NF: Were there any standout influences musically that got to you in your youth?
HELL: I would say musically at the top was new wave, and then idealistically at least came punk rock. Even through Gigolo, you can see there's a certain energy and aesthetic that is drawn from punk rock.
NF: We know about the history of Gigolo Records, but for readers here in New Zealand who are not familiar with it's history tell us briefly how Gigolo started?
HELL: Well back in the days I was working for Disko B, a label in Munich. I released my first album 'Geteert und Gefedert' on this label, and then I decided I wanted to make my own outlet for the music I believed in, so I started Gigolo as a sub label of Disko B. I wanted to release music by DJs, for DJs... stuff that was specifically for the dance floor, and that's exactly what I did. In a very short amount of time I released great records by David Carretta, Jeff Mills, Miss Kittin and the Hacker, Rok and Terence Fixmer. Gigolo became it's own label and we never looked back, it became THE cult label of the world where you could find all kinds of music by really ground breaking artists, and today we're at 250 releases and counting.
NF: Who's currently signed up on the Gigolo roster at the moment?
HELL: The roster includes myself, Richard Bartz, David Carretta, DJ Pierre, Fetisch&Me, Kikumoto Allstars, Play Paul, Capitan Commodore, Kevin Gorman, Rebecca Von Kalinowsky, Christopher Just, HeiB, Sebastien San, Mick Wills, Herman Schwartz, Romina Cohn, Mijk van Dijk, Joe Le Bon, Dibaba, Joel Alter, Ison & Solar, Seelenluft, G.Rizo, Le Chic and Le Noir & Meriton.
NF: Kikumoto Allstars and The Presets are on Gigolo Records and both hailing from Australia. Was is it about the Australian dance scene that made you sign up these 2 artists from there?
HELL: The Presets write great tracks, I was really into their sound and they also do a great live show, and Gigolo always had some live acts on the roster like XLOVER or Crossover for example, Presets took it to a different level. They just had a lot of energy and I knew I had to work with them. Kikumoto Allstars is a totally different act but I think musically it works with the direction that Gigolo is going in now, we're kind of going back to the past and releasing some great music in the Acid House and old Detroit styles, his tracks are already getting really great feedback from artists like Troy Pierce and Laurent Garnier.
NF: I've read on the official Gigolo website awhile back that you had an exhibition celebrating a 10 year Retrospective exhibition of the visual aspect of Gigolo Records. Does art still play a role within the Gigolo aesthetics?
HELL: It always has and always will. We did a few retrospective gallery events, in Berlin and also in London to celebrate Gigolo's tenth birthday and a lot of the exhibition was just album covers, it's important to me that each release on my label is the total package, music and artwork, represented in the right way, and in addition to record sleeves things like fliers, posters, visuals, merchandise, whatever it may be, if it has the Gigolo name on it then the aesthetic has to be just right.
NF: Is the music industry as a whole....out of control?
HELL: Well, it's changed a lot, and the whole setup will be completely different five years down the road, I think at this rate it's impossible for anyone to guess exactly what's going to happen or what will be. the whole world is going through a recession and so naturally artists and people who are making a living selling the art they create might suffer, but a positive way to look at it is that during these times people also learn to appreciate small things, like the way a certain song makes them feel, the way a movie or an album can take them to a different place where they don't have to worry about their problems.
NF: MP3s....For or against?
HELL: I myself am a vinyl fan. I've always preferred vinyl, and I most certainly will never play with a computer, but for a newer generation of DJs I understand that this is the norm. Everyone has their own way of doing it.
NF: What are your thoughts about this generation's musical choices? Do you think we should force them to listen to good music or should they try to discover it for themselves?
HELL: The best way to develop "good taste" in on your own, by finding things yourself with a little help from maybe mentors or close friends. "Good taste" is something that can be suggested, but not necessarily something that can be taught, you either have it or you don't. There's a lot of great music being released now of course, the times are just different.
NF: I've always envy German artists and their successful formula into making very good electronic music that seems to excel what is concurrent and out there at the moment. What is the secret for making good electronic music from a German perspective?
HELL: Well there's a lot of musical history here in Germany that isn't electronic, and I think that though Germany produced bands like Kraftwerk and Neu... I think that German musicians are very open to the influences of the world around them, we just interpret these sounds in our own way.
Definitely lots of non-German artists like Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, New Order and Gary Numan gave us similar takes on one perspective sound as well. There's a basic style in German electronica, certain sounds and a kind of minimalist approach to arrangement, this style largely influenced me in the writing of a lot of the tracks on the Night side of my album.
NF: Okay let's talk about Djing. Has much has changed in the way you're Dj in terms of the usage of CD or Vinyl within your sets? In fact are you still playing Vinyl at the moment?
HELL: Yes, I still play vinyl. I get a lot of music sent to me on Audio CD, things that just aren't pressed yet for example, so I end up playing a lot of this stuff on CDs for my sets because it just doesn't exist on vinyl yet, but I go record shopping religiously, I set aside a whole day once a week just for visiting the shops, shops like Spacehall here in Berlin who know what I am looking for and keep special things around for me to check out because they now I am coming in every week.
NF: I like how you coined yourself "the anti-superstar DJ" in your bio. Do you think we need more anti-superstar djs in this world?
HELL: They call me a lot of things, I don't write my own press releases so there's tons of things names out there... the Good Soul of Techno, Munich Machine, on and on... but the point is that yes, of course, everyone is a DJ these days and it's kind of getting ridiculous. People are releasing less and less but there is more and more hype. I just wish that the music was more of a focus, like it was in the past.
NF: Here's one simple question....what makes a good DJ?
HELL: Someone who can read the crowd well, approach them with a diverse palette of tracks, and someone who can work the faders and make it happen. It's a bit like psychology on a large room of people, crowd control.
NF: Now that you're in your early 40s, do you feel that you've accomplished alot within your career, or will there be more in store from yourself over the coming years?
HELL: I am really happy with what I've done, of course, but I certainly don't feel like I am done yet and would like to continue with the label and with my own music. Maybe I will make another album, I'm not sure, I like to be spontaneous. I'm an artist though and have a lot of ideas all the time, in my dreams, when I'm driving, things come to me, so I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.
NF: What advice would you give to the next generation of Dj's, Bands, artists and producers?
HELL: Just believe in what you're doing and keep working. You have to work really hard, especially now, but if you're good at what you're doing and you believe in it then you can make it happen. Make music for yourself, make art that you're proud of at the end of the day.
NF: Lastly......what does it mean to be a Gigolo?
HELL: Gigolo is an attitude, and the people who I brought into the label and artists I worked with all had this same special spirit. It's about ingenuity and personality, having a sense of humor and looking good at what you're doing. No compromises.
Dj Hell's new album 'Teufelswerk'is out now on Gigolo Records. Click here to go to Gigolo's Beatport store to get "Teufelswerk" and other great Gigolo releases.
For more information on DJ Hell and Gigolo, head to
http://www.gigolorecords.com/
http://www.myspace.com/gigolorecords
Thanks to DJ Hell and Kim from Rebel Butterfly over in the U.K. for arranging this interview!
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