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 Recently, i:Vibes visited Marcel Woods' studio for an extensive interview about every aspect of his career. We asked him questions about his upcoming mix CD, his DJ'ing and producing capabilities and loads of other interesting topics. If you want to get to know Marcel Woods and find out why exactly he doesn't want to be a trick, then head on in right now...
Marcel Woods has steadily become a well respected DJ and producer over the past few years. With his unique sound, he appears in many people's sets, with his records selling like hotcakes. Since the release of 'Time's Running Out' and 'Static State', his career has supersized itself to big proportions. He plays all over the world now, his 'Advanced' single became one of this year's biggest anthems and he has just released a brand new compilation CD called High Contrast presents Marcel Woods.
We thought now would be the perfect time to torpede the Woodsman with questions. This interview took place in his studio on November 8th, 2006 in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, just a few days after the second edition of his Musical Madness party concept...
Marcel Woods in his studio
i:Vibes: Recently, you threw a party which had ‘Musical Madness’ as its tagline. Your biography states that this is your motto, so to speak. Could you explain why?
A: To me, Musical Madness is a lot of things combined. For instance, I have to do lots of interviews these days! I started doing music because it was my hobby, I just liked spinning records. But at a certain point, things started to take on the strangest proportions. People all over the world ask me to spin at their clubs, I get picked up by limousines, I get to sleep in five-star hotels, it’s unbelievable. Next to that, it’s of course also about the madness that I experience in clubs when people go berserk on my music. Actually, Musical Madness speaks for all facets of my contemporary life: the DJ’ing, the producing, the traveling etcetera. I always try to remain as ‘cool’ as possible when thinking about it. I just want to do my thing and see what happens!
i:Vibes: When exactly did you start using the term?
A: That must have been somewhere in 2000. Back then, I already mixed a compilation CD which was titled Musical Madness. I used to spin at the club downstairs [Woods’ studio is situated above a club] and do my own Friday nights with the same tagline. When you become bigger as a DJ, people start to expect things from you as well. I did this by throwing parties every Friday night, and at a certain point I just had to come up with a good name for them. That’s kind of how the term was born. I’ve been using it for quite a while now, and a lot of people are already starting to associate me with it! They come to me and ask me why exactly I chose it, just like you are doing now. It’s a very broad term: it’s about the craziness people experience when dancing, but also about the fact that tens of thousands of people visit events with no more than 5 DJ’s spinning. A lot of people find this normal these days, but if you look at it closely it is not of course. For Prince and Madonna you’d expect it indeed, but not just for five guys spinning records the whole evening!
i:Vibes: About the party you organized recently to celebrate the release of your new compilation. The line-up contained artists like Benjamin Bates, Eddie Halliwell, Dazzle and Benny Rodrigues. How did the choice of these artists reflect which DJ’s / styles you dig most at the moment?
A: Well, the guys you just mentioned are kind of my favorites at the moment. It doesn’t have much to do with styles. Talking about styles, I think people’s urge to categorize everything into predefined, rather bounded contexts isn’t the way things should be looked at. I’d like them to be broader, not just limited to a fixed set of categories. You have to be open for every kind of music! For instance, if you are a fan of the harder side of the dance genre, then do not immediately start saying that Benny Rodrigues “isn’t your cup of tea”. Just go and have a listen. Anyway, I’ve chosen for the DJ’s you just mentioned because they are broad as well, and spin very varied music. That’s what I like about them.
i:Vibes: Talking about categorizing: during this year’s edition of Mystery Land, you spun two sets. One was a regular one, but the other one had “F*ck the hokjes” coming with it as a subtitle, which means “F*ck categorizing” in plain English. How exactly did you come up with the idea? And what kind of set did it become?
A: “F*ck the hokjes” is a thing I said in an earlier interview with ID&T’s release magazine, I think. Of course, it has everything to do with my aversion against the categorizing thing which I just talked about. The set itself was quite the special one. I had to spin in this sphere-shaped tower, together with others who all did ‘different’ sets than usual. My normal style is kind of broad already, causing me to spin an even more diverse combination of music that time. I even threw in some old Prince and Madonna records, as well as a good bit of hip-hop, combined with disco, trance etcetera.
i:Vibes: You have been busy with your musical career since the beginning of the nineties. How did things go in these first years, and in which way were you affected by ‘categories’ back then?
A: During the first six years, I was the resident DJ in Club Hollywood, the club downstairs. I started producing somewhere in ’96, and my first vinyl saw the light in ’97 I think. The categories weren’t really an issue back then. House was just house, it was kind of the name for everything. When things started evolving, more styles started to emerge. Things like gabber and mellow became popular terms, causing most DJ’s to be put into categories from this point onwards. From ’93 onwards, trance started to become popular. I started spinning it because I just liked it, adding it to my already existing style of DJ’ing. The so-called “hokjes” is an issue which can be tied to the last couple of years, in my belief. While there were some of them back in the beginning, I think these days they’re just taken way too seriously.
i:Vibes: Your biography literally states that you spin a “tough TechTrance style”. How about that, aren’t you categorizing yourself here?
A: In the beginning, there was nothing between techno and trance. I liked both, so I started combining things. At a certain point, it just had to be given a name, it was inevitable. It has become kind of a buzzword since then, especially seeing that people are also relating guys like Marco V and Sander van Doorn to it. I definitely do not want to say that I invented it, though! There are loads of other people, including Marco and Sander, who are doing and have done great things.
i:Vibes: You have a new compilation CD coming up called High Contrast presents Marcel Woods. It consists of two CD’s, the first one being a mix. How would you typify this first CD? Is it a reflection of the things you play when DJ’ing out, or more of a reflection of your personal preferences at the moment?
A: It’s definitely a combination of both. I can’t always do a set which corresponds with the tunes on the CD, because I always play in different situations of course. It depends very heavily on at what time your set starts, in which club it is, etcetera. For instance, at the release party of the CD we talked about earlier, I stepped up at peaktime and performed a set which corresponds to that. When in a more intimate club, as a DJ you have to ability to ‘build’ your sound a bit more, include some darker, deeper tunes.
The left side of the studio
i:Vibes: The track listing of the first CD contains a wide variety of styles. Of course they’re all records you like at the moment. Which tracks are doing it particularly well for you at the moment?
A: Pascal Feliz’ track is a good one, as well as Type 1’s ‘Satisfy’. Furthermore, ‘The Mighty Ducks’ by Bolier & Coenraad is a complete bomb, as well as the ones by Alex M.O.R.P.H. & Rank 1 and Ronald van Gelderen. As you can see, those all hinge a bit towards the harder side of the CD. Maddox & Roy’s ‘My Authority’ is a bit older, as well as Bates’ ‘Blue Monday’. But making a compilation isn’t just about selecting new music. I like those tracks, so I certainly wanted to include them no matter how old they are. I also edited two tracks to fit into the whole mix a bit better. I gave them a bit of a sharper edge.
i:Vibes: How did the compiling of the CD go?
A: It isn’t a thing you do in just one day. I searched around a lot on digital download shops, requested tracks from labels, and so on. One important side note to make here is that I personally think that the style I am doing at the moment isn’t doing too great. A lot of the so-called ‘techtrance’ sounds more like altered hardtrance to me. It’s too harsh for my liking, and definitely too hard to include on a CD. It has to be listenable in a car you know. In my category, I think the quality of the music being released is a bit low.
The CD’s were mixed using Ableton Live. I could have done it the old-fashioned way, but Ableton is just a magnificent tool to do things like this. You don’t have to start all over when making a mixing error for instance. Concluding, compiling the whole thing wasn’t easy at all!
i:Vibes: More people say that the overall quality of today’s scene is lacking a bit. Which aspects lack, in your eyes?
A: Well, the dance scene in general is really climbing up at the moment. The problem is that a lot of producers do not have their own sound. I for myself think I have a distinct own sound, a thing which guys like Marco V, Ferry Corsten etcetera have too. Too many people keep on searching and searching for a sound; they hop along with hypes. A good example here is the current electro thing going on: electro-house is something just about everyone does at the moment! The quality of the music is high: today’s records just sound 100 times better than records made 4 years ago, production-wise. The only thing is, I do NOT want to hop along with the electro hype, I want to keep on doing my own thing.
i:Vibes: The second CD is a selection of a few of your most recent productions, including a nice batch of new ones. Do you see it as your first full artist album? Or is that still something for the future?
A: I don’t really see it as my first album, since that wasn’t really the meaning of the whole thing. Be Yourself Music asked me to mix the first edition of their new High Contrast presents… concept, a thing which I of course gladly did. When compiling the second CD, I noticed that about ten of the seventeen tracks were my own productions. So we thought, wouldn’t it be cool to just skip the rest and produce an overview of what I have achieved over the past few years? And so it happened. We had a lot more things we wanted on there, including some bootlegs we couldn’t get cleared unfortunately. But I guess there will be a ‘full’ Marcel Woods album coming up somewhere in the future!
i:Vibes: What do you think that future album will include? Collaborations, tracks in totally different styles, or…?
A: That’s hard to say. I like to collaborate, but at the moment I don’t really have many wishes when it comes to that. In the studio, I work together with Wouter [Walt]. We’re quite open-minded, and we can produce from a very broad perspective. ‘Yellin’ @ The Neighbours’ and ‘Don’t Tar Me with the Same Brush’ are completely different than my earlier productions, which shows that we still have enough ideas, so to speak. As long as those are there, I don’t really feel the need to collaborate with anyone else. And talking about different styles: that might be possible. I have done a weird breakbeat track once, so you never know what’s going to roll out!
i:Vibes: Together with the release of the High Contrast presents Marcel Woods CD, a vinyl sampler will be released containing three of the new tracks that can be found on CD2. ‘Don’t Tar Me With The Same Brush’ isn’t included, ‘Accelerate’, ‘Basik’ and ‘Yellin’ @ The Neighbours’ are. Why is this?
A: That’s because ‘Don’t Tar Me’ will be released separately as a single next year. I personally think it’s one of my better productions to date, so I chose to bring it out a while later. By the way, we also did a remix for CLS ‘Can You Feel It’, which was supposed to be on the album as well as the sampler. Todd Terry himself [the producer behind CLS] liked it a lot, but because of some troubles with the Dutch publishing company we weren’t able to include it, unfortunately. As for the tunes that are on the sampler, I think they nicely reflect where my sound is heading at the moment.
The studio from the other side
i:Vibes: At the end of the second CD, there’s this nifty little hidden track after about one minute of silence. Can you tell us more about this one?
A: It’s actually called Walt Jenssen – ‘Ctrl-Walt-Del’. We hid it on the CD because we wanted to show that my music is rather broad and varied. It was too harsh to include on CD1, and the essence of CD2 was to include just my own tracks, so then we decided to just hide it. We also want to create a bit of a hype, mainly because we recently left Purple Eye [the label Walt used to release his records on]. The title also implies that we ‘deleted’ the Walt guise [because of contractual reasons], and invented Walt Jenssen instead.
The record itself creates quite the buzz when I spin it. I also sent it to Sander van Doorn, who at first told me he found it too hard to include in his sets. But when he played it once just to try it out, the roof went off! It’s a real party record with that weird shuffle beat and riff.
i:Vibes: So you produce all your tracks together with Walt?
A: Yes, indeed. Most of the Marcel Woods records are made by him and me, apart from some remixes like the one for Greece 2000, which I did individually. But 99% of the time we work together, also on Walt’s tracks. Sometimes I take on a leading role, sometimes he does; it just depends on the situation. There’s kind of a synergy between us; for instance, Walt is more ‘musical’ than me, but that doesn’t mean he’s able to create what he wants all by himself all the time. That’s what I like about working with him: we really complement each other!
i:Vibes: ‘De Bom’ was one of your first real club hits. Were there other records before this one that had a similar impact?
A: Yes there were! My cover of ABBA’s ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ was quite the big hit. It wasn’t released under my own name though. Next to this, ‘Sunny Trumpets’ under the MDC guise even reached #6 in the Billboard chart, how’s that? “De Bom”, though, was the first real record I associated with my own name.
i:Vibes: The MDC track was quite the commercial success. Are you planning on doing more commercially oriented productions in the future?
A: ‘Sunny Trumpets’ had a mainstream feel coming with it right from the beginning when we produced it. Nowadays, when we produce a track, we do it because I also want it to fit into my sets. If I can’t spin it, it’s of not much use so to say. On the other hand, a track like ‘Advanced’ became a bigger success than ‘De Bom’ and ‘Sunny Trumpets’ altogether. But it did fit into my sets. It wasn’t really a commercial track, just a commercial success. It sold well!
But you never know which way I’m going to go, though. We’re in the studio for five days a week, so perhaps there’ll be one day on which we’ll do another one of them. Although it won’t happen in the near future I think. My main goal is to first extend the Marcel Woods sound further.
i:Vibes: I know it’s a hard question, but what do you think is the best record you produced up until now?
A: Of the productions we’ve done, I think I like the Bits & Crushed Mix of ‘Advanced’ most, as well as the more recent ‘Don’t Tar Me With The Same Brush’. Looking at them from a producer’s view, I think they have the best sound coming with them.
i:Vibes: A while ago, we also did an interview with Ronald van Gelderen. He stated that making remixes results in a loss of creativity, in his case. What’s your opinion on this?
A: I don’t agree. There’s enough creativity going on in my head I think. Perhaps he meant that remixing takes a lot of time. That’s where I do agree. If I come back from a gig on a Monday afternoon I have less time left for my own productions, and if I have three different remixes lined up next to this, time is running out fast enough. I experienced this myself after releasing ‘Cherry Blossom’ and ‘Advanced’, for instance: remix requests came in daily, so I had to turn down a lot of them. Many labels wanted me to make a carbon copy of Advanced and use a few elements of the original song. That’s not my definition of a remix! Remixing is all about merging your own creativity with elements from the original song. Not merging elements from one of your earlier tracks with things from the original.
I have to turn down lots of remix requests these days. And sometimes, when I do accept one, I’m not too happy about the result. One of my latest remixes was one for DJ Shog. I liked some elements from the original and I thought it had potential. But at the end things didn’t work out the way I wanted. It was released eventually though, ‘cause the label liked it.
Right side of the studio
i:Vibes: Your studio contains lots of hardware. Many new producers tend to use VST’s more and more to create their tracks. Do you think they can measure with the sound of hardware?
A: Well, we do use some software of course. But some devices just cannot be reproduced using software. I find that the sound of many software synthesizers is still too thin in some way. VST’s and software plugins are of course very handy when it comes to costs, because they’re just way cheaper than buying a 2000 euro synthesizer. There are some people who can get amazing sounds out of VST’s, but mostly I think hardware is still the better choice.
i:Vibes: Is there one device which you always use when producing?
A: Hmm no not particularly, we always use whatever we think suits at the time. It’s really varied. For instance, we named ‘Cherry Blossom’ after a patch which is included in the JP 8080. ‘Advanced’ comes from the NordLead. We just use something we like; it’s not that we have a fixed set of devices which is always used while producing!
By the way, something cool to mention: ‘Don’t Tar Me With The Same Brush’ isn’t something taken from a synth or whatever. It basically means “F*ck categorizing/generalizing”! I want to make a bit of a statement with it. I don’t think anyone can put the record in just one genre; it’s a mixture of many. It has elements of groove, techtrance, trance etcetera. It’s just not describable using just one term.
i:Vibes: When is a record you produce ‘finished’, as in, when do you decide to send it to the label?
A: In the past, we did this a bit too fast. We thought, oh, that’s quite the good record, let’s start playing it and send it out. But after a few weeks, you’ll always find that you want to change some things. Today, we do it differently. Perhaps even too rigorously, because once Dick over at Be Yourself Music told us not to reconsider things that much, ha-ha. Anyways, nowadays I roadtest it for a few weeks and then decide what I do with it.
i:Vibes: More and more DJ’s are starting to spin sets containing just their own productions. Take Ferry Corsten as an example, he does the occasional set which complies with this description. Do you think you will ever get to this point?
A: I have done a set containing just my own productions once. This was possible, because what I produce is rather broad. In another sense, a good few of my older tracks sound dated nowadays. So when looking at it from that point, it becomes harder. There are so many good records out there which have been produced by others, I can’t just let those go by me! People like Ferry and Marco V spin sets with just their own stuff in there, but that’s because they want to make a statement with it. That is also why I did it once, to make a statement. I think most people will keep on spinning tracks from others since there’s just so much good material out there.
i:Vibes: Your overall style can be described as really raw. Why did you think it ended up like this, why didn’t you just go on with ‘normal’ trance?
A: I think it has to do with me growing out of the normal trance a bit. I wanted something a bit different. I had been spinning trance since ’93, and when it peaked some six or seven years later, I was kind of done with it already. I didn’t want to comply with what everyone else did, so I tried to create my own sound. And that ultimately resulted in the rawness of my contemporary productions. Jeff Mills and John Digweed were both my heroes, and combining their sound with trance just resulted in something a bit odd, a bit different.
The real ‘tickly tickly’ melodic trance hasn’t been my thing from the beginning.
i:Vibes: Could it have something to do with the music you listen to in your spare time?
A: I don’t think so. I’ve recently bought a CD by Justin Timberlake, and artists/bands like James Blunt and U2 can be found in my CD player regularly. When it comes to this, I’m rather open-minded I think, ha-ha.
i:Vibes: Do you think you’ve found yourself a hole in the market with your sound?
A: I don’t see it like that at all. I just do what I like! I think that ‘putting yourself in the market’ shouldn’t be anyone’s main aim. My biography exemplifies this, too: it says I’m in it for the love of the music, not for the love of the spotlights. My choice of music isn’t some kind of marketing campaign; it just reflects what I like. Moreover, there will always be ‘a market’ for unique things.
Some records
i:Vibes: A few years ago, you also mixed ID&T Hardtrance 3 & 4. Compared with the High Contrast presents Marcel Woods CD we just talked about, the overall styles differ significantly. The ID&T CD’s start off quite raw and harsh right from the beginning, while the latter does things more subtly. How would you say this reflects the evolution of your overall style? And what did you think about the ‘Hardtrance’ subtitle?
A: I wouldn't necessarily say it’s just the evolution of my style; it’s also the evolution of dance music in general. I was very happy when ID&T asked me to mix the CD’s, ‘cause they were one of the bigger companies in dance music. Back when I mixed volume 3, hardtrance was still big. But when they asked me to do the second CD, hardtrance was nearly dead. And I wasn’t such a fan of that style anyways. Luckily, they told me I could include whatever I wanted because my overall sound was harsh already. But in a sense, I found it hard to cope with the hardtrance subtitle because I was creating techtrance! The fact that the High Contrast CD is different than the previous ones just has to do with a bit of evolution. New things emerge, you try them out, which automatically results in changes. For me it remains important though, that the overall spirit of my sound is a bit raw.
i:Vibes: You did produce a full-on hardtrance track together with S.H.O.K.K. called ‘Tulips & Chocolate’ under the Woodshokk guise though.
A: Yeah, that’s right. But I think that the fact that I haven’t really spun the track in my sets says enough, really. S.H.O.K.K. was eager to produce a track with me, and I liked the idea of collaborating. The problem was that he didn’t have more time than 1,5 day. Our main goal was to create pure techtrance, but somehow we ended up with hardtrance. I think I spun it once or twice, but that’s it. It did sell very well, but to be honest it wasn’t something I was completely behind. Things like this do show you where you are and where you’re heading as an artist. I now know that I have to wait a while longer before releasing a track, for example. Sometimes I’m just too fast somehow. We sent out ‘Tulips & Chocolate’ to the label right after we finished it, perhaps we should have waited a little longer.
Having side projects was a normal thing three years ago. Nowadays, it’s hard to have one because people put stamps on it immediately. They say, oh, that’s a record by Marcel Woods. But the main use of them side projects is to bring a different sound! So I kind of stopped doing them, apart from Side Dish with which I released ‘Pressure’ recently. We made it a while ago and really liked the main lil’ melody.
i:Vibes: This year, your career got a huge boost. ‘Advanced’ became the Trance Energy Anthem and sold like crazy. A while ago, we heard that something went wrong while promo’ing that very track… please enlighten us!
A: Ha-ha, yes something went wrong indeed. We made the original track in September 2004. The very first version we made was the Bits & Crushed Mix, which was released just recently on the Signed, Sealed and Delivered EP. I still think this is the best version of ‘Advanced’, which was called ‘Adrenaline’ back then. But somehow more producers started releasing tracks with that title, so we renamed it. When we sent it to the label, they rejected it. I didn’t really understand, because when I spun the record during my gigs the roof went off! The label told me that they did like the main melody, though. So then we made the thus-released Original Mix, which was in a bit of a demo state when we first sent it out. The label immediately accepted it. I wanted to change some things because I thought it was still a bit too dull. They reconsidered the Bits & Crushed Mix and told me that the record was going to be released and that the promo process was going to be started very soon. And when Tiësto picked it up I was like, hell yeah! But then I heard he played the Original Mix… which in my eyes was still in a demo state! More people started playing it out though, so we released the mix that Tiësto played on the first vinyl.
i:Vibes: You’ve produced a limited amount of tracks which included vocals, including ‘Beautiful Mind’ and Babylon’s ’23 Minutes’. Are you planning on doing more with vocals in the future?
A: Yes, I’d love that. It’s a very complicated process, though. Not just something you arrange in a few days. In the case of ‘Beautiful Mind’, we asked our publisher if he knew someone who’d be able to help us out. We liked just a few bits of what we got sent, so we used just those. I wrote ’23 Minutes’ myself and found a singer myself as well. ‘Don’t Tar Me With The Same Brush’ was supposed to have vocals as well. We finished it and sent it to a UK company specialized in creating vocals, but it didn’t work out. I’m very critical when it comes to that. My opinion is that vocals get cheesy very fast. It’s hard to include a deeper tone in vocals, as opposed to the usual “I love you, I need you” vocals. But, as said, I’m certainly going to concentrate on vox more in the future.
i:Vibes: In less than two years, you made yourself quite a name with productions like ‘Static State’, ‘Time’s Running Out’, ‘Advanced’ and ‘Cherry Blossom’, as well as DJ bookings all over the globe. I haven’t seen many DJ’s/producers rising this fast in that little time. What do you think caused this?
A: It doesn’t happen often indeed, but a guy like Sander van Doorn is experiencing the same thing at the moment. The most important thing is that you have to do something unique. People hear something new, they get excited, which results in them wanting to know who exactly is responsible for the things they hear. You can of course make the perfect trance record, but most of the time it doesn’t really add much to what is out at the moment.
i:Vibes: Do you think that the very ‘open’ Dutch dance climate (many labels, lots of festivals and parties etc.) has helped you in gaining a name over the past few years?
A: Yes, I think a lot of countries look at Holland as an example when it comes to throwing huge-ass parties, festivals and so on. Take Sensation, it’s just five DJ’s spinning for 40.000 people, whereas elsewhere in the world 40.000 people are being entertained by 50 DJ’s. It certainly aided me a bit I guess. People from other countries tend to think that something from Holland automatically has quality coming with it, which is nice of course. And if you do what is expected from you, they’ll book you again. Looking at it from another way, in Holland it is very hard to ‘be good’ these days. People are spoiled a bit, so to say. If I go spin in Poland, the UK or wherever, people go nuts right from the first beats. Here in Holland, all the world class DJ’s spin multiple sets a year. Because of this, here you have to work harder, people are more critical. This in turn results in more quality.
i:Vibes: What value do you attach do DJ Mag’s Top 100 List?
A: It is rather important, you can’t deny it. But it leads its own life. Some people spend lots and lots of their time on getting into that list, and ultimately it does pay off if you get in because you get more bookings. In the end, it’s of course all about getting as many votes as possible. Some guys have accomplished getting lots and lots of votes, while three quarters of the people who actually look at the list don’t even know half the names on it. Personally, I don’t attach too much value to it because my schedule is full anyways. People make it an issue because it can raise fees as well; if they want to make it an item, so be it. In the end, for me at least, the most important thing is to just keep on doing what makes you unique.
i:Vibes: You did send out a few newsletters about the voting…
A: Of course! But you don’t want to know how some others deal with it! If you know how to change an IP address and sign up for as much Hotmail accounts as possible, a lot can be done…I’ve heard stories of guys who hired a bunch of students to generate as much votes as possible. That’s also why the list might look a bit weird. But still, people find it very important, and so be it.
i:Vibes: Are you also caught up in the digital era and not playing vinyl anymore these days?
A: Unfortunately, yes. At the moment, I don’t spin vinyl at all anymore. It’s starting to become the underdog on parties, some events or clubs don’t even include turntables in the DJ booth anymore! I was in Brazil a few months back, just one month after deciding not to take vinyl with me anymore. All they had was CD players, so I got quite lucky there. Apart from that, labels’ promotional activities don’t include sending out vinyl anymore. They send CD’s or links these days, which of course saves a lot of costs.
On the other hand, we are kind of throwing away our own income here. When clubbers see you play vinyl, they want it too and go get a bunch the day after because it just looks plain cool. Those times are over now, people tend to get an illegal copy from the net, or perhaps download it at one of the download shops.
The office
i:Vibes: About the download shops you just mentioned. Do you think mp3’s will become a worthy substitute for vinyl when talking about the profits you can generate with them? Are they priced correctly at the moment?
A: They have to be priced in such a way that producers can earn back their money spent on equipment. I’ve heard some people say they find the prices of mp3’s too high. Books are expensive too. So is milk! But we as producers do need the income! I have the luck to be a DJ as well, but when you’re just a producer you have to make money in some way. I don’t want to say I produce music for the money here, though: I produce it out of my love for it. Perhaps sometime in the future I’ll start doing it for the money and concentrate more on the pricing thing etcetera.
i:Vibes: Next to producing and DJ’ing, you also run Rytmic Records. We haven’t heard from it in a while though, as far as I know. How’s that going at the moment?
A: Well, we kind of restarted it just a while back. Back in the days, we had four or five labels. Because of the upcoming illegal downloading, getting a track on a compilation became harder. If you deliver supreme quality, you’ll most likely earn a lot of spots on loads of compilations. But you can’t deliver superb belters of tunes all the time of course. And so it became harder for us to earn money. We needed someone to be in the office fulltime to take care of these things. But I wanted to be in the studio, so at a certain point we released significantly fewer records than before. From that point onwards, we started sending out our tracks to labels and not release them on our own label anymore. But, and now comes the good news, were slowly but steadily building things up again. Upcoming on Rytmic is the Pascal Feliz record which can be found on the High Contrast CD, as well as ‘Ctrl-Walt-Del’ which we talked about earlier.
i:Vibes: The Internet has become thé medium to communicate in today’s dance scene. DJ’s, producers, labels, fans, they all use the net to discuss what’s going on. Are you experiencing the same thing?
A: In a sense, the internet is a beautiful way of communicating. But it’s also a very weird medium. I think people influence each other somehow by expressing their opinions all the time. When I consume music, I first of all want to make up my ówn mind. It’s a very personal thing. On the internet, people try to influence others’ opinions. I don’t really like that. I think this also causes a lot of the narrow-mindedness that we see a lot these days.
i:Vibes: The past two years, you managed to spin records at lots of major festivals and events including Sensation, Trance Energy, Mystery Land and DefQon1. What has been your most memorable experience?
A: That must have been this year’s Trance Energy. ‘Advanced’ was the theme song and I had an amazing time behind the decks. Don’t start thinking I don’t like playing at smaller venues; perhaps I like that even better! You can look people in the eye there and experiment a bit more. On a big party, you’re bounded to doing your ‘usual tricks’. You have to be ‘the artist’ there, perform what people expect from you.
i:Vibes: Do you think your taste will ever shift to something completely different?
A: I love lots of music, so yes it might be possible. If I want to shift to something completely different using the name Marcel Woods, I’m going to have to do it very gradually. Your fans expect you to comply with what you produced earlier; you can’t just do a 180 and not think about the consequences it has for your name. When I released ‘de Bom’, everyone wanted a second ‘de Bom’. Same goes for ‘Advanced’. Fedde le Grand, for instance, experiences the same thing. Everyone wants to hear ‘Put Your Hands Up For Detroit’ when he spins somewhere. People always want you to repeat your previous successes. Major changes have to be built up very slowly and naturally.
Another thing I could do is set up a completely new project and make it an ‘act’, so to speak. Perhaps I will sometime start producing another artist or something, you never know!
i:Vibes: Are there things you still wish to accomplish in your career?
A: In a sense, the whole musical thing always brings a lot of excitement with it. Every record you make is something that comes from your inner self. Releasing and playing out those records is just amazing. Every year you set a certain goal to become bigger, better etcetera. I must say that I have accomplished these things in the past few years in a way I can’t really comprehend. Everything went really fast. Continuous excitement would be a nice term to describe what I want to achieve. More concrete things I would like to set in motion are concentrating more on producing, exploring more countries and widening my musical experience using more vocals, for example. This also corresponds to me wanting to become a more full-fledged producer in the coming time. Until now, everything has emerged from my love for the music, it’s my hobby. Because of this, perhaps everything is a bit too static; you produce a record, put it out, produce another one, put it out, and so on. You grow and grow over time, and eventually start giving one-hour long interviews like I’m doing now. It’s my hobby and my work, but it’s also a lot more. I want to extend my experience. Not just create anthem after anthem. If that happens, you’re doing something wrong. You become a trick. And I don’t want to be a trick.
We would like to thank Marcel Woods for his time. Thanks also fly out to Esther @ Be Yourself Music for arranging things.
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