Since 2006 Gareth Emery has been noted as one of best electronic/dance producers to emerge from the U.K. With a top 10 finish at this years DJ MAG 100 along with his very own record label, Gareth is sure to have been on everyone's play list this year. I was able to catch up with him right before his first set at The Forum in Charlotte.
First off, Congratulations on your top 10 finish at this year's DJ MAG TOP 100. 23rd to 9th position is a huge achievement. Have any doors opened up for you since the announcement ?
Gareth Emery: To be honest, it hasn't changed too much since then. I'm not saying it won't, it's only been a week. I imagine it will make a difference in a way like I don't know how much. It's hard to know how seriously people actually take the poll; people talk about it's significance. I think for me like when I played in clubs the last year, people coming there generally like my music, listen to my podcast, whatever… not generally someone whose number 23 in the world. It was a massive surprise and I absolutely didn't expect that. It had been a great year but I was kind of thinking 13 or 14 at absolute best.
I was rooting for you.
Gareth Emery: Thank you. I would be obviously disappointed if I had went down because we started the Garuda Label and started the nights in Manchester and had some really successful nights there. Obviously some big hit records as well but I was expecting a good year but I wasn't expecting that.
How does it feel to be on your first U.S. tour ?
Gareth Emery: It's actually not my first U.S. tour. Just my first time in this part of the U.S. but I've probably been to the U.S. 15 or 16 times.
Well, my bad.
Gareth Emery: (laughs) No, that's alright. I've been to L.A., San Francisco, New York, and Chicago... so yeah it's been a good year for me in the U.S.
Do the American crowds differ from back home ?
Gareth Emery: Actually when I first played in The States, like the very first time like 2004 or something like that, back then I wasn't really feeling the American crowd too much because I wasn't particularly well known. Over the past year and a half I've played more often like really into the crowds. So generally the crowds are great. The thing I like about The States is the clubs don't really pretend to be house clubs or trance clubs so you get a lot of different styles. The crowds are open to a lot of different styles of music rather than being set in stone to one style of music.
What inspired you to become a DJ ?
Gareth Emery: I kind of always wanted to be in music. It's always something I've done. I mean I started playing the piano at the age of 4 and when I was growing up I was mainly into bands, like playing guitar. I got into dance music when I was 18 or 19 and for me it was an actually thing. When I was in the band I played guitar and when I listened to dance music I wanted to make records and be a DJ.
That’s awesome. What’s your favorite thing about your career ?
Gareth Emery: (smirk) It's difficult because it's a great job and there are so many different things about it. Like the crowds, the traveling and getting to see so many different places and parts of the world. But probably just being able to make a career out of something you enjoy like many people that aren't fortunate enough to do. Even though it must be hard work at times and it’s not fun 100% of the time but there are some pretty amazing moments in it.
I've been a fan of your Podcast since the beginning.
Gareth Emery: So you're old school.
Yes. What I've noticed from you, you differ and play a little bit of everything and you seem to introduce each track. Was this the kind of goal for your Podcast ?
Gareth Emery: When I started it, it's probably changed a little bit with this and that, there was a lot of sort of two hour long DJ mix dance music shows. I didn't want to go in and do that because I didn't see it as adding anything new. You already have shows like A State of Trance and Trance Around the World; which in my view already filled that category of two hours of trance and did pretty well so you didn't need any more shows. So I kind of wanted to do something a bit different. From the time I started it back in 2006 and still up to now, I like a wide variety of music from house-y stuff to a bit of progressive, electro, breakbeat right into some uplifting trance. I sort of thought, there’s no reason why I can't include this full spectrum of music.
The other thing I kind of did was rather than play the full length of tracks which are eight and nine minutes long, which to me personally listening to records I found a little bit much, so I would literally play two to three minutes of each track; trying to give people a taste of as much tracks as possible so sort of a short and sweet episode. So when we first did them, they were only 45 minutes long and that's how it started. It wasn't until about two years ago they gradually started to get longer.
Your show is reaching its 100th episode; do you have any plans for that particular set ?
Gareth Emery: Yes. We'll definitely do something. For our 50th episode we threw a big party and our 100th we'll probably do a big party in Manchester. The best club in Manchester, which is where I live, is called Sankeys and we have nights there and we have about six events there. Chances are we'll do a big event and get of my favorite DJs to come and play. We haven't picked the DJs yet but yeah, we'll definitely throw a big party.
You are probably one of the few producers I know that has a studio above a nightclub. How does this help towards your productions ?
Gareth Emery: It is above a nightclub, it's true. It is a little bit distance which is nice because the nightclub is in the basement like an old mill, an old converted mill. It's about six floors of offices. So we're about half way up so fortunately when they are testing out the sound systems during the day we don't get too much disturbance from them. It's great. For me, I used to work from home until about a year and a half ago and it's great to be in a musical place all day long. All the other companies that work there are all doing cool stuff. There are video production companies and other producers as well.
It's defiantly a quite happening place to work. On a Friday evening, we'll leave the office about nine o’clock or so and the club will just be getting going and it's a house club so there'll be someone there playing like Dubfire. It's great to have the nightclub there so when you want to test something out you can go downstairs and test out the system or the lighting and it just makes life easier.
What inspired you to create Garuda and what is the meaning of your name choice ?
Gareth Emery: I used to own half of Five A.M. Records and I was happy with that and basically my old business partner who ran Five A.M. beside me decided he wanted to leave the music business and do something different. I looked for a period to find someone to take over Five A.M. other than myself and it would have taken a good complex six to eight months to do so. In the end we were just like, let's just start something new.
We thought of many different names and I guess we wanted it to be easily associated with my name. I didn't want it to be as obvious as Emery Records or Gareth Emery Records but I wanted to name it something quite easy so people could remember: Garuda to Gareth Emery. I'll make no secret to the fact that we looked up other DJs and labels and what they were called. A lot of the best ones, my opinion, were ones that had a slight variation to their name like Paul van Dyk has Vandit and Armin has Armind and so on. Garuda was just a word we like and it's actually like a Hindu sort of mythical figure like a bird in Hindu poetry. It's a well known symbol in Indonesia where I played at. I liked the name and it had 'Gar' as its first letters and I thought it sounded cool.
On your compilation you have a few bootlegs that won’t be released. Was this just for the record or to gain some exposure ?
Gareth Emery: No. All these bootlegs were things that I made during my sets. I've never made a bootleg with the intention of being released or playing more than once. Normally I'll make them to play out that night or on the way to the club when I'm bored. Sometimes they don't work and I'll never play them again. Other ones play really well and you play then again.
In fact in Ireland a couple weeks ago, one guy was so desperate for me to play one particular bootleg that he held up his phone saying "if you don’t play it I’'ll cancel my subscription to your podcast." (laughs) how's that for you, cheers.
These are bootlegs that I've been playing for awhile. One CD of that compilation, in retrospection, is called 2009 and was basically my biggest and best tracks of 2009. Those bootlegs wouldn't have made it if they didn't do well.
So now they can actually buy it having a copy of the bootleg.
Well yeah, I mean it's the only way you can get that bootleg on a proper CD quality. Obviously you've been hearing it on live sets and its been on my podcast and it's been kind of low grade quality; whereas on the CD, it's there in full digital quality. The only thing you can't do, unlike most of the other tracks on the compilation, you can't go and sell it to full DJ friendly versions. I would love to, it would be nice to put it out there and have other DJs include them in their sets. Unfortunately, licensing being we can't do that but it's nice to get those bootlegs onto a compilation. One of these bootlegs contains three different tracks and you have to license it to three different record labels. It's a serious headache.
Do you plan on working with more vocalists in the future ?
Gareth Emery: I'm half way between finishing my personalized album which will hopefully be released in about six months time. We got a bunch of vocalists for that which have mostly never done dance music before. I wanted to introduce as many fresh new vocalists in the album as possible rather than using people that are already familiar. So yeah I've got some absolutely amazing people.
Off the record, do you have any special plans for the Holidays ?
Gareth Emery: For Christmas Holidays ?
Yeah.
Gareth Emery: Not really. My schedule is so ridiculous at the moment. I haven't had a week off since the last week of May I think. Right now I have one week off in December which will be my only week off in the second half of 2009. I even have a gig on Christmas Day believe it or not.
Wow. Is it near home ?
Gareth Emery: No, it's in a country were they don't celebrate Christmas. (laughs) Which is why they can have raves on Christmas Day.
What would be the best advice that you can give to someone who is just getting started ?
Gareth Emery: Obviously being into production is the key. In terms of furthering yourself as a DJ these days it does all come down to production. It didn't used to be the case. Ultimately you have to have great singles, great performances, and a good radio show but what most people don't realize is don't rush out of a track just because you can. You work, you work, and then you can get to the stage where you can probably put a record out. Just because a small record company offers you a good deal doesn't necessarily that you should go out and do it. There's a lot to be said for holding back and not releasing something until you can generally say that you can buy that record.
As DJs we get sent a lot of records, like 400 a week, and there's a lot to go and listen through. Occasionally there are records with same name week in and week out. People that are releasing so many records and none of them are quite up to scratch. You see a lot of potential in these guys and after a while you kind of stop listening to their records and you think it didn't really excite me like the last twenty I've heard so why should this be any different.
Back when they still did vinyl, when I first started making records, I would send out about twenty-five demos and get no response. Went back and worked harder and six months later send out another twenty-five and one replied. It was probably about two or three years of sending out demos before I got a good deal. That was because releasing vinyl is expensive; to press these records would cost a lot of money. Generally you didn’t get a record deal until you were good and ready for it.
Now a day, that's not the case. Nothing to releasing a record because it's all done digitally and it's quite easy to not get a response from sending your first twenty-five demos. By then you're like I can do it by myself, promote myself. Not always the best way to do a demo. Hold back until you can get a quality label, someone who has like a pedigree of releasing good records, going "yeah we think you're good we wanna release your music". That way when you're name gets first introduced to people like me, who are going to be playing your records it's for like a really good track and people are going to be excited about you. It's longer and it's harder but it most defiantly could work.
When you look at people you came from no where like Deadmau5 or Sander van Doorn, they weren't sending out crappy demos for years. Those guys kind of came out of something massive and they became really big out of that. They've been making records for a really long time but just not putting them out there.
Did you know that's there's an online poll for sexiest DJ voice and you're number 1 ?
Gareth Emery: No way. Where does this poll exist ?
I'm not sure of the exact name but a group of girls created it for fun and you're number one next to Armin.
Gareth Emery: Is this really true ? You know what, I've find it strange that I've never consider myself to have a sexy voice. In fact when you listen to earlier editions of the podcast, I sounded terrible and I started shaping it over the next two or three years. Defiantly learning how to use the equipment helped sort of formed that from sounding like a complete idiot. But that's defiantly a surprise.
Well it’s defiantly out there. This pretty wraps up the questions so thanks for taking the time to sit in.
Gareth Emery: Anytime, you’re welcome.
Interview made by Abigail Duran (TranceSound.net forum moderator)
Picture made by Zaneta M. Soroko-Ortiz (TranceSound.net Co-admin)
Links:
Gareth Emery official website
Gareth Emery Podcast official website
Gareth Emery @ MySpace
