DFuse Interview

[groovefire]

For most electronic artists, the making of an album is a well rehearsed experience involving a lot of mixing, re-recording, second takes, and months in a studio. But on July 29th, Texan DJ D:Fuse will record his forthcoming mix CD, People_3 in just a few hours when he records it live at Mighty, San Francisco. He's doing more than setting up two turntables and a microphone, mind you. He rolls in with guitar, bass, keyboards, an MC, and a full percussion set including bongos, congas, and tablas. I tried to make D:Fuse nervous and rile him up with talk of the pressure of live recording, but the man stayed rock steady with his eyes on the prize of performing.

D:FUSE: I've got a lot more drums instead of just the congas and stuff on the handsonic, I've got a full-on stand-up percussion kit with cymbals and toms and everything like that. That's one reason I'm excited about the live show.

ZEL McCARTHY: Are you nervous about doing it? What if you make a mistake! It's being recorded!

D: Yeah! It's really the first time we've ever done this so we're really just biting off a lot to chew. But you know, you set a goal, set a date and you have to do it. It's something I've always wanted to do. I've been a musician for years before I was ever a DJ and I've always wanted to incorporate that element back into it. Meeting Mike Hiratzka, he's one of my favorite producers, that's how I met him. I just started giving him material, we jumped in the studio about a year ago and we really hit it off. He's from the same background as far as being a musician, so it just seemed like the perfect fit. He's really good at doing the textures with bass, guitar, keyboards, and so it's really something that we just gonna be improvising and it's something I just want to roll out to the point where we're just start doing shows off the cuff. In bringing that whole live element into it, I think that's something people want to hear. I think the two turntables thing is cool but I think it could go further now than what it used to. There's a lot of really good DJs out there and I think it becomes a time to give the artist a little bit more.

Z: Was it as a fan that you were wanting to hear more?

D: Well, you just go out and start traveling the nation and I can't help but sometimes get a feel that people are just a little bit bored. The whole DJ thing is cool but it's not a new thing any more. Everybody knows what a DJ is and everybody knows what house music is. Before, it was a new and exciting medium, but it's been around long enough to where the whole newness factor has worn off and now it becomes a matter of where it's gonna go from here. What's gonna make it fresh and new and what's going to allow it to continue to evolve. So I'm hoping this could be something that evolves a little bit more.

Z: What makes you want to do this live recording like this? I would think it would be so nerve-racking! Whatever happens that night, whatever gets recorded is going to be on the CD! Are you going back to edit things?

D: We won't be doing any mix editing, so if I train wreck, it'll be on the CD. We will be doing some audio editing. We're running all the tracks individually and we'll go back to the studio in Los Angeles to tighten all the EQ's up and to make sure the sound levels are right. We'll be able to cheat it a little bit, but the essence of the recording will still be there. We're going to get the audience reaction… yeah, it is nerve-racking. If I screw up on a mix or something, it's there, in black and white. But that's what makes it exciting. For years I've done CDs and I've wondered if I could capture what I'm like live, but I've always felt like there was no way to really do it. I'm hoping this is the way I can do it. When I play live, I really like interacting with the crowd. I really like playing off their energy. And I really want to capture that on the CD.

Z: What’s your plan of attack for the night in San Francsico? Do you do proper rehearsals?

D: I’ve been doing the percussion thing for three years and I just now feel like I’m there with it, as a percussionist. But now it’s crunch time. I’ve been fortunate to be able to license a lot of really killer songs. So that’s gonna be a tough thing to pick which ones to play, but it’s going to give me the opportunity to figure out where I’m going to go with the music. This is the first time I’m playing with the big standup percussion set so it’s been long sessions in the studio, just old fashioned practice.

For years I've done CDs and I've wondered if I could capture what I'm like live... I'm hoping this is the way I can do it.

Z: You were a musician prior to being a DJ. How did that evolution happen from being a musician into being a DJ?

D: It was really the case where I was a musician and I was in industrial music for years and I was in a band with another guy – I was the lead singer and drummer – and it got to where I felt like what I was doing was very negative and it was a very negative point in my life and I was having a hard time pulling it all together. Musicians are very hard to work with, like any artist, you tend to work with people who don't have the same work ethic and you're waiting on them to show up for practice, to learn their parts, or whatever, and it was always a point of frustration. The band I was in kind of broke up and I didn't' know what I was going to do. I was depressed so I just started clubbing, just getting out as a sense of a release every weekend. I discovered how positive it was and how much dance music had evolved. Austin was going through a change… there was a club there called Produce that was really forward reaching. There were some great DJs, local guys, who were just tearing it up. That was back in about '94, '95. I just went out and had the quintessential club experience, and I got some turntables and started working with it. I found out what an instrument it was. I love the aspect that it was a one man show. I didn't have to work with anybody at that point. You can perform the music and it's all you doing it.

Z: You've talked before about how Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails was a big influence on you.

D: Before Ministry and Nine Inch Nails and that stuff I was just a live music person. I felt like electronic music was just done on a computer so how hard could it be. I went home one day and put on Ministry's “Over the Shoulder†and I remember the sound that came out of the speakers was so different and unique it sounded. That kind of industrial was definitely my transition into electronic music.

Z: Is it something you'd think about going back to?

D: I'm just not there in my life anymore. I was in a very negative point in my life. I have a much more optimistic outlook on my life in general. I'm not as angry at the world. There's definitely dark froms of everything – from drum ‘n bass to hip hop to progressive. There are loads of producers out there who are writing from that industrial influences so you still hear it in the music. It's very easy to be angry. I was really excited about the album Begin because I wrote that from a place of love. It's hard to write lyrics about love without sounding like a Hallmark card. For me, I never wrote songs about love because they never came to me. Begin was a real movement forward.

Z: Do you want to talk about the source of inspiration for that album.

D: It's just being in love, you know?

Z: Were you actually in love.

D: Yeah. Since then I've gotten a divorce, but it doesn't change the fact… I'm still very optimistic. Things might go sideways and as with anything in this life, to love someone that much and to feel loved back is a very powerful thing. I'm happy that the album was able to influence that…er… that it was able to influence the album.

Z: Yeah, hopefully not the other way around! Given –

D: Yeah, I don't think there will be any Nine Inch Nails-type songs: “I hate you!†I think maybe Trent needs to move on a bit.

The problem is that people think they need to play one specific style over their entire career I think all of it can stream together.

Z: That seems to be a problem for a lot of artists who don't allow themselves to be different things. With the People series, you've created a different sound on each one, and on Begin as well. Each has a different personality. Is that part of your intention?

D: Sometimes I think that's an advantage to what I do and sometimes I feel like it's a disadvantage too. I just feel like what I love about music is the evolution. I like music most as it evolves. A lot of DJs get their sound and just stick to that. If they play epic trance they just play epic trance forever. It works well for them because everybody knows what they're going to get when they get to the show. Fore me, I want to play what I enjoy. So I want every CD to be an evolution. I hope that I make CDs that people can go back to…not going back ten or twenty years from now and say “oh god, remember when we listened to that!†I love doing two different CDs [per album], and that's what my XM80 show is all about. There are so many styles of electronic music that it's wrong for people to say any one genre is it. The problem is that people think they need to play one specific style in their set or on their mix CD or over their entire career and that's just not how I feel. I think all of it can stream together. On the live CD I've got an MC who's gonna be doing two or three songs. He's a really good improv guy. We do a song called “Music Is About You†that goes into a down tempo hip hop thing in the breakdown. So I'm hoping that this CD breaks even more styles than I've done before.

Z: It’s funny that no one in the American electronic music scene has explored hip hop… a lot of British gropus seem to have gotten on that, but here it hasn’t happened in the same way. How did you get the idea to work with MC Flipside?

D: I went to his show and he opened up with another DJ before I played. We were dancing on the dancefloor and I was like, what a great idea to mix someone rapping over house and they were like, no, that guy’s doing it live right there. It became a thing we did once a month called Fused where he’d just improv and it just worked really well. Audiences, especially on the west coast, when they’re really open to the music, they would really be receptive to it. Because I play a lot of live percussion, this also brings that element of live energy to the show. More and more as the technology continues to regress from the live show, things like Final Scratch or even CDs, it’s just not as interesting for the audience to watch. It’s getting to the point where someone’s going to walk up with two iPods.

Z: I think that’s starting already.

D: And I love my iPod! But at the same time how interesting is that for the audience? That’s what I hope can change as the technology continues gets more introverted.

Z: How do you see the role of the DJ? As you appropriate more and more live instrumentalists, what’s going to happen to you?

D: I don’t know! Who knows? I love playing in bands. Maybe it’ll just keep going until it’s a band all the sudden. I don’t think so though. I’ve always thought that since dance music is always built around rhythm there’s no reason why you couldn’t have some kicking show with three drummers on stage and really take it to the next level. Back in the 90s and even in the 80s you didn’t really know where the electronic element of a band began and where the live music part ended and vice versa, and then it split into two and there was electronic music and there was guitar rock. So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the fact that people don’t know which is which. A lot of the live instrumentation on Begin adds this sort of warmth to the music that you can’t create electronically, and I hope you can’t. There’s some kind of magic that happens when you have several people working the music together right there.

Z: Are you into the 80s nostalgia that a lot of these electro-rock bands are working with these days?

D: I’m into the 80s influenced stuff. The Killers’ album absolutely floored me. If anything, that’s what made me want to do this CD. I was like “wow, I want to get back to where that is.†They’ve totally embraced having all their songs remixed. When you listen to the album it’s almost danceable at times. I just believe that it’s all gotta evolve.

Z: Do you see it as an attempt for you to reach a wider audience…not to necessarily sell out… but to hit more ears?

D: Absolutely. Everything I do is always about reaching a wider audience. I love electronic music and I don’t think there could be anything better than having more people listening to it. If doing a live-type performance gets more people to accept it then that’s a good thing.

Z: So you’re down.

D: I’m down. Who can sponsor me… someone like McDonalds [laughs].

Z: Yeah! You should actually be in the McDonalds commercial, like Justin Timberlake! But on another note… what was it like working with Jes, who most people know from [Gabriel & Dresden’s side project] Motorcycle?

D: We worked together before she hooked up with Gabriel & Dresden. We worked together several times. We just did a live show together in Austin. She’s a great person and a great songwriter too. I’ve always believed in lyrics, taking a song, and instead of just letting it be another track, making it more timeless. Lyrics and vocals carry a song and give it a trademark and identity. Jes was the first vocalist I worked with who was a real vocalist. It allowed me to learn a lot about how to work with people like that instead of just doing it myself. I want to keep writing songs that are built around vocals and lyrics.

There’s no reason why you couldn’t have some kicking show with three drummers on stage.

Z: When you’re writing lyrics, who are some of your influences? There’s not a preexisting form of how to write for electronic tunes. With rock bands there’s a chorus, verse structure, but here it’s more fluid.

D: For me, the 80s were a big influence, so it would be bands like The Chameleons, U2, The Fixx, The Cure, even the WaterBoys. I was always into very lyrically-driven music. The new alternative rock scene in the early 90s too… even like Matchbox 20 for a while. I was always into live music. It’s not easy to incorporate lyrics, but I’ve definitely learned a lot about it with the Begin album. It was a tough album to sell to labels.

Z: Why is that?

D: Because generally, DJ albums don’t do very well. I don’t think too many DJs have done them very well, honestly. They were like, call us when you’re going to do the next mix.

Z: Did you encounter a lot of pressure when you went to release it?

D: It was immense pressure, really. It was getting signed by V2 records that got me to do it – they literally approached me.

Z: They’re a major-indie. They’ve got Moby, the White Stripes.

D: Yeah, they were looking for another success like Moby. You don’t realize how much pressure there is to really make a hit. And I never wanted to be someone who sold out. It’s tricky to write a hit and still write a good song. I don’t know when I’ll step back in the studio to write another album. That’s why I’m doing a mix CD now. It’s a gargantuan amount of work and at this stage in the game, it’s a tough sell.

[groovefire]

Some pics from the live mix recording:

Short videos shot while D was playing a few of our tracks (sorry they're so dark):

During Earthquake Rmx:

http://www.groovefire.com/earthquakevideo1.avi

http://www.groovefire.com/earthquakevideo2.avi

During Mama:

http://www.groovefire.com/mamavideo.avi