Satoshi Tomiie Interview I'm sure there'll be a few people who'll be interested in this. Me and a mate interviewed Satoshi Tomiie last time he was on at Shindog. The interview we did with Danny Howells is already up on their website aswell, although Scott did miss my name off the end. Satoshi Tomiie Interview: March '03 1) You've just returned from Miami, how was it this year? Miami was great, our Saw party was excellent. We had Hector Romero and the Lexicon Avenue boys playing. Its a shame Chris Scott couldn't make it, but it really was a blast. It was really fun this and meeting up with everyone was really great. 2) Any tunes we should look out for? New sounds wise... to be honest I'm still working through the massive pile of stuff that I got over there and I can't think of any of the tunes' names that have stood out so far. 3) We've already mentioned the Saw party you had over in Miami, but how's the record label doing at the moment? Yeah, the labels doing pretty good. Especially in this climate, the record business isn't at its best at the moment and for the label to be doing so well I'm very pleased. Our next release is going be Subway Baby, the a side will be a DJ Gogo mix. He's known for a proggy/dark style but for this time he's done a chunky... funky bassline type mix which has come out really good. After this we have our first release from Meat Katie, which will be our first for our US label. Its a nice, kinda funky, housey feel breakbeat, so yeah... I really like it. 4) Have got productions/remies coming out in the near future? I know your mix of Cass's 'Mind Rewind' will be out soon. Yeah, thats gonna be coming out real soon, sometime in the next month or so I think. Beside that I'm finishing off a collaboation with Tarentella and Redanka, we did two songs and the first was 'Lesser Man'and that came out last year and was on my Nu-Breed album. The second song, which will come out on Saw, I'm just finishing off at the moment. Remix-wise I did one for Delerium, their new one called 'After All'. 5) What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into producing their own material? Let me see, advice... I would say the main thing would be originality. When you start out you'll more than likely start copying someone else style, I would say to try and develop your own sound. Originality will a major factor, you can digest all the bits of other peoples songs but in the end it needs to be your own style. At the label we get loads of demo's from people where its like there first or second production and it very rare that someone will get something of a high quality at that early stage. I'd just say not to give up, it'll take time but eventually you'll develop your own style and that'll be the key. 6) How would you say were your major influences at the moment? I would say at the moment that a major influence for me would be the crowd When I'm dj-ing, sometimes it'll just be for a sound or maybe an arrangement but the responses I get back from the crowd are very important. 7) Is there one you'd like to collaborate with at the moment? I've been doing quite a lot of collaborations for the last couple of years, theres the track I mentinoed earlier with Tarentella and Redanka, there was the one with Lexicon AVenue and a few others. Its really fun doing collaborations but as you can imagine its difficult because of the distance. I think for the next year or so I'll be concentrating on more solo stuff and then maybe I'll do some collaborations. 8) Hybrid recently did their own remix of your tune 'Love in Traffic', could you give us some more information on this? Basically Mike, from Hybrid, was asking if they could do their own remix of it, and thought 'Oh Great!'. Then I just sent them over all the parts of it and they just did from that for themsleves. Actually we did try and get a release for it but for now it'll be for a few dj's only. I would really love to release it though. 9) Any chance of playing it tonight? I haven't had a chance to hear it myself yet. Ha ha, ahh... you'll see. Actually Blackwatch are doing another mix of it. 10) Why the change of style from the the House style you played 7-8 years ago to your darker, tribal sound of today? I get asked this a lot, to me its still house music, I never called my music progressive or whatever. When I first started out playing this music I started with Chicago house, which was probably my biggest influence, but I've been through a lot of different styles. I try and always go back to find out the influences of the different styles to try to take in a bit of everything. I then always look out for new styles that inspire me and anyone who does the same thing for a long time will lose interestand. For me I haven't made a massive jump but more of a natural progression. I always say that house music is very open and thats what I like, you don't have to stick to one style and I like that to show in my sets. I would say also that its just the face of the music that has changed and if you look below the surface its all still the same. You have to tyr and keep ahead in the dance industry and to do that you have to inspire yourself, in five years I've no idea what my music will be like. Not as much becasue the scene will be changing but more for myself, I'm always looking for a new sound. 11) Your now a Shindig regular and you've said in a few interviews that this is one of your favourite clubs in the world, what makes it so special to you? I reckon this is probably my favourite club in the UK, I love the corwd and everything about it, its just too bad that they have to shut at 3am, I'm sure we could easily carry on till 6 or whatever, its just all-round a great club. INTERVIEW BY: Simon Glen & Gareth Hocking.
