BORN
Black Forest, 1971

FAMILY
“I was surrounded by music at home. I’d stay awake and listen to the radio all night, recording things if I was too tired. My parents gave me the chance to learn the piano which maybe helped, but in the end I destroyed all my classical music wisdom when techno came along.”

MUSICAL ROOTS
“My favourite band was the Alan Parsons project -why ever? – I used to love them as a child, especially the electronic tracks. I was a disco kid. When I first went to a youth disco night and realised that you could mix records on special turntables I instantly fell in love. I knew that I had to do this. The first things that I bought and played were some Italian disco stuff, Stock, Aitken and Waterman, Pet Shop Boys, all those extended versions of pop hits, some funk… I used to play at school parties and then got my first job in a big discothèque at 18. It was perfect training but it didn’t work out very well. I had to stop half a year later because the audience didn’t like my music very much. Then I started to do parties with Tobias [Thomas]. That was back in 1991. We used to play all the newer kinds of dance music – hip hop, house, techno – and finally we concentrated on four to the floor stuff.”

FIRST PROJECTS
“This was when I moved to Cologne in 1992. At first I was only a DJ and I didn’t feel that I had to automatically produce tracks. For me it was two different things. When I met Reinhardt [Voigt] and all those guys we had some fun nights and thought ‘let’s make something out of this’ so we founded our band, Forever Sweet. I still regard making music as a hobby. I’m not a professional producer in the classic sense. I’m too bad on techniques and I’m not interested in reading manuals. I feel I’m playing with instruments and not a serious producer.”

LABELS AND PRODUCTION
“Only Kompakt is active now. I used to do stuff for Ladomat too but that was five or six years ago.”

DJING
“The only thing I pre-determine is that I play 4/4. The rest happens by accident. I love the deeper side of music, obviously, but I like it raw and kicking. There has to be some pop sensibility too but in a third kind, not obviously. The structure of my set is very pop influenced: I don’t mix tools for hours. There have to be waves like a pop song. I love records that are structured, that have a beginning/middle/end. It’s the same for any clubnight, there has to be that progression. I love to warm up and take my time to get in to it, to take the people with me. There’s the prime time and then the end and at the end I love to play more songs and some things you can whistle on the way home.”

FABRIC
“Playing there was just great, I can’t wait to come back.”

PLAYLIST FABRIC 13 MIX

1 Heiko Voss - I Think About You (Geiger Mix)
Kompakt
2 Richard Davis - Bring Me Closer
240 Volts
3 Westbam and Nena - Oldschool, Baby (Piano Mix)
Low Spirit
4 Richard Davis - In The Air (Further’s Acid Relapse Edit)
Punkt
5 Robag Wruhme & Wighnomy Brothers - Killerteppich
Music Krause
6 Thomas Schaeben - Busted
Firm
7 Villalobos - Easy Lee
Playhouse
8 Magnet - Abendstern
Kompakt
9 Superpitcher - Mushroom
Kompakt
10 M83 and Benoit Villeneuve - Run Into Flowers (Jackson Remix)
EMI
11 Thomas Schaeben & Geiger Ft Schad Privat - Really Real
Firm
12 Le Dust Sucker - Love Me Plong!
13 Heiko Voss - I Think About You (Original Mix)
Kompakt