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Had we wanted Iggy Pop to come here
and Kanye West, it wouldn't have worked.
We'll just start, OK?
You look fantastic.
Thank you.
I mean, 30 years in the business
and skin like this.
Yes. Makes me wonder, too.
Cucumber masks.
No, I don't smoke. That's it.
I don't smoke because even when I was little,
I thought, why should I?
It doesn't even make you high.
That's a good point. True.
You started mixing records in the early '80s
and you've witnessed
several technical revolutions,
vinyl, CD, mp3,
and concerning the production, too.
How did you deal with those?
Was it easy to get into the new things?
Were you opposed to some things?
I've always been somewhat medieval,
so I myself wasn't particularly good at it,
But I worked with Klaus early on
and he was always up to date.
In '83 I heard a sampler he built
for the first time.
Westbam the DJ is me only,
but Westbam the music is a duo in a way,
because we make the music together,
and without Klaus' expert input
I'd have to know about these things
and wouldn't be able to think about music.
Production has changed, too, like you said.
So you worked differently
with artists on Götterstrasse
than you would have done in earlier days
when you would invite people to your studio.
That's true. You're right,
for the previous albums,
Eisfeld, Darryl Pandy, Nena, Superpitcher,
they all came to the studio.
With all the people I worked with now,
this wouldn't have worked, I don't think.
Had we wanted Iggy Pop to come here
and Kanye West, it wouldn't have worked.
To me, a vocal is... I mean,
I come from a DJing culture and to me,
it's always a sound thing
which I don't miss so much that I'd say,
I would've really liked to work with that vocalist.
I think it's great, like I worked with a capella
which I'd take out of somewhere
and mix in.
You'd have it delivered as material
which you can then play with.
So you sent this to Iggy Pop?
Yes, we sent him the music and he just liked it.
Like I had hoped.
It wouldn't have been unusual
to send Iggy Pop a piece
and ask if he wanted to do it
and not get any answer at all.
That's not unusual. But...
his answer was that he'd listened to it.
First, his management replied,
that he'd listened to it and liked it
and that he'd like to collaborate.
But you didn't write the lyrics?
Cause you like writing lyrics.
Yes, I enjoy writing lyrics.
But if I go at Iggy like a bull
and say, Iggy, I wrote some lyrics for you,
I think... Like, there's a German techno DJ
who wrote some lyrics for you.
I don't know if that would have worked.
Probably not.
Your long-term stay in club culture...
It has a lot to do with distinguishing yourself.
People want to set themselves apart in the clubs,
like, we don't do commercial stuff.
But you were never afraid of mainstream.
I do find mainstream boring,
but I kept having songs
of which I'd say they were...
Take rave music, for example.
Celebration Generation was not mainstream,
but it became mainstream.
Mainstream music before that
didn't sound like that.
It's different if you swim along with the mainstream
which I find boring, too,
of if at some point some element
from underground culture
influences the mainstream
and drives it in a new direction all of a sudden.
For me, there is no strict...
Like in Germany, we have serious music
and music for entertainment.
Entertainment music is mundane,
and serious music is to be taken seriously.
But even in the biggest underground clubs,
it's a party.
At Planet, there used to be ordinary people.
They went there on Saturdays to party.
So to me, in a way, we're not mainstream yet,
but we are in popular culture, too.
That popular culture takes stuff from that
is always seen as a trauma and betrayal
by the subcultures.
But that also means it was something
that was important to society.
Rave is booming in the States at the moment.
Yeah, but I only hear about it.
To me, it's a kind of epilogue
to what we saw here in Europe.
The funny thing is that it's a culture
which had a lot of roots in the States, and
then it came over to good old Europe
where it became massive pop culture.
At some point, with people like Paul van Dyk,
it travelled back.
Now it is for the white suburban Americans
what it was for us in the '90s.
I did my first big tour in the States in 1990,
Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Fort Lauderdale,
New York, I was everywhere.
But right now, with the phase of life I'm in,
with what's there now and with what I am
there wouldn't be great synergies.
That early '90s techno ideology
that everything keeps evolving,
this belief in progress,
really got on my nerves.
Art is something that...
I think Heidegger said it,
Technology progresses,
art and philosophy stand still.
In a way, composers of 300 years ago
said the same thing music still says today.
You're not harping on about the good old days
when there was vinyl and it was more haptic
and everything is crap now.
You always see something in progress...
new aspects which...
Yes, you have technological progress
which just happens.
If you compare the media of vinyl and CD,
it was impossible to do these things with CDs.
you couldn't run CDs backwards
or scratch them, you couldn't slow them down.
You needed vinyl for that.
But when this becomes possible with CDs,
the arguments against CDs disappear.
Plus you get new possibilities
like you can do an edit of what you played.
It's not like I say, everybody can do it now.
It's nice when everyone can do it.
Then it's even more about having the right idea
and not about having technical skills.
Speaking of which, do you play the piano?
I play as well as I need it for my music.
Certain things I try out, melodies and stuff,
I still do that trial and error style today.
Wrong note in there.
But you weren't taught?
No, I wasn't.
And you don't read music.
No, not at all. I know C, D, E, F, G, A, H, C.
But I don't know which is which.
C is there.
Oh yes. C, D, E, F, G, A, H, C.
Great.
Exactly. Right.
Something like that.
OK, I'm DJ Westbam. eNtR Berlin.
Subtitles by Stephanie Geiges
Five things at the same time...
You don't know what's what.
But in the end there's a result.