DJ Ron Slomowicz: How are you today?
Johan Gielen: I'm very good. I just came home from a whole day at doing a TV shoot.
DJ Ron: You're going to be on TV?
Gielen: There's a program here in Holland called Make A Wish, where young people have their dreams come true. This guy has cancer and not long to live, and his wish was that I give him DJ lessons. I brought him a setup and a little motorboat, so it was very nice.
DJ Ron: So it was the kid's dream to learn how to DJ from you? That must have made you feel really good to be able to do that.
Gielen: Yes, absolutely. It was a long day but I really feel very satisfied about this.
DJ Ron: I read through your bio and I realized that you work under different aliases. I never knew that you were behind Airscape; are there any other pseudonyms that you've worked on over the years?
Gielen: I was part of Svenson & Gielen and the first things I did were under the name Boccaccio Life. Right now I'm working in a Johan Gielen project.
DJ Ron: Your Airscape remix of "Silence" by Delirium featuring Sarah McLachlan was the hit version everywhere. As a remixer, did that inspire you to do more production under your own name?
Gielen: No, not really. What I would say about this song is the vocals were so special and I really wanted to do a mix. I felt that from the beginning when I heard the song and I said to a friend, let's do it. It turned out to be one of our biggest remixes ever and since then we still get a lot of requests to do remixes. So yes, we very pleased that we did that mix.
DJ Ron: When you did that when you were the remixer on that rather than the producer, did that inspire you to do more production-based work?
Gielen: Well no, I've been producing for a long time actually I'm DJing longer than producing. The reason why I started producing was that I saw what happened on a dance floor and I thought maybe I will be able to do something extra for the party people with my own productions and my own view of the music. So far it's turned out very well and I'm very happy. Things are now also happening for the Johan Gielen project. I'm traveling all over the world and every country inspires me with different cultures, different parties, and different people. Then when I get home, I have a lot of inspiration to go in to the studio and do something new.
DJ Ron: So would you say your DJing inspires your production, or your production inspires your DJing?
Gielen: I was DJing a long time before I made my first record but right now it's the other way around sometimes.