RS: You're not in there with some engineer doing the work for you?
Don Diablo: No. I even engineer for other people. That is kind of
strange for people to see you getting all these bizarre awards and
stuff, and then on the other hand still being in the studio at night,
four in the morning, just twiddling the knobs all by yourself. It
became very confusing for everybody, including myself. What I'm going
to do now is for the new album which I'm going to do with Sony is, CD
one will be Don Diablo the artist - songs which are basically my
trademark sound between electro, rock, and hip-hop. CD two will be a
CD with all the dancefloor tracks which will be mixed by myself. It's
the artist and it's the DJ put together on two CDs. For CD two, I've
just started a new series called Dance Floor Drama which will be three
track EPs for the DJs basically. In my home country, everything's
become too big. When you put a record out, it has to have a big
video, remix packages, like the whole works. For the clubs,
everything has to be slightly more simple or more four-to-the-floor so
we decided to start the new series. The first EP is getting great
reactions with support from everyone including the Freemasons, Tommie
Sunshine, Mason, and Freeform Five. So it's very good timing with the
whole deal and everything coming together, and on CD two we will just
put together the whole series of EPs, Dance For Drama EPs that we're
doing.
RS: Your artist album that you just finished up is part of this
and features your own vocals. Is it harder to work with your own
vocals than to work with someone else's vocals?
Don Diablo: Yes, and no. Sometimes you have to write lyrics and it's
very hard when you're in the dance scene, nobody's actually interested
in lyrics but you don't want to do the same cheesy, old lyrics. I
write everything phonetically so it has to flow over the beats, that's
the most important. There is always a message but it's always a
symbolic message. So it could be about something that's going on in
my life but not really obvious. As for the vocals themselves, I think
that's the easiest part, because it's very easy to just pick up the
phone and get some kind of interesting featuring artist on your
record. I think that's the easiest to just call and let somebody else
do the dirty work because in the end a vocal can make or break your
record. I sometimes even feel it breaks my record when I do the
vocals. I have these discussions always with my manager and the thing
is that inside of me there is a real hip-hop head, there's a rock
fanatic and there's a dance kid. So it's very hard, I'm struggling
with those three identities all the way through the album and through
my life, and sometimes in my own country people, especially from the
dance scene they're very offended because they take it very personal,
because this is dance music, you shouldn't do other stuff.
RS: Keep it pure.
Don Diablo: Yes, keep it pure and because somehow you're theirs, and
they're very offended. It's the same thing when you grow more popular
and somehow there's a certain point at a certain crowd that everything
you do is wrong because you're popular and you're visible and you're
out there and they want you to be just theirs - when you become like a
common thing that's difficult. The funny thing is that abroad it's a
totally different story than what I have in Holland. There it's hard
to walk on the streets and here it's totally different – I'm an
underground artist and people know just one or two or three or four
records maybe that I did, and so I'm just a clean slate which makes it
interesting to see what is going to be the next step.
RS: So you're like the DJ version of Kylie Minogue, big in Europe and…?
Don Diablo: Yes, well I mean to be honest I never had the ambition or
the idea that I was going to do anything l outside Europe. Now
they've just put out my first single in Australia and I just planned a
tour for Australia in June, do all the biggest clubs and the scene in
Australia is amazing. It's funny because in my own country, we
basically have a pretty crappy music taste. If you look at the charts
it's way different from the UK charts or Australian charts where
there's actually stuff in the charts that I like, that I would buy.
Or even the Belgian charts which is like just a one-hour drive, it's a
totally different story. It's a very different culture and in Holland
music is not so much part of the culture as, let's say a country like
Australia or the UK where it's easier for a more or less skilled or
independent artist to have a major chart success. So for me it's been
interesting, because in my own country it's been a struggle because on
one had you're an amazing artist, on the other hand you're still
fighting against radio and TV to get your stuff played because it's
basically still underground music that you're promoting.
