RS: The "Everybody" video was a little more on the darker side.
What was the story behind that one?
Martin Solveig: The idea was to have everybody in the elevator going
to a sort of mysterious place or mysterious party and listening to the
sound in the elevator and going crazy as the elevator was going up and
up. That was the basic idea.
RS: OK. The third CD in Defected in the House is your old-time
classics. How do you go back in your repertoire and choose just a few
classic tracks?
Martin Solveig: I didn't really want to do it myself and I have a
lot of trust in the Defected team, so I just said you want to put a
compilation of my songs on the third CD - pick up the tracks you want
in the catalogue and make it. Obviously they were going to choose the
big tracks like "Everybody" and "Rockin' Music." They went through my
catalogue of about sixty songs that were released since I started, and
I said help yourself, pick up the ones you want.
RS: Are you working on new music right now?
Martin Solveig: Sure, I I'm at the very beginning of new projects,
so it's very exciting because it's the part where you really search
for new ideas and new sounds. It's nothing too concrete but I know
it's an important part of the process of making new music and new
albums. So I'm going to be working on two new albums for, one for me
and one for Lee Fields - so now I'm just working on the research..
RS: Your earlier stuff had lthe African and the jazzy feel, then
you had like the more rocky and the more harder feel. Where do you
think you are going now?
Martin Solveig: Well actually I'm now trying to balance a little bit
of those two ideas and finding the good balance to define my own
style. I think I'm turning around all the things that I like and the
things that I like to produce, and I'm getting closer and closer from
the center which will be probably my own style.
RS: Very cool. When you're producing tracks in the studio are
you working on Mac or PC.
Martin Solveig: I work on a PC and my home computer environment is a PC1.
RS: Wow, that's rare.
Martin Solveig: Yes, it's quite rare. It's because I learnt a
little bit of computing when I was young, during my studies, and you
learn on a PC and not on a Macintosh. I was a lot more familiar and
still am a lot more familiar on the PC environment and now most of the
production software is available for both Mac and PC, so it's not too
much of a problem now.
RS: Are you using ProTools, Cubase, or Logic?
Martin Solveig: I'm using a new one which is Steinberg Cubase, it's
the new evolution of Cubase.
RS: What's your favorite keyboard you use or outboard gear?
Martin Solveig: I'm testing some new ones now. I used to work a lot
on traditional gear like Rhodes and Wulrlitzers and on the synth side
I was more on the emulation of old analogues like Nord Lead, which is
not an analogue synth but it's like reproducing some stuff like that.
I've come to experiment now on the genuine old analogue synths, so I'm
working now on different Junos and also Oberheim.
RS: You just arrived here and I notice you packed very light.
Is that from DJing so much around the world?
Martin Solveig: Sure. The plane situation is quite crazy now with
the controlled security, so the lighter the better you can get. I
only have cabin baggage.
RS: Nothing checked? Are you playing mostly CD now or vinyl?
Martin Solveig: CD only.
RS: Have you thought of making a move to laptop?
Martin Solveig: I don't want to. I actually rip all my vinyls every
week on CD. I play on CD because they are lighter to carry and using
the Pioneer CD players allows me to do a lot of tricks. It also
allows me to do edits and so to personalize a little bit my DJ sets,
so that's very good for me.
