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IN CONTROL Ferry Corsten: ‘The reason why I produce full albums is that it gives me material that I can work with’

Look around today and you’ll find many great DJs as well as great producers. Rarely, however, do those two abilities come in the same package. And rarer still are the DJ-producers who can claim to be among the top ten artistes on both sides of the fence. Arguably, no one wears the two crowns with greater aplomb than the pioneering Dutch artiste Ferry Corsten.

“It is tough being both a good DJ and a good producer at the same time,” admits Corsten, who was recently in Bangalore for the Smirnoff Experience concert. “But I started out as a producer, and my own music has been important to me ever since the start. And it works well because as a producer I am able to supply myself with new sounds that no one else has. And as a DJ I can go out there and promote anything new I produce.”

Corsten began his career as a producer, first experimenting in his early teens in order to get himself featured on a non-chart based radio show in Holland. “There was this segment where people could send in records that they had creatively mixed, and I thought that was something I could do.” Moving from that initial success onto greater things, Corsten got into DJing when he was asked by the Ministry of Sound to produce their trance compilation. The fame that working with Ministry of Sound brought him numerous requests to play the music he was producing, and Corsten eventually stepped up to the turntable to great results. Although he started off as a producer, Corsten explains that he finds both sides of the coin just as interesting. “If I am touring for too long a time, at some time I just need to give it up and go home to my studio, to my own planet. But if I’ve been stuck in the studio for months, I just can’t wait to get out there and play my music,” he says.

The artiste, whose first breakthrough hit was “Out Of The Blue” in the late 90s, believes in a simple music-making philosophy that he says has brought him success as both DJ and producer. In addition to pushing the envelope on quality, Corsten always tries to make music that is easily recognisable. “I try to imagine a person at my gig. The day after the concert, he goes to a record store but doesn’t know the name of y songs. When he sings the song to the guy at the counter, he should recognise it easily. I ake tracks that everyone can easily sing to.”

Another aspect that differentiates Corsten from most of his compatriots is his penchant for full-fledged artiste albums as against the singles. “The reason why I produce full albums is that it gives me material that I can work with over a much longer period of time. ” A point that Corsten has proved many times with revolutionary albums such as “Punk” and “Loud Electronic Ferocious (LEF)”.

What has also worked in Corsten’s favour, letting him stay on top while many of his late-90s trance fellows have fallen along the way is his refusal to be buttonholed into trance. “I love music as a whole. Before I started doing trance, I produced everything — funky house, drum and bass, techno… You have got to be able to easily jump to the next big thing. You have to be able to constantly refresh your sound and never get stuck in one thing.”

That, he says, is so much more of a priority, considering the radical changes that have taken place in music production and distribution in the 2000s. “As a producer, things have gotten very interesting. With laptops and computers making music so affordable, everyone can be a producer and easily upload their music onto the Internet. So you have to be a lot more original and unique than before.” The DJ side has gotten easier and more rewarding, he adds. “Nowadays people see you more as an artiste, rather than some guy tucked away in a corner lining up songs to play them one after another.”

RAKESH MEHAR

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