Interview: RICHIE HAWTIN @ Stars Gathering, august 2008
*For you, techno was always much more than music, it's the way of life. What is the Richie Hawtin techno 2008? Is ecology awareness nowadays part of being techno?
It part of being human being. If you want to talk about ecology and looking after ourselves and looking after the planet, you have to talk about the technology. Technology was always an important part of my life, music and label. Technology allows us to escape from ourselves. Hopefully technology will also allow us to sustain ourselves.
*How do you see future of music business? In ten years, will we still buy whole records or maybe just the parts of songs that we really like?
I don't think we'll be buying anything in ten years. We will only be subscribing to another channel of entertainment, like TV, like pay-TV, like radio and specify what you want and when you want to hear it. Nobody needs to buy anything. If you buy something, it means you own it. Nobody needs to own music. You only need to hear it when you want to.
*Do copyrights follow trends?
Copyrights, publishing need to be totally rewritten and get the fuck out of here because they only slowing down the whole momentum of what is possible. I say this as an artist and owner of record label.
*What was the biggest thing technology wise in music in the last 24 months? Pacemaker maybe?
Pacemaker is a very good sign of where we are going. I don't know if it is the biggest technology innovation but it shows you that people, an average person is starting to think about the music in different way. In the way that they mix it, they re-edit it and they make it themselves instead of just playing it as they did 20 years ago. So music is becoming much more personal. That's what something like Pacemaker shows you.
*With the Cube you've introduced the new concept of partying under the Contakt brand. What is so special about it? Some see it only as a PR stunt.
Of course it is a PR stunt. Music and entertainment need press and promotion to get people talking and excited about something. But the cube and the Contakt events are the whole new way of performing. We're performing together and there's certain anticipation as you never know when one artist ends and another one starts. We're sending out signals and messages in the form of SMS, wireless, LAN, videos, streams. People can actually be connected to the video screen by being connected to the Cube. For me this is a future of certain form of entertainment. I love to see a concert, when there are playing just music for me. But we want to make it interactive experience with audience being connected to the performers and vise versa. And that's what we want to do.
*Is this the first step in getting crowd involved in creating the program of your performance? They could signal you back and you could addopt to what they want to be played next.
20, 30 years ago nobody could aford home studio. People had to go to the studio to create a great rock album. In the 80s and 90s you were able to buy studio for yourself and start recording. Now, anybody can download program and make music on his home computer. The next step of course is to blur the line between the audience and performer and have a connection, a feedback loop of sharing songs and ideas of loops, midi files and creating really on the fly and making avery night a mix that is beyond the mix, beyond the mash up, organic, living thing of what is happening now, what happened before and what will happen later. And that's the way we're going. For us Contakt is the step in that direction.
*And how do you see clubbing in 2020? Are there still a deejay and the crowd or is this relation transformed?
No, no, no … I think people will always want to have a focal point, whether it is a deejay or this focal point is in the crowd. So there will always be some sort of the show, helping to manipulate and control or just give an idea to start the show. But this could be a deejay, just a crowd feeding back to itself or something new. Evolution, interaction and participation are the key words.
*You've celebrated 10 years of Minus with 10 weeks of silence. I liked the way how you did a story of just going on a holiday for two months.
It is some luxury I can afford to myself: I can put business on hold for few weeks if we want to go on holidays and it was a publicity stunt at the same time. I think it is also very important to sometimes pause and step away of what you are doing to get a perspective of what's happening. Too many times people are stuck so far into their trench into their world that they have no idea of what's happening in the outside world. Ten weeks of silence gave us a chance to do all this things.
*We all know famous YouTube video of you and Sven Väth kissing, so I'll ask you the same question as I've asked Sven: does it take a lot of courage to kiss a man?
No, when it's one of your best friends who cares. It's fun!
*And does it take a lot of courage to play Michael Jackson in the minimal set?
Sometimes people expect so much. They want to hear just electronic music. They are so into their thing. And I love it, I'm totally into my thing and I feel very passionate about it. But it's great sometimes to just slap everybody in the face and give them something different, whether that's Michael Jackson or Laura Branigan or whatever I'm doing. I can't say I feel a good song. But I feel the moment to take crowd from one direction with that kind of interlude just to bring it back on track even stronger.
*Give us a hint what you are working on right now.
I think a lot of things we were talking about give you an idea where we are looking about right now: improving copyrights, the idea of file sharing in a way that files will be created, shared and manipulated by other people. Contakt is the way we see our future. It's just an idea. If you have your own, good or bad idea, come, check it out and join us.
*Is minimal sexy music?
Sure! Minimal is between many genres, it's between house, techno, hiphop … Everything has some minimal in it. It defines us. It allows us to share ideas. That's sexy.
*The final question: you are a master technician – but are you better behind the decks or in the sack?
I don't know. Ask one of my ex-girlfriends. Ha, ha, ha …
fonte:www.myspace.com/trickydiscono1
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