text: Miss Eleanor
What happenes when four techno-obsessed friends from Detroit—Seth Troxler, Lee Curtiss, Ryan Crosson, and Shaun Reeves—move to Berlin and find fame on the global DJ/producer circuit? They start an “art house” label that has [almost] nothing to do with dance music. URB sat down with Troxler, the number three DJ in the world, at Mexico’s BPM Festival to find out more about this new collaborative project, and the first release—the very techno titled “Where The Freaks Have No Name” by Benoit & Sergio
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Miss Eleanor of Bentwave: You guys have been doing Visionquest (the party) for how long and now you are launching a label from it? You have been doing the parties in Detroit for a while, how did that come about?
Seth Troxler: Basically came about because of time. We started doing parties for a long time in Detroit and then we moved. We were making remixes and stuff. We all came to a point where we are in our lives and careers where there was music that we wanted to hear, and ideas that we wanted to create, you know, that wasn’t really being done. So we thought, ‘Let’s start a label.’
Before we didn’t have time, we were working more. Now, with how things are, it was the right timing to create something new. I’m really excited about the label. It’s not about putting out more dance tracks but it’s more based, not in the art world, but more art house ideas and contemporary thoughts.
Is it more conceptual?
Yes, way more conceptual. Just the artwork alone, the record, it’s inside out and it’s purple, but then you open the record and the inside is all gold, metallic gold, and then we have these record inserts that are written in Japanese and English, and it’s like a painting. Art for art sake!
We are putting out a bunch of music that is not dance music. Like some folk music and this band from Montreal called Footprints.
I think out of first 5 records, 2 are dance music based.
Who is doing your artwork for the record sleeve?
Actually it’s really funny. My fiancé’s dad was one of the biggest graphic designers in Japan. His name is Hajime Mizuno and he did all the original artwork for Miles Davis, Coltrane, Stevie Wonder and Sega. Now that he is older, he would like to do some more artwork. We were talking, and when I was looking through a bunch of records at his house I said “Actually we are looking for someone to do the art right now. “
He was like “What about me?”
Yeah, I asked him, ‘cause you know now he gardens, and doesn’t have that much to do and he would love to do art again, but he can’t really get into graphic design b/c its no country for old men, if you are doing graphic design by hand. It’s going to look really cool for us.
It’s kind of like a lost art
Yeah really, classic design you know not everything done on a computer. I mean, I went to school for graphic design. So having someone doing real design, with a knife! I can’t wait, I get the first one this weekend.
Ah “Where the Freaks Have No Name?”
Yeah “Where the Freaks have no name” is the record, but we get the art insert this weekend. There are some interesting ideas we are trying to do with putting out music and funny videos.
Where did the name Visionquest come from?
Visionquest came from….well we used to throw parties under a different name. We had this party called Tesch Club, we switched it over and thought let’s make a new thing with all of us. So Ryan had this hunting cabin up north, and his dad is kind of like a super hunter and there are all these taxidermy animals. We would go up there on these ‘Vision Quests’ and go walking in the woods with animals and stuff. And then we would make music for three days sitting next to the fire, and we would be like “We are vision questing!” And then all of us thought “DUH! Amazing!”
When we came up with that, our friend Rafiq said, “You know there is a movie called Vision Quest” It’s this wrestling movie with Matthew Modine from the 80s. And he is on a vision quest to become a state championship wrestler. In the movie, he has this Native American friend who wants to be Native American but is not really Native American and he would say “The ancestors would go on these vision quests”….. so we have this back story it’s funny. It was a joke really, kind of all a big joke
But you are doing exactly what you love?
Yeah yeah, you can keep this line of joking and then keep it really serious. If the core product is really serious then everything else can be (as Seth does a little dance) fun….its really important, you know, it has to have both worlds.
Cool. What are you going to be doing for the next couple of months?
Next couple of months? Just traveling all the time, like right now, what am I doing? Going to Tokyo, then back to Europe for a while. Yeah just traveling.
How do find time to produce music if you are traveling so much?
I haven’t been producing enough music this past year. That’s why I have all these songs where I talk on people’s tracks. But when we do the vision quest thing (with a little chuckle!), whenever we get together, we do loads of remixes together. We just finished one for Cocoon and did one for Tracey Thorn as well. But this year, I’m getting engaged so I am taking more time for my personal life and making music.
So I’m trying to make an album this year while last year was DJ DJ DJ! It was a really amazing year but also tiring at the end of the day playing 3 or 4 gigs a week. I feel like I have to sit down! Sometimes I just want to sit in my house.
was a long time before i caught…
on to the potential in blogs.a blog doesn’t have to be like a journal or diary. it doesn’t even have to be personal in nature. think of a blog more like you would the editorial pages of a newspaper. it’s “news”…
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