Hailing from Germany, the son of immigrant parents, Loco Dice has been one of techno’s premier ambassadors for over a decade, sharing DJ booths and record labels with the likes of global superstars Richie Hawtin, Carl Craig and Dubfire among others. But rarely does this superstar make his was to the good old U.S. of A., where his brand of underground techno still fights an uphill battle against the the poppier side of electronic music. In December, Dice will make a rare voyage to the states to play some select gigs around the country. URB spoke with the former hip-hop DJ to get his take on the dance-hip-hop crossover, as well as his always influential Desolat label, which releases techno compilation inspired by Death Row Records!?
URB: 2011 has been a big year for you and the Desolat label. Albums from Guti, Pulshar and most recently tINI. How do you decide which artists you want to have work with you on Desolat?
Loco Dice: It all started with these artists. When we started Desolat, we wanted a cool clique, a group of artists who were different but somehow the same. It doesn’t happen right away either. It happens over many years.
So we have been collecting artists we think fit this mold, and to be honest, it just sort of happened this way. We had tINI here from day one. It happened that Guti came, and now we are really a whole family, and we are really happy about this. We love and respect each other. We never get tired of being around each other because somehow everyone is doing their own thing, and giving their input to the label and to the family.
So it is important for you guys to have a long standing relationship with the artists that you release on the label?
Big time. It is my style of working. I have been playing for the same clubs for years now and working with the same promoters. Why should I not have the same artists around me? That doesn’t mean we aren’t open to new artists, we are always open for new things. Like with Pulshar, I have known Pablo Bolivar for a very long time now, and after 10 years he sent me this amazing album, and I am just like, let do this!
Stuff like this just happens. We never sit down and plan—we want this music and that music. When you look at Desolat, we started out with Dubfire, and then the second record was Rosario Internullo. This is how we wanted to show the people we are not sticking in one style, we are something between techno and house music. Our artists are different and unique and so are our sets and or live sets.
This will be the third Christmas Sampler that you have released on Desolat. What was the inspiration behind starting the Christmas Sampler? Does it provide a good musical snap shot of where Desolat is each year?
You will laugh at this. It comes from hip-hop. Growing up, I was a huge Death Row fan. Listening to Snoop Dogg and Suge Knight. I really like the idea that they had of bringing their artists all together on one album. They did this Death Row Christmas edition, and that is where I got my idea because we have so many great tracks that we should be able to do something like this.
Martin and I, we are not typically fans of various samplers. But when we decided to do this, we were like, lets do it this way and have our artists on it, and not just foreigners. We wanted to make it a present to the people at Christmas. The cover has all our faces on, we wanted to show people what the Desolat looked like, that we are not so underground, that only a name or a sound is important. It is important for the people to see who they are listening too.
That is also the idea with the colors of the series, the colors are nothing new as well. You had it back in time with millions of artists who did these color series, and now Desolat is doing it. Desolat is trying to combine the old with the new and make it a full circle and bring everything together.
Do you think that the label evolves it style and sound as your style and sound evolves or are they two separate entities?
Loce Dice and Desolat is one thing. It is just the way that Martin and I work. We tour around the world and we get inspired by things. When we listen to things we are like, “Wow we really like this.” When I like something, I like to play it. And if I like to play it, why should I not release it?
I think that when you have a label, it is very important that you represent the label along with the music, which means I have to play the songs, each song. So when a release has 4 tracks on it, it’s for sure that I’m playing at least three of those tracks and the other track will be in my charts because it rocks on my iPod or it will maybe be on the next compilation that I am doing for someone. When people come to hear my sets, they can be sure that around 50%-60% is Desolat, and the rest is odd production and demos that might be Desolat in the future. I think it is a successful thing and that is what people like about us.
You and Martin Buttrich have been working together for almost ten years now. How would you describe the working process with him? Is your relationship when running the label together the same as when working in-studio?
Our relationship is the same. Martin and me, we are basically one person in the end. Whether it be behind the label or in production, when we work together, we understand and share the responsibilities. When it’s a Loco Dice track, the idea comes to me, and then Martin helps bring that idea to life. When it comes to Desolat, once he is there he helps out, and once I’m there I will help. We share the jobs, but we don’t have set positions or jobs, we don’t have to tell ourselves what to do. It just sort of happens this way. In ten years, we are not only friends, we are like brothers. We close our eyes and we can tell how each other feels and whether the other likes this or not. We do it together and that is the most important thing.
Did it take a long time for you and Martin to create this relationship with one another or would you say that it was rather instantaneous?
Looking back from the success of Loco Dice or Martin Buttrich, it started after day one. He invited me after one year to the studio and I had this idea about “Phat Dope Shit” and about the whole story of it. Martin was down with it and we worked on “Phat Dope Shit.” Two hours later, Timo Maas went in and signed this record. And a week later Danny Tanaglia was playing it. This is just how it started between us.
It is a good chemical reaction with us. We sit in the studio and ideas just pop up. We are pretty much working in the style of hip-hop music; I already have tracks in my head and I have the arrangements, and Martin fits what is missing into it.
You got your start working in hip-hop music. How do you feel about the mixture of hip-hop and dance music that we are seeing in the music world, especially in the U.S., today? Are we getting the best or the worst of these worlds with this collaboration?
Its not the worst, and not the best. Its somewhere between. Its sad that the hip-hop guys are not digging deeper and going deeper to find the ones who are really experiment with cooler sounds. I wanna see if Lil Wayne goes to Matthew Johnson and see what really happens. This would be really exciting and really interesting because they are going now to all the Guettas and whoever the names are.
Hip-hop kids don’t go to the techno club or where the hottest DJs play. He doesn’t know. He knows only what his friends or manager say. They can be like, look this DJ is number 10 in Top 100 DJ list. Lets go there, get a table, pop some champagne and listen to the tracks. The tracks are easy to get, and the beats are easy for them. Then they say wow, I want this beat from this kid because I want this scene too. This is how it works.
I’ve seen some hip-hop guys at our party at Amnesia and leave after an hour because they get bored and don’t get what is going on. Some big guys, they come, they do their show, and they pretend they know what is going on, and then he puts on Twitter, he forgot completely how much fun he had with us and then said how much fun he had with Tiësto. I am a hip-hop kid from the golden ’90s. I love the ’90s. I think there are some hip-hop artists who are doing cool things for me this day, but most of them are just crap.
When you look back over your musical career, who would you say have been some of your biggest influences? From your early years to more recent times?
When I started, I was all about hip-hop. Ice-T was my man. I loved his beats, his raps, his voice. I also listened to a lot of NWA, A Tribe Called Quest, and Jay-Z. Then I started moving on into house music and I found myself listening to a whole new group of artists like Lil Louie Vega, Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez, and Armand Van Helden. Then I moved on to DJ Sneak, Danny Tanaglia and Maurizio, Basic Channel. Then over to Richie Hawtin and Plastikman. Now I am all about Loco Dice and Martin Buttrich.
You were born to an immigrant family in Germany. How much was Germany an influence in your musical career? Or do you think you’ve been shaped more by influences from outside that country?
Everything. I was lucky to meet the right people who introduced me to house and techno music. They really helped me in my evolution and opened doors to me to go there and listen. I was very open minded and was very hungry for new stuff, new sounds, new scenes. I was always wondering what was going on. And Germany opened that door for me.
In Germany, there is no hype. You go to a club and nobody is dancing in front of you or screaming at you. They respect you as an artist and any newcomer as an artist as well. That was a really good thing about growing up in Germany. It gave me a healthy attitude. It allowed me to keep my two feet on the ground and not drift away, letting me evolve and go slowly into other sounds but without me forgetting about my roots. I think that is why I am still here.
Germany also has a lot of sounds from the outside. I learned more in Germany about U.S. house music and the scene there then I did when I was in New York. You have more time here to dive into and listen to it and listen to people tell me about the days of Studio 54 and all the other dance clubs from that era. It was a great time for me.
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