Catching up with Deetron on 'Music Over Matter'

With anticipation steadily on the rise for Deetron landing back in Room One for the long awaited launch party of his new album Music Over Matter, its little surprise to note that the thirteen- track project is in all actuality, a relentless hot bed of electrifying club cuts. With each and every track holding the subtle percussions of the most hypnotic house classics you can find it would, of course, be only right to hold a launch party that matches the scope of the material so whilst Deetron stars and plays focus this Saturday, we’ve also enlisted our resident Craig Richards and an uber special live performance from Mr. G. With all the excitement of the new album finally unleashed, we assumed that catching five minutes with Deetron would be doubtful but luckily, we managed to grab the man of the moment for a quick chat… Hey Sam, hope you’re good. Could you give us a brief into on yourself and what you’ve been up to the past few months? After having finished the album in June I had a bit of a holiday followed by quite a lot of touring all around Europe. I've been back in the studio as well recently, working on remixes for Will Saul, Jimpster, Paul Woolford and Hercules and Love Affair. You new album Music Over Matter is released later this month. Can you tell us a little about the record and the influences behind it? It's been out for two weeks now and I'm really happy with the response so far. I've been working with a lot of vocals for the many remixes I've been doing since my last album and I wanted to use the experience of doing so to develop that sound further. I suppose you're influenced by all the music you're exposed to in some way or another and because my musical taste is rather broad I couldn't really narrow it down to something specific really. Generally speaking I wanted to use the vocals and "song" structures in a way that they would work in a club context. I think it’s safe to say that the new album is a dance-fuelled record with a fair share of soon-to-be club anthems on the track list, was that the vision you had from the start? Yes, it was always going to be a dance record and that's also why we decided to include the previously released ‘Sing’ and ‘Starblazer’ to showcase some highlights from the last few years of my production work as well on the album. You collaborated with the likes of Seth Troxler, Ben Westbeech, Cooly G and Justin Chapman on the album. Can you tell us a little more about what that was like? Any stand out moments? Most of the collaborations happened over the internet so there aren't that many stand out moments to talk about as it was just a matter of sending files back and forth. For ‘Thinking’ though, Ripperton and I recorded the first version at his studio in Lausanne, which is always a lot of fun as we seem to get along really well in the studio - he's normally in charge of the rhythm parts, I take care of the bass and we finish the harmonic elements together. Generally I was very impressed by how good the results were, which I got back from all the artists involved. Not only has your name been behind some of the best club cuts in recent years but you’re also famed for your turntable wizardry, specifically those slick three-deck mixes. Do you feel that the need and ambition to be technically great on the decks is slightly lost nowadays? No! Not for me anyway, but you might be right to a certain extent. However I see a lot of people turning back to vinyl and there seems to be a whole new generation of young DJs who really know their music and aren't content with simply using the top 100 tunes on a digital platform and the sync button. In terms of producing, I think maybe there’s a balance that artists try to seek, one that means staying on trend whilst pursuing something different. Do you find something like this easy to establish? I believe if you start thinking like that while you're producing music, the spontaneity and creativity can easily get lost along the way. I try to go to the studio without any pre-set ideas or directions I want to head into, but more so I just start up the machines and get working. I usually begin work on my tracks with a bassline, which then might be completely changed along the process but it seems to be a good start off point for me. If you could look back at your career as a producer and a DJ, was there any specific moment for you where it totally changed the path of your musical direction? I think musical evolution happens naturally and over a longer period of time so there wasn't really a specific moment. There are some tracks though, which in my opinion initiated some sort of a new musical direction, these include a track called ‘Fuse’ on Music Man a long time ago, then ‘I Cling’ from my last album and in more recent times my remix for George FitzGerald's ‘Every Inch’. Finally, seeing as you’ve released some great anthems over the years, can you give us a quick 5 track playlist of your ultimate club tracks?