 “When dance culture started there was this whole peace and love thing going on, almost like that hippy 1968 vibe whereas the way I see it, the change it brought was the emergence of what we call in Germany ‘the fun society’. I met so many people during the real heyday of raving who basically almost dropped out of normal life entirely, because they were only after their fun.”
Chatting down the line from his Hamburg studio, original trance pioneer Humate (aka Gerret Frerichs) admits that he’s changed his original viewpoint of how dance culture changed society. “For many of those original ravers, work and stuff like that just didn’t happen for them anymore, they were just running from city to city all the time, because you could catch DJ X in Berlin on Tuesdays and DJ Y in some cool club in Frankfurt on Wednesdays, whatever,” he continues. “Basically they were just driving around, wasting loads of money, having their good times and not giving a shit about what was going on the world, to be honest because they were probably too shit faced to do so. I think the impact dance culture had on society was to show people that even if you are not rich you can still spend your time having a fucking good time. Though to be honest, I’m actually more or less opposed to this view of life. It makes people extremely vulnerable and usable and I don’t think that it such a good thing.” Nowadays spending more time creating advertising than jingles, Humate was nevertheless one of the key producers and DJs of the first wave of trance music, releasing hundreds of tracks including his best known hit Love Stimulation, remixed by his then peer Paul Van Dyk. Also a peer of recently deceased fellow trance star Marc Spoon, he’s nowadays a proud father, a role that’s profoundly altered his views, he admits. Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): After producing hundreds of dance tracks, you’re recording music for advertising more these days, where are you at right now? Humate: “I’m still in Hamburg, in the studio that I’ve always had and probably the most significant change in my life was when I became a father, almost two years ago now. I’ve got a beautiful little daughter named Marta and her birth has changed everything because I intend being a good father plus my perspective towards life has totally changed. I find it much more entertaining to sit in the studio and produce bands nowadays as well as making advertising music or my own experimental stuff. I’ve definitely stepped away from the club life: I started to find the whole lifestyle quite exhausting.” Skrufff: German trance pioneer Marc Spoon recently died of heart complications; I guess he was a peer of yours . . . Humate: “Let’s say he was a colleague.” Skrufff: What did you make of his death? Humate: “I thought it was very tragic, naturally and of course, it’s very shocking when someone you know, who at least in some ways, you respect, suddenly dies. For a certain period in my life I led a lifestyle, let’s say that was similar to his, which I think most people from the (club) field can also say and when he died I did look at myself and wonder ‘When is my time up?’ On the other hand I thought his death also showed that you need to watch out for yourself from time to time; clubbing and the club lifestyle can be very dangerous.” Skrufff: Sven Vath told us several years ago, he was motivated to give up cocaine when his daughter was born, 13 years ago, how easy was it for you to avoid slipping over the edge when you were deeply involved in club culture? Humate: “I’ve seen people stay awake for four days at a time and do the craziest stuff, but for me, there’s always been a certain boundary or horizon that I can’t cross. I’ve always had this attitude that when the party’s over, it’s over so you should go home and get a good night’s sleep or at least a day’s sleep. I can’t function if I haven’t slept and that was always a natural barrier for me not to go any further. Then sometimes I’d have a very clear notion of what was good for me and what was bad and whenever I had that feeling that something I was doing was bad, I changed my life. That was instinctive for me, whereas I guess some other people don’t have that natural barrier.” Skrufff: Music wise, I guess everybody would still associate you with trance, certainly trance in the old sense of the word, are you still making much dance music? Humate: “What I’m doing right now is going into an electronic field making music that’s more atmospheric that’s intended more for a listening as opposed to a dance audience. I’m not opposed to doing dance remixes in the future, but I’m at a point right now where I want to do something more musical as opposed to something that’s just purely functional for a club. Of course, making tracks for the dance floor is certainly still hard, I’ve done it for so many years now that I just want to explore other things.” Skrufff: What do you make of the superstar DJ career of someone like Paul Van Dyk? Humate: “From my present perspective as a father, I am very thankful I’m not doing that, because the reality is you are never home. It’s a very exhausting lifestyle. OK, if you are at an extremely high level, like he is, then there are certain comforts you enjoy, definitely, but that lifestyle’s not for me. I’m not opposed to spinning in a club, don’t get me wrong but doing it four days a week, flying around constantly and never knowing what time zone you’re in doesn’t interest me: I’ve done it, and I feel like I’ve been there, done that and I’m glad things have changed to be honest. I wouldn’t mind the money, but . . .” Skrufff: How important is the whole marketing/brand/image side of DJing these days? Humate: “I think it’s very important because people consume DJs and clubbing these days in the same way they buy a pair of jeans. You don’t wear just any jeans, you buy some new hyped up brand that people say you have to wear and I think that same mechanism now happens with DJs. But it’s OK, as long as people are enjoying themselves. I know a lot of people who would never go to a Paul Van Dyk or Tiesto show because it would be too big for them, they like the more intimate atmosphere of a smaller club and where they can still move around and not get squashed in the middle of millions of people. I think there’s a market there for everybody basically.” Skrufff: How do you see today’s club scene compared to back in 1989/1990? Humate: “I can only see it from my perspective and of course I have to be aware that I’m older but at the time I felt there was much more mystique to the whole thing. There wasn’t so much media, there wasn’t the internet or mobile phones and that made it very thrilling; you had that joy of discovery, of getting to know which DJs to listen to, where to find the records, where to go out. Nowadays all you do is you go into some chatroom or read your Skrufff for example, and you know what’s going down. Which also is good, because on the other hand there’s a lot of kids who are not in Metropolitan cities, who also have the possibility now to be completely informed.” Skrufff: You grew up in New York, did it have very much of an impact on you? Humate: “Yeah, very much so, though it was a rough time for me. We moved to a mainly Jewish suburban area in New Jersey just across the Hudson River, basically that was full of mainly upper class Jewish families and they weren’t really up for having a German kid in their class. I have nothing against Jews – don’t get me wrong, but it was the other way around; I got beat up all the time and stuff like that. It wasn’t that amusing at the time, but on the other hand, living there was extremely good for me because of the cultural impact it had on me. I think to this day my perception towards music is fundamentally different than the perception of a lot of German people I know. My step dad is a very musical guy and gave me lots of records and by the age of six I was already a Beach Boys fan. Not a lot of kids here in Germany have that privilege at that age.” Skrufff: You ‘ve been a phenomenally successful dj/producer, did you absorb that American attitude of ‘If you make it here you make it anywhere’ and was that different to the vibe in Germany? Humate: “Oh yes, absolutely, because a lot of people, especially during my youth, could never understand why I was so completely focused on doing music. I was totally committed to learning as much as I could and was convinced that sooner or later I would make a career out of music, whereas in Germany it’s regarded as a highly risky job, which it actually is. Though on the other hand, it’s not risky at all and this perception is not something that many Germans understand because most Germans are very into security. One of the main sentences I would always heard was ‘Why don’t you get a decent job first? Then you can always do music later’. Whereas I’d be arguing ‘making music is a decent job. What do you hear when you switch on the radio?’” Skrufff: Are you going to be encouraging your daughter to make music? Humate: “Oh yeah, definitely. She is already making music. She usually calls me, unfortunately not tonight becuase she went to bed very early. She usually calls me and then she sings me a song. True. She’s not even two years old.” Skrufff: What about her being a DJ, do you like the idea of that? Humate: “If she’s up for it, sure. I’ll teach her to watch out for the dangers.” http://www.humate.de Article by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com) Subscribe to skrufff music newsletter at www.skrufff.com |
