Articles - Interviews

I don’t believe any entertainer from any walk of life if they tell me they don’t care about image, I just don’t believe them. Maybe they’ve forced themselves not to care because they think they’re ugly, or maybe they’ve gradually given it up because they’re bitter or they just don’t want to care. But they all do, in some way or another. Everyone deals with it in a different way, but everyone thinks about it.”

With Mixmag recently labelling him an ‘electro pin up,’ and his three favourite things being ‘shoes, hair and gloves, it’s fair to guess that Tiga’s more than confident of his looks and, in fact, the Canadian electro-tech star is the first to admit he takes his image seriously.

“I think image has played a significant role in making me more successful, my records have done better because of it,” he confirms, “I’ve always liked to project a sense of mystery and that’s what I’ve tried to create. I like the idea of being a little outside of the trends and I like the idea of being perceived as a ‘real’ person. Which I think it’s pretty rare. But image is important and it’s also a chance to have some fun.”

Exploding onto the worldwide stage with defining electroclash anthem Sunglasses At Night in 2002, Tiga rapidly outgrew the hugely influential, if always under-achieving scene, neatly avoiding the inevitable backlash that damaged most of his then peers. By stressing his own techno credentials and superior DJ skills, he instead crossed over quickly to the superstar DJ level, a status he’s since maintained with apparently effortless ease. Simultaneously building up his own critically rated record label (Turbo), while releasing 3 albums and scores of remixes he’s also somehow kept the ‘cool’ with which he made his name in the first place; no mean achievement.

“I’ll tell you how my life really works right now. People pay me too much money to DJ so I can go and spend all my money to make the record I like. That’s just a reality,” he smiles.

“The whole process of making a record is really undervalued, because people spend so much time, money and energy on it and in the end the record doesn’t sell,” he continues. “At the same time I’m really lucky, because as a DJ I’m overvalued, and I guess in that sense it kind of balances out,” he muses.

The record he’s promoting today is Ciao! a typically ambitious electro-pop record featuring contributions from old friends Soulwax and Jori Hulkkonen and new friend Gonzalez. And unusually (for Tiga) there are no covers.

“I initially had a list of songs I wanted to cover and at the very beginning I thought, well, last time I did too many, this time I’ve got to be allowed to do at least one, almost like a cover was a free pass but as time went on, the whole idea just faded. I guess on this album I wanted to stand a bit more on my own two feet as far as writing is concerned,” he says.

"If I like something a lot, I also want, not to copy it, but to be involved in that idea,” he muses, “I still have records that I love, but instead of covering them I’ve learned to steal little bits of it and make it a little more undercover,” he laughs.

Skrufff (Benedetta Ferraro): “On the podcast promo interview for Ciao! you talk of a tension between ‘club music’ and ‘real music’: how did you decide the balance?

Tiga: "For me, because I have such an active DJ career, the concept of an album still feels quite naïve, as if I have no pressure of going into any direction in particular. I just like to make music. In ‘Love Don’t Dance Here Anymore’ I had an opportunity to live a childhood musical fantasy; I’ve always loved bands like Bronski Beat and there I was with Gonzalez, who’s a great piano player, so why not do a ballad? And with “Gentle Giant” which is a track I absolutely love, it all just happened by accident. I was with James Murphy (from LCD Soundsystem) and we’d never thought of doing a ballad but it just happened.

The main thing is not to be afraid, musically, of going into any unexplored territories. I’m not afraid of other people’s reaction or of my own past, so for better or for worst that’s ‘freedom’. I do think sometimes that my life would be a lot easier if I made twelve “You’re Gonna Want Me” style big club bombs, just one after the other, but I can’t seem to let go of that kind of traditional idea of an album, which I don’t even know if it is still relevant, but I like it.”

Skrufff: On Twitter you say ‘its hard work being an innovator’: what do you consider are your biggest innovations?

Tiga: "Twitter for me is a dangerous thing, because I’m very sarcastic and . . . I say a lot of shit. Actually it’s really censured on Twitter because many times I write things and then I delete them. I have to be more careful especially with the language barrier. I have a guy in Russia who now thinks I’m an asshole. What do I think I innovated? Oh, I don’t know. The only time I was an innovator was when I was younger, in Montreal, at the beginning of the ‘90’s. In terms of bringing techno to Montreal, you know, first record store, first radio show, first parties… I don’t know if I could be called an innovator but I think I can legitimately say that I was the first. What have I done lately? It’s hard to say. We all make little modifications ,I guess. Maybe I’ve innovated the concept of how much time you can spend in writing a press release for a record on your own label that doesn’t sell anything.”

Skrufff: You don’t seem to like the press, saying on Twitter: ‘the state of modern music journalism. If necessary I will reveal the home address and phone number of the worst offenders’, how much do you feel misunderstood?

Tiga: "No, I do like the press. I’m very happy with my relationship with the press, and I’ve always been. I’ve never felt misunderstood, I’ve never felt like I was particularly overrated or underrated, which is the most you can ask really. The more it is real, the better. And so far, for this album I’ve really felt there was a connection between me and the press, and I’m not talking about reviews.”

Skrufff: Album and music sales are collapsing across the board with downloading etc: what’s your take on what’s happening?

Tiga: “I don’t know the future of music sales, all I know is that I have, and have always had, low expectations. I was never a band who’d been hyped. Hey, I come from the techno world where you make an amazing album, you sell 4,000 copies, then you make another one. I came right before the real downloading thing and we sold loads, I sold like 50,000 12” records; incredible. Now a record like “Mind Dimension” that I don’t think is so different, would probably sell 10,000 times less physical copies. So what are you going to do? The work I’ve put into it is the same… I can think about it, really. It’s like the world economy, it fluctuates.”

Skrufff: In terms of the current state of the world economy, have your DJ fees suffered?

Tiga: "I tell you what I have noticed, and I do really follow what’s going on financially in the world because I’m interested in economics, so when you do know what’s happening and at the same time you have these crazy people offering you all this cash to DJ… it’s mad. And you say ‘yes, I’ll do it’ because you don’t know how long this is going to last. I’m lucky I’m quite established. The money people offer you is because they make more money at the door. It’s simple. As long as you’re a marketable commodity, it works. But I predict we’re going to feel the recession in the summer, with the festivals especially… there’s been a massive growth in festivals in the last five years because of big corporate sponsorship but I think that it’s going to disappear and I’m sure artists fees will go down too, it’s natural.”

Skrufff: What’s your take on blogs and free downloading: do you download stuff for free?

Tiga: "Well, yes. But I get my brother to do it for me. I’m like the mafia boss, who’s never killed anyone. If I had a magic wand and could make it so all music could be transferred for a small fee that would go right into the creator’s pocket, then yes, I’d do it. It is unrealistic though, and honestly, I kind of like it how it is now. I’m lucky because I DJ and therefore I have other means to support myself, but it’s quite exciting, there’s stuff to talk about, it’s dynamic, and the industry is truly shifting. The slow, old fashioned people who cannot strategize or simply aren’t very sharp are disappearing. For me it’s a trade off.

Your life as an artist in this modern world is amazing; I can travel everywhere, I can do press from my Blackberry, remix files and send them back and forth, I’m getting reviews and Twittering my opinions, I can release my music on Myspace.  A lot of it’s a bit nerdy, I know, but it’s cool at the same time. This is freedom. Not that it would be my first choice as an aesthetic, because I’m also old school, and my romantic ideal is an old fashion record, I love getting it in the mail or going to buy it, reading the sleeve notes, touching it, but modern technology has it’s benefits.”

“On a separate topic, the only negative aspect, apart from being quite hard for my label, is with music being so free and accessible, I wonder about people’s ability to fall in love with it in the same way we used to. When I was a kid and I wanted a Roxy Music record I had to bust my ass to find it, and I would spend all my money on it. I remember having records that I hated but I had to love them because I couldn’t return them to the shop. Instead now you say, Roxy Music? And the following morning you can have their entire catalogue. Maybe these kids now have different brains, but you can’t digest it the same way, you can’t form those bonds. And that’s my concern. But I’m an old guy, I guess.”

Skrufff: you’re dad was a Goa DJ back in the day, and you lived there too . .

Tiga: "I remember the Italians in Goa when I was a kid, they were the cool guys. Crazy, rich, wealthy noble Italians who went off there to be naked and party, it was amazing. My dad still parties with guys like the Agnelli family (Italian billionaires). I mean crazy shit. I’ve lived in Anjuna half my life till I was 13.”

Skrufff: It’s changed a lot since . .

Tiga: "I guess if you were there as an adult it has changed, my dad’s always saying that, it a bit sketchy now, but for me it has stayed the same. I was friends with the other kids, I didn’t care about the parties, the drugs, I wasn’t having sex, no love affairs, I was a kid. Chasing lizards, going to get coconuts, I was in charge of getting the bread man and stuff like that. The best ever life, there’s no comparison. I’m not nostalgic, but I think if you’re lucky, you get a few times in your life where you’re really somewhere at the right time. I feel like I’ve had already a few, like Goa in the 70’s and early ‘80’s when it was like mental, then the beginning of techno culture in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s and even like the beginning of electro in 2000-2001 was quite exciting.”

Skrufff: How much do you owe your current success to electro?

Tiga: "A lot. Career wise quite a lot; because everyone needs a break, everyone needs to be let into the club. I’m sure I would have found some good career in Canada, I’m sure things would have still been good for me because I was always successful in whatever I did, but I think on an international level, the opportunity to be noticed and work with other people came to me because of electro. “Sunglasses At Night” was quickly followed up with good remixes and good DJ gigs, I became identifiable and I think . . . I was pretty cool back then. I do. I was quite weird, this kid from Canada who all of a sudden…”

Skrufff: You surprised me when I first came to see you DJing at Fabric, I was imagining you would have turned up in a pink feather boa… instead you were hiding under your baseball cap, and you still do . .

Tiga: "The two things have always been separate for me, because my views on DJing are very old fashioned. DJs are doing a job, a technical job, they’re not stars. I don’t think that the quality of a DJ’s job is improved by his status being raised.”

Skrufff: Do you ever get that sense of responsibility, of having to make sure people enjoy themselves since you’ve been paid so much money?

Tiga: "Yes, I do. When the parties are so big, with something like 30,000 people, I think about the point when the needle touches the record and it’s like bang, it has power.”

Skrufff: Do you still get butterflies?

Tiga: "Not anymore. Well, sometimes. The thing with me is that I’ve been DJing for so long, so many times, 3 times a week for 16-17 years… you name a situation, I’ve been there. When I first started to get paid more, it wasn’t just the money, it was the fact that people started to treat me differently, and then I felt weird. There was a sense of, they’re giving me so much, what do they want in return? Ultimately I care about DJing a lot, I want people to have fun and I want to have fun too. I’m not a snob about DJing.”

Skrufff: Why did you call the record “Ciao”?

Tiga: "Because I love Italians! They’re so crazy, flamboyant, stylish. They like the good things in life, like when you see those old guys sitting outside a bar in a square chatting away, you can be sure they’ll be taking about two things, football and women.”

Tiga’s new album Ciao! is out shortly on Wall Of Sound.

https://twitter.com/ciaotiga (Tiga on Twitter)

Article by Benedetta Ferraro (Skrufff.com)

Subscribe to Skrufff music newsletter at www.skrufff.com