Legowelt
Legowelt’s tracks are all just little adventures. The Hague’s man of many guises realized early on that he could make his own version of techno without living in America, and he set about turning his “little adventures” into music with his collection of vintage synths. In this talk at the 2005 Red Bull Music Academy in Seattle, Legowelt guides us through his favorite Hague records, how he works with his multiple aliases and the strange relationship with his most famous track, “Disco Rout.”
Hosted by Nick Dwyer Hailing from the Hague in Holland, you might know him from records he’s released on labels like Bunker, Crème Organization, Cocoon, and Ghostly International. A man of many aliases – Gladio, Polarius, amongst others – can we have a round of applause for Mr. Legowelt? How you doing Danny? Legowelt Pretty good. Nick Dwyer Rather than me talking about what you do, I think probably the best way for people to get an idea of what you do is to play a record. What have we got here lined up? Legowelt “The Nomium Syndrome.” But I make a lot of music, so it’s not really giving a picture of the whole thing, of course. This is kind of Italian, Euro-horror – like soundtrack-ish disco music or something. (music: Legowelt – “The Nomium Syndrome”) Nick Dwyer What project is this done under, and what’s the alias you use for that kind of music? Legowelt This was released under Legowelt three years ago. Nick Dwyer And what label was it? Legowelt Bunker. Nick Dwyer Okay, cool. Just to give people an idea of this place that you come from, you’re born in the Hague? Legowelt Yes. Nick Dwyer Tell us a little about the Hague, then. What’s it like as a city? Legowelt The Hague is a pretty big city for Holland, one million inhabitants, on the North Sea, on the coast. It’s also the government capital, and there’s the International Court of Justice and the United Nations. All the war criminals go to there and stuff like that. But there’s always been a music scene in the Hague. Most music comes from the Hague – already in the ‘60s you had beat bands like Q65 and Golden Earring that were in the charts here. All kinds of commercial music and underground music comes from there. Nick Dwyer You mentioned the ‘60s before, but how about going through the ‘70s and ‘80s, what was happening musically in the Hague? Legowelt Well, in the ‘70s the Hague was the funk capital of Holland, there were lots of funk bands, and also punk and hardcore was very [present there]. In the ‘80s there was lots of Italo disco. Outside of Italy it was probably the place where most Italo disco was played, on the pirate radio stations and stuff. Everybody had it in their car or something, they played it in the discos. All the Italian guys came to perform in the Hague. Nick Dwyer Is The Hague a fairly multicultural city? Do you have much immigration into The Hague, or not really? Legowelt Yes, especially in the ‘50s and ‘60s you had people coming from Indonesia. That’s an old Dutch colony. So there are lots of Indonesian people, and they were actually very active in the beat music scene. It’s also called Indorock, and it’s not really a style, but it was like Indonesian guys playing it and yeah, they were pretty rough and tough. In the ‘70s and ‘80s you had lots of people from Turkey and Morocco and from Suriname. There are also lots of Hindu people from Suriname in The Hague and they also have their own music style, a bit like Bombay cinema. I’m not sure what it’s called, but it’s very alive there. And, yeah, all kinds of interesting multicultural shit going on there. Nick Dwyer So growing up in The Hague, having this rich musical heritage that’s kind of unique to The Hague – musically, there was a lot of stuff surrounding you and inspiring you from an early age? Legowelt Well, yeah, of course I heard the Italo disco on the pirate radio stations and stuff, but rock music hasn’t played much of a role in my youth. Nick Dwyer You talked before about the pirate radio stations. Historically, in any kind of major musical epicenter, radio has been pivotal to inspiring future generations of DJs and producers, be it in Detroit with Electrifying Mojo and The Wizard, and Chicago with Hot Mix 5 and, obviously, London and pirate radio. How important was pirate radio in The Hague? Legowelt Well, in the early ‘90s they were playing lots of house music and also Chicago and Detroit stuff. It’s not comparable to the Electrifying Mojo or something, but it was on the air and that was probably my first experience of hearing it. Nick Dwyer In other places in the world, pirate radio exists and the authorities don’t really meddle too much. In London the authorities are pretty severe. How are the authorities with pirate radio in The Hague? Legowelt Well, it’s of course illegal, but like in the ‘80s and the early ‘90s they really didn’t do anything about it. Maybe a few times a year they would confiscate the equipment or something, but today it’s completely gone, everything. Nick Dwyer No pirate radio whatsoever anymore? Legowelt Yeah. Only at holidays like Christmas when the amateurs go on the airwaves, but it’s all on the internet now, mostly. Nick Dwyer Who were the DJs that you were listening to when you were very young on these radio stations? Was there a particular DJ that you would tune in every week for? Legowelt Not really, because the broadcasts were not very scheduled. I didn’t have a clue about the DJ names back then, because they also didn’t talk much. It was just music. Later on, maybe when I was 18 or something, I was very much influenced by DJ I-f who played on the pirate stations, and he also played a lot of stuff on the Dutch state radio, so there was a program every Friday night. He played a lot there. Also Unit Moebius was on a lot and the records played were from the Hague. Nick Dwyer Can you tell us a little about Unit Moebius? If you’ve got a record by them here, it would be great [to hear it]. Do you have a record by them here? Legowelt Yeah, sure. Legowelt It started in the early ‘90s, in 1991, and it came out of the squat scene. They just wanted to make Chicago and Detroit-inspired music. That’s what they did, on very cheap equipment like an Amiga [computer], and they recorded it on a tape recorder that they found on the street. Nick Dwyer Really? Legowelt Yeah, and they started to press their own records because they couldn’t get a record deal. Nick Dwyer When did these guys start producing? Those records came out about when? Legowelt Like 1991, 1992, and it was Guy Tavares, the owner of Bunker. The most important person in Unit Moebius was Jan Duivenvoorden and he’d make most of the music together with Guy. There were also other people involved in that. Nick Dwyer So this record’s from what year? Legowelt I don’t know exactly. Maybe ‘93 or something. It’s actually a side label of Bunker called Acid Planet, but it’s the same shit. It’s very dark music. The tracks didn’t have titles. The labels were just blank. (music: Unit Moebius – “World Turns Round”) Nick Dwyer Were you surprised when you first started hearing these records on the radio? Obviously it was stuff you loved the sound of, and then you found out later that they were actually from the same city as you. Legowelt Yeah, because I thought it came from Detroit or Chicago or whatever, because I was very alone and I didn’t have any friends – or I did have friends [laughter] but not people who were into the music, so then I heard that this band was from the Hague and that inspired me very much, that you could also make that music if you were from the Hague. That you didn’t have to be from the ghetto from Chicago or Detroit. Nick Dwyer So was that a major catalyst for you, realizing that these guys are doing it, it’s not that far-fetched? Legowelt Yeah, everybody can do it. Maybe the very interesting thing also is that it has a kind of do-it-yourself, punk attitude. Nick Dwyer You talked about the squat scene. You hear some incredible stories about the squat scene that was going on in the Hague during that time. Were you able to go to these parties? Legowelt Yeah, a few, but I really wasn’t that involved. I never lived in a squat or anything. Nick Dwyer How about the early ‘90s? The track you played before seems like a fitting soundtrack to what you hear about these twisted parties. What do you know about that whole squat scene? Legowelt It was very punk-ish, because it came from the squat scene, and [there would be] LEDs, stroboscopes, and smoke machines, and just a very dark atmosphere. People dancing, and no fancy club stuff. Nick Dwyer What kind of crowds would go to these parties? Legowelt Actually a very broad crowd went there, people from all walks of life. Football hooligans, for example, and school kids, punk people. You name it and they were there. Nick Dwyer What happened in the end to Unit Moebius? Legowelt They stopped in, I think, 1997? They just stopped releasing music. Nick Dwyer None of them are producing under any other aliases or pseudonyms now? Legowelt Yeah, sure. You have Jan Duivenvoorden, he releases music under the name Nimoy and Shit Cluster. The other guy is Duracel of Viewlexx, and Guy is running Bunker and his rock bands. Nick Dwyer When you first started getting into this music, was Bunker Records the epicenter of that, and what role did Clone play in Rotterdam? Because Clone’s quite a famous record store. Was there a kind of symbiosis between the two places? Legowelt Well, actually, the first record shop in The Hague that specialized in Chicago and Detroit music, and played an important role for Unit Moebius and Bunker, was Hotmix, and it was run by Ferenc. They also sold Italo disco there. It’s probably one of the best record shops ever, but he stopped with that after a few years. Then Serge from Clone had a little mail order [company] based in Delft, which is between Rotterdam and The Hague, and then he opened a shop in Rotterdam, and he became the main distributor for all those The Hague labels. Nick Dwyer This whole scene has become known as the Murder Capital [label] scene. There are quite a lot of producers making this music in the Hague, aren’t there? Legowelt Yeah, but they’re also living in Rotterdam. Most of them live in Rotterdam. Nick Dwyer Right. So what they refer to as the Murder Capital scene is that whole area? Legowelt Yeah, the great conurbation. Nick Dwyer You were saying before that Unit Moebius had a really big influence in making you get into production. At what point did you start producing? Legowelt I bought a synthesizer in 1992, 1993. Then I just fiddled about, tried to make music. It actually took a few years before I understood the machines because there was no internet back then. You had to borrow a book from the library, but there wasn’t anything about that music in there. It was like playing normal piano with MIDI or something, so slowly I learned how to control the machines. Nick Dwyer Did you have a lot of people around you for support? Did you hit the stage that you met up with these guys like Unit Moebius? Legowelt In the beginning, not at all, because I was alone with the music. Because I didn’t have any friends. [Laughs] Later on I started to meet people that were also into the music, but were also trying to begin, like Orgue Electronique. I gave a demo tape to Guy from Bunker in 1998 or something, so it took quite a long time. Nick Dwyer What were these early productions sounding like? Legowelt I can let you listen to it, because it was released on the record too, but it’s still sealed. I don’t know if I can open that shit. It was made entirely on an Amiga, in OctaMED, a tracker program. It’s like an 8-bit sampler, the Amiga computer. Nick Dwyer You still have it in your studio now? Legowelt Yeah, I still use it. Nick Dwyer How long have you had it for? Legowelt Since 1988, or something like that. Nick Dwyer A lot of people out there are still making music with Amiga and a sequencer and sampler, and these programs. Legowelt Unit Moebius worked like that, and Orgue Electronique also still uses an Amiga. I’m not sure which side it is, because there’s nothing on it. (music: Legowelt – “Pussy Electronics”) Nick Dwyer What’s the name of that record? Legowelt It’s Reports From The Backseat Pimp, I think. [Laughter] Nick Dwyer What year did it come out? Legowelt It was first a CD that came out in 1998. It was re-released on a record three years ago. Nick Dwyer You were aware of Bunker Records’ importance in the Hague and liked the music coming out from it. Was it a good feeling, having your first record out on the label? Legowelt Yeah, sure, definitely. Nick Dwyer Bunker’s a pretty noted record label. Tell us a little about Bunker, because they’ve got a bit of an interesting history. Legowelt As I said before, it started in the early ‘90s together with Unit Moebius, because it was the label that Unit Moebius released on and they ran it themselves, so that’s pretty obvious. It played an important role in the techno scene later on in like, ‘94 or something, with the Spiral Tribe stuff, illegal parties. Then in 1997 it went bankrupt. Nick Dwyer Which was due to what kind of problems? Legowelt All kinds of problems, like financial mismanagement, I don’t know. [Laughs] It doesn’t matter much why they went bankrupt, but they went bankrupt. Guy Tavares, the owner of Bunker, decided to start the label again in 1998 and make it an electro label. They released new records that were more like [inaudible], like electro. Nick Dwyer In terms of your production, you’re definitely a man of many aliases. Can you just break down for everyone what banners you make music under, and what does each one represent? Legowelt Obviously you have Legowelt, where you can describe the music as little adventures, with exciting things – like “Beyond the Congo” is about the 1960s events that happened in the Congo, which are very adventurous with airplanes and mercenaries fighting, all kinds of stuff. The Klaus Kinski EP from Legowelt is about Klaus Kinski, the actor. Then you’ve got Tower of the Gipsies, which is somewhere in here I think. Nick Dwyer All the Legowelt tracks are an adventure story? Legowelt Yeah. The other alias I release [under] is Polarius, which is deeper stuff. From the soul. It’s more emotional. Nick Dwyer There’s also Gladio as well. Legowelt Gladio, that’s like historical electro music, it’s about the Roman Empire. [Laughter] Nick Dwyer Can you actually play that for us? Legowelt Yeah. [Searches for record] Here. It’s called “Slave of Rome.” It’s about a slave and a gladiator and stuff like that. It’s very dirty music, very dirtily produced and with explicit lyrics. It’s also a bit based on Caligula, the movie. Nick Dwyer You a big fan of the film? Legowelt Not really a big fan. (music: Gladio – “Slave of Rome”) Nick Dwyer So you do all your vocals yourself? Legowelt Yeah. Most of the time. Nick Dwyer Most of your tracks, if not all of them, have a story. Before you go into the studio, have you got the story already in your head, or does the plot change as the track takes shape? Legowelt Well, it can be both ways. Sometimes I think of a new concept it might be interesting to make a record about, or sometimes I’m just making music in the studio and I immediately get the image of what it is about. So for example, when I started with Gladio, I first started to make the music and it sounded very Roman-like, so I made it Gladio, “Slave of Rome.” Nick Dwyer Is that how the creative process works for you? You start with an idea rather than being inspired by, say, another record? Legowelt Yeah, sometimes it can be another record, but it’s a very mysterious subject of course, where the music comes from. Very difficult to talk about. You can’t grasp it, right? When I’m in the studio I just start making music. I don’t know if that’s the way most people work, but the story is very important, that comes along. It’s like playing with music, like you’re a little child and you think up the little adventures that happen. The notes and stuff. Nick Dwyer In terms of the different aliases, are there certain synths that you only use or certain equipment that you only use for certain aliases? Legowelt Yes, definitely. For Polarius and Gladio, I only use the Amiga. For Legowelt I also use the synthesizers, and it’s quite important because the equipment you use also makes the sound. Nick Dwyer How does that work? Do you go into the studio and you’re like, “Right, I’m feeling like Legowelt today,” or “I’m feeling a bit Gladio”? Do you walk in wearing a certain hat or do you start up in the machines and all of a sudden it’s like, “Yes!” Legowelt No, it’s like that, that I wake up most of the time [feeling like a particular alias]. I’m a very lazy person and it’s like you can also divide the aliases by the time I put in them. For Gladio and Polarius, in half an hour I can make a track. For Legowelt, it’s probably a few days I work on a track, sometimes shorter or more. Most of the time when I wake up and I need to a do a Legowelt track, it’s a bit like really working and I have to put it in my agenda and stuff. It works like that, yeah. Nick Dwyer In regards to all of that, obviously the main thing is you love your gear. Just to give people an idea, break your studio down for us. Legowelt There’s lots of old stuff, like a few
Jupiters, an 8 and a 4, some Moogs and a Yamaha CS50. Most are from the ‘70s and early ‘80s. I also use modern digital synths. Nick Dwyer It’s not a case of just vintage synths. Legowelt No, not at all. Today on the computer, with the plugins, you can sound exactly like the old synths. It’s more that most people don’t know how to sound like that. That’s why some people say, “Oh, you can hear it’s coming from a computer,” and they think it always sounds like a computer, but that’s not the case. It’s about the technique, how you use it. Like [with] modern virtual analog synthesizers, you don’t hear any difference with the old stuff. Nick Dwyer In terms of that whole thing, plugins versus the real thing, surely there’s something quite nice about having your hands on [mimics playing a synth]? Legowelt Of course, maybe it’s psychological, maybe you can compare it to cars. It’s nicer to drive an old luxurious car than to drive in an Honda or something. But it will drive you there. The thing with software is the interface, it can be quite limiting, I think. Nick Dwyer In terms of vintage synths or just synths in general, are there certain synths that you like? Is a there a definite favorite for you? Legowelt It always changes every few months. You start to use one again, you get some nice sounds out of it then that becomes your favorite. If I had to choose an all-time favorite vintage synthesizer it would be the Jupiter 4 from Roland. Nick Dwyer What is it about the Jupiter 4 that you like the best? Legowelt It’s like one of the first polyphonic synthesizers from Roland that works without chips, so it’s completely discrete, that’s what they call it, with transistors, and it gives each note it plays a really analog, organic feeling. Nick Dwyer In terms of the production side of things, how does a track take shape? Do you start with a bassline, do you start with a melody or something? How does that side of things work? Legowelt It’s always different, but it also depends on what I want to do. Most of the time you start first with a rhythm because then you have a backing to work the melody on, and then maybe the bassline and from there you can work the melody from the notes. Nick Dwyer As well as the solo material, you also collaborate quite a bit. Who have you collaborated with in the past, and how does that dynamic change when you’re collaborating? Legowelt I’ve worked with Orgue Electronique. Nick Dwyer Have you got a record that you’ve done with Orgue Electronique here? Legowelt Actually, yes. [Searches for record] I think it’s on here, I hope. This track is called “Haunted Arp” and it was recorded in the studio in Amsterdam on an Arp 2600 that’s a synth from 1968 or something, like a wall of modular stuff. Nick Dwyer Did Arp go out of business a long time ago? Legowelt Yeah, in the early ‘80s. Nick Dwyer Guitar synths not doing very well for them. Legowelt Yeah, that was the Avatar or something. So this is the collaboration with Orgue Electronique. (music: Legowelt Vs. Orgue Electronique – “Haunted ARP”) Maybe you can hear that it sounds a little bit happier. That might be coming from the collaboration. Nick Dwyer Happy to be working with someone? Legowelt Yeah, that depends on the mood. That is a bit of an infantile mood we had [used], probably. Nick Dwyer Who is this Orgue Electronique, because obviously you record quite a bit of stuff with him and also you tour quite a bit with him – is he from the Hague? Legowelt No, he’s from Den Bosch, which is like the farmer county of Holland in the east, it’s like a medieval city or something. He makes music too, of course. Nick Dwyer When you’re actually in the studio, how does the dynamic work when you’re collaborating? Legowelt It’s difficult to say because it’s always very different, but most of the time one person does a melody. It can also be that one person is just sitting on the couch and reading a comic or something. Nick Dwyer Or making the tea. Legowelt Yeah, but then it’s still a collaboration because the person is there and you make different music. Nick Dwyer Going back to your recording output, there was one record in 2002, “Disco Rout,” which completely blew up. Groove magazine, which is a very well-respected German music magazine, voted it track of the year. Does that surprise you? Legowelt Yeah, actually, because the track was left over from the Pimpshifter release. I decided not to put it on there because... Nick Dwyer You didn’t think it was good enough? Legowelt Yeah, something like that. Then a year later Ghostly International wanted to have a track from me so I had that still on tape so I sent it there. Suddenly it was licensed by Cocoon Records and it became like a techno hit, or how do you call it? Nick Dwyer All the mainstream techno DJs picked it up and it became huge. How much did your career change after that record? Legowelt Yeah, of course, because I got more gigs and stuff, and money-wise it’s good. Nick Dwyer It was kind of funny though, the Pimpshifter album came out ‘98, ‘99, then three, four years later the track is coming out. Did you get to the point where you kind of got sick of the tune or have you never had that feeling? Legowelt Yeah, pretty quick. The tune left me already pretty quick so I just said goodbye to it. It had a life of its own and it just sent me some money occasionally. [Laughter and applause from audience] Nick Dwyer History is [filled] with artists who are releasing on small labels and then they deal with majors, or the larger of the independents. Cocoon is definitely, as far as techno goes, one of the largest independent labels in Germany. With the business side of things, the artist sometimes tends to get shafted. Are all your business dealings always fine? Legowelt Yeah, I have no problems whatsoever. Nick Dwyer A lot of people get a bit bitter because maybe they don’t get all their royalties their way, but really the payoff with the exposure that you get… Legowelt Yeah, but I also got enough money, so I don’t complain. Nick Dwyer Tell us about your own label as well, because you’ve got your own label. Legowelt Yeah, it started last year and I first put out some CDs, which are... where are they? It’s more like real electronic music without beats. [The label has released records like] Smackos, The Age of Candy Candy, and stuff like Karl Lindh, which is Luke Eargoggle from Sweden. Nick Dwyer Can we listen to the Smackos? Legowelt Yeah. Where do I put that in? I don’t know how that works. So it’s made entirely with analog synths, without MIDI, and just played live with arpeggiator... (music: Smackos – “The Age of Candy Candy”) Nick Dwyer Did you have to go through the whole process of finding a good distributor that was right for the music you’re putting out? Legowelt Well, actually, these CDs are pressed in quantities of 100 and are not really distributed. I sell them to the shops myself. Nick Dwyer Right. Legowelt Yeah, but the record is fully distributed by Clone, so the vinyl is easier to get than the CDs. Nick Dwyer Another thing that you’ve been doing is scores for film. I do believe you’ve brought a DVD with you. Can we have a quick watch of this? (video: Unknown) Nick Dwyer In terms of touring, you’ve been playing live a lot in the last few years, but you don’t DJ, you always play live. Tell us about your live setup. Legowelt Yeah, sometimes I DJ, but not very often. My live setup is completely different than my studio set up because I can’t take it with me, it’s all too heavy. It’s mainly light equipment and pretty modern equipment like a Korg MicroKORG, and Yamaha RM1X sequencer, which is a very good sequencer for live [performances], and a Novation Nova synthesizer. Some Korg Electribe samplers and drum machines because you can program them like an 808, so it’s very nice for live [performance]. When I play live I don’t really play songs from my records, it’s mostly improvised. It’s more like a Chicago sound, a bit like a heavy Detroit sound. Nick Dwyer So if I come hear you play five times in one week, I’m going to hear a different thing every night? Legowelt Yeah. Or maybe I do the same improvisation five times a week, that could also happen. [Laughter] Nick Dwyer And you play live with other people you’ve collaborated with? Legowelt Yeah, sometimes we just go on a tour together, but we each play along after each other, or sometimes we just jam on the stage, it all depends. It’s always different. Nick Dwyer One thing I was gonna say earlier, you mention the word electro a lot, and with that whole scene and other producers that you work with, the term electro comes up a lot. Obviously, somewhere along the way the term electro got bastardized, thanks to press hype and whatnot. To you, what is electro? Legowelt Yeah, well, it’s just a name. It’s very difficult to pigeonhole the music. I don’t really think it’s electro, because electro is like “Planet Rock” and stuff like that from the early ‘80s. It’s just a name the media gave to it so it can easily pigeonhole it and say it’s electro. Actually, for example, live it sounds much more like old school Chicago house. Like the freaked out Mr. Fingers
tracks, and maybe a bit like Drexciya and stuff like that. You could call Drexciya electro, of course, but it’s also like techno, or sometimes even like electronic jazz-funk. Nick Dwyer Yes. Legowelt I would prefer the term electronic jazz-funk. Fusion, maybe. Nick Dwyer Yes, nice. In terms of touring as well, being on the road can be quite draining to the production side of things, which is the reason you’re there in the first place. If you’re constantly in planes and all that, how do you keep a good balance between not being away from the studio so much? Legowelt I play live mostly at the weekends, so then the weekdays I have time to produce music. Nick Dwyer You don’t ever find a situation where if you’ve toured too much you feel like you just don’t want to be around music, or anything like that? Legowelt Yeah, sometimes, but then I just watch TV or something. When you’re touring you only play at night at a certain moment and then you’re travelling by day. Nick Dwyer You’ve brought a little setup so were gonna have a little [performance] in a second, but just quickly to finish, what projects are you working on at the moment? Legowelt I’m working on a new Legowelt record that’s coming out to my own label, Strange Life Records, and various other things. There will be a new Smackos album, too. Some secret stuff. Nick Dwyer Nice. We’re gonna get into a little bit of a hands-on thing now. Tell us about the setup you’re running here. Legowelt Yeah, it’s quite a mystery to me too, I’m not quite sure if it will work.