Derrick May
Derrick May is a true living legend. As one-third of the Belleville Three, along with his school friends Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, he helped create what became Detroit techno – a movement that continues to influence the world three decades after its inception. Inspired by the radio broadcasts of the Electrifying Mojo and the DJing styles of early Chicago house pioneers, May synthesized high tech soul across a string of now classic records. Since then, this eloquent and opioniated Detroiter has become a DJ institution and passionate advocate for maintaining a youthful energy and outlook.
In his lecture at the 2006 Red Bull Music Academy, he talks about the early years, the lessons learned and what it takes to be a real musician.
Hosted by DERRICK MAY “Itus” is when you eat too much and you want to go to sleep, so don’t go to sleep on me. Alright? So here we are. TORSTEN SCHMIDT Here we are, so let’s just pretend we had the opportunity like ten years ago, and we would have done the interview back then. What would have been different? DERRICK MAY Probably what would have really been different is I think we would have been younger. TORSTEN SCHMIDT Our backs would be hurting that much. DERRICK MAY My hairline would be something like that, instead of like… TORSTEN SCHMIDT Yeah, you grew your hair a little bit more now. DERRICK MAY I’m just trying to make it look like I’m growing my hair. TORSTEN SCHMIDT What’s this tendency of men growing their hair once they lose it? DERRICK MAY It’s just, hey, man, I’m trying to hold onto a little bit of what was. What can I say? [Lifts up Torsten’s hat / laughs] TORSTEN SCHMIDT You know there’s an indent back here? DERRICK MAY You’re doing all right. You look good up there. TORSTEN SCHMIDT Well. DERRICK MAY You look good up there. Ten years ago, I think we would have been talking about rave music and trying to preserve techno, and trying to keep what was Detroit’s intention, and who is this guy named Paul Oakenfold, and why is he becoming popular? TORSTEN SCHMIDT We’re being crusaders. DERRICK MAY We would be fighting the fight. We still are fighting the fight, but we’re not political. We’re anti-political. We’re just people who care about the music. TORSTEN SCHMIDT Nevertheless, at the same time, you’d be playing at birthday parties of the German equivalent of Mr. Oakenfold, Mr. Mark Spoon. DERRICK MAY No, I would… you know what? I like those guys, but you certainly wouldn’t catch me playing their birthday parties. TORSTEN SCHMIDT We’ve got witnesses in this room who’ve been. DERRICK MAY I have never played a Mark Spoon or a Paul Oakenfold party. TORSTEN SCHMIDT In fact, the day after, you were sitting in a Frankfurt cafe with Spencer... DERRICK MAY You’re making this shit up. Go ahead. TORSTEN SCHMIDT Gemini… I think, and I think the original quote was, “Spencer, right at the very second, when I was playing Mark Spoon went into the light room next door, and he…” I’m not going to use the language he used there because my mom raised me… DERRICK MAY Go ahead. TORSTEN SCHMIDT “Man, I got so much respect for a man like that…” And you know, there I was, a little young crusader, fighting for the good in techno, and everything that Mike Banks told us, and everything that the holy trinity of Transmat, and there you are bigging up Mark Spoon up for shagging a bird while you’re playing records. I was like, “Hmm, maybe there’s something different behind all this as well. Maybe it’s not only the true, godly kind of thing of being underground or whatever. Maybe it has something to do with maybe even the party.” DERRICK MAY You never would catch my ass playing for the motherfuckers. Ain’t going to happen, but this music has always been… I always try to play it for whoever would listen, so sometimes you find yourself in situations that you don’t want to be in. I’ve never played for sultans or Saudi princes, and I have played for one king. I can’t really say that was too cool. That was very interesting to have his guards and what have you there. TORSTEN SCHMIDT Any Madonna after parties? DERRICK MAY Madonna? TORSTEN SCHMIDT Yeah. DERRICK MAY Hell no. No way. No, just for those who don’t know… [Strange sound in background] This sounds like a didgeridoo, doesn’t it? TORSTEN SCHMIDT It might just be a drill. DERRICK MAY Are they drilling at this time? Didn’t they know we’re doing this? TORSTEN SCHMIDT Well, you know, it’s a really productive country. Mr. Howard tries to be… DERRICK MAY Don’t talk about him. Him and Bush, let’s move on. TORSTEN SCHMIDT OK. DERRICK MAY Anyway, I’ve always tried to fight for the cause of the music. Being from Detroit, it’s really interesting, because in many ways, Detroit is the armpit of the music industry, and I don’t mean that in the sense where… TORSTEN SCHMIDT In the smelly sense? DERRICK MAY No, I mean in a sense of respect. In many times, the music industry, other than Eminem and a few artists who have come from the city, they tend to pretty much just look at what’s coming from Detroit as a moderate influence. It’s a disqualification in a sense. In other words, the city is not sexy. It’s not cool, so it can’t possibly be coming from there. They don’t have any bars, cafes, clubs. The people are not sophisticated in any particular way, so this shit can’t be coming from Detroit. It must be a mistake, and this is the kind of situation, be it hip-hop, be it electronic or whatever you make, coming from Detroit, you have to qualify, you have to fight hard. You have to stand hard. You have to stand up and really put your shoulders back and be prepared to take a hit. That can take the wind out of you after a while. Jeff Mills, for instance… Good friend… He left Detroit, because he got tired of fighting for that. He still believes in the music. He still believes in Detroit, but he left. A lot of guys, DJ Bone, Blake Baxter, several guys have left, but they still do believe in this music. TORSTEN SCHMIDT Even before techno, you had the MC5, you had the Stooges, you had… DERRICK MAY Yeah, rock bands, some hip-hop bands for that matter... A lot of hip-hop artists have come from Detroit and had to move up, move out to get the opportunity to work with other reputable artists. TORSTEN SCHMIDT You were actually born not right within Detroit either, right? DERRICK MAY No, I was born in Detroit proper. TORSTEN SCHMIDT Oh, so what’s this whole thing with Bell Will and all them? DERRICK MAY Who? TORSTEN SCHMIDT Bell Will and all these… Can you sort of explain this so…? DERRICK MAY Bell Will? TORSTEN SCHMIDT Yeah, like different parts of Detroit? DERRICK MAY What’s Bell Will? Anybody here from Detroit? In the middle of this? Audience Member Belleville. Derrick May Belleville. Belleville, man! TORSTEN SCHMIDT Sorry, I have to work on my Detroit accent. Derrick May He said Bell Hill. Torsten Schmidt No, will, but you know we Germans have a problem with the v you know. Derrick May BMV, BMW, BMV. Torsten Schmidt BMV. There you go. Derrick May Belleville was a little suburban town that I moved to when my mother attempted to save my life. I was of the age of 13, I was a young kid, fatherless, and I was just about to get into a lot of trouble. She did what most mothers would do, she moved me out of my neighborhood. To save me from fucking up. That’s it. That’s the story. Ended up in Belleville where there were two other kids where their mothers did the same exact thing. From Detroit. We became friends because this particular school in Belleville, it was a really white, I can’t even call it suburban, it was a farm town. It was like 5,000 people. It was horrible. This was where we lived. You could count how many people of color, be it Asian, Indian, black or whatever, that were in the school on one fingernail. There was like eight of us, so we kind of became friends. That was how I met Juan [Atkins] and Kevin [Saunderson]. Torsten Schmidt Who later became on to know surgeons and pharmacists. Derrick May Yes and all that other shit. He’s being funny again, come on, you guys wake up. Torsten Schmidt We’re just trying to get you over the food and all that. Derrick May Uh huh, I see. We’re on TV, did you know that? Torsten Schmidt Who isn’t on TV these days. Derrick May You know they say you’re 10lbs heavier when you’re on, it’d be two kilos, 10lbs, something like that, so you and I are looking pretty chunky right there. Yeah we look pretty chunky but we’re okay. Torsten Schmidt Same as the work out, doesn’t that... Derrick May We’re a couple chub rocks, but we’re all right. Torsten Schmidt Nothing wrong with chub rock though. Derrick May Nothing wrong with chub rock. I don’t mind being chub rock. I could be a chub rock today. Torsten Schmidt I mean, how do you go from, I mean you got these people like Juan, Kevin, yourself, there on some high school... Derrick May In the middle of nowhere. Torsten Schmidt I mean everyone who’s ever been close to the Midwest knows that the middle of nowhere is literally in the middle of nowhere there. Derrick May Queensland minus people. That’s it. You know it was, it probably wasn’t supposed to happen by anybody’s standards. I think that’s another reason why it caught everybody off guard. It first of all came from Detroit, we moved back to the city. It seemed ironic that we all, we disconnected for a few years and Juan and myself became very good friends. I moved back to the city at that time and Juan did too. Kevin stayed in the suburbs and went to university. Kevin had a football scholarship, an American football scholarship, so he played football. I was an athlete. I had track. I ran track. I went to school to run track, do all that, and Juan basically went to school and learned music. That was his thing. We basically all went our separate ways. I kept in contact with Juan because I ended up getting put out of school for various reasons, whatever. I had nowhere to go. I wouldn’t tell my mother I was out of school. I just wouldn’t tell her. Torsten Schmidt You were like one of these Japanese men leaving every morning with his... Derrick May Fake. I was a fake motherfucker. Yes. I was scared to tell my mother that I got put out. I was 18 years old, I was frightened, petrified to tell her that I had been put out of school. There was no caller ID, there was no Internet in those days, so there was no way she could know I was in school or not. I could call her from any payphone and say, “Hey, I’m in school. Blah, blah, blah.” She had to believe me, right? What else could she do. She wasn’t going to drive five hours to see if I was there. On the holidays of course, but otherwise no. So I ended up moving in with Juan and his grandmother at that time and that’s really when the connection about the music started because what we used to do, and it might seem like some sort of romantic fairy tale, it’s not, and I wouldn’t even begin to tell you one because you’re not here for that. What we used to do, and this is serious, I don’t know if any of you guys can relate to this, we used to sit up almost every single night and we would discuss other people’s music. This is before we were even making records and I’m talking... Man... I’m talking 19... I’m talking 1983. Who in here was born in 1983? Yeah. I figured that. OK. So we’re sitting up in 1983 listening to, I don’t know, be it David Bowie, Fashion, Kraftwerk, “Trans-Europe Express,” Sly and the Family Stone and Funkadelic, whatever else was on the radio that was played buy a guy named Mojo. This what at a time when radio was more like you would consider pirate radio to be, which almost doesn’t exist anymore. It was free, in a sense. You could hear whatever that particular personality was wanting to play. That was the identity of the show. That’s what made their show, and this one guy, we latched on to him, because he came on at midnight to 5 in the morning. We’d lie in the bed, Juan would face east and I would face west. My feet would be in his face and his feet would be in my face, and we’re lying in bed and we’re sitting there, and we’re these two kids, and we’re thinking about how these guys made their records and what they must have been thinking about when they made it. Which I’m sure they had no idea what they thought when they were making the music and we just assumed that they were so deep and so intellectual, and we really built up this sort of impression of what we thought represented, or what it took to qualify or to make music. It kind of went way over the limit, but that’s what we kind of, we had no other impressions coming from Detroit. There was nothing happening so we built up this fantasy impression of what we thought it took to qualify yourself to become this kind of person, this kind of musician, this kind of expert. Torsten Schmidt How far did Mojo’s way of presenting the show contribute to that? Derrick May He used to land a mothership on every... At 12 o’ clock he’d land the mothership, 10 o’ clock actually, he’d land the mothership. It was a full-blown landing, sound effects, the soundtrack from Close Encounters. He’d land the mothership and the first record would be maybe a... He had a relationship with Prince and he had a relationship with George Clinton from Funkadelic, so they would give him their tracks before they got released. He would play them, but he wouldn’t say who it was. He’d say, you know his voice, “Call in, see if you know who this is.” You knew who it was immediately, but that’s what locked us in to him, and when Juan made his first record, which was 1980... It would be, actually, ‘83, “Alleys of Your Mind,” we took it down there. It was just a little 45 and we took it down to the station. We knocked on the door and they let us in. We waited hours to meet this guy. Couldn’t meet him. Didn’t meet him. So finally I decided, “I am going to meet this man.” So I found out where he went after he finished his show at 5 o’clock in the morning. My mother went to work at 7:30 every morning and I didn’t have the right to drive her car, she just wouldn’t let me. But he used to go to breakfast at this place at 5:30 in the morning and it was just a few miles away from the house. But I couldn’t get there quick enough so what I would do was I would steal my mother’s car. I actually stole my mother’s car every morning and waited one hour and then I hustled back to the house to drop her car off so she would notice it not moved. Waited for Mojo to show up to give him this record. Well one morning he finally did show up and I got my mother’s car back on time too. He did show up and I gave him a copy of the record. It was 6:30 in the morning. The people who owned the restaurant said, “This kid has been coming here for months looking for you.” So I gave him the record, man, and he said, “Thanks.” That’s the way he talked. And didn’t hear from the guy for like three or four days. Then we get a call to go down to the station. We meet him at the radio station. We actually had a chance to meet him again, I brought wine with me. He made us sit in the lobby of the radio station and he played the record and that changed our lives. I mean really. That one moment changed our lives. I don’t think that exists anymore. Those kind of opportunities for an artist, it’s not there. They can’t do that anymore. Radio One, Clear Channel, corporate has made it so difficult to do anything now, to be creative. It is so difficult to walk into a radio station or to somewhere and make it happen... That sounded like a fart. Somebody farted in here? Somebody snuck one in on top of the construction work, didn’t you? [laughter]. OK go ahead. Torsten Schmidt Maybe in the way that was probably one of the first times that you meet an actual musical hero of yours, how far did the personal encounter meet your expectations? Derrick May I think without that encounter we would not have done what we did. I’m sure of it, man. I’m sure of it. That’s why I always greet kids when they come up to me. And I’ll tell people, “Look I don’t remember you.” I don’t remember everybody, it’s impossible. I play, I don’t know, well every weekend of the year in a different country, two different countries every weekend. I can’t remember everybody but I certainly try to meet people and give them the courtesy and give them encouragement if I can. I think it is really a shame if somebody, in this position, can’t do that. Torsten Schmidt How do you keep that courtesy and the confidence and all that when you, let’s say, just got back from Japan, you’re playing in Australia tonight and there’s this kid whose been waiting for months, paid gazillions of dollars to go and see you and you’re just tired, knackered, and he’s like, “Yo, Derrick listen to this?” Derrick May You know, I tell you, once again I’m not perfect. I’ve made some mistakes and I’m sure that I’ve pissed some people off along the way [noise / laughter] Was that construction? Never mind, OK. I’m sure I’ve made some mistakes along the way but I always fight hard for that. It’s important, man, just to stop for two minutes. I’ve been with some guys, I won’t say their names, who have been rude. I’ve seen them be rude. I’ve seen agents be rude to people. I’ve seen promoters be rude. I just don’t get it. I don’t get it. I really don’t understand it. If you ever get the chance to really do something in this business, depending on if you want to go professional as an executive or some sort of administrative position or you want to be an artist, don’t forget people. Because there is some kid in line just like you waiting for the chance. You got to remember that because that is the only reason that I think that certain art forms perpetuate, that continue, unlike the massive commercial art forms. The underground, the artistic, the alternative forms, they exist because we encourage each other. We kind of lean on each other a little bit. Don’t think I don’t need you because I need you. I always try to say thank you. I even have a MySpace account. I answer every single one of my own messages. I don’t pay anybody to answer them. I do my own. Torsten Schmidt But in a way all these people that want to get there, you’re clocking their way to the top for like, what now, 30 years, almost? Derrick May 20 something, damn near. Torsten Schmidt You’re always there on the top headline and there are all these DJs everyday in their bedroom and they’re training to get that mix perfect. Derrick May When I no longer deserve it, I don’t want it. I used to hate guys that were just pigeonholing the position and they were bullshit. They were whack. They lost it. They were dragging their balls on the ground. Those kind of guys. When I become like that... If I can’t look myself in the mirror and realize I’m still on top, I can’t do it. I would be ashamed of myself. Torsten Schmidt How would you recognize because you’ve been looking into that mirror for some 40 odd years now and you maybe don’t... Derrick May Because you have to be able to be honest with yourself. I always tell every artist that has been on Transmat, every artist that I come in contact with, I always tell them, “Look in the mirror. If you don’t like what you see, look beyond yourself. Look in the mirror.” I saw some guys upstairs listening to their own music, producing music. I have never, ever been able to dance to my music as I make it. I cannot understand that concept whatsoever. To me, dancing to my own music as I produce it is like blowing my own horn. You know what I mean? It’s like a loaded question. It’s almost like I give you this orange and say, “It tastes great.” Now, you taste the orange and you say to me, “Damn, this is a nasty-ass orange but how do I tell him it tastes nasty because he just told me it tastes great and I like Derrick, he’s cool people.” And you turn around to me and say, “Yeah thanks bro.” You’ll never get an honest answer. You’ll never get an honest opinion. You’ll never really truly develop anything if you can’t... If you are so involved in your own thing, you’ll never move forward. You’ll never be able to help people move forward. In return, they’ll never be able to help you if you don’t open up and really give people all you got. And this business is all about... You must be prepared to take a ton of criticism. The moment that you become public you are public. I am yours. You are not mine. I am subject to what you think of me regardless of how I feel about you. It is the business and once you step out there, once you give your music out, once you attempt to become a DJ or a producer, your shit is out there and you have to accept whatever comes. Torsten Schmidt I mean you must have heard about every shade of shit that there is in an orange. Derrick May I got some shades now. You want some? Later brother. Torsten Schmidt I mean how do you deal with it and how do you take that lesson to working with other people? Because, you said it earlier, when you and Juan were there in your room, it was a pretty easy way to communicate because that was your world and you probably developed some kind of language that worked for you. But as soon as, let’s say Juan got his record ready, were you jealous? Derrick May Nah. No not at all. That is a very good question. I couldn’t make music at the time. I wanted to make music. Juan wouldn’t even let me watch him, at all. He would close the door for two to three days, you wouldn’t see him. You’d just hear it. You would hear it. You honestly would hear it but you would never see him. He wouldn’t even come out of the damn room. He would just produce this stuff and then he’d come out and he’d let you hear the finished product. I learned from him in the very beginning, never ever blow your own horn. Don’t do it. Don’t ask somebody to hear your music... Don’t let anybody hear your product or your film production, or your writings, whatever it is, your paintings... Never say to somebody, “I just did this work. It’s great. Check it out.” That’s bullshit. You will never move forward if you think like that. Torsten Schmidt How do you phrase it when you are looking for someone else’s opinion? Derrick May I just finished this. I’ll be back. That’s it. That’s it. That’s for you. I just finished it. That’s for you. Boom. I don’t have to ask you what you think because you’ll tell me what you think if you decide you like it. If you don’t tell me shit than I know what you thought. Can anybody understand what I’m saying? How many people have given up their music here or their production or whatever they do and asked a friend or somebody they thought they admired or respected, “Check this out. It’s great.” Has anybody ever done that by mistake? It happens, right. Has anybody ever done that? Nobody wants to put their hand up? OK. Don’t do it again. Save yourself a waste of time because they will never be honest with you. People will always bullshit you. They’ll never tell you the truth. They’re afraid to hurt your feelings. They like you too much. Torsten Schmidt What do you do with friends when you know that they could do better and they just didn’t fulfill their potential. Derrick May I dog them. I burn them. I destroy them because I have no time for losers. I really don’t. I’m a very competitive person. I don’t live on the outside. I live in the middle and I fight hard. I don’t take prisoners. In my camp, if you can’t do it, get out. That’s just the way I take it. I am too busy trying to do something and it’s been a very, very difficult process the last 20 something years to be dealing with people that are afraid. Don’t be afraid. If you’re afraid to make a mistake, you can’t work with me. If you want to take a chance and you fuck up, I can live with that and I’ll help you. If you’re afraid, just simply afraid, no time. You’ve got to get over that now. Torsten Schmidt Do you separate work and friendship there? Derrick May No. Not with me. I don’t. I can’t. I’m unfortunately... I am completely engulfed in this. This is who I am. I live this shit every day. Torsten Schmidt Do you get feelings of loneliness? DERRICK MAY No, no time for that. TORSTEN SCHMIDT That’s a tough one, huh? DERRICK MAY I don’t have time for that. TORSTEN SCHMIDT Oh, so what do you have time for? DERRICK MAY I have time for my two-year-old daughter. I love her. She’s amazing. She steals my heart. I have time to be constructive to all those that want to learn or understand, but I am not your friend, and I will not be your friend. I will tell you the truth, and you’ll hate me for it, but you’ll go far. You’ll do well, and you’ll remember that somebody was honest and told you the truth and saved you a waste of time, but you will not like me. You will not like me, but you will truly, at the end of it, you will be a better person for having somebody tell you the truth, because have the people you work with or half the people you know are just simply going to yank your chain. [to audience member] Yes, what is it, young lady? [inaudible comment] That’s right. That’s exactly what it is, and that’s why I’m sitting here. [inaudible comment] I would never tell somebody anything unless they asked me. In other words, if you want me to… If you say, “Derrick, I want to come to Detroit, and I want to work with you,” I say to you, “Well, that’s a hell of a thing to do.” I say, “I’m not going to pamper you. I’m not even going to buy you food. I’m not going to do shit, and I’m going to put you through hell. I’m going to make you hurt. I’m going to make you understand what it is to be from my city, what it is to understand what these guys that have made this music have suffered and done, how they’ve had to work hard for their credibility, and to build a standard,” for what little bit of a standard they have. Let’s not fool ourselves. Techno music is, by all means, by most people’s standards, a piece of shit. I mean, really. I’m talking about the general impression of electronic music is just that’s bullshit. It’s like, “Eh, eh, eh,” stuff. If I went to some people outside this room and just said, “I’m playing techno music,” they’d be like, “I’ll be there. Sure, we’ll come tonight. Right.” I mean that’s pretty much what would happen. If I would explain, “It’s not that kind of techno thing and you know I come from,” and by the time I do all that I’m selling, no I’m begging. I’m pushing too hard. If you want to come to my city and learn something. If you truly want to become a cadet in a sense, because that’s what it’s going to be like for you. There’s people in this room that actually have been to Detroit and had to suffer the swings and arrows of the outrageous world of Detroit techno. They’ve come back better people. It’s not the kind of environment where you go and you feel all fuzzy and warm. Torsten Schmidt What’s the reason for all the military language in Detroit techno? Derrick May I think because… My mic just got louder, did you put an effect on it or something. What just happened there? Oh that’s better. I think it’s got a lot to do with the fact that the guys in Detroit have latched on to this, sort of military support thing. It’s just the thing. It’s something they feel comfortable, they feel as if they’re battling the world. I do too sometimes so I can’t say outside of that. I think all musicians, except for maybe Eminem, that come from Detroit now feel that way. Torsten Schmidt But he still got enough anger in him to feel… Derrick May I don’t think it’s anger. I think it’s a focus determination. I think it’s more like being angry, I wouldn’t say it’s angry. I’d say it’s more like, “I want to prove that this is what it’s all about.” I’m determined to prove this. Torsten Schmidt But isn’t a clever way of fighting a war a lot more about determination than about anger? Derrick May Yeah. You answered that question. [looks behind sofa] Is this thing running. Torsten Schmidt I don’t know what it is. Derrick May It’s a sub woofer, it’s making us sound really good. We got good voices. Yeah I like that, sound sexy like Barry White. Torsten Schmidt Welcome to our underground lairs. Derrick May Welcome. Torsten Schmidt I’m still totally in love with that image of you and Juan and your naked toes in a bedroom listening to music. Derrick May Naked toes, wait stop. Let me clear that shit up. Torsten Schmidt Pajamas? Derrick May Let me clear the whole got damn thing up [laughter]. Torsten Schmidt OK. Derrick May Let me clear this up. Big bed, two young guys, bros, best friends, laying in the bed with clothes, listening to music. You understand? Four o’clock in the morning kind of shit. The radio’s playing, music playing. He’s laying that way, his head is down there, his feet is down here and I’m this way, understand. This stuff there. Torsten Schmidt It’s like back in ‘69. Derrick May Stop all that. Torsten Schmidt No but I mean. Derrick May As we say, he’s got jokes. Torsten Schmidt You were really like fantasizing about what these guys took and what visions they had when they were doing this music. I mean, I guess most of us had, because we didn’t open the catalog and knew like, “Oh there’s a Moog machine, oh there’s this computer that does that.” What were your thoughts? Where did you think this music was coming from? Derrick May Well I tell you. To hear the first records from Kraftwerk, and this is an important thing. We were never interested in sounding like anybody. We didn’t want to sound like Kraftwerk, we didn’t want to sound like anybody. We were never interested in duplicating or copying anyone’s music whatsoever. We felt like it was an opportunity. I think subconsciously you imitate things, you don’t even realize it. Men wear pants, women wear skirts, some women wear pants, whatever the case, some men wear skirts. The point is, at some point we have to pick up things that are similar in some sort of way, form or fashion. We never saw it that way, we heard the stuff and it was just alien. I think between the age of 13 to maybe 18, it’s a real time of discovery with art and music. I use the word art to cover all the boundaries of any kind of art form. It’s just a really interesting time. You go from being a little kid and being told no all the time, to all of a sudden having this immense amount of freedom between the age of 17 to 20. All of life is this experience and then it becomes this music, which expresses all of these things that you feel or you think you might feel and that’s where we were. We were able to get our hands on this stuff and it really was the first time we were really able to go really outside of everything we had been, sort of our controlled family environments. Torsten Schmidt I totally see that a couple of guys from Dusseldorf do look really alien to you if you first see them on the picture. Derrick May Yeah, we had the robots cover. These androgynous looking dudes, we didn’t even think like that back then. We just thought these were some weird looking dudes. We never thought these dudes are, wait a minute, we never thought like that. We put a paramilitary kind of thing to it or something like that. That was just it for us. It was innocent. It was all innocent. Torsten Schmidt Can you remember your first feeling when you drove on the autobahn? Derrick May It was too fast at the time. Now I drive too fast. Yeah it was an experience because I was really looking forward to it. I was thinking, “Yeah I was going to get on the autobahn. Listening to Kraftwerk, I’ll listen to Kraftwerk records and shit like that and I think it’s going to be an amazing experience,” and it was just fast. It was just a highway. It was nothing special. It was cool but it wasn’t that special. Don’t want to blow it for you if you’re headed towards the autobahn. Torsten Schmidt You’re still back in that bedroom and Juan’s looked into his room. I mean, he was not going to pick up the guitar or whatever to do his first record. Derrick May I just spotted a case of itus in this room [points to audience]. You all right, dawg? [laughter] Let’s keep going. Torsten Schmidt How did you guys find out about that technology to achieve those alien sounds? Derrick May I think because Juan had a good friend named Rik Davis who was a Vietnam veteran. The dude was way into Jimi Hendrix and all this space-style stuff at the time. He believed in the Book of Revelations from the Bible. Seriously, he really believed in it, to the point where… Torsten Schmidt So he was the Detroit techno Hunter S. Thompson? Derrick May Rik Davis is that guy, 100%. He was the guy who took Juan and basically created him. He made Juan. He gave Juan all the knowledge and the opportunity, but he didn’t really believe we deserved it. Like I said, Juan did not show us how to make music. I say myself and Kevin, he didn’t show us anything, as a matter of fact, for several years. It was very difficult to get him to tell us anything. It was a real secret, it was really sacred. It wasn’t something that you shared back then. You didn’t share this. This was very special. A synthesis at the time, a real synthesis, was not a person that shared this music. He didn’t do it. They took this work very seriously. Now, with the age of technology, you don’t even have to be a synthesis. You don’t even have to know what a synthesizer is to make music, which I totally find... I’m all for technology, I’m all for the future, 100%, but I just find the future not a 100% into being creative. The future is not necessarily a creative, sort of, doesn’t have a creative agenda. We’re becoming less creative, not just in making music but in everything. I think that was a really special time, to actually be able to play a keyboard and play a song. Torsten Schmidt Why is this Rik Davis guy so uncredited and… Derrick May Because he never wanted any credit and he really went left of all of that. He’s still around, he’s about 60 years old. I think that Juan has been talking about working with him again on the Cybotron album, but overall I think that he has been very happy with the fact that he doesn’t go around getting a lot of credit. He’s got his name on a lot of songs that have been sampled. All the Cybotron material. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Cybotron or not, but Cybotron is Juan Atkins. That’s his ultimate project that he did. Almost every single song on the album has been sampled by every major artist in the industry. I think he lives quite well from that. They do quite well from Missy Elliot and all these artists sampling their music over and over again. Torsten Schmidt Did you feel that was some kind of late justice thing, of them being properly paid with that sample being cleared and the Ford commercial and all that? Derrick May Yeah, I think that’s cool. It’s a roundabout way to get credibility. The same could be said for “Strings of Life.” I made “Strings of Life” with another guy named Michael James, and you asked me a question earlier, roughly about the way it was made. I’ll answer that in a second. But here’s a song that I made almost 20 years ago. It did very well at the time. It was considered a classic the week after it was made, but it really only became a true hit last summer as far as the remake is concerned, which I can’t stand. But if I didn’t sign off on it they would’ve released it anyway. Torsten Schmidt There must have been some parallel universe because I think for the most of us it didn’t even register. Derrick May You know, I can’t stand it. Look, I was in Hong Kong last week, and people were coming up to me, asking me to play “Strings of Life,” so I played it, my version, and some people came up to me… Torsten Schmidt Which of the 800 versions? Derrick May The only version, Transmat version. I played it and the girl came back and said, “That’s not “Strings of Life,” that’s something else that’s been copied!” I said, “What!? I can’t believe she said that to me! What!?” I’m [makes punching motion / laughter] Torsten Schmidt I hope you didn’t have the same thing about your daughter then. Derrick May Nah, nah, it’s all good. Honestly, though, I ended up giving her my only copy of “Strings of Life,” which I had. I have more in Detroit but I don’t have any more with me. I say, “You take this and you listen to it and you compare it to this version that you think is “Strings of Life,” which is unfortunately called “Strings of Life” which I signed off on, which has my name on it.” Torsten Schmidt But there’s rent to pay, I guess. Derrick May No, no, I don’t have any problem with rent. Torsten Schmidt But they would have done it anyway. Derrick May That’s the issue. Torsten Schmidt Do you still own the publishing rights and everything to it? Derrick May Yes, all that. Torsten Schmidt Otherwise what would they have done… Derrick May They would have illegally put it out and my name wouldn’t have been on it, and I wouldn’t have made any money and I wouldn’t have been able to do things and help young kids, do my record label, continue to do other things with that extra money. I did the right thing, but it hurt to do that. As an artist you have to make decisions constantly with your music. You have to sometimes sign off, decide, compromise, do things that don’t agree with what you feel about your music. And that was one of those decisions I had to make. It’s not the first time somebody’s song has been copied. You hear covers all the time. Most times, 90% of the time, covers have to be approved, and most times, 97% of the times, artists don’t want to approve them. Your hand is kind of forced when you have to approve a cover, because if you don’t approve it they’re going to do it anyway and you’re not going to make any money and somebody is going to be then exploiting you. That was the situation with that particular song. Torsten Schmidt It’s kind of black/graymailing you. Derrick May “Graymailing you.” Are you going to put some questions to these people? Torsten Schmidt If there are any. Derrick May I had a question I wanted to ask all of you: Do we have any musicians in the house? Torsten Schmidt Question: What is a musician? How do you define musician? Derrick May That’s what I’m trying to find out. Don’t ask, shh shh. You blew it, you messed me up. You just killed my punchline. This guy. These Germans, man, they’re always one step ahead of you. What can you do about them? They make better cars than me, too. OK. I drive an Audi, by the way, nice car. You would like it a lot. Very fast. Anyway, the reason I ask that is because of the fact that I was trying to find out, what do you consider a musician? In other words, is it because you can program music on a computer, and you have particular programs? You can edit on a particular program. Does that make you a musician? You actually can make a good song. Or is it because you can actually play an instrument? I’m just curious to know, do we have any musicians and how do they feel about the state of programming music, the electronic, technological stage that we’re in now? Do they feel obsolete in any kind of way? Or left out? Audience Member As long as you’re writing your music, you can write it with a computer, you can write it with a guitar, you can write beautiful songs and be a crappy guitarist, or you can be barely playing the keyboard but you’re making, you’re writing music. Yeah. Derrick May That’s sort of a collaboration of technology with being an acoustic musician. That’s cool. But my question is, your answer is... Audience Member The computer is an instrument then. Derrick May Yeah. But what I’m trying to get to is, I’m trying to actually find out, how many people are actually can play an instrument in this room? OK, great. How many of you implement that into your music, or do you just use the technology? [hands raise]That’s cool. Are you collaborating with other artists? That’s a good thing because I feel as if electronic music is just not... And I’m speaking on all forms, not just techno, I’m talking music, period. I feel like we’re not at a stage of collaboration nor are we at a stage of really using acoustic musicians within the form of the technology that we have. Yes? [inaudible comment] Yeah, it’s been happening for about 10 years. Stevie Wonder did an album like that once, many, many years ago. That’s been capable. You’ve been able to do that. [inaudible comment] Go ahead. That’s exactly right. Torsten Schmidt But wasn’t one of the great things of the liberation of, that came within electronic music and the post techno kinda ethos that you didn’t necessarily have to have like 1,500 years of jazz training to put out a really good record. Derrick May Yeah and that’s one thing why we were very very selective for what we did in Detroit because we always wanted to make sure people knew we were playing the music. We weren’t using the synthesizers or the sequencers or the programs just as a sort of crutch. It was an asset, but it wasn’t the crutch. In other words, “Strings of Life,” the piano is real, it’s performed. The orchestra bits that you here, what I did is I went down to the local orchestra hall in my city and I had access to recording various progressions from the orchestra, because my mother has connections within the local music community and I was able to go down there when I was a kid and get all these sounds. I recorded them to cassette and I had had them for years. I put them into an old Mirage Ensoniq sequencer and I still play them. I actually play progressions on the keyboard to produce the notes that you hear on the song. So it’s actually performed, complete. That’s all I’m saying. I just would really hope that you guys are able to encourage people be it through Myspace or Yousendit or whatever it is to be able to collaborate and play music, not just lean on technology for the worst parts. It’s cool to use it as an advantage like that to team up on a creative level with people but do not just turn around and become this ascetic musician that doesn’t have any sort of musical history or quality and you just kind of live... You’re not really attempting to develop or make anything that’s going to change or make a difference. You’re just sort of riding the coattails of technology. Torsten Schmidt When you’re listening... I mean if we dissect “Strings of Life” as an example, a lot of the feeling and a lot of the energy certainly drives from the DJ aesthetics and I bet you hearing DJs like Ron Hardy in Chicago and the whole punch in punch out kind of thing, and like, could you probably enlighten us a little bit about how the actual mixing process in the writing of the tack contributes in comparison to setting blocks on a screen? Derrick May Any of you ever sat down to an analog mixing kit... mixing console? OK. There is quite a big difference between an analog console and a digital console. Digital consoles as you do know, it’s pretty much an all in one package. You do have certain outboard gear which would be considered effects units, various different units. But mostly with a digital unit you’ve got you software package, with your board, and that’s basically how you operate and create. You’re looking at a screen, you’re seeing different diagrams with different whatever. With an analog board, you’re actually working with your ears and you’re working with your instincts. It’s a tremendous amount of instinct involved with making music through an analog process, is very different. I would like to encourage all of you here to get the chance to work on an analog board. Actually, get an analog board and hook it up to a digital source. That would be very very cool, get the best of both worlds. Stacey Pullen, I don’t know if any of you have heard of him, he’s a good friend and a very good recording artist. He just recently purchased himself an SSL board, and he got it for, I don’t know, $7,000. This is a million-dollar recording console 10 years ago, you can get it for $7,000 it’s unbelievable. USD. Try to get your hands on as much analog stuff as you can and implement it into your technology. You’ll find that there are advantages to doing that, don’t just turn your back on that stuff because it has a certain hiss or a certain amount of resonance or whatever. It’s called ambiance in our world, where I come from. It’s a good thing. Torsten Schmidt Character. Derrick May That’s a... Character, that’s a good thing. It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing to hear a little bit of history from that machine. But as I was saying, punching in and out. The difference between that and mixing with a mouse is a very big difference. You have to experience it hands on. It’s like the difference between driving an automatic car and a manual. It’s a very big difference. Torsten Schmidt Then again you come from a country where people don’t like to drive stick, so is it probably just us that is trying to be old, retro, romantic kind of people? Who say like, “OK we want that human kind of element,” and probably it’s just the way of like, “Hey, let’s wake up, it’s the 21st century,” we’re all half cyborgs anyway, when you look at the amount of breast surgery going on and god knows what. Derrick May Like I said, the best of both worlds. This too. I didn’ ... I have no problem with technology. I just don’t recommend that you lean and depend on it a 100%. It’s just too easy. It’s too easy to just roll over and just give it all up like that and not have any kind of... Not to really use your imagination and find out... I don’t want a computer to tell me what I can and can’t do. I don’t want to have to fight a machine to tell me that I can’t do something. And that’s the way I feel with a lot, with a bit of technology. I feel that in the mixing process for instance when you go to do a final mix, you find yourself limited with the mastering process of mixing down to tape. Compared to mixing down to tape, let’s say, a two-track recording machine which is very rare and hard to find these days. The machine is easy to find what’s hard to find is the tape for the machine. The difference between recording on a tape in a mastering, finishing process compared to recording to a digital process is the difference between us sitting here and being real people, and these being holograms. It is completely different. It’s like the difference between CDs and vinyl. There’s a tremendous difference, in depth of quality, db, various things. There is a difference, truly. So if you get the chance, like I said, just bring the best of both worlds together. I’m definitely not saying turn your back on technology. Orange? Torsten Schmidt Oh, yes please. You probably still are, to a certain degree you have been living off the respect that little crusaders around the world brought towards Detroit for a very long time. At what stage did that respect become a burden? Derrick May I hope it’s not burned yet. I don’t think it’s burned. I think... Torsten Schmidt Not burned, but a burden. Something that’s heavy on your shoulders. Derrick May A burden? Ah. Well, yeah, the heavy part is that people keep waiting for an album from me. Torsten Schmidt That’s been going on for a what like 15 years? Derrick May A long time, yeah, a long time. Miles Davis took breaks, Clinton got drugged up, Juan Atkins is chilling. I’ll get to it. I’ll get to it, you know. That’s not the issue. I’m actually working on a project right now. Torsten Schmidt We’ve been hearing that for a while. Derrick May No I’m actually working on it, really seriously. And I’m going to be doing... I’m doing some of the production here. Not in this building but in Melbourne. I’m working on, there’s a movie coming out in Japan for the film Tekken and I’m actually working on the mixing of that right now. So I’ve got to have that done by the end of the month. Next month, not this month. I’d be fucked. Torsten Schmidt I just remember you saying that at the beginning of the early ‘90s, “I’m just not doing any records anymore because I feel like I don’t have anything musically to add to what I’ve already said.” And it was like really mixed emotions towards it because like, some of the people said like, “Hey, that’s a really brave thing to say.” Derrick May It’s kind of stupid, too. Torsten Schmidt Or coward-ish, maybe. Derrick May It could be considered that. Torsten Schmidt But there’s nothing sadder than, if you look at what Paul Weller is doing to himself these days. Derrick May What is he doing? Torsten Schmidt He’s just doing the kind of music that thirty years ago he wouldn’t have had the energy to hate the people who do it. Derrick May Right, I see. You know, I don’t... Man. The reason I said that is because I had a meeting with some pretty major people about 15 years ago. It was a pretty big deal on the table. It was a major, major, major record deal. And I don’t know how many artists get the chance to have a record, to get a record deal without any demos. I did no demos. So the deal was on the table for Warner Brothers. It was a serious deal, I had no demos, it was six months into the deal negotiations. Final week before I signed the deal I sat down with Trevor Horn. It was his record company. Let me finish the story. So I’m sitting there and Trevor, it’s this gigantic table, he’s got like this Knights of the Round Table shit in his office. And we’re sitting there at his table, he’s sitting at the other end of the table, tripping. And I’m at this other end and I feel like I’m in some really bad Federal Express commercial or something like that. And the dude says, “So tell me Derek,” as he lights up his spliff, “How do you feel about Top of the Pops?” [inhales] He’s trying to be cool. I said, “Top of the Pops?” The reason he asked me that is because I can’t stand at the time Top of the Pops. I thought it was a whack show. Torsten Schmidt It’s not history as well. Derrick May It’s not history. Do you guys know what it is? What it was? OK, if you’re from the States, there was Dick Clark. That was the show, they had like the top 10 bands of the week. They’d have them perform. It was a horrible show. Soul Train was better than that, believe it or not. In this country or even England for that matter, Top of the Pops. Really crappy show where the top 10 bands of the week that had the top pop songs, they’d perform live their song. It’s a really bad show. It’s embarrassing. So I said, “No, I don’t want to do that.” I was really fair about it, he said well, “You know, Kraftwerk did Top of the Pops.” I said, “Really?” I was very sincere about that, I said, “Really, wow.” In other words, almost like I have to think about that. But I think inside his spliff was not weed, I think it was cocaine, because that motherfucker didn’t understand a goddamn word I said. When I left the meeting, he said I was a lunatic because I didn’t want to do Top of the Pops. And the deal was off. And I was very happy that the deal was off, because I probably would’ve burned out years ago. I would have had my moment, I would have made another maybe four or five albums, I would have did this thing, and I would’ve been miserable inside because I wouldn’t have been doing what I really wanted to do which is be on this level. I’ve done very well for myself. I’m able to help people. You guys, cool people, it’s a pleasure to sit here and talk. I’ve known this guy many years. I’m able to sit here and chill with you guys and do this because I know a lot of artists have made some really ambitious decisions, and they’re out. They weren’t even able to ever reach their goals. Torsten Schmidt What I don’t get about this whole thing is that obviously there’s always been a strong affirmation and fascination with european electronics in Detroit, but the Transmat sound and Trevor Horn. That’s like totally opposite polars. Derrick May Not really, because he felt, Trevor Horn, if anybody here is familiar with Art of Noise or Frankie Goes to Hollywood or Propaganda, all that stuff. That was nice stuff. Still today, when I listen to that I just have to sit back and just turn on the surround, just check it out man. It’s beautiful, the way they layered it and the technical sort of EQing and just the amount of time they put into that sound. Torsten Schmidt Technology-wise, I mean, it’s obviously... Derrick May It was on point at that time. Torsten Schmidt Without a doubt, but then on the other hand, what many people were so relieved about with the Detroit techno was that it somehow incorporated some sort of a post… Derrick May Minimalism to it at the time. We didn’t want that sound, but we felt like he was one of the few people that understood electronic music, and that’s why we gravitated to the man. We went to him because we felt like this dude understands electronic music. That would make sense. There was no other record labels at that time that had that kind of juice that would give you the kind of freedom to make the music you wanted to make. Torsten Schmidt What’s the first time you ever went to Europe? Derrick May Oh man. That would be 1989. I went and I played a party. Actually no, I didn’t play a party. I met what’s Roland’s last name from Fine Young Cannibals, I can’t remember. I think you know who I’m talking about. Met him, and did a mix for one of their songs, and it was the first time I was ever in a gigantic big studio. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I had no idea. I had never seen a SSL board, I had never in my life seen all those EQs and all those outboard pieces of equipment. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I had to actually fake it. I winged it. Torsten Schmidt What did you work on before? Derrick May We had a Tascam, those 16-track Tascam, or a little 8-track Fostex. That was all we worked on. Torsten Schmidt What were the pieces of gear? The actual… Derrick May Yamaha. Roland. Korg keyboards. Korg sequencers, Roland sequencers. Roland drum machines, Roland drum machines and Roland drum machines. Torsten Schmidt Did Roland ever pay you any sort of respect of rejuvenating them? Derrick May Met the guys in Japan. Nice guys. Cheap motherfuckers [laughter]. Didn’t give me squat. Nothing! I said. “Hey, we revolutionized your shit. We took your shit to the next level, dog! It was because of us that people are down with your shit today.” “Arigato.” [laughter] “Give me some shit!” Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Motherfuckers. But that didn’t mean I didn’t like the machines anymore. It’s like when you meet your favorite actor or whatever and he’s an asshole, and he’s no longer your favorite actor. That wasn’t the case because Roland, still love them today. It is what it is sometimes with certain situations. I think they were truly appreciative of the fact that we were able to sort of given their instruments that kind of... Torsten Schmidt Second foot and eighth wind. Derrick May Yeah. Qualify that with every single musician that makes electronic music to a degree, but I don’t think they understood exactly what we did. That comes from, once again that goes back to coming from Detroit. Not having the kind of well-oiled machine that you need to make it work. You don’t have to be super corporate, but you do need to have your business sense together in this industry a little bit. You do need to have some idea of what you’re going to do if you are going to make a record on your own. If you’re going to become an independent artist, how you’re going to promote yourself, how you’re going to make it work, so that when you get the opportunity to meet some of these people out here you actually have a product and you have a way to make them believe you also know how you can intertwine or relate their product with your product. That’s part of making this thing work. It’s not just about making great music. It’s very simple to make a great record. It’s very difficult to make a great situation so that it turns into other things. And you are not under control, which all of you obviously don’t want to be. That’s why you’re here, right? Torsten Schmidt Can you give us any sort of sense of how your sense of business changed between or before and after the infamous techno compilation? Derrick May Well, we used to sell about maybe between 3 and 5,000 records a week when we first started out. We used to put them in the trunk of the car, two trunks, Kevin’s car and a friend’s car, I didn’t have a car back then, I was stealing my mother’s car of course. We used to drive, I think it was James Pennington’s car, we used to drive from Detroit to Chicago every single weekend with 3 to 4,000 records in the trunk of the car, and we’d sell them to the record stores. Imports, Etc. There were so many record stores in Chicago at the time. In Detroit there was a record store called Buy Right Records. Still there, as a matter of fact. They would even sell at least 7, 800 a week. We were able to move all these records, come back with money. It was COD. There was no 30 days, there was no 60 or 90 days on the return of the money. Because the music was so hot, because of what the Hot Mix 5 and the Chicago house scene was doing, Farley, Steve Hurley, Chippy, all these guys, Fast Eddie, what have you. Torsten Schmidt To most of us these names are dinosaurs. Can you probably open the encyclopedia and tell us what we would find there? Derrick May You’d find Marshall Jefferson, you’d find Joe Smooth, you’d find all these guys. They’d be right there. These are the guys who invented house music. House music does not come from London! It comes from Chicago. Some brothers made it, they didn’t know what they were doing, they had no sense of business or how to build a relationship in business. They went to London so excited and happy, and they just gave it up. It’s sort of like blues. Have you ever heard of Chuck Berry? B.B. King? Muddy Waters? Well, on the parallel of that you’ve got Farley Jackmaster Funk, Steve Hurley, Chippy, Joe Smooth, Marshall Jefferson. Same thing. Anyway, we went there, we sold these records, and we would pick up the money instantaneously. Come back with 10 grand, turn it over, we would order more records, and then process making more records. And that’s how we made a lot of money. We actually stopped making money once we started dealing with Europe. That’s when it all kind of went pear-shaped. Torsten Schmidt What happened then? They sent over this guy, he wrote a story, did a compilation, and then what? Derrick May What happened was I went over to Europe on that trip to do that remix for Fine Young Cannibals and I met a gentleman named Neil Rushton who would be my agent. We actually had some meetings, and then he took me to some record companies so they could hear my music, these great demos. “Nude Photo”, “It is What it Is”, “Feel so Real”, “Strings of Life.” I don’t know “Beyond the Dance.” Maybe four or five other songs that were on this particular little cassette, or whatever, I had packaged. These execs were on the telephone when my demo was playing. We never got a proper amount of respect out of anybody, so we just kind of left. That was pretty much my extent of my first meetings with record companies. Shortly after that, I think something happened. One of the records exploded, and then Neil called us from London and said, “They want to do a compilation.” We put together the compilation. The very last song on the compilation, which no one had even thought about putting on the compilation was “Big Fun,” record from Kevin Saunderson. It was the last song! I mean they was like, “What are we gonna put on here now? We have everything. What goes on here?” And Kevin pulls this song out of his bag. He says, “Well, I got this piece of shit.” We said, “Well, that’s pretty bad.” “Yeah, it is pretty bad. What can you do to it?” “Take it back to the studio and have Juan mix it.” So, Juan does a mix. They spruced up the vocals and put it on there. Nobody expected for that song to do anything, and here we are 5 million albums later. I think that song probably was as important to the Detroit electronic movement as it was to the electronic music movement. Torsten Schmidt Yeah. I got account of 11 year olds somewhere in Europe having all-male house parties when the parents were away and stuff. Derrick May All-male house parties? Torsten Schmidt That was pretty close to the Chicago original, right? Derrick May All-male house parties? Torsten Schmidt I guess so, yeah. Derrick May Well, not quite. There are women at these parties, screaming and shaking and kicking their legs, and it was hot. Torsten Schmidt So, you had family in Chicago, right? Derrick May You changed the subject. Go ahead. Torsten Schmidt You had family in Chicago, right? Derrick May My mother moved there. They left Detroit. They got tired of it. They couldn’t take it anymore. Detroit is, you know, Detroit is... Torsten Schmidt Not the most livable city. Derrick May Well, it’s a livable city, but it’s not a metropolis. It’s not a metropolis. It is not a metropolis. It is not a place designed for people that want to live the lap of luxury, and my mother was at that point in her life. She had married, blah blah blah. Torsten Schmidt So, you got to see a lot of those people that we only search out, like archeologists on deep house pages or whatnot, and you saw a couple of them spin actually, right? Derrick May Well, what happened is that I was in Chicago to visit my mom, and I was already really much aware there was something happening there. I couldn’t convince Juan to come to Chicago. I said, “Juan, you’ve got to check this thing out, man. I’ve heard this music on the radio. It’s happening.” Juan said, “Man, I’m not into that gay shit.” Torsten Schmidt Back to the all-male house parties. Derrick May That’s right. That’s what he said. He said, “I’m not into this gay shit.” I said, “Bro, this is not gay shit. This is hot. This is, you know, you’ve gotta check it out.” He wouldn’t come. So, basically, that’s where our music changed. My influence became, more or less, what was happening in Chicago than it was Kraftwerk or anything else. I became so engulfed with what these guys were doing, that I said, “I want to go home, and I want to make a piece of music that they will play.” I did not want to make a music that sounded like their music. I just wanted to make something that Ron Hardy, this guy, would want to play. Torsten Schmidt Who’s Ron Hardy from... Derrick May Ron Hardy is the best... He’s dead. I’d say probably was the ultimate DJ period. I cannot explain to you the amount of technical skill and passion and fire that ran through this man. There’s nothing like it. I’ve never heard a person in any walk of life that played music like that. It was so innovative with tape and with editing, and his audience was just this animalistic... Just too much. I can’t even begin to explain it to you. It’s like if I had a ball of fire here, and I just set the room ablaze. That’s just how he was able to do it. I cannot explain it. They’re falling asleep. They ate too much, and they sat in the sun and ate. You didn’t eat did you? Audience Member I did, actually. Derrick May Oh, OK. You look like you ate. OK. [inaudible question about Chicago] I have a couple records with me. I brought some things that are more or less things that I’m playing now, things that I like. I didn’t bring a lot of music. I also have a CD of a DJ set that I did a few years ago, which is more or less a mix of current club music and Chicago music and disco music and Detroit techno. I could sort of put that on and let that run. Torsten Schmidt As a little wake up kind of thing? Derrick May Yeah. Wake up, motherfuckers! God damn! Torsten Schmidt When you talk about, “He was this ball of fire,” and that glow and stuff. Obviously, he paid the ultimate price for being on fire so much. Derrick May I have vinyl by the way, folks, but I’m gonna put this CD in because it’s a live mix from Japan, about a few years ago. I’m just gonna let it play, and we can continue to talk or you can listen to it and make your comments as we go. (music: Derrick May live in Japan) Audience Member I’m wondering, do you still look for music that sort of is pushing forward or is trying to break some kind of mold? Derrick May Yeah I do and I find it more and more difficult every day. That’s a very good question. The fact that vinyl is, which is amazing, in less than two years become almost extinct. People have just rolled over and just fell for the okie doke and everybody just stopped making vinyl. I knew it was coming. We all knew it was going to happen. It’s just been really sudden, it’s not like I wasn’t prepared for it or anybody wasn’t prepared for it but god it happened quick. It’s become very interesting times for music. I think that you might imagine it’s a really free and open time to make records but I think actually it’s a dangerous time because the more people who make downloads and the more CDs that are available the less people seem to be listening. The less people seem to be concentrating on searching out and seeking out good music. They’re just searching out quantity, not quality. That’s what makes it dangerous is the quantity aspect of it. The quality should always be number one but you’re not getting quality because you’re not able to find it because there nobody out there sitting back telling you this is the hot record of the moment, this group is the new group of the moment. You’re being told now by Viacom and Radio One and Clear Channel that MTV is telling you who your hot groups are again. They now have control again. It’s really interesting. We’ve kind of given up that little aspect of our control on a creative level by sort of falling in line indirectly. That’s why MySpace is important as well even though it’s corporate, it’s still very much at the moment, still locked into youth culture which is very important. Torsten Schmidt The Murdoch, MySpace discussion… Derrick May I didn’t say Murdoch. Torsten Schmidt If you think back on how much time you invested in doing a radio mix with all the edits and all that kind of stuff, and you know that culture you mentioned and the people in Chicago. You mentioned people, like the Mojo, the Wizard you didn’t mention, but all these people that invested so much time in just getting half an hour or one hour of radio to be something incredibly unique... Derrick May I don’t think anybody did it to be sitting here today. You know what I mean? Did you do what you did to be sitting here today? Torsten Schmidt I can’t think that much forward, but then again isn’t it probably a good thing that if Waajeed over there was going to be doing the same kind of thing this afternoon, he’d be able to have the chance to distribute that to, finding all these kids wherever around the world. Derrick May He doesn’t want to. It’s so weird. It’s a good question, but he doesn’t want to. For instance, I saw Moo recently and I said, “Man you should get back on the radio because you’ve got satellite radio and all these things.” “I don’t want to do that anymore. I’ve done it man.” And I understand that. Torsten Schmidt Are people afraid of the pressure again? Derrick May No I think that it’s kind of... You get magic in the bottle once. You don’t go back and try to capture it again. You don’t even know you captured it. When you get magic, you don’t know you’ve got it. You’ve just got it. You don’t try to grab something that you don’t know how you got in the first place. You just run with it. And you run with it until it runs out. That’s why you say about me doing this and when do I realize... When do I know my time is over? My time will be over when, I’ll look in the mirror and I know because I won’t wake up hungry anymore. Right now I’m severely hungry and full of desire. Torsten Schmidt Desires for what? Derrick May I’m still full of desire to play, and to be around young people, and to... I’m 43 years old and I’m still very much into this. I love it. I love it completely and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else right now. I do a lot of things. I mean I work with a lot of different projects but I really love what I do and if you don’t love it... If you become jaded or just some sort of thing, then get out, move on you’re wasting space. Like you said, am I holding up space or do I ever think of myself of holding up space for some young kid who’s hungry climbing the ladder? I try to help a lot of those guys so that I am not holding them up and I love the challenge. Bring it on. Torsten Schmidt So it’s a similar thing as in, let’s say if Dr. Dre is too busy doing things, he would let Scott Storch do a beat and... Derrick May He should. Torsten Schmidt He did. Derrick May That’s good. Torsten Schmidt This whole system that you have to work for someone in the studio first and you don’t get any credit, then later on you will become, eventually the credit and you can always say, “Look I worked on this and that.” [May presses play on CD] Derrick May I think that in the beginning we were really happy with the support we were getting from the media. I think that somewhere they just decided that they had enough of of us. They had their own crew. And that’s when it really exploded, when Aphex Twin and all the guys came on the scene is when it just became truly cool to make electronic music. Before that, we didn’t realize it, we were the prototype setup artists for the whole thing. No regrets, though. I tell that because I’m sitting here now with you, so I cannot say there’s any regrets. Questions. Gentleman over here. Audience Member Hi. Derrick May Hi. Audience Member Could you explain the term “high tech soul?” Derrick May Of course I can. High tech soul is more or less, I’d say, an offspring of techno music. I think the original concept of what we always wanted people to understand what we were doing was black electronic music with soul. We never wanted to be sort of pigeonholed. When we saw techno go south, really south, we really saw it become something else. We just didn’t want to be a part of it anymore, but we just couldn’t walk away from what we created, right? We didn’t create it alone. It took everybody to make this thing happen. So we fought. We fought hard. We fought to keep some credibility and respect in it, but it became more and more difficult as you found yourself with some of your own guys, you know, playing the same bullshit that other people were playing. The fight has been to, the cause has been to take it back to where it originally was from, which is the soul of the music, the essence of it. The essence of it is that it was high tech soul. Audience Member Good answer. Derrick May Thank you. Torsten Schmidt Do you think you can survive today with being just a brilliant mind that, producer alone, or do you really have to go out gigging? Derrick May Gigs? Torsten Schmidt Yeah. Derrick May Gigs are great. Gigs, unfortunately, also eat you up. Anybody here performing, on a basis, at all, ever? OK. DJ or music? Performing vocal or musicians? Audience Member Vocal. Derrick May Vocals? DJ, DJ, DJ, DJ, DJ, DJ. DJ. OK, cool. Anybody playing tonight or tomorrow? Audience Member Saturday. Derrick May Saturday, all right. Cool. What time? [laughter] Torsten Schmidt He’s getting nervous. He already needs to go to the toilet now, I think. Derrick May He should go to the toilet. That’s a good thing. It’s a good place to concentrate. But not a public toilet. Anyway, how long are our sets? How long will you perform? Audience Member How long? Tonight or in general. Derrick May How long will you perform tonight? Audience Member A few hours, maybe. Derrick May A few hours. Who else? Audience Member One hour. Derrick May One hour session. Audience Member 48 hours. Derrick May 48 hours. That man is going to be on some drugs. OK, who else? Audience Member Four to eight, not 48. Derrick May Ah, I thought you said 48 hours. Audience Member Not possible. Derrick May It unfortunately is possible. There’s a man out there who does it all the time with a funny looking face. He wears baseball caps, and he’s on a lot of drugs. Anyway, I won’t say his name. Anyway... What was the fucking question? Torsten Schmidt Whole thing is like how do you keep, maintain that energy and the motivation. Derrick May Yeah. I was headed towards that thing. That’s what I was headed towards. Is to not, first of all, I don’t put myself in positions where I’m not enthusiastic about the sets. Number one, if I’m going to do gigs, and I do a lot of them, to perform music, to actually go out and do a live show and perform it I haven’t done that in years. I’ve been DJing all the time because I love to do it, I’ve always been good at doing it, and it’s something that I can be in direct contact with people with. Being in the studio, if I was to go back into the studio, which I’m doing now, but this is a special production for this movie thing, but if I was going to go back in and make an album, I would stop making music, stop playing records altogether because I can’t play music and make music. I have to cut one off. I can’t do it. I can’t make music for two or three hours, turn off the gear, and come back tomorrow. I have to lock in. It’s lock in, get it done. I cannot walk out that room until it’s done. Anybody like that here? How many of you turn it off and come back to it? You got to stay in that room. You got to lock down. You really got to lock down. Then you have to work on it so much to the point where you get tired of listening to it, and then you don’t listen to it, and then you turn it back on and you hear all the shit you did right and all the shit you did wrong. That’s when you know you did something, but don’t dance and think you just made some great shit. Let others be the ones to tell you you made some great shit. You just make it. You just make it. Torsten Schmidt What does it take these days for me to get on Transmat? Derrick May Money, drugs, women. Torsten Schmidt Is it that easy? Derrick May Wine. Torsten Schmidt Oh, OK. That bit could be sorted easily, yeah? Derrick May Get me all the pornos you can. Torsten Schmidt Is that all? Is it that simple? Are you crushing all your idealistic, little crusader Detroit techno dreams now? Derrick May Well, you could extend the warranty on my car. Torsten Schmidt Yeah, but I mean, label policy? Derrick May No, to work on the label of Transmat, what it would simply take is, we listen to every demo. The company, we took a break, because I put on a festival a couple years ago, a big one in Detroit called Movement. It was quite a large festival, and it really took a lot out of my company… Torsten Schmidt Which is a plethora of stories in itself, I suppose. Derrick May Yes, it is, but the end result is debt. Serious debt, but was able to deal with the debt, deal with the adversity of that, but it took a lot out of the company. We’re not going to let Transmat fall, but I did have some rough calls. It’s very much a part of the institution of electronic music, and I will not let it fall, because it would be a travesty. I think, for a lot of people who believe in electronic music, to see a label like that just disappear would hurt. So we’re going to be doing more projects again soon. We’re always looking for music from people. We listen to every demo. We don’t respond if we don’t like it. Like I said before, if you don’t hear anything, then you know we just didn’t care for it. Most record companies do it that way anyway. That’s pretty standard stuff. You don’t hear from a company, you just know they weren’t interested. You hear from them, obviously, they’re interested. They want more. We’re always interested in listening to music. We listen to all sorts of music, all different types of music. I had a chance, when the label was really doing well, to sign Portishead many years ago. Didn’t do it. Shoot myself in the foot for that one a thousand times. I haven’t done it yet. I will be doing it soon. Music wise, we’re always looking for all kinds of stuff. Anything and everything. I like to keep people guessing in the music industry. It’s very important. Never, like I said before, Carl Craig, Stacey Pullen, Kenny Larkin, these guys, they got a big net they jump around in. I myself, tightrope. You know, I concentrate on my label, on my music that I do, on what I play. That’s my thing. I chose that path many, many years ago. Those guys, they jump around in the net a lot. Transmat Records is a part of that net. There’s other record companies in Detroit also that are part of that net. We’re always looking for music, and we’re all there. Any questions? Any questions? Finally! She needs a microphone. No, I want everybody to hear it. Audience Member Yeah, I sort of want to know more about what you asked, what Torsten asked you. Did you ever had, like, because like you said, you’re really focusing on what you do, and I guess it’s really also DJing, so did you ever have a crisis where you thought, “I’m not moving further.” Derrick May Yeah. Audience Member If yes, what did you do? Have you been sick of the music you played the whole time... Derrick May Yes. Audience Member And how could you get more inspiration and do a change there? Derrick May I’ve been like that several times. I’m like that now because I’m fighting for vinyl, which I know is a fight I know I won’t win, and in the process of the fight, I have to work extra hard to find music, so I still play CDs, but I play very little. You could see what I play, as far as CDs are concerned. I’m not against CDs, but that’s my, that’s the extent of my CD music right here, and it’s not even full. It’s not because I’m anti CD or anti download. It’s because I really like to play with vinyl. It just motivates me. I like to move it. I like to touch it. It’s a great feeling. But yeah, I do find myself in some real moments when I’m lost. You have to fight through it. There is no solution or recipe to that, you just have to fight through it. You got to stay strong on that one. That’s the beginning of falling down. When you give in. Torsten Schmidt You were entering a situation which, to a certain degree, is pretty lucky. It’s almost like a Greek tragedy, or Shakespearean. You did, without any doubt, perform a couple of the tracks that build a genre, that changed the world, to a certain degree. How does any human on Earth possibly know how to top that? Derrick May Wow, that’s a nice thing to say, brother. Thank you. That’s some nice shit, what he just said. That’s pretty heavy, thank you. Torsten Schmidt That’s a heavy burden. Countless… Derrick May I’m watching all of you. Torsten Schmidt An army of shrinks can solely live on that. Derrick May Yeah, but I had to step outside of being an artist, such has to be a DJ. There was no way in the world I could be a good DJ and be an artist at the same time. The reason is, because as a DJ and as an artist at the same time, you are too judgmental of other’s music. You like nothing. You like absolutely nothing! Everything is shit! “Oh, this is shit, that’s shit. Oh, he did this wrong. Guy’s a terrible musician. Who mixed this crap?” You have to step outside of that. You have to become a DJ. If you’re a DJ, you’re a DJ. If you’re going to be a musician, you’ve got to step away from the whole thing, so as to have this not influence what you do. That’s the only reason I’ve survived in it, because I’ve stepped completely away from it. There was somebody with a hand up a minute ago. In the back first. The lady back there. Audience Member I’m interested to know how you find your music. How do you actually go about finding the music that you play? Derrick May Well, I travel quite a lot, and there are a couple record stores still left in the world that are good ones. Anybody ever get to London? Vinyl Junkies is a very good record store owned by this really wacky French dude named JP, Jean-Paul. He’s a nut. He’s my friend, but he’s a complete maniac. He has one of the most extensive record collections in the world. I think you just can find him on vinyljunkie, like a junkie junkie, vinyljunkie.com. He will ship records to you anywhere in the world. Audience Member So you use the net as well? Derrick May No, because I travel. I’m able to pretty much go wherever the music is. Japan, Cisco Records. They have seven shops, and they have three of them on the same block, and they are amazing. Within that little radius of shops, which is no more than a kilometer, they have maybe 17 shops from different shop owners, selling everything from vinyl of Usher’s new album, which blows my mind that they have vinyl of Usher’s album, the new one, to Gladys Knight & the Pips, to Kevin Saunderson’s new track. They have it, they have everything. In Germany, I think there’s still… Torsten Schmidt The records you then forget in other people’s places? Derrick May No. No, don’t talk about that. There’s, Mark still has his shop in Berlin. Torsten Schmidt Hard Wax. Derrick May Hard Wax is still in Berlin. I think that’d be hardwax.com. Cisco in Japan, I don’t think you’ll find, you’ll be able to get anything sent. They won’t send anything. The Japanese are the Japanese. Audience Member There are Japanese who will do mail order. Derrick May I’m in Japan a lot and I’ll tell you now, you will not get the Japanese to send you anything. They just won’t do it. They don’t mail out. They just don’t. I wish they did, they just don’t do it. I know, probably, they don’t do send… [inaudible comment] You get Sisko records to send you stuff? [inaudible comment] Well, if you get them to send you something, you need to put everybody in here up on it, because as far as I know, their website is in Japanese and all the information’s in Japanese. Yeah. I think they would like to do it, but I just don’t think they’re positioned to do it. There’s that, there’s Hard Wax. I basically travel, and I’m able to come across things. Audience Member OK, as an addendum to that, you said earlier that you’re finding it harder to find good innovative music? I can’t remember the exact quote you used. Derrick May That’s a good way of putting it. Audience Member Innovative music, but is there some stuff that you could share with us that you are finding innovative, and is inspiring you? Derrick May I have some records here now. I could play a couple for you. Audience Member Care to share? Derrick May I’ll share it with you, my darling. (music: Carl Craig – “I Can”) Torsten Schmidt Before we turn this into a jam and let it be a little more free-for-all. Derrick May I smell cigarette smoke. Torsten Schmidt That’s not me. Derrick May I’ve got a sensitive nose. Torsten Schmidt That’s not me either. How has your taste for gear changed over the year? Derrick May Ah, my taste for gear. Good question. Torsten Schmidt I’m not talking smack. Derrick May Aw, don’t worry. I understand. My taste for gear has changed immensely, but at the same time, has stayed really simplistic. I worked with Pioneer on the 1000 mixer, with François Kevorkian, and we worked with them for two years on that mixer. Then they released it, and we thought they were going to make a mixer that was available to everybody, and the damn thing cost $3,400. Torsten Schmidt That’s an interesting notion of “everybody.” Derrick May That was disappointing. That was very disappointing. Pioneer basically gets no credit for having a sound quality mixer, so they released an 800 mixer to compensate the 600, and the fact that they made the 1000 too expensive, and nobody has the 1000 except for myself and Francois and two or three other people in the world. Yes sir. Audience Member We have one in our club. Derrick May You’re a rich guy. Where’s your club? Audience Member Honkytonk’s. Derrick May Oh, you’ve got one of the Honkytonk’s? On the piano? Audience Member On the piano. Derrick May Outstanding. You guys been to Honkytonk’s yet? Oh, you know about it. Honkytonk’s is classic. I love Honkytonk’s. Had some great times there, for sure. Definitely some great times. As far as… Still love my turntables. As far as keyboards are concerned, I’m messing around now with, as you all know, maybe you don’t, Robert Moog, the original designer of the keyboard itself, died. I really got heavy into that. I’ve been into Moog keyboards for years, but I really liked the fatness of the filters. They just sound great. Just really good sounding keyboards. It’s a hands-on, real keyboard. Torsten Schmidt It’s a real nice haptical experience. Derrick May It’s cool, man. It’s quite orgasmic as they say. It feels very nice. This lady’s smiling. We’ll have to give back the microphone in a minute. I know she’s thinking something. Anyway, that’s my thing. I’m actually using my old sequencer, which, do not laugh, is called a squid, S-Q-D-1. It’s made by Korg. It’s a 16-track sequencer. You bounce the tracks as you record them, which means that you can’t go back and erase the track after you’ve recorded it, so it better be the shit, because it’s going to be layered in one of your mini-channels forever, and the reason I’m using this is because I’ve made so much music with that thing and it just feels good. I don’t have to use a Logic or any particular program, just because it’s there. Use what you like, go with what you know. Don’t try to impress friends or family or those so-called colleagues. Do what you do, even if it’s old gear. If it works, it works, right? Prince picks up a guitar, and what happens? He makes music, he plays. You’ve got guys who are making major hit records today, recording them on four-track digital boards, so just do what you do. Don’t get caught up in this technology. Get caught up in what makes good music.