Philippe Zdar (Cassius)

Philippe Zdar

I was born in the countryside, in the Alps in the mountains, which is very good until you are 17, but then after you really need to go away, because there is nothing happening. And my dream was to go to Paris. So by a different way, I managed to become a tea boy.

Torsten Schmidt

A tea boy? What’s a tea boy?

Philippe Zdar

Ummm, in the big recording studios, there’s a sound engineer, producer, artist, an assistant and then a tea boy – the tea boy is the guy who makes the tea, [laughter] coffee and throw away the ashtrays. But it was my dream, you know – I went into a room and there was…

Torsten Schmidt

The ashtrays were your dream?

Philippe Zdar

Yeah, it was my dream to serve tea to people. So, I managed to do that and after to become a sound engineer, a mixer, and after I discovered rave and techno and then I really wanted to do music and become a DJ, so I started to do music because of that.

Torsten Schmidt

OK, so what kind of studio was this, and when was that?

Philippe Zdar

It was a big studio, like a real recording studio, with a big desk and lots of outboards everywhere, 24-track analog… it was a long time ago, a lot of people here were not even born. There was nothing like this. [points to G4 Powerbook]

Torsten Schmidt

We’re talking after 1984, at least?

Philippe Zdar

It was ’87 when I was a tea boy, and the techno thing I discovered in ’91, ’92 and I was doing a lot of rap. I was a sound engineer, but it was not interesting musically for me and when I discovered techno, I started… well, I wanted to make my own music. In fact I wanted to be a DJ, and we realised on the flyers that to be booked as a DJ the best way was to have a band, so then after the people call you because you have a band, which is successful or not. So I started to do music to become a DJ. Now I do more music than DJ. That was the main thing I really wanted to do that.

Torsten Schmidt

Is that because you don’t want to be a DJ anymore?

Philippe Zdar

No I’m still a DJ, but just a little, just to keep the feet to the club because all my friends who are DJs, they can’t do music. Because every weekend you go away, and when you do music, for me for example, I need to immerse myself for a few days. So if you come back on Monday, you are tired, then you work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then Thursday you have a very good thing and just when you have the good thing and you need to finish it, you need to go away to play, so “pah!” And also, when you become a DJ and you play every week, you don’t enjoy it the same way as when you go only once a month.

Torsten Schmidt

In those four years of being a tea boy…

Philippe Zdar

I was a tea boy just one year. After that an assistant, then after a sound engineer…

Torsten Schmidt

OK, as a sound engineer, how did your name appear on records of people like MC Solaar, for example?

Philippe Zdar

Oh, in fact working with MC Solaar changed everything for me. It was a time in France when there was no rap and it was only music like everywhere around the world, like pop music, and people didn’t touch too much bass. And me I wanted to have lots of bass, so I think they hired me to do MC Solaar because I put more bass. So I did one track with MC Solaar because I knew a guy in the record company, and it went out very big in France, and then after everybody kept calling me. My career started like this – it’s the same with everybody, you do one thing one way, and the people in the record company, they don’t see too far, you know? They need a reference, so when you have a hit, they say, “Ah! This guy knows how to make a hit,” even if you don’t know anything. So they called me for doing all the MC Solaar and lots of other people. So I was doing this, engineering and mixing. I’d been doing mixing for years and after I was fed up with this, there was not enough input in the music, and I really wanted to do my stuff, so I put it on the side and become more an artist. If you want to get more work you have to be really honest. If you go in a studio and you work on somebody’s music and you don’t really like it, you will give like 50 percent. I think the only thing to go in the music business… well, now it’s really special because everyone can do everything at home. I’m talking about a time where you had to go in the studio, so it was not really the same thing. And for me, what saved me was to be strict. I never went in the studio without loving it – I did it once and at about four in the afternoon I stood up and said to the guy, “Sorry, I can’t do it.” I did it because it was friend – “I don’t like the music.” I paid the studio myself and I went away and I never saw them in my life, they hate me now. But for me it was honesty, and for them they understood it as, “Bah! He doesn’t like the music.” So I think to be honest and strict is very important, because I see a lot of people myself who are successful for six months, so everybody works with you and you’re like, “I’m gonna make money, I’m gonna work with everybody.” And then after six months it’s gone, there’s somebody else coming up, a young kid at 25 – like our friend yesterday. And there’s always someone coming up, so it’s very important to have a line. I think for me it’s very important. And, you know, after when you work with someone, people look at you in the room and they know. For example, I have the reputation of being in the room to do something, so the artist never ask themselves, “Does he like it or not?” They look at you and they trust you and that’s the most important thing. You saw it yesterday in the studio with Leroy Burgess, you have to be completely free of everything and you have to feel good. This is very important.

At the same time I went to raves, I discovered techno. I wanted to do it and my assistant at this time when I was a sound engineer was Etienne de Crecy, we made a band together called MotorBass and Super Discount and lots of others and we went to the rave together and we really wanted to… The day after we bought a mini sampler and I bought a little Atari and we started to do music very fast and at the same time Hubert was doing all the playbacks, the music for MC Solaar, and there was a guy in England called James Lavelle, who had the label called Mo’ Wax, which changed a lot of stuff in England at this time in the ‘90s.

Torsten Schmidt

You mean he got records to look good?

Philippe Zdar

Yeah, exactly.

Torsten Schmidt

That’s his main achievement, apart from putting a certain 10" out…

Philippe Zdar

Yeah, so he liked very much the music of MC Solaar and so he asked us to do a 12” with only the music without the rapper, so we did it instrumental, but Hubert was into singles, three-minute tracks. Me, I was into techno, so we started to stretch the three minute tracks longer to six or seven minutes, and then he told me to do a track, which is not four on the floor, which is not house. So I started to do breakbeat and La Funk Mob started like this. So when we were doing La Funk Mob with Mo’ Wax he told us, “We have to do a remix, who do you think can do a remix?” James Lavelle never knew Detroit techno. Me, I was into Detroit techno only, I was a pure raver and everything. So I had two heroes at this time, who were Richie Hawtin and Carl Craig. So I said to the guy, “Call Richie Hawtin or Carl Craig, ask them.” And they were like, “Who are they?” They were not known at this time, so we called them and they said “yes” and they did the remix.

Torsten Schmidt

And the end result, for those who don’t have the track or don’t know it, it’s really worth looking up because it’s got a really interesting…

Philippe Zdar

Yeah, yeah! For me I think the Richie Hawtin remix is his best remix. He is very good at production, but the remix I think is one of the best he’s done.

Torsten Schmidt

I was just about to ask, speaking of timeless music, how do you what’s your take now on introducing the filter disco element to it?

Philippe Zdar

Oh! I hate it now. It has been so… For years it was horrible, everyone was doing very fast like [do, do, do]; you put a kick and you sample a track and after they did it, and after everyone was doing this and it was horrible, worse and worse and worse, less and less worth. So right now, if you talk about this, I hate it. I’m into doing lots of live things, mixing technologies; yesterday was very interesting, and I think for all the people here I think it’s very important because now you can do everything in this computer. Everything, even the synthesizers, the drum machine, and I think it’s great to mix. If you have one keyboard, if you have a bass or nothing, you can use the plug-in’s and also this makes you find other ways of doing it.

Torsten Schmidt

But still you asked for this as the first thing when we spoke on the phone on what to have… [pointing to the E-mu SP-1200 drum machine]

Philippe Zdar

What, sorry?

Torsten Schmidt

But still, when we talked about what to have here, this was the first thing you asked about.

Philippe Zdar

The drum machine? Yeah.

Torsten Schmidt

So there’s still some kind of initial energy about it.

Philippe Zdar

Yes, I’d always have a drum machine. It’s great, for this music. It’s fantastic. This one also is very good, it’s my favorite. It’s a very old one and the sound is special. For example, I think if you like hip hop, 80 percent of hip-hop since the start has been done on this machine. It’s a 16-bit, the sound is very “schchchrrr” [makes a scrunch-type noise, as if compressed]. I remember when I started, because the memory is very short, everybody was sampling into this and taking the sound, because the sound is getting very down on the bits, getting very [makes scrunching noise again] and everyone was looking for this sound, like Gangstarr, A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, all this was done on this [points to the E-mu SP-1200] and now you have a plug-in in Logic called a “bitcrusher” to make it a little bit down and you have the same sound.

Torsten Schmidt

Still, not the same instant kind of energy.

Philippe Zdar

No, this is very important. [hitting the E-mu] Me, I need this, I can’t do it in Cubase.

Torsten Schmidt

It’s probably a very interesting thing, especially when you are at the beginning of your career, and people are kind of, “Harrumph, I have to do everything right all the time.” And you just say, “Filter disco, I hate it now.” How do you go about these things, how do you learn to be a little more easy in accepting that things might be right at a certain time?

Philippe Zdar

I think this is a way of thinking about everything. It’s life and by itself it’s always evolving and you have to go with that. Me, I’m always against ritual activity. I know some people who say, “No, no, this is shit, this is shit. I’m gonna do everything.” I think it’s not good because it’s the same as people who, when cars arrived, they say, “No no, I want to keep my horse.” You’re going to die in three months if you still put coal even though there’s gas. You have to go with the flow, it’s obliged. If you go against technology, it’s fucked up. It’s exactly what the record companies are doing right now with downloading. “No, no, the record, it’s 20 euros, it has to stay at 20 euros, we have to make a lot of money.” Meanwhile everyone is into downloading, and they’re saying, “No, no, no, let’s do this.” And in ten years it’s fucked up, it’s finished. So I think that it’s very important that when you do music, to be completely, completely free and never put boundaries – never, never – and go with the flow with new technologies and what you know is good and mix what you know.

The “French Touch” thing was mainly because in Paris we love Chicago. But when people tell me, “Ah, the ‘French Touch’ thing,” like filter disco, I’ve got records of filter disco from ’88! I have Paul Johnson from ’88 or ’89 and it was filter disco. Never nobody in Paris invented anything like this, so everybody was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” [feigns adulation] Me, I say it’s Chicago music, it’s Chicago house music, and in Paris we love this. Daft Punk loved this, we loved it, but after it’s not possible anymore, because you have to evolve and do whatever you want. Now we do something else, people do something else, if there’s people still doing this...

I do this music for myself. First how I spend my time for me doing music, it’s when I can’t do anything else, when I’m at home at night and I get bored, so I do tracks. After all, it’s my living, it’s the way I have to live, so I put records out. Frankly, I prefer the most people who knows them, the better it is. So if it goes to MTV, let it go to MTV. If it goes on the radio, let it go. If it doesn’t, it’s OK, I’ll do another one.

Torsten Schmidt

But still, most of the things you do had a really interesting package that stood out, like with specific graphic design. So is it you who puts the attention in there?

Philippe Zdar

Oh yes, of course. My picture is written out, I buy a lot of vinyls and CDs, so I need to have a sleeve. When I was a kid, I was looking at all the credits and I was like, “Yeah, I know this guy. Oh, he’s on here.” I thought it was fantastic. Now I see kids, they don’t even look. They buy, well no, they don’t buy the record, they get the record copied, they don’t have any sleeve, they don’t care, “pah”! It’s OK, you know, again I accept it, but me I am old school where I need to have something nice with nice pictures and I have friends who do graphics.

Torsten Schmidt

But the whole way you set it up, it’s not very personalised. I mean people wouldn’t necessarily know your face, for example.

Philippe Zdar

Yes, that’s very important. That was the fantastic thing about the rave. It was that we were in the culture of the star, there were stars everywhere and the fact that nobody was a star, it was fantastic. I think in my experience, it’s important for everybody who’s starting to do music and everything, not to think to much just to let it go, just do music and after to see. So we did tracks, tracks, tracks and one day you see there’s ten tracks, which go well together. Try to give an order and you have an album. Never you must think, “Ah, I need to do one dance track, one slow track.” If you do that, I think you go direct in the water. For me the music and for everybody, it’s only the sensitivity. Sensibility? I started as a heavy metal guy, I even was in a punk band. I was singing in a punk band when I was young, that’s why I love this moment right now because everyone’s doing punk and I’m not feeling that. And it’s really very good because I was a punk and it’s great to see that punk music’s coming back, everybody’s playing guitar and it’s fantastic. There’s more and more good music I never saw, since I was in the music business, a better climate than this climate because there’s a resistance. Everybody’s saying, “Oh my god, there’s nothing. Everybody’s downloading the music for free, what are we going to do?” But I think it’s fantastic because the artists, they are getting to resistance and when you get into resistance, you do great things.

Torsten Schmidt

And also, I mean it’s probably just for lazy people who argue about it, because every time you go into the record store, or maybe log on to some websites, you find a lot of really interesting stuff.

Philippe Zdar

Yeah, I found a lot of interesting stuff on the net. I think it’s really cool. it’s just a way of redistributing money to the artist because perhaps they’re going to have to be a waiter or a taxi driver. I don’t know, but I think it’s very interesting and there’s lot’s of good music right now in the electronic, in the rock & roll. There’s always the same shit pop thing, horrible things, but it’s for the kids who are 12, but when they are 18, they’ll want something else and they will…

Torsten Schmidt

You’ve just said that you’ve witnessed how everything always turns in circles. How do you go about like every new sub genre that’s out there, no matter how grimy it is at the beginning, at some stage everyone wants to be a real musician.

Philippe Zdar

Yeah, I think it’s a problem to want to be. Me, I never wanted to be anything. Just to live. I think if you want to be, there’s a problem at the start. I know some people who want to be stars and I think it’s crazy and everything they do is to do that. If you want to be a star, you have to do stuff that you don’t like, and stuff that you are not proud of and this is not going to last. Some people, yes. Some people, who wanted to be stars are like Frank Sinatra, but it’s completely special. It’s for geniuses. I don’t think it goes to the masses.

This is great, because when I was doing MC Solaar album, we were in a big studio and I had the small studio at home and we were doing the session at five in the morning and we’d finish the MC Solaar session and me I was playing in the studio and I was using lots of rap samples. There was this guy Jimmy Jay, he was scratching. I was mixing this track before they arrive, I was ashamed of house music the rappers were looking at us like, “Ah, haha, that’s gay music!” So we were doing this, we were locking the studio.

Torsten Schmidt

So you French have really got your whole tolerance worked out?

Philippe Zdar

Exactly! Rap is the same everywhere, the French rappers are the same as in America, “It’s gay music, blah blah blah.” So we were locked in the studio and I was mixing my track and they were supposed to come at three and this guy, the scratcher came at two. So I told him, “Man, do you want to scratch?” And we kept it like this and really it was the start of house music with a hip-hop beat. It was in ‘94 or something – ten years ago!

(music: Unknown / applause)

It’s the sound. I was into sound, you know I was a mixer, and it was easy for me break… But, you know, it was very funny because this was a time when we were putting out music, which was done in an enormous studio a big thing and at the same time everybody was doing music at home. Everyone was asking me, “The sound is enormous, how do you do it?” And I’m like, “Man, sorry but I have a big desk.” So it was unfair, I guess.

Torsten Schmidt

Were most of the records coming out of Paris at that time mixed in the same place, or by the same people?

Philippe Zdar

No.

Torsten Schmidt

Because there were certain, well, if there was one common thing it was that “whooom” sound.

Philippe Zdar

Yeah, the compression. In France we are really into compression. And after it was, for example, Daft Punk, who completely built a sound that everybody tried to emulate. So that was really funny because they are doing a sound and three months later, everybody was buying the same compressor because everything was to do with the compressor. The basic rule about compressors is to trust your ear, to have some taste. You must have some taste. Me, I don’t even know what a compressor is! I don’t know how many years, like 15 years that I’m doing this and I still don’t know what is a compressor. I know what it’s doing and I’m touching the buttons, but when I like it, I keep it like this. When I started there was some sound engineer coming in the studio and he says, “Are you crazy?” The errr… what do you call it [makes flickering dial motion with his hand]?

Torsten Schmidt

The meters?

Philippe Zdar

“The meters are going too high! The meters are on the red.” And I say, “But when I hear it, I like it.” And he says, “But it’s not possible.” And I’m like, “Leave me alone.” [applause] I think it’s the key for you all, although you don’t need to learn it, you know it already. Everybody’s learning by his own way at home, so when you’re at home, you’re listening with the ears. I like it when it goes in the red, if it starts to do “khhhkhhh” [makes grating noise], you notice it and you take it a little bit down, but there’s no theory in music for me. Everybody who comes with a theory, you can keep your theory – probably it works for you, but for me it doesn’t work. So the compressor’s secret is to trust the ear and another secret for me is the meter, it has to move a lot. If your meter is like this [makes feeble motion with his finger], it’s not good.

Torsten Schmidt

So first of all you need to get a meter…

Philippe Zdar

All the compressors have meters, the cheap, very cheap compressor don’t, but forget them.

I never saw a good producer who said “no” in the studio. If you see an American producer, they’re going to be very diplomatic and everything, they’re always going to say “yes.” As I was explaining yesterday, and Leroy was explaining, you have to be cool with the singer. You have to put him in a really right mood. You have to always say “yes,” you have to always say to yourself “yes.” If you think, “I’m going to the toilets and record it and do a song with it,” let’s try it, do it. If it’s good, keep it. If it’s not good, throw it away. We have lots of good friends with me who are very used to the studio because in the studio you have to be free and supple. If you’re like this [makes tense motion], then you can do some good stuff with some people. But me I think for everybody for the mass of people, the most… The leitmotif is soft and supple and free in the studio. And in a big studio or in your studio, if you have only this [grabs laptop], you still have to get free to do the music. It’s very important to let the big egos out of the door, leave your ego at the door. And it’s important that in all the places in the studio. If you are an artist or a singer, a player on a drum machine, a producer an engineer, everybody should leave his ego behind and try to make it for the music to be the best at the end. If you come in the studio, for example like yesterday, and you start to put your ego and say, “No! Let’s do it like this or like this,” you’re spending time, you know? It’s very long in the day, you’ll get like bored. If you read a book, it’s cool. But after, are you going watch a movie? It’s good to spend time but it has to be quality time and the most important thing is the music at the end. If you come and you show everybody, “I know how to use this…” This guy, he knows how to use everything, but at the end, if you don’t have anything on the tape, it’s no use.

Except on stage. If Prince comes on stage in my jeans and shirt, and is playing his guitar and is like [makes lethargic motion], you’re going to be like, “It’s Prince?” You want him to have like high heels and stockings and be like [makes crazed motion]. This is Prince in this case, he can show off when on stage, but in the studio that’s no use. For me I’m the boss in the studio and that’s it. And it’s not like I’m showing off, it’s very important. I think one of the key things is to trust yourself in the studio. You know you’re good.

(music: Cassius feat. Leroy Burgess – “Under Influence” / applause)

Torsten Schmidt

On to the hands-on thing. Twenty minutes, clock ticking away.

Philippe Zdar

So we have the original, and we’re going to try and do a remix and you’re going to tell me what you want. Let’s listen to the original.

(music: Innocent Kru feat. Benzly Hype – ”Get Crazy”)