Celebrated DJs Ferry Corsten and Markus Schulz recorded a terrific debut at the Enchanted Valley Carnival. They spoke about their collaboration, evolving trance and how melody is making its way back into the beats
At the second edition of the Enchanted Valley Carnival, New World Punx’s legendary DJs — Ferry Corsten from Netherlands and Markus Schulz from the US — rocked their fans. The dynamic duo with their individual distinct style of deejaying gave a riveting debut performance with their new single Torque and other hits like Romper along with their trance remix of Coldplay’s Sky Full of Stars and Capital Cities’ Safe and Sound. Excerpts from an interview:
How do you guys mix your styles togetherIJ
Markus: Individually we both are like what one would call heritage artists. When you think of trance genre, you think of certain people. Ferry is one of them. So individually we are under that same umbrella but the NWP project gave us an opportunity to branch out a little bit. We have our trance roots but at the same time it definitely lets us explore different sounds.
Ferry: My music is never completely trance. There is always an influence of electro or techno or house and even Markus’ is kind of the same thing.
Did you have creative differencesIJ
Ferry: I don’t think so. The biggest difference would only be that I’m a melody man and he brings the tech sound to it and when swapped around, it makes up an amazing sound at times.
Markus: The beauty of this project is that we just started clicking together. We’ve been playing at the same events for years but we never really hung out or made music together, we never did a back-to-back set or anything like that. A couple of years ago we were in Ibiza and we started chatting about music and we just clicked. I think the whole thing with this project is that it came organically. We’re just having a lot of fun and that’s the one thing that fans can really see us doing. We are up there laughing and joking around, having a great time and at times not taking the things too seriously.
Ferry: There are times you think of going in a certain direction while playing but all of a sudden you change it. You find yourself having certain issues sometimes where certain records that normally work together would all of a sudden not match anymore so you save it and you need to make the mix go right at the last minute.
Markus: When that happens, we start improvising and that’s when we’re having most fun because its challenging. Individually, I know how a particular track is going to sound mixing with some other track. I already know it in my head. When we’re playing together, he’ll play a track that I have no idea about and at times it’s a surprise and is challenge which makes it even more exciting.
A lot of DJs are moving to acoustics and bringing in live music during their performance. Would you do itIJ
Ferry: The only live element that I see working is having a vocalist. But all of a sudden breaking your set down and letting a band play is not something I’d do. You’re either a band and perform like Daft Punk or Prodigy or you’re a DJ, but if you’re trying to be both then I think you’re really forcing the issue.
Markus: Sometimes I think people are insecure about themselves and their music creditability that they have to try to be everything to everybody. Own up to who you are and don’t hide behind something that’s fake. A lot of times when people are up there and doing stuff, 90 per cent of what they are doing is not even live.
Marcus is called the ‘Unicorn slayer of trance’.
Markus: Trance started out to be like rainbows and unicorns, a lot of fluffy stuff and somebody tweeted that if trance is unicorns and rainbows then Markus Schulz is a unicorn slayer because I played more darker, dirtier kind of trance and I retweeted it and it just went viral. People started showing up with t-shirts and flags. Ferry has also been recruited into this army of slayers.
How is trance evolving as a genreIJ
Ferry: I think it’s getting more melodic again. There was a moment where it was getting a bit like electro but not with the same power and it lost its melodic touch but I think it’s coming back.
Markus: My problem with trance for a while was that it turned into something it was never supposed to be, that is, a two-three minute breakdown with vocals, singing a love song and people standing on the dance floor. That’s not what I got into deejaying for. I got into it to see people dance and not see them standing around. That part is now getting fazed out and is getting back to dancing. Trance used to be a roller coaster ride. Nowadays, everything has to be quicker and you can’t have a track that is 10-minute long.
What will happen to your standalone toursIJ
Markus: We got together to do this for fun. We got bored of touring alone and when we tour together, he has his crew and I have mine, so we all get together and have a great time. That is what the whole project was founded on. like a collaboration of ideas, not just mine and Ferry’s, but also our crews’. Everyone is inspired by each other.
Ferry: When we both produce our tracks individually, he has his own style and I have mine but as NWPs we feed off each other and to a certain extent that resonates back into our original careers as well. If I’m producing music on my own, so somewhere in the back of my head I’m thinking I want to be able to play this track in NWP style. It spills over a bit but we have our solid individual sounds.
What do you think the Indian fans like about your musicIJ
Markus: The thing about our music specifically is mostly melody-driven and so it crosses all kinds of language and cultural barriers. It’s instrumental where people can sing along. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the US, South America, India or wherever. This music is like a universal language. People in India are the most passionate fans in the world. All the times that I’ve been here, I’ve seen people crying and not because there is a three-minute love song playing but because they are really feeling the melody and the vibe. They really feel the music.
Ferry: The crowd is very knowledgeable about the music. Its not like I’m playing here so let me play a set from last year that sounded great because they will know. There is also a super intense social media presence here as well and people are very active so you want to tap into that and work/connect with them.
What’s happening next yearIJ
Ferry: We’ve come this far, playing at all the great festivals around the world. We just released Torque which is just a club record that came out two months ago but not with a solid string of releases so that’s for next year. We have a bunch of new tracks lined up.
Markus: It’s pretty amazing about the buzz that we’ve created doing this and it has been just from deejaying. Many producers who make a hit records have never deejayed in their life and then they have to go out and learn how to DJ in order to play in festivals. Our project has been founded on our deejaying skills and its going to be amazing to see where it goes next year when we start getting into the studio and start making music together for a bigger purpose.
Our first single will be out by January end or February. There are some unexpected type of tracks which have amazed our management and crew so our fans are definitely in for a treat.