Feb 7 - The Hasbeens feat. Alden Tyrell [LIVE] @ Lunar Disko

An interview with DJ Overdose:

[Interview by magicwavesradio.blogspot.com]

You're known for your skills on the turntable, but also for your passion for producing italo and electro - can you tell us a bit about your different musical influences and how they manifest themselves in your music?

- I'm not so passionate about italo or even electro for that matter, I don't own one italo record and the only newer electro records I have are Dopplereffekt's first two which are already from a while ago and I bought one DJ Funk record a year ago - 'Shake It Baby'.

For me it's hip hop I love, not the new 'bling bling' but the old self-made man pouring your heart out stuff and then it can be about whatever they rap about. That whole 'get the best producer on every album' and going from making zilch to a hell of a lot of money killed hip hop is what I think. There are counter movements I know but they all seem to sound like what Tribe Called Quest was doing way better ten years ago to me. The electro I play is to me at least hip hop meaning I like the stuff that has rapping on it, I'm not so much into electro that is more on the techno side, of course some stuff I dig a lot like Model 500 and from good old Holland, Electronome.

I only really got to know italo from playing and hanging with I-f... what I remember as being like "wow this **** is good" is a car ride we took when going to play in Geneva. We played Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra and an italo mix he did, at some point Felli's 'Diamonds In The Night' came on... we got on top of the mountain as the sun came up and we saw the lake of Geneva, it was magical, I love that track. Other tracks I really like are The Creatures 'Believe In Yourself', Immortals 'Ultimate Warlord', Azoto 'Exalt Exalt' and a lot of others too but I wouldn't know the name of the track or the performing artist.


Why do you think that the Netherlands has such a special affection for italo?

- I think it's more The Hague than the Netherlands or at least it used to be, maybe because in a way it's summer love beach-party music and The Hague is a city by the sea.

And we all know pirate radio stations used to be all over The Hague and all kinds of antennas were scattered around the rooftops, I think maybe we got brainwashed like MTV does to the kids nowadays.


I hear you use the legendary SP1200 (or it was your first drum machine?) - any other favourite pieces of studio gear and why?

- My first drum-computer was a Kawai, I think the model was R5; it was not a very cool drum-machine but I learned a bit of programming on it. Some years later a friend saw an ad for an SP12 turbo actually which is the 1200's older brother, it has 5 sec sampling time instead of 10 for the 1200 and it has it's own drum sounds which in the 1200 they left out but you can load them from disk which leaves 5 seconds again and the 1200 can reverse samples. Best improvement was a 3'5 inch built-in floppy drive against a Commodore external drive. After the SP12, Technics SL1200's are still my favourite piece of equipment, I love putting on records.

For the rest anything that gets the job done is cool to me, I care more for a song to be good than the sounds in the song to be good; actually I love a song even more if it's really good with crappy sounds - not too crappy though there is a fine line. But of course certain sounds can also drive me wild.


Your latest project (with Alden Tyrell), The Hasbeens, is a huge sensation in the underground already... how did the collaboration come about? Why do you think the dynamic between you two works so well?

- We've been hanging and making tracks since forever but never finished anything most of the time; it was intro's or we would do DJ tracks with a lot of DJ Overdose and Alden Tyrell triggering (like the 'Obsession' scratch remix he did with DJ Technician), put it on cassette and I'd go scratch on it at home. Hasbeens was something where we were having a joke about both being a bit down and talking a lot of crap about nothing being good, cool or worth it or whatever.

He said he mostly tried to make uplifting songs and I was always going for the lowest bass, let's try something different together. The concept was going to be negativity all the way, we have an album title which is "Out The Window" which explains I think everything. But first there's the new single on Frustrated Funk - 'I Fall To Pieces'.


What's next for DJ Overdose from here? Do you have any records or projects in the pipeline?

- A new 5-track DJ Overdose record is coming out right after summer on Strange Life Records. I have a lot of unfinished 80's tracks and The Hasbeens need to go to work and will but are not at it yet, Get It Boyz only play records for each other or hang and have a laugh when we meet, Novamen is on pause due to me moving to Rotterdam and giving it a break but I think there will be new stuff someday.


What's your favourite record that you've made (and why)?

- I like all of them but I don't think all of them are good, and I can like them for different reasons. 'Lies' is a good song, 'The Beat' has everything that I think is cool; lots of bass, tuned cowbells, scratching and pitch-shifted vocoder rapping, 'Make The World Go Away' has the right amount of melancholy.


As a DJ can you tell us about any particularly strange or interesting gigs that you've done? And of course any personal favourites?

- I'm not a crowd-pleasing DJ. I want to stuff what I think is good down your throat, so sometimes it works real well like for instance when I play Miami Bass at some places people got kicked in the head and went nuts shaking the building together with the bass... other times people would think what the hell kind of crap is this guy playing.

DEMF was great - we (Novamen) were really ****ed up after driving the whole night to get there in time and the crowd really dug our stuff. Breakdancers were flying through the air, there were people with Viewlexx banners - it was a lot of fun.

Playing live in Amsterdam with I-f and Alden Tyrell I think as Parallax Corporation was cool too, I-f and me were drunk as hell - we were singing 'Lift Off' while another song was playing and then we got into 'Superman' with a lot of cussing and me scratching 'mother****er'... it had such a good punk feel to me, this is us - take it or leave it, we are enjoying ourselves.

A strange story would be when I got arrested in the club, we had borrowed my father's car to go to the club, Technician dropped me off to go park and got checked by the cops because of a broken headlight, when they checked the trunk there was some boxes of gun-shells in there (my father used to hunt). He was taken to the station and they went and got me from the club handcuffed and all. My father picked up the car the next day.


What are your views on the current state of the Dutch scene? Who would you recommend that we might not have heard yet?

- I really don't know... people talk of scenes, what I see is some people who make records.


What were your early influences and what are you influenced by now?

- My early influences were a lot since my mother is a music freak - she would play classical, blues, reggae, rock and when I got into hip hop she would borrow my Mantronix and Sweet Tee records. First records I bought were Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Pink Floyd and Prince, when I heard hip hop that was all I bought.


Outside of Dutch circles who are your favourite producers these days?

- Lately I've been even more out of it, since I don't like the hip hop, last stuff that was really good to me was Havoc (Mobb Deep), RZA (Wu-Tang)... Only albums I still buy is Ghostface Killah, the rest of the records I buy is old.


How would you describe the sound of DJ Overdose for those who don't yet know?

- Well it can be anything. I might do a country record next (again) but I think what people would call it is electro.


Please tell us 10 records that have rocked Overdose's world.

1. Schoolly D - 'PSK (What Does It Mean?)'
2. The 2-Live Crew - '...Is What We Are '
3. Too Short - 'Born To Mack'
4. King T - 'Act A Fool'
5. Cybotron - 'Clear'
6. Method Man - 'Tical'
7. Demon Boyz - 'Recognition'
8. BDP - 'By All Means Neccessary'
9. Just Ice - 'Back-To The Old School'
10. Sweet Inspirations - 'Sweet Inspirations'

Set Times for tomorrow:

Barry Donovan / Alden Tyrell (DJ set) - 11:00 - 12:45
The Hasbeens [LIVE] - 12:45 - 1:45
DJ Overdose - 1:45 - Finish

**Guestlist winners emailed**