He managed himself to break into the scene on a very young age, only 23 years old now and already flying to the far corners of the world to please the crowds. He produces his tunes with a lot of passion, creating his own style by using different elements and influences. It is about time to have a proper chat with Andre Frauenstein…

Hi Andre can you tell us a little bit about yourself to kick off this interview?

My name is Andre Benjamin Frauenstein, I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1985

I have been DJ’­ng since the tender age of 13. Since this time I also started producing electronic music. Promoting events in South Africa, and managing records labels.

Would you like to tell us how it is to grow up over there?

During my younger years South Africa was in a bit of chaos due to Apartheid. I would see areas for ‘whites only’ and “blacks only’, this was a difficult situation to understand as I had many black friends back then. I was one of the lucky kids who got to meet Nelson Mandela when Apartheid was over. I remember it was at a theme park called Gold Reef City. My father at the stage was the General Manager of the theme park, and had to look after Nelson Mandela for the day!

I remember the first time I shook ‘Madiba’s’ hand, it changed my life completely. He has such a presence. Mandela for me, is the saviour of South Africa!

Growing up in Jozi (Johannesburg) as we call it, was really tough, I mean here is a city with 50 murders per day, 700 assaults, 356 aggravated robberies and 150 rapes! There is a lot of poverty in Africa, and I still see it every morning I go to work.

You have been into electronic music since a very young age, tell us about your first steps.

I always had a love for electronic music, it just came naturally. Depeche Mode and New Order were the first electronic music groups I got into. I got into DJing when I was about 13 years old, with one goal in mind and that was playing at the Love Parade in Germany with Paul van Dyk! :-). He was such a huge inspiration for me, and my main reason to start playing records to the masses. So the first batch of records I bought was his earliest works like ‘45 RPM’

How did you manage to get yourself into the scene ?

I started as a mobile DJ doing house party’s for friends at school. This progressed to playing at weddings. I have always said the best way to learn how to read crowds is by doing at least a couple of weddings! ;). There you have to play all types of music to all kinds of people between the age of 16-80! Eventually at one of these random house party’s/weddings I met some club promoters who saw that my real talent was mixing dance music! I then got my first gig in a club at the age of 16 or so. From there on weekend in and out I was booked to play at local clubs, and the rest was history. I remember they had to pack crates behind the DJ area when I was about to play as I could not reach the decks being too short!

As time progressed I worked hard and got taller, playing at well known established clubs and events in Africa and just basically making things happen for myself.

From there on you turned yourself in a true ambassador of the South African electronic music scene…

Over the years my music style adapted and I eventually made my dream come true last year playing at the Love Parade in Germany for 1.3 million people, I was only 22 years old. Probably one the youngest DJ’s to have ever played at this event. I was part of the first official float from South Africa by DP bookings.

We know very little about the scene in South Africa, tell us about how things go down there.

Johannesburg is definitely the party capital of S.A. The main genres are House, Minimal, Trance and commercial hard dance. Cape Town for instance has the best outdoor Psy-Trance parties. Psy-Trance is very big in of South Africa. Techno however is the one genre that really lacks in Africa. The scene is very tiny and underground if you compare it with these other main genres. I am part of an establishment called Teknotribe, headed by Nick Grater (Stay Up Forever). We do the only proper Techno partys here in Africa, bringing down big International DJ’s/Producers ranging from Minimal to Hard Techno. If this establishment wasn’t around I fear that there would not have been any scene at all!

You must have faced obstacles in the past, what’s your biggest one and how did you overcome it ?

I used to be part of a band called Grim Brothers some years ago and we played Trance, we were one of the biggest acts in South Africa getting booked every weekend, but we went our separate ways due to me wanting to produce and play harder Techno. After I left the group I knew that I would have to face not being able to play every weekend and to lose all those fans we worked so hard on getting, because at this time no one wanted to listen to this noisy music called Schranz!

So all of a sudden I had weekends to myself not DJing and I started producing. I was really sad not being able to play that often in South Africa due to Hard Techno not being known and mainly disliked. But when I look back at it now, it was the best decision I could have made in my life, and it has paid off. Another huge obstacle for me was sacrificing so much quality time with my family, and friends. It’s the life I opted for, how to get over that obstacle - I don’t know yet.

But things have changed, you are now signed to Giveway Bookings, Trivial Bookings and Techsound bookings. You have played in many countries and experienced the craziest crowds, c’mon tell us about it ?

A lot of people can’t stand touring, but to me it’s like breathing. I do it because I’m driven to do it. Meeting new people and just soaking up what ever the country has to offer. Touring is a lonely road however, and all one get´s to see most of the time is the inside of clubs, hotels and airports. I like to usually stay for a bit, and see the country,also spending time with people and making new friends. For instance when I toured Colombia this year, I stayed there for almost a whole month.

Over the years I have played to the craziest crowds, one that certainly will stay with me forever is Love Parade in Germany. Having 1.3 million people dancing is just incredible!

Without the bitter the sweet wont be as sweet, like playing in South Africa is tough, as people are not as open minded about Techno as other parts of the world. Every day is a struggle to get more people into our specific genre.

I am really honored to be a part of such great establishments like Giveway, Trivial and Techsound. They have been so supportive over the years, and I see many great things in the future.

Recently you toured through Colombia and Germany to Austria, how did that go ?

Colombia, a country where Hard techno lives! The clubbers, the energy is absolutely mind blowing. It really breaks my heart to see how some DJ´s just wont go there because they think its too dangerous. I really think its a country with the most potential for Hard Techno! Some of the best crowds I have played for. My first gig was on one of the main streets in Colombia called Septimazo, this was with a festival called Bogotrax organised through Techsound. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen, you had thousands of people in the street, children included losing their heads to the hardest music I could play and all of this whilst its raining! Salud!

I had my Birthday party with Nadine Coalyard and Brachial Drum Connection in Germany in May 2008, we had my best friends Scott Kemix and DJ Pheeva playing there as well with Sven Wittekind. Great turnout that evening, although I had a bit of a bad experience on this gig as it was just getting too crowdy behind the DJ area, and every time the crowd including myself gets excited at the tracks everyone was jumps and so did needles! Never the less the whole evening was absolutely massive! Germany will always be home for Techno!

Vienna, the kindest people I have met! I had so much fun touring with Krischmann & Klingenberg to Austria, we actually managed to go to Slovakia Bratislava as well, which was always a dream of mine. The gig was great, I had an absolute banging set there! Oh and did I mention that the Schnitzels there rock!

You are not only spinning records around the globe but you are also an all-round producer , tell us about the producer side of your life…

When I am back in South Africa, I spend most of my time in the studio where I am working on the latest Pro Tools system driven by a Mac Xeon. The main reason I started producing my style of Hard Techno was that I always found that most Hard Techno released these days lacked quality intellectual elements. I loved trance and the emotions with it, yet I loved the harder darker elements to Hard Techno, so I started producing my own more melodic hard music.

I produce so I can give a very piece of myself to someone else. Every single track I produce is a stage in my life. Its not just a meaningless track with fx, one could really see all of this in one of my first releases which was on Viper XXL’s label ‘Around the World’ called ‘South Africa’.
I get my inspiration to produce from everything in my life, one can use every single thing you hear , see or feel.

How would you describe your music ?

I produce electronic music. I would never want to classify myself as a Techno or Electro or whatever producer. It definitely has more melodic influence in it, a lot of emotions, mostly dark, could be sad just whatever mood I am in at the time. For me my style is whatever I need to release in emotions at the time.

You were kind enough to hand us some promotional tracks of yours, let’s have a listen.

1. Nothing Left ( New & Unreleased! )
2. Hellbrow ( Techsound Records )
3. South Africa ( Around the world 04 )
4. Daruish Gee - Warcraft ( Andre Frauenstein Remix ) ( D4rK R3cords )

How do you come up with names for your tracks ?

The names to my tracks always have a certain meaning and it relates to what you feel in the music.

For example “Hellbrow” : this track was released as original on Techsound Records Colombia and then Scott Kemix made his magic and the remix is out now on Giveway records. There is a district in our main city of Johannesburg called Hillbrow. Its one of the most dangerous area in the world with a lot of violence, murders and gangs etc. I look at it as a Hell we live in, thus Hellbrow. I wanted people who heard this track to feel rather more violated, than all loved up and happy!

And “South Africa” : Out on ViperXXL’´s label Around the World, I wrote this track at like 3am on a Sunday morning after I broke up with my girl at the time . Its about when you feel like everything is lost and nothing can ever make sense to you. The name came about as the label displays the biggest Hard Techno producers from each country around the world.

Your passion for producing goes beyond making ‘just’ tracks, during the daytime you work for Cut & Paste studios creating tracks for well-known ads and film scores, c’mon tell us all about this interesting job?

Orchestral score is a big passion of mine, and during the day I work with film score composer Alun Richards. For me its important to incorporate diverse genres and styles, I assisted Alun in scoring features such as ‘Tau Ya Soweto’, ‘Dollars and White Pipes’, ‘Number 10′, ‘Lullaby’ ‘The Killing of Wendy’. Music to picture is a complete different avenue, it really gives me a great background and definitely has a huge influence in my Techno, for instance I like using more live instruments instead of just the usual synths and pads etc. Our company will start a label soon as well where we will be releasing most of this music as well as electronic music we do for brands like Audi, BMW etc.

To me the invention of the internet is the biggest blessing for musicians worldwide, a whole new world with possibilities and renewed goals has opened, tell us your point of view?

It certainly is a blessing, its the easiest, cheapest most reliable way for musicians to get their music out there. I think its quite scary how much time artists dedicate to the net, machines now control us. But its absolutely essential, as one needs to be ahead of the industry at all times. Artists/Labels have more freedom now to release their music .

This interview made it clear that you are a busy man who’s full of passion and dedication, walking many paths of electronic music, what can we expect of Andre Frauenstein in the future?

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past.

I have just started Giveway Bookings with Scott Kemix and DJ Pheeva. We will supply promoters with artists and look after the needs of the biggest artists in hard techno scene in all of Africa and UK, ontop of this there will be Giveway events taking place in these two continents.

Also a new record label is to be born by Scott Kemix and myself, that will feature artists such as Lexis, Krischmann & Klingenberg, Dariush Gee, Scott Kemix, Myself and many more!

I am currently also working on a collaboration project with Tymon, we have our first release coming out soon on one of Lenny Dee’s Industrial Strength labels. We are fusing his Hardcore/Industyle sounds with Hard techno, which will really create great vibes on the dancefloors around the globe.

In the future I will carry on my duties trying to build the Hard Techno scene in Africa and get the noise out there, I am already seeing some up and coming Hard Techno DJ´s in Africa this year, so that in itself is a start.

All sounds wicked bro, we wish you all the best, good luck with your projects and keep them Afrikan beats coming hard to us ! Is there anything else you would like to share with the world?

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

To everyone who have supported me behind and in front of the scene over the years I can never thank you enough!

Peace from Hard Afrikan Beatz!