Back again with another great interview, this time I sat down with HardtraX. His performing name shows exactly what he stands for, hardblasting Tekno! Hardtrax managed to create a true unique style of producing and performing which brought him to the major league of this intriguing ‘genre’.

Hi Rudi can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Hello, as your first question already reveals my name is Rudi, but to many readers I am simply known as “HardtraX” because of my activities as a hardtekkno producer, DJ, label co-owner and as one half of the “HardtraX vs. Jackhamma” live-act. I come from the Western part of Germany (near to the Netherlands) but I have spent several years abroad living on the island of Mauritius (yes, I’ve got a second citizenship/nationality!) and still enjoy traveling as a sweet side-effect of my work as a musician.

You got involved in electronic music on a very young age and started producing at the age of 16. You weren’t focusing on one particular ‘genre’ and you liked exploring various styles of electronic music. Would you like to tell us about your first steps into electronic music?

When I started to listen to tekkno at the age of about 11, I was fascinated by the vast variety of all those cool synthetic sounds and different sub-styles of this genre. At about the same time I also bought my first computer (a Commodore 64 - the best home computer of all times) and subsequently many more of them followed over the years (I now own my 30th system). One of these computers was an Amiga with a huge software-collection and one day I discovered “Protracker 3″ on a CD-ROM which quickly became my first tool to create my own electronic music productions.

In 1997, at the age of 16, I tried to recreate the sounds of the tunes I liked in my spare time after school and experimented with the production of simple tracks (in different styles like tekkno, hardcore, acid, jungle, house and so forth…) which were recorded on tape. While the first attempts were totally ridiculous, the quality of my tunes improved over time because I used every single day of the week to create more and more music.

Another thing that helped improving my production-skills were the limited technical capabilities of classic computer systems and the fact that tracker-software was not very intuitive with a production-approach very similar to programming. Limits like the low amount of just 4 available channels (i.e. only a maximum of 4 sounds could be played at once and only in 8bit!) forced me to come up with strong ideas from the beginning. The aim was to create the best possible result with low-spec equipment and every new and improved track I have produced was an achievement in itself, motivating me to go further.

You soon decided to go ‘underground’ , choosing for the harder Techno and Hardcore, what is the reason you took that path?

As I previously said, I was messing around with a lot of styles within a tempo-range of about 120 - 200BPM but the harder side of tekkno was the music I always liked most. In 1993 already I bought my first tekkno-mixtape (for around 3 Euros at a shop in France) and the hardest music on the tape was the one which was the most “kicking” for my taste. Much later when I was old enough to attend tekkno-parties I found the music I heard pretty nice but for me there was basically something like a “hole” between tekkno and hardcore. There was no hardtekkno-scene in Germany yet even though styles that would fit into the gap already existed (of course).

I started to produce tracks with the objective to create exactly the sound that I would like to hear on parties (i.e.: tekknoid with a hard edge) and became part of the upcoming wave of “German-style” hardtekkno. To go into details about influences during that time would be somewhat hard. In my opinion, everything surrounding you has an impact on the music you create. Your whole environment influences you in millions of different ways both aurally and visually and as an artist you sort of “suck up” all of them (consciously and unconsciously). The people around you, the places you go to or you live in, music that you hear, the emotions you feel, pictures you see… everything has a subtle impact on you and thus it also influences your tastes and preferences which are reflected in the music you come up with.

What about your performing career, tell us about how that started ?

Despite my increasing interest in spinning records I did not have a serious go at DJing in the beginning. I first focussed on music production due to my fascination for this particular way of self-expression and moreover I was still too young to gain enough cash in order to buy the pricey DJ gear needed to start mixing. Indeed, I was a producer and live-performer before I started to mix “seriously” which is the opposite of how many other artists started. With simple means I began to perform live along with my friend James (we later founded our dark hardtekkno label “Dark Fork Force Recordings” together in 2003) as “HardtraX vs. Jackhamma”. This means that between 1996 and 2002 I only produced music and most of this sound remains unheard to the public (which is a good thing considering how bad my first steps sounded but hey - we all started low, isn’t it?).

After some time I decided to spin vinyls too after I bought my home-setup consisting of a Pioneer DJM 500 mixer and a pair of Numark TT200s. I refused to buy Technics SLs because I did not feel like paying the extra-bucks for plain old technology even if the price-difference was just 100 Euros per turntable at that time. The same equipment is still in daily use at home although my turntables nowadays only catch dust most of the time because I switched to CD-mixing in 2005 which enabled me to play a lot more of my own productions. In the late 90s I already tried mixing with CDs but never considered DJing for anything but my own pleasure. Only the availability of advanced gear such as the Pioneer CDJ 1000 series made CD-mixing interesting for me once again and I still consider them as the one and only turntable alternative although I have to point out that I never owned any CD-players for myself (donations are welcome, haha!).

I personally need all of the above (live-performing, DJing and producing) to be happy as each of these elements together are needed for me to give my complete commitment to the music I love. Add the label-management work to this and you will see certainly realize that tekkno has since long been a central part of my life. Production and label-work alone would be boring without performing live or DJing and vice versa.

This video is shot @ the “Techno Machines” party in Caracas/Venezuela during my Evil Frequencies Tour in April:

Do you feel that performing is important for the creative process of making music?

My answer is: No. This reply might sound surprising but for my part I have produced music before I performed and I did not feel like I was missing out anything back then. Once you start performing you get addicted so that you cannot do without it anymore and you certainly also gain valuable feedback to your productions, allowing you to design your music in a way that it might appeal to more people, but I do not really aim for that. My goal is not to change the creative process of making music as you say by collecting feedback through performances. To put it simple, I always just wanted to create the sound I like. Nothing more and nothing less. Of course it is nice if it sells and even better when many people appreciate it and are happy with my work but the most important thing is simply that I, the artist, feel satisfied with my creation.

From a production-artist’s point of view, performances are not highly relevant. It might just be my opinion but this is how I feel. I do not have the DJ or the crowd in mind when I produce because all that matters for my productions is my taste (or in case of co-operations the tastes of all parties involved). You can see it as a form of self-protecting mechanism to prevent losing focus on the essential aspects of music production like for e.g. the maintenance of a personal artistic and quality standard. I would have gone for mainstream music if I wanted to produce for the masses. The artistic process of music-creation is hence left without influence through performances in my case but once the tracks are ready they are of course tested in public. A label-owner can certainly find out which tunes are the most popular by seeing the crowd’s feedback when performing the tracks and use this information to press only the better acclaimed productions on vinyl, but I personally prefer to just press what my label-partners and I want to see on black gold. If people are happy with the record and buy more, it is great for us but if it does not sell that much we can still be happy anyway because we are satisfied with what we have released.

You have played in countries like Holland, Belgium, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Hungary and even the USA to name but a few, would you like to tell us about your experiences?

Actually, travelling to play in different places and meeting people from various cultures and backgrounds who all share the same love for music belongs to the aspects of DJing/performing live that gave me the most memorable moments. There have been countless great experiences during the trips I made because of music. Sure, the bad situations that came up are high in number as well but the good times make up for all the stress. I made many new friends worldwide during the past years and many friendships last since very long now and are not exclusive related to the music anymore. It is very hard for me to pick a specific country that I enjoy the most but amongst the places I always love to return to are definitely Spain, Colombia, Malta and Portugal but of course I also like to hop across the border and see my closest neighbours in the land of tulips.

To me it is always a very refreshing experience to break out of habits and the usual environment and gain new inspirations for my productions by spinning tunes abroad as one can also see by having a look at some of my productions such as “Belgian Nightlife” (on Cannibal Society Rec. 005), “Banging Barcelona” or “Bogota De Noche” (made in co-operation with Sinclair).

Where can we book you for a DJ gig or a wicked Live Performance?

For any South American events I can be booked exclusively via Forward Loops bookings by VJ Rach and DJC from Bogota/Colombia who did an excellent job with the “Evil Frequencies Tour 2008″ by the way (thanks guys!). I am not exclusive to any agency in Europe but you can hit up the guys at Artillery (the agency run by DJ Amok and Viper XXL) to book me for your upcoming events. Talking about Artillery, the upcoming “Inferno EP” on the label with the same name is coming up soon this year. This is going to be a very special record for me indeed since it does not only feature a solo-track but also comes with a great co-op production I made along with Integra & Darkside9878 from the US, a stunning X-Tension remix and an official mash-up version of “Nightmare 2″ by DJ Amok with my own 2005-track “Hate Will Last Forever”.

from left to right : Sinclair, DJ-C and HardtraX ( photo by : Rachel Caballero

You are also known for your - out of the box - blasting remixes, would you like to fill us in about this variant of producing?

The possibility to give an artist’s track your own touch and to reconstruct a song from scratch by using original elements of the initial tune (sometimes more, sometimes fewer of them) results in some very interesting re-interpretations from a musician’s point of view, so of course I love to produce and receive remixes. At times I contact the artist and ask if I may remix a track that I love (like for e.g. in the case of “Special Kore” by Orteka from Sound Attack Rec. in Bordeaux/France) but sometimes I am asked by a label or artist to create a new version of a track (as for e.g. with “It’s All Gone” released on Techsound/Colombia which was originally produced by Andre Frauenstein from South Africa). Usually I receive the original track along with a set of samples but it has also happened that I just got the original song and became so eager to do my own version that I could not wait any longer and simply sliced the track into pieces and re-arranged everything without proper samplefiles.

This makes me very curious about your favorite ones….

My favourite own remixes are:

1. Orteka - Special Kore (HardtraX Special Mix) *2008
2. Integra vs. Darkside9878 - Sewn Skin Bleedz (HardtraX & Jackhamma Core Edit) *2007
3. Calrek - High Power (HardtraX Remix) *2004
4. Integra - The Seventh Child (HardtraX Remix) *2006
5. Sinclair - Lights Of Truth (HardtraX Extended Mix) *2008

The favourite remixes done for me are:

1. HardtraX vs. Aspartam - Der Kontrast (Riino Remix) *2008
2. HardtraX - Woofertest A (X-Tension Remix) *2007
3. HardtraX vs. Aspartam - Der Kontrast (Aspartam Remix) *2008
4. HardtraX - Belgian Nightlife (Mike Drama Remix) *2006
5. HardtraX vs. Mike Drama - We Bring You Anger (Sinclair Remix) *2007

Awesome tunes I would like to remix (in no particular order):

DJ Tron (R.I.P.) - Silver Suffer *2001
Ramirez - Terapia *1993
Eddy Masvoodler - Remit *1996
Dr. Chekill - La Sudadera Santa *2007
AweX - Back On Plastic *1996
Darkside9878 - Planet Killer *2006
Steam System - Barraca Destroy *1993
Placid K - The Day Has Come *2003
Laurent Garnier - Coloured City *1998
Sinclair - Like It *2008
Catscan - The World Is Mine *2002
Andreas Krämer & Thomas Pogadl - (Achtung) Lecker Modche’ *2001
Perry & Rhodan - The Beat Just Goes Straight On And On *1993
Andreas Krämer & Thomas Pogadl - Gimme Hard (Till I’m Dead) *2001
Radium - Playmobils *2003

Since we are in the ‘listing’ mood now ;-), which tracks are in your DJ- Top 10 ?

My current DJ-Top 10:

1. HardtraX vs. Aspartam - And The Shit Goes On [Dark Force Recordings]
2. Riino & Orteka - Dangerous Rodeo [Sound Attack Records]
3. Sinclair - Midnight Dawn (Riino Remix) [Plug'n'Play Records]
4. Sinclair - Roots Of Sickness [unreleased]
5. Nadon - Harmomatic [unreleased]
6. Darkside9878 - Vicious [unreleased]
7. Dr. Chekill - La Sudadera Santa [unreleased]
8. HardtraX & Integra vs. Institute West Coast - Endless Rage [unreleased]
9. Darkside9878 & HardtraX - Infinite Devil Machine [unreleased]
10. Patrick DSP - Techno Present [unreleased]

Rudi, you invest a lot of time in preparing your live P.A. sets, the most pure and unique way of performing if you ask me. Can you describe this process?

Even though live-act preparations are very time-intensive, the actual process is a pretty simple thing to do. I create several patterns or parts that fit together which are later re-arranged and assembled on the fly. Even though external effects are used during the performance, internal effects are also applied to the sound and assigned to faders and knobs on my MIDI-controller to allow greater control and variety of changes. I also prepare intros, interludes or just single elements like drum-sequences, melodies etc. to be added to the set. This sure consumes a lot of time, especially now that my previous audio-setup went bust thus forcing me to create all new sounds from scratch.

Could you tell us what to expect from a HardtraX Live P.A.?

Nothing. There is never going to be any solo live-PA by myself despite many requests I have received in the recent years. The process of live-act preparation described above is just 50% of the “HardtraX vs. Jackhamma” live-performance which exists since 2002. I am probably never going to do a live-PA without my friend and Dark Force Recordings co-founder James Ritchie aka Jackhamma because a solo-performance can never recreate the dynamics of a dual live-act. We both prepare our parts of the set individually and independant from each other (in the way I have roughly described earlier) and we do not have any clue about what the other guy is coming up with. Only when we are in the club on stage we mix the two parts of our performance together using a normal club DJ-mixer (usually a Pioneer DJM) and it is always filled of surprises for both of us because we never know what exactly happens. We bring in some additional elements to each others music, make heavy use of effects and watch the reaction of the crowd in order to find out the right moments to place effects, breaks, drumrolls, vocal-snippets and so forth. All of this looks and feels a little bit like a performance with the flexibility of a live-PA (we can build up our music like we want) with the energy and power of a DJ-battle as we switch between sounds, mix at the same time and surprise each other with the tricks we do. For us, HardtraX vs. Jackhamma gigs always stand for bucketloads of big fun! We have also done live-act vs. DJ-battles in the past and one day we may also like to try out a 3-man HardtraX vs. Jackhamma vs. Sinclair live-performance for maximum action on stage!!!

check this for some hardblasting live footage

Your style of producing shows that you love to do it different, you like to do it your way by using a variety fresh elements and influences. A couple of days ago we had an interesting discussion about the ‘genre’ Hardtechno. You told me that you probably missed out on the handbook ‘producing Hardtechno for Dummies’ ;)…

Haha, I remember very well! Hardtekkno (like every single style of music) lives from the enthusiasm of those who listen to it and also from the creativity of the people who create it. Now if these same artists who create the music do not come up with any different elements and ideas, how can the style be kept alive? Listeners would become bored and turn away from a music that repeats itself ad nauseam when established aswell as new producers and performers alike do not seek new ways and influences to give the style its variety. Currently this sadly seems to be the case for hardtekkno. My advice for new producers is not just to recreate what has been done a million times already but to spice up the music with your own special touch and characteristic sounds. I heard way too many tunes that all have an extremely similar use of effects, build-up and sounds. Some people should open their minds and stop thinking that there is only one way to produce this music…

What you described here brings us to your massive rammer ‘Music For Restless Minds’ which we are very pleased with to release on beatboost worldsampler part 3, whats the story behind this track?

First of all I would like to thank Beatboost for pressing this tune on black gold! “Music For Restless Minds” was initially only created to test the sounds of an obscure analogue drum-machine called “Mini Syncussion DRM2″ that I once borrowed from a friend. It is a fairly simple machine with no MIDI-connection and there is no internal sequencer and no way to save any sound-setting (you have to remember the position of all the knobs if you wanted to recreate a sound you made early) and the only thing you can do with it are kickdrums. It does only bassdrums and nothing else. But it does this job fairly well and has a simple distortion-unit built in that can add a very hard edge to the analogue sound. I sampled the kickdrums I created with the Mini Syncussion DRM2 and started to build a track around it.

When I started arranging the track, I saw that it was already very late (something around 4 o’clock in the morning) but I knew I could not rest before finishing with the project I started. I quickly made some percussion-patterns, added a few synths and contructed a entire track around the analogue kickdrum in just 40 minutes of time. My motivation to finish the tune quick was simple: I was very tired because it was really late and did not sleep at all. Like this it was not very hard to find a suitable title. When I woke up and had a listen at my late-night production again, I initially thought it was total junk and did not want to hear the track ever again. This was in May 2007. In April this year however, I played the track on my “Evil Frequencies Tour” in Venezuela and Colombia for the first time. I was suddenly very pleased by this production and when Beatboost approached me I sent them a couple of my tunes including “Music For Restless Minds” - the track I have forgotten for almost one year. Finally, the track will be published on “World Sampler Part 3″ and I am happy to be part of it.

Besides your producing and performing career you run your labels ‘Dark Force Recordings’and ‘Plug ‘n Play records’ with the same passion , tell us about this side of your life…

I am the co-founder of Dark Force Recordings (short: DFR) and the also one of the new co-owners of Plug’n'Play Records founded by Sinclair Grau from L�denscheid/Germany. Dark Force Recordings was founded in late 2003 by James Ritchie aka Jackhamma and myself as we wanted to have full control over how and when to release our own music which gained increasing popularity and international attention back then.

Plug’n'Play Records however was entirely managed by Sinclair who discontinued his label after just two releases in 2003. Four years later Sinclair, James and I revived the label and since then we released Sinclair - “Clockwork” on PNP003 aswell as HardtraX vs. Mike Drama - “We Bring You Anger” on PNP004. New names on the roster of our two labels include FL-X (Germany), Mike Drama (Netherlands), Aspartam (Germany) and Integra vs. Darkside9878 (USA) plus we have some kicking remixes coming up soon by Riino (France) and Dr. Chekill (Spain).

Our goal is to release quality hardtekkno and we may in future have a more strict style-seperation on the two labels into dark, sinister music (the sound Dark Force Recordings always stood for) and more percussive hardtekkno (on Plug’n'Play). Moreover we have in mind to bring out vinyls with some interesting artist-collaborations and constellations. We are very happy to say that last year in November, Dark Force Recordings and the Dutch promoters behind “The Chaos Theory” have been able to bring two of America’s finest hardtekkno-talents - Integra & Darkside9878 from Milwaukee - to “The Chaos Theory Phase 10.0″ at Club Poema in Utrecht which was at the same time our fifth “Dark Force Recordings Label Night”. These talented artists from midwest-USA delivered great, fresh sets and the awesome Dutch crowd turned this part of our label-related work into a very memorable event. Thanks to various international promoters we have been able to present a couple of label-events already:

DFR Label Night 1 - Fusion Club/Germany (2004)
DFR Label Night 2 - Club HW/France (2004)
DFR Label Night 3 - Factory Club/Belgium (2005)
DFR Label Night 4 - Hard Club/Portugal (2005)
DFR Label Night 5 - Club Poema/Netherlands (2007)

Despite a rather large amount of unfortunate happenings and difficulties during the years since we founded our label we still persue our vision of providing good hard quality tekkno to the people and are very determined to continue and may expand by the possible sale of merchandise or even the creation of an online MP3-offspin of our labels.

For Video-footage from Dark Force Recordings Label Night 4 at Hard Club (Villa Nova De Gaia/Portugal) in 2005, check this

Your list of releases and appearances shows that you love to colaborate with other artists, what’s the story behind this?

Yes, I definitely love collaborations. The best way to receive interesting, creative and innovative results is to team up with experienced musicians who have different backgrounds, musical influences, ideas and inspirations. The co-op tracks made by in conjunction with my production-partners sound very diversified and contain elements I would possibly never have come up with otherwise. When I have the opportunity to meet up with my production-partners it is very easy to create new tunes together but thanks to the internet, sample-exchange is a very swift affair which enables me to work with producers who live very far away.

Currently there is a collaboration-EP out on the 17th cut of the Dutch label “Cannibal Society”: HardtraX vs. Mike Drama - “Messing With Your Head”. This record is a lot more technoid and groovy compared to my usual productions thanks to the drumparts made by Mike. Our release on Plug’n'Play 004 “We Bring You Anger” however shows an approach which seems a lot more influenced by hardcore, just with more melodic elements and different percussions. Another hard, yet groovy track done by us called “Antipsychotic” comes out on Subviolenz Rec. very soon. A vinyl scheduled later for this year is HardtraX vs. Aspartam - “Der Kontrast” on Dark Force Recordings 011.

My favourite collaborations at the moment:

1. HardtraX vs. Aspartam - And The Shit Goes On [DFR 011]
2. DJ Amok vs. HardtraX - Woofertest Nightmare [probably never to be released]
3. HardtraX vs. Integra & Darkside9878 - Hypnotic Sequence [Artillery Rec.]
4. HardtraX vs. Mike Drama - Messing With Your Head [Cannibal Society 017]
5. HardtraX & Darkside9878 - Against The Rest [unreleased]
6. HardtraX vs. Aspartam - Der Kontrast + Remixes [DFR 011]
7. HardtraX vs. Mike Drama - What We’ve Got For You [Plug'n'Play 004]
8. HardtraX & Integra vs. Insitute West Coast - Endless Rage [unreleased]
9. HardtraX & Darkside9878 - That Tune From The Flipside [unreleased]
10. HardtraX & Sinclair - Bogot� De Noche [unreleased]

These days Internet is very important for artists, their music and the fans. Would you like to share your vision about this significant medium?

Without doubt the internet changed the entire music industry. We now have different ways of promotion, new distribution-channels, more contact to artists and fans, ways to inform ourselves about our favourite music, and so on. Especially the possibility to stay in touch with other artists with ease made the internet so important to me. On the downside, we have to face increased piracy and struggling vinyl-sales (although in hardtekkno one may seek the fault in a lack of creativity) aswell as a higher difficulty in finding good music. The availability of free or cheap production software (there are many good programs such as “Jeskola Buzz” for e.g.) and free high-quality VST plug-ins through the internet gave access to home-production to the masses without the need to spend thousands of Euros on studio-equipment.

As such, this is a great thing but the increased output of electronic music certainly makes it a lot harder to find the gems amongst a vast amount of lower quality tracks. Frankly said, I am sick to hear over-compressed 165 BPM hardtekkno tracks with endless filtersweeps, looped Mickey Mouse-vocals and massive distortion all over. Anyway, I guess I am slightly off topic now… For the future it would be interesting for me to see how the field of online-distribution with MP3-sales develops. We at Dark Force Recordings will certainly try it out in the near future but only as an addition to vinyls which are still absolutely essential for the scene as a whole.

What more can we expect from you in the future Rudi?

Apart from one of the currently rare HardtraX vs. Jackhamma live-performances (this time at a festival in Kiev/Ukraine) I am also very pleased to point at my upcoming DJ-gig in Sevilla/Spain on October, 4th which I am very much looking forward to. Without revealing too many details I can tell you that I plan a return to Latin America also.

Besides the plans to offer label-related merchandise and start MP3-sales to reach a higher amount of people, my favourite media vinyl is not be neglected either. Some of the upcoming releases are:

V/A - D-Fork Rec. 002 (incl. HardtraX - “I Got You Sucker!”) [D-Fork 002]
V/A - Pet Recipes (incl. “Antipsychotic” by HardtraX vs. Mike Drama) [Subviolenz 004]
FL-X - Slice’n'Dice (incl. remixes by HardtraX & Aspartam) [DFR 010]
HardtraX vs. Jackhamma - ??? [DFR 011]
HardtraX - Inferno [Artillery Records]
HardtraX vs. Aspartam - Der Kontrast (including remixes by Riino and Aspartam) [DFR 012]

Ok Rudi, I think we know a lot more about the man behind the name, thank you very much for this openhearted interview. Here at beatboost we respect your ‘out of the box’ mentality and hope to enjoy much more. Is there anything more you would like to share with the world before you sign off?

Thank you Olaf for this awesome interview. It was a great pleasure for me. What I would like to say is: Enjoy what you have got but do not forget to reach for progress. Do what you love and dare to be unconventional!

For now we leave you with an exclusive hardblasting live set, HardtraX style !!

Enjoy..

1. Intro by Hedmess
2. Tymon - Gucci
3. Motormorfoses aka Eto & Gab - Ultraviolence
4. Riino - Brainsucker
5. HardtraX - Music For Restless Minds
6. Sinclair - Roots Of Sickness
7. Nadon - Bag Of Bombs (Darkside9878 Remix)
8. Darkside vs. Fifth Era - Side Effect
9. HardtraX - Violent Beauty
10. Riino - Back To The Old Spirit
11. HardtraX vs. Integra & Darkside9878 - Hypnotic Sequence
12. HardtraX - Jealousy And Greed
13. HardtraX vs. Aspartam - And The Shit Goes On
14. HardtraX - Silent Approach
15. HardtraX vs. Aspartam - Der Kontrast (Original Mix)
16. Fifth Era - Doomcore Tyrants Rise B2
17. Nadon - Harmomatic
18. HardtraX - Expect The Unexpected
19. Riino & Orteka - Dangerous Rodeo
20. Jackhamma - Extortion
21. Rude Awakening - My Death Lies With You
22. Outro by Nadon & Hedmess