Psycatron Exclusive Interview
Psycatron are Irish duo Paul Hamill and Dave Lievense. Having become the first Irish act to be signed to Carl Craig’s legendary Planet e label, the pair have gone onto release on some of the most established techno imprints across the globe. As big fans of Electric Rescue‘s Skryptom imprint we heard their recent In Progress single and were blown away… so we decided we must get it touch with them for da blog!
Disco Of Doom: Having both been in the game for a long time, what is your key to success for a new artist?
Paul: Stick to your guns and have belief in what you’re doing. The most successful people in the business are where they are today through a combination of talent, hard-work, luck and making big sacrifices whether that be in their personal lives, living without the security of a full-time job or whatever. There’s no one specific key to a successful career. Although we’ve both been involved in music for a very long-time we still consider ourselves as new up and coming artists and we’ve a lot of ambitions we still have to fulfill. If you think that that there’s a quick and easy route to a successful career in music then forget it. Some people will get there quicker than others for whatever reasons, but they are few and far between, the vast majority of people in the industry have years of experience behind them and have bust their balls to get to where they are.
DoD: What’s been the highlight of your career so far?
Paul: Being welcomed into the Planet E family, releasing our records with them and getting to tour with Carl Craig and a load of other Planet E artists. We did Berghain on the Planet E Tour recently and it was easily one of the best gigs we’ve ever done – well between it and Fabric a few weeks ago which was also wicked. We were playing live so it was all our own material, so in the run up to the gig we spent a lot of time working out what tunes from our collection would work the best in that environment and tweaking the set to make sure everything was 100%. It was a great feeling to go to both Berlin and London and rock the shit out of arguably two of the best clubs in the world at the moment and play just our own material.
DoD: What got you into dance music?
Paul: We both grew up listening to pirate radio and can remember the first time acid-house appeared on Top Of The Pops. Anything with synths or drum machines would trip our triggers, so the likes of Depeche Mode, New Order and Kraftwerk were perhaps our first major influences as kids. We’ve both been producing and DJing since our early teens.
DoD: What three tracks have been inspiration for this project?
DoD: What most annoys you about the industry?
Paul: Hunter S Thompson once said, “”The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”
We hear stories all the time about new acts getting ripped off by dodgy labels who make excuses up for not wanting to pay out their royalties, that shit really annoys us, but unfortunately it’s rife in this industry. Thankfully we’re lucky to work with some great people, but there are so many sharks out there who offer this and that, but the reality is they can and will do fuck all. We have artists come to us all the time with for advice on deals and proposals they’ve been offered and 9 times out of 10 we’ll tell them to steer clear. It’s the same with record advances, some labels will maintain that nobody is paying advances any more. It’s bullshit, if you are a record label and you can’t afford even a few quid for an advance then you’re not really a record label are you? Where’s the commitment to the artist? The label doesn’t need to make a return on their investment, because they haven’t invested anything so it doesn’t really matter if the record sells or not. Just to be clear, that’s not directed at ANY of the labels we’ve had the pleasure of working with (well with the exception of one, but that was a long, long, time ago) In saying that, there is no better industry work in (well you did ask)
DoD: Finally, what’s next?
Paul: I’m away to take a few deep breaths and have a cigarette… Gig wise, over the next few weeks we’ll be playing Zurich, Limerick, Parklife Festival, Firefly in Nottingham, Global Gathering, Astropolis in France, Celtronic Festival, Mystik Festival in Ireland and a few more. We’re starting our own radio show on Proton shortly so busy lining up our guests for that, plus we’ve a podcast about to drop for Speedy J‘s Electric Deluxe. Our Tresor Ep has just come out as well as a remix for Vince Watson on his Bio label which is out this week. We’ve our second EP with Paul Woolford almost ready to go, plus new projects in production with Simian Mobile Disco and Detroit Grand Pubahs.
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Thanks for taking the time to answer our Qs!
Invade The Glade
The Glade Festival triumphantly returns on 10-12 June 2011. If you’ve never been Glade it simply is the bomb. 5,000 serious party people in a field having a right old knees up to a selection of the best electronic acts on the planet in an non-corporate environment. This year healine artists include Trentemoller, Adam Beyer and Global Communication it’s also worth noting Photek will be performing live alongside Ed Rush, 2 Bad Mice, Eprom, Koreless, SLAM, Paul Rich and many more including little old us. Oh, there’s three arena’s of psy-trance too if you like that sort of thing!
Here’s a podcast we’ve made ahead of our performance:
For more info on Glade Festival click here
Sex Face / Engine – In Stores Now!
Hi Y’all for our inaugural post on this here blog here’s our brand new single Sex Face & Engine. Available to buy now from Beatport
Disco Of Doom – Engine EP – Gung Ho! by discoofdoomHere’s a video Brodinski sent us of him smashing up a fat rave with Sex Face. What a nice chap!
