Music

DJ No. 1: Sven Väth in Interview | 25th & 26th October at Watergate

25 October 2019 · 5 min read

DJ No.1 - Sven Väth - Foto: © Promo

For nearly three decades, Sven Väth has been one of the most successful DJs in the world. In Germany, the 55-year-old is still considered the undisputed No. 1, despite various “successors”. His regular spots at the top of annual reader polls in both national and international electronic music magazines bear witness to this. From the early eighties, throughout the entire nineties and well into the noughties, the Frankfurt DJ has played his way to the forefront of the electronic movement and has remained there.

Even today, almost 20 years after his first chart hit “Electrica Salsa” (with the project OFF), the likeable man in his mid-fifties is not in the least bit tired of spreading his techno message far and wide. An interesting portfolio of his current musical status quo is the annual mix series “The Sound of the Season“, a retrospective of his party-soaked summer months, which Väth has spent on the hedonists’ island of Ibiza since his youth. There, in the legendary club “Amnesia”, Väth’s second home, the Harlequin (see “Accident in Paradise”) celebrates his equally legendary sets, which can sometimes surpass the twelve-hour mark. “It’s the only way I could present to people all the music I thought was good,” says Väth in the interview. We spoke with the grandmaster DJ about the beginnings of his disc jockey career, extended DJ sets, and the question: what actually makes him so special?

Sven, as a child you used to watch the DJ at your parents’ dance hall very closely. Do you still remember the resident DJ from back then?

Yes, of course. His name was Wolfgang, he was Austrian and completely bonkers. Whenever he was announcing the next dancing session, he jumped out of his booth and did a somersault on the dance floor. He was always ready to draw people out of their shells. A very extraordinary character.

So when your mother asked if you’d like to play music in her venue, you already had a sense of what would be expected?

I definitely knew: wherever Wolfgang went, that’s the standard you had to reach. The bar was set pretty high. (laughs) But even back then I used to go to Dorian Grey (the legendary Frankfurt club) and study the DJs there. They only had the most basic belt-drive turntables. Mixing precisely with those was a real craft. That fascinated me. And just what kind of energy could be generated when you managed to keep the beat. The way the dance floor would take off. That’s what I learned there.

So the craft at Dorian Grey. And the entertainer qualities from DJ Wolfgang?

(laughs) Yes, you could put it that way.

Do you remember your first proper DJ gig?

To begin with, everything happened in my hometown, of course. In addition to working at my parents’, I was offered a slot at Dorian Grey. I did the morning shift for 50 marks. I’d play from 8 in the evening until 1 in the morning at my parents’, then from there until 11 in the morning at Dorian Grey. I was seventeen, and that was pretty much my first out-of-town booking. (laughs)

Sounds rather provincial.

Yes, it was. It wasn’t until about 1985 that people started to understand you could hire a DJ for just one night. Everything was still very amateurish back then. We didn’t even know what to do with our records. There weren’t any proper cases yet, so we used orange crates. (laughs)

If you ask your colleagues what makes Sven Väth special, the answer is: “Sven can play things no one else could get away with.” What do you think they mean by that?

I’ve always really enjoyed experimenting with music. Even the stuff I used to play at my parents’ venue wasn’t necessarily the hits of the time, but more classics. Disco, rock ‘n’ roll and that sort of thing. I experimented with them and gained masses of experience. What came out of it in the end, came about through my musical path. Through industrial music, I delved further and further into the electronic sphere and worked my way through a range of genres. Early Chicago house, electronic body music, Detroit sound, dub. That fascinated me.

Is that where your passion for long, intense DJ sets comes from as well?

Long sets were always what I loved most about DJing. It was the only way I could play everything I liked musically. It was never just one style, or just whatever was current. It was a mix of everything. In the eighties you could really get away with that. There wasn’t a style that could fill an entire night. There simply weren’t enough records of one genre. That’s where my passion for digging deep into the crates in the early hours came from. You couldn’t do that during peak time, of course. Nor would I want to, because every record needs its very own special moment.

What’s it like today? Do DJs still have opportunities to experiment?

I think the whole DJ culture has changed fundamentally. Nowadays, young DJs don’t come from the clubs. They tend to have a studio or producer background, or they’ve worn their fingers out practising at home, turning up at your door with a mix CD. They don’t have the experience of playing to a live crowd. That means the sensitivity is often missing. Back then we had to come to an agreement with the club manager about how far we could push things musically (laughs). That influenced me and my whole generation of DJs.

You’ve been on the road as a DJ for more than 30 years. Don’t you ever get tired of it and long for a well-earned retirement?

No, definitely not. I’ve got so many projects that keep challenging me again and again, I never even think about things like that. Besides, you can never get bored with music. There are new records every week, and so many countries are only just discovering electronic music for themselves. You can still approach it with a real sense of pioneering spirit. And what comes out of Germany these days has never been so exciting, either. I truly wouldn’t want to miss it.

Sven Väth will be celebrating his 55th birthday at Watergate on 25th & 26th October.
Here’s the event tip!

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