[divider]The Interview[/divider]
We got the chance to have a chat with him about the new album, his directorial debut, plans for the future, and electronic music in general.
Dragan took a break from music for a while to focus on film making while he was looking for new inspiration. When he came back to make the album, film was his inspiration. Film making is very much about telling a story. The story is lost in most music productions these days and having that creative energy from film making inspired Dirty South to create an album that would truly paint a picture. He definitely accomplished just that when With You the album became the inspiration for With you the movie.
“I was looking for inspiration and I got into film making. When I came back to make the album that was my inspiration… I wanted to make music that tells stories”
The movie With You went to number one in 17 countries. Dragan was expecting some success in the English speaking countries, “but to have it top out in countries like Vietnam and the Czech Republic blew my mind.” The most that he expected was a spot on the charts and some positive reviews, and that’s about it. The film was even featured in the CBGB film festival, a film and music festival in New York City. So for Dragan, “that was a perfect fit.”
With all the success of the film, Dragan is actually in pre-production for another full length film, set to come out next year. The film is called Suburban Cowboy and is based on real events about a con man. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get more details about that other than some tantalizing tidbits.
“It’s going to be completely diferent from With You. Its going to be a huge step up”
Dance music is starting to see a shift in what people want to hear. Deep house has definitely ground out its own niche in the scene, and even Pete Tong has said that people are looking for something a little more palpable as far as production goes. Dragan thinks that even artists are beginning to feel the same way. “When you’re surrounded by everyone making the same music” says Dragan, “it can become boring and it will ultimately and drive you to try something new.”
Even he feels a bit like that and has done precisely that. Dragan took his time away from music to do some soul-searching and has come back with a new sound. Now, that doesn’t mean that if you are going to see him play, you’re going to see a completely different style of performance. It just means that he wants to expand his musical horizons. Dragan says that he will stop producing music and DJing when he stops feeling butterflies in his stomach when he is on stage and says that he still feels them every time.
“I think as an artist you should be able to make whatever kind of music you want to… As a DJ I still like big room house, but at the same time it’s the big room house that is still emotional and means something. It’s really nice to dance to, but you can still listen to it as well.”
One of the biggest threats to the dance music scene is that there is a lot of music that is, in his terms, “very disposable, very throw away” and that it’s easy to get lost in the garbage. “Those songs we won’t remember, there’s no meaning to them” says Dragan. There’s also the DJ Mag Top 100, or popularity contest. A-Trak should have held the top spot because he is one the most talented technical DJs out there, according to Dragan. If they wanted to make it something that is worth anything, they should separate it into categories like top trance DJs or top scratch DJs because when you lump them all together, you end up with a very inaccurate comparison.
As far as touring goes, Dirty South has been going at it for ten years. We asked him about whether he would be up in the Northwest any time soon and he told us that he is in the works with Foundation Nightclub to confirm a date. When it was brought up, he remembered Foundation and how insane the crowd was and was really thrown back. Way to stand out Northwest ravers!
Have you heard any of the tracks Dirty South has released on Soundcloud or watched his movie? What do you think so far?
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