1.What is the significance of your name Perfect Dark?
My original idea in 1998 when stepping into DJ scene was to be mysterious by way of being cloaked behind a facial shroud of some sort. A similar style like Scorpion or Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat. Not as fancy, but a black hoodie over my head and a black bandana covering most of my face like a western bandit. Then I finished off the ensemble with a big ol’ baggy pair of black UFO pants with half inch stud spikes running down the length of the hanging strips of fabric.
No one knew who I was. I was completely a mystery DJ that emerged out of nowhere. Of course, I needed a name to go with the look, so without much critical thinking I chose the name “Perfect Dark”. (No relation to the video game that followed a couple years after) It felt like a good name to match the look I was going for. The entire gimmick was successful for that time period. Although I must say that I would sweat extensively when I would DJ events in that get-up. I didn’t think of the effects of that at the time I conceived the idea but ultimately I pushed through it.
Eventually by early 1999 I dropped the goofy costume and just dressed as me the moment I discovered and started to produce Hardcore/Gabber music. This is a bit backwards as there are many in this genre that perform and promote themselves cloaked in mystery with masks and other costumes.
2. What are your inspirations when creating your music?
While I represent the genre of Hardcore/Gabber, I try and set my mind in a Hardcore Metal mentality. Almost all electronic music has these important included elements: intros, builds, drops, and outros. When I start thinking about the build and the drop, I think to myself “How can I get people to feel the tension leading to the drop and then unleash their internal rage on the dancefloor when the drop hits?” just like a breakdown in Hardcore Metal. The bands Sheer Terror and Blood for Blood have perfected this, and I always get inspired by the way they do it. Sometimes the musical punch to the face comes out of nowhere, and sometimes you can see it coming from a mile away and are ready for it. Either way, you know it’s going to drop heavy and hard and will intensely affect your mental state of mind for that moment. I encourage anyone who wants to experience that feeling to look up Sheer Terror’s song “Broken” and Blood for Blood’s song “Ain’t Like You” to get a good idea where my Hardcore Metal inspirations breed from. Make sure you turn the volume up loud.
Another inspiration would be the Hardcore/Gabber production team “Neophyte” from Rotterdam Holland. They are one of the founding pioneers of the genre. I am not sure how many people know this, but the origins of this sound came from the Netherlands. I find that most of the lead synth patterns I create are through inspiration from them. They tend to produce more bouncy triplet signature style patterns that have this ‘follow the bouncing ball’ type rhythm to them and that’s a pattern style I fell in love with immediately the first time I ever heard their track “Skullfuck” (also producer credited as “Masters of Ceremony”). YouTube that song and your jaw will hit the floor.
3. What would you say are the main themes of your music and why are they themes you enjoy exploring?
My everyday life’s personality is colorful, positive, and vibrant on the outside while internally I am filled with hate and anger. Making this music allows me to express my internal rage through themes of ‘fuck the upper-class society’ and other dark aggressive themes that I feel strongly about. Even if the topic itself doesn’t have any obvious content in a lyrical sense, the music overall emanates it.
I also am a fan of spooky sounds, which gives off a scary horror theme at times. My former publicist Tracy from FiXT/Tag Publicity and her husband Tom were convinced that I should produce music for Horror movies.
My enjoyment from the above mentioned is due to these theme’s giving me an outlet to express my aggression that would probably come out in my everyday life otherwise. Let’s face it the world has and continues to turn into a big pile of smelly snowflake garbage and in the words of Slipknot; “People = Shit”. I would probably either get arrested or get beat up on a weekly basis if I ran with my thoughts openly in everyday life, so regardless of the content of my music, the feeling of it comes from my distaste in how our world and society is.
4. How would you explain Hardcore/Gabber music to a novice?
EDM with angry attitude… (and sometimes mosh pits (depending on where you are in the world)).
OK, I was going to leave it simply as that, but since I have this soapbox to squawk on, when I say EDM with mosh pits, I do not want to support this perception that a build into a drop for any kind of EDM deserves a most pit. I have seen time and time again these mainstream EDM producers performing at big festivals that feed this illusion to the crowd that if they all separate into two halves in order to smash together into a big ‘wall of death’ that it will be well worth the wait once the drop hits, only to end up being a limp dick Progressive House “Diplo” style drop that would be more suited for doing a pogo dance. The crowd all runs back into the middle only to stand there not knowing what to do with themselves looking confused and awkward.
Here is a tip from me; If you are going to make EDM with the intent of making people beat the hell out of each other at the drop, then do your research in the genres that support this activity, and THEN incorporate those inspirations into your EDM tracks. A 120 BPM Progressive House drop aint’ gonna ‘cut it kid’.
5. What is your creative process when you write new music?
Every song I make must start and finish before I start making another one. If I overlap projects by working on multiple songs at the same time, I will shut down creatively. So, to save myself from that, I don’t start anything new in the middle of a song I am currently working on. There are times however when I have been asked to do a remix for another artist, and there is a deadline for it where I know that if I wait too long, I will miss that deadline. In situations where that occurs, I will halt the current production all together and not even consider going back to it until the last-minute project is complete.
As far as coming up with ideas for melodies and sounds, most of my ideas for lead patterns come to me in the morning where I am half awake and half asleep. Of course, by the time I am fully awake some time after I risk forgetting what popped into my head, so I take advantage of the moment when I have a melody in my mind and grab my iPhone and ‘hum’ the pattern in my voice notes. 90% of the time it’s a bit off key and pitchy because I am still half asleep, but I can get enough of a recording to work it out when it’s time to listen through for ideas.
I will say that most of the time, many of those recordings just sit there and collect digital dust. This is because as I feel the momentum of a song in progress, sometimes new ideas just pop into my head at that very moment and I run with it. Or sometimes an idea I took from my voice notes gets so heavily edited and revised as I am arranging it that it doesn’t even sound like my original early morning recording.
As far as my overall creative process with how I want my music to sound, it must be heavy, aggressive, and angry, but danceable. I tend to stick to the 185 BPM range because not only does it allow for great drops and breakdowns, but 185 is a tempo where people can comfortably move and express their musical abilities and not gas themselves out to quick.
6. What positive effects did your hiatus from music have for you?
I wish I had some positive attributes to share, but when I left the Hardcore/Gabber scene, it’s been so long that, I really don’t remember what was going though my mind at the time. I do know that I always stuck with a personal rule I created that if I lost the feeling, or the creativity, if I started to get lazy in my productions, then that would be a sign to call it quits, or at least give it a rest for a while.
During the time I took off between then and now, I jumped on the Dubstep hype train under a different name “Drop Goblin” and had some success with that. But even then, I wasn’t happy with the music I was creating. While the Drop Goblin brand was fairly successful overall, the music I was making was just to capitalize on the Dubstep sound that was blowing up at the time. I sold out cause I had nothing better to do with my time back then.
So anyway, to clearly answer your question, there weren’t really any positive effects that happened after retiring from Hardcore/Gabber, other than knowing someday I would eventually return when I felt it was best for me. I feel much better, and it feels like it’s the right time to be back so I would reckon, if anything, that is a positive effect result after a long boring hiatus.
7. What inspired you to come back and create “Still Standing” and in what ways is it the same or different to music you have created in the past?
I felt coming that back was the right thing to do when my heart told me it was the right thing to do. I must be honest, for about four or five years now I have hinted online and to my peers about making a return, and was going to start the process immediately, but then life and adulting got in the way. I also felt like I was forcing myself. I started to feel like I was the ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’ who was hyping up this proclamation of returning and then dead silence soon after, and then repeating the same proclamation a year later with the same dead-end result. But, in early 2021 I felt it was truly the right time. So, I shut my babbling mouth and didn’t say a word to anyone other than a couple people that knew I was being serious about my return and started to produce a couple tracks.
Interestingly “Still Standing” is the 4th or 5th song I have produced since coming back out of retirement but it’s the first original song that has been publicly released. The few songs I produced before that are still in queue for release dates, but it was “Still Standing” that was the most important to release first. No other original production of mine was going to be released before “Still Standing”. It’s been almost a half a year waiting for this song to be available publicly since I produced it.
What makes this song so important to me is that 20 years ago, in 2002, my first EP was released titled “Here I Stand”, so it was almost poetic for me to create a sequel to the title track and release it in 2022. What makes it even more special to me is that it was released by the same record label that released “Here I Stand” (Used to be called ADAM Recordings, and now is known as GEE thAng Music) owned by USA Hardcore/Gabber pioneer Rob GEE, and even the photo of me on the album cover was taken at the exact same spot as the 2002 album cover and designed by the same graphic designer who did all the effects on it. Let that sink in for a moment; 20 years have passed and all the logistical pieces that were involved back then for “Here I Stand” got carried over to the 2022 release of “Still Standing” that’s available today.
Regarding how the music is the same or different from the past, my mentality hasn’t changed. I still produce each song with an aggressive doom and gloom frame of mind, but what has absolutely changed is my production style and use of modern technology. I was all about hardware back then recording into software, but now, other than guitar parts and vocals, I can achieve everything else with just software-based applications. Even guitar parts don’t necessarily even have to be recorded with a real guitar anymore if I chose to take the route. On one hand things have become quite convenient with a smaller production space footprint, but on the other hand the disconnect from tactile hands-on hardware is quite sad.
I will say that kick drum engineering and how things sound back then versus now is leaps and bounds improved. Listen to any kicks from my “Here I Stand” EP, or any Hardcore/Gabber song from the late 90’s to a little past the mid 2000’s and compare it to the Hardcore/Gabber kicks of today and you will immediately know what I mean. I love making kicks now. So much fun.
8. Do you enjoy live performances and if so what’s your style and makes them so enjoyable?
I feed of the crowd in my own little way. Sounds cliché, doesn’t it? Everyone feeds of a crowd somehow. The thing with me is I show that energy very subtly which kind of gives me a signature stage presence. One could argue that I might even look bored at times. I am just not one to jump around and unnecessarily twist knobs or flick buttons just for the sake of appearing like I am doing something when I really don’t have to. I mean shit, my tracks along with any other producers’ songs I support are already mixed and mastered so what else is there to adjust in real time other than the transition process from one track to the next? I just can’t fake it, it’s not my style. I know many other DJ’s do that which is fine, that’s their shtick and I will respect that. If you are going to see any energetic movements out of me, I will be when I need to. I strike when the moment feels right. A perfectly timed fist pump pattern on the first kick drum sequences from the drop are sometimes all you need to make the crowd go bonkers.
I would like to think of my performance style is that of either the bass player or rhythm guitarist from the band AC/DC. Hang back while the rest of the band does their thing, and then step forward front stage only when necessary to give the crowd a bit of a sweetener.
Ultimately the crowd is what brings you out to the show. If there is no crowd or artist support, then there is no need for an artist to be there. I feel blessed over the years to provide Hardcore/Gabber and even Dubstep as “Drop Goblin” which has been enjoyed by people other than my own ears all these years. So, it’s the people that come out who make my time spent producing music and playing out worth it and enjoyable to me.
9. In what direction do you see your music heading and what are some of your hopes for the future?
I feel that I have a whole new world of possibilities at my fingertips at this point, and I am overjoyed that I have the support of my peers that are still around in the present day who have and will allow me to get my music out there to the new generation of Hardcore/gabber fans and help me still be able to feel relevant. I have a whole list of track titles saved in my iPhone that need music wrapped around them so the only direction I can go at this point is forward. I have committed to coming out of retirement and I intended to stay active for as long as my ears still work.
I hope in the future that these new event companies and promoters will take notice of my activity and start considering me for larger events when I have earned my status to be there. I realize the structure is a lot different now than it used to be, and I know I must put in a lot more work to be heard and I am willing to and currently doing that in the most ethical ways possible. But, if it doesn’t work out the way I hoped in the end, I will have no regrets because I would never have known unless I tried.
10. What would you say about your music to inspire new listeners?
I would say that if you are into EDM music, and are starting to get bored of the same ol’ four to the floor radio friendly festival mainstream sounds, and even if you LOVE that shit, come on over for just a moment to the dark side of the EDM world where we don’t give a rats ass about your insecurities, your politics (unless your racist), your fashion, who you do or don’t associate with, your body type, your gender identity, or anything else for that matter because over and above all that, the term “Gabber” is the Dutch slang term for “Friend” and in this world of crazy kick drums, and mosh pits, and the occasional black eye, when you say the phrase ‘Gabbers for life’ you are saying ‘Friend for life’.
With love and full of hate, your “Gabber”,
Perfect Dark
