Eric Interview:

Sam:
Alright! This is Sam Reaves representing the Swedish House Mafia Forum. I'm here with Eric Prydz in the upstairs of WetBar, Atlanta. Eric, how are you?

Eric:
I'm fine man, I'm fine. I'm a bit tired... otherwise I'm okay.

Sam:
Yes, your tour has been ridiculously hectic. How has it been so far? Have you had a favorite stop?

Eric:
It's been over expectations really. I didn't know what to expect because comparing North America and Europe with electronic dance music... I don't know. I would say that North America is very much about R&B and hip hop. I heard from people that 50% of my gigs would be really bad, 50% of my gigs would be alright, and then a couple of them would be really great, but I would say almost all of the gigs have been really good. The people really understand the music, and even though they maybe have never heard it before, they really get into it. So the tour has been above my expectations really, and I can't wait to get back.

Sam:
Well cool! That's great to hear! Okay, Dana Bergqvist, qvist or quist?

Eric:
Oh, it doesn't matter.

Sam: Either way *laughter* Okay, well hes been playing downstairs and rocking it. How did you select him to come on the tour with you?

Eric:
Dana is an old friend of mine. We both played at the gay bar thing I talked about with you earlier. It's a place called the rainbow room. It's this legendary VIP/Gay/Lounge thing in Stockholm. It doesn't exist anymore, but we used to play there, and also played at this place called Grodan, which means "The Frog" in Stockholm. So I sort of know him from the music scene in Stockholm. And I needed a good warm up DJ to come with me for this tour, and Dana was the obvious choice, really. He's really talented, and a really lovely guy, so I just asked him if he wanted to come play with me on my tour in North America and he said "yeah, sure. Why not?" So that's the reason why.

Sam:
Cool! Alright, everybodys been wondering because there has been so many rumors about it. What about "The Bus"? Since you're not flying, you've taken a huge ass bus. What is it like?

Eric:
The bus is really cool. It's a big tour bus, and I think every rock band in America has been on that bus. Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Jon Bon Jovi, Mr. Prydz *laughter* and a lot of rappers and stuff like that have all been on it. So it's really cool, with big couches like a living room, lounge area, a TV, kitchen, bathrooms, a big bedroom, and stuff like that. It's really cool, and doesn't even feel like you're really traveling at all. It's like being in someone's living room, and we have internet in the bus as well. So we can surf and chat a lot, make music, and stuff like that. So the bus is great. It's cool.

Sam:
Alright sweet. We all know that you don't fly, but now that you've made it to North America... what can we expect about traveling to any other parts of the world?

Eric:
Well, the last couple of years I've played only in Europe apart from St. Petersburg in Russia, and a couple of other places, and it because I hate flying. I wouldn't say i hate flying; it's more of a phobia almost. If I know I'm going to go on a plane, I feel really really bad a month before, you know. But for this flight, I took a couple of pills called "Xanax", and I sort of ran on the plane really. *laughter* I was the first on there like "YAAAAY!" So I don't know man, I'm gonna' stick to these pills I think, and maybe start traveling to places like Japan, South America, and maybe even Australia, and stuff like that. I don't know. This was kind of the first thing. I'm going to see how it feels, and sort of take it from here really.

Sam:
Ok cool, sweet. Alright, another big hype deal... the album. What's the delay? What's going on with it? We're in the dark here, so explain.

Eric:
Um, "the album"... in brackets... I made an album. And I decided that I didn't want to release it. It's kind of complicated. Record labels want one thing. I want something else. Blah, blah, blah. There is an album coming, but it's not going to be an Eric Prydz album, not now anyway. There is a Pryda album coming. I'm sort of half finished, and it's not going to contain any old tracks that have already been released on Pryda. I have no idea when this album is going to be released but the plan is to get it on promo for Miami next year. So another 3 or 4 months from now hopefully it will be ready. I don't like working with deadlines. It's kind of... when the album is finished, it's finished, sort of thing you know. So it's going to be released on Pryda when it's finished.

Sam;
That makes sense, and I'm glad that you actually choose that path rather than actually doing what the labels want because obviously that's gonna' hurt. Are there any other releases other than the album, say on like... Pryda Friends?

Eric:
Yeah, there is a record by Sebastien Leger coming on Pryda Friends with a remix from me. And it's called Terra. *pause* Dana is actually playing it right now in the background! *laughter* Perfect timing... Yeah, so that one is going to be released on Pryda Friends. Apart from that, theres loads of stuff coming. I've been really productive this year, and I just need to sit down and think about which tracks I want to release, and which tracks don't have what it takes. There is a release coming on Pryda entitled Europa, and theres gonna' be a flip for that one as well. *pause* But I'm not gonna' tell you what it is. It's a new thing that noone has heard. And there is a remix pack coming on Mouseville. They are remixes of Teaser by Oliver Huntemann and Deadmau5, and theres going to be a special re-edit of the Deadmau5 remix by me which I've been playing out lately, and it's really been going off. So I'm quite excited about that release.

Sam:
Sweet. I opened a thread if you haven't noticed on the Mafia forums and tranceaddict about what the users want to hear, as opposed to me. Heres a question from there. Where do you get the inspiration for your titles, such as Muranyi, Balaton, Rymd?

Eric:
Well Muranyi is a street... "Muranyi Utca." That's where my girlfriend used to live, and I actually made that track at her flat. I went to get something to eat, and when I came back I saw that street sign and thought the name looked really cool. It fit the music on Muranyi because it kind of has a different sound to it. A lot of people tend to think that it sounds like a video game, but I never really saw it like that. I thought it sounded more like balearic, or... I don't know. It's kind of hard to put my finger on it. I think that the video game reference is based on what kind of sound that I've chosen to play the melody, you know. Balaton, which is the flip of that record is a lake. It's a lake in Hungary. I was visiting my girlfriend this summer and we sort of went to the lake, and it was really beautiful over there. At the time I was making the track, and I thought "I'm going to call this track Balaton."

Sam:
Ok cool. Alright, another question from them is how you approach a song. Do you know what alias it will be? Do you have an idea that you try to put down?

Eric:
Sometimes I do, like sit down and say "Okay Eric, we need to do a new Cirez D release for Mouseville", and it never really worked for me like that. I make music. I make small grooves. I make small melody ideas all the time while I'm traveling, or stuck in a hotel room somewhere. I would say I have maybe 300 or 400 unfinished projects just on my laptop. So it could be something that I'm listening through again that I see with new eyes and new ears maybe a year later, and say "okay, I'm gonna' try to finish this one off." It's not that I have some sort of specific order that start off with a beat, and try to add a bassline. Some people work like that, but for me, it's different every time. Sometimes I can wake up in the middle of the night and have this melody line in my head, and get the laptop on... F**k around with it... so it's different every time for me when it comes to the procedure of making music.

Sam:
Spoken like a true musician! I guess this kind of ties into the last question. Have you abandoned any of your other aliases such as Sheridan and Moo?

Eric:
I don't think so. I think I've released records under 8 or 10 different names. I don't really keep track of them. Moo is a name that I... A friend of mine that runs a label in Stockholm was doing this... I mean this was years ago, maybe 5 or 6 years, and they were doing this kind of chillout compilation. And he just asked me, "Eric, can you just make some chillout music" you know. And I was like, "I've never tried it, but sure! It sounds like fun" you know. So I made a couple of tracks. I think it would be very confusing for people if I released all my music under the name Eric Prydz because I do all kinds of music, from chillout to you know, banging really hard techno. So I just use aliases to kind of divide between some of that. And sometimes it's nice to be able to kind of hide behind that name that not many people know about, because then you can concentrate on the music, and you can concentrate on what you want, and not worry about what other people are going to say or think about the music. To get back to your question, I haven't "abandoned" any of the names. I think the Sheridan thing has always been a bit more on the funky side of things. Pryda has always been very distinct. It's always been very melodic and electronic, progressive in a way, sort of experimental when it comes to arrangements and sort of stuff like that. It's basically me doing exactly what I want, me doing the music that I think is missing in my record box at the moment. Whilst the Cirez D alias on Mouseville, and also a couple of releases on Joia has been more stripped down, hard edge techno kind of stuff.

Sam:
Alright, while we're on productions this is one thing that you've been famous for by so many people... your mixdown process. Everyone of your tracks sounds like gold. How do you do that, who do you work with, and how do you work with them?

Eric:
I do everything myself. I think that a lot of people tend to think that I have this massive, really expensive studio. And a lot of people think that it's the mastering guy that does it all for me, but when it comes to mixing music in the mastering process, you're really limited because the track is one file. The only thing you can do in the mastering process is raise or lower the volume of certain frequencies, so you're very limited in what you can do. I think the strength in my productions is kind of the separation, and how all of the sounds are mixed together, and that's something that I kind of put a lot of effort into, because I always wanted my music to sound you know, really really good in a club. If you have a really good idea for a track, but it doesn't come across well on a big system, it sort of gets a lost in a way. So I would say 50% of a track is the actual mix of it. You have to make sure that you can hear all of the different channels clearly. I always try to make my tracks sound like this big powerful pack of muscle sort of thing you know, and it's kind of hard to explain how I do it because I use my ears, and I know how I want it to sound. Over the years I sort of learned how to get it to sound like that. Nowadays I don't even need to master my tracks after I'm finished, because I do the mastering, but while I'm doing the mixdown sort of thing. I never actually EQ the track on the master; i do it in the actual track with the elements, because that is how you get a good result really. So no, to answer your question again, I do everything myself. The only mastering that is done on the tracks is for the actual tracks that are gonna' be cut on vinyl, because on vinyl, you cannot have the music sounding as it does digitally. If you want to cut out music on vinyl, you need to cut out certain frequencies. You need to have the bass sound in mono, because if you have it in stereo then the needle is going to jump around a bit. And they do cut out a lot of the high-end as well, everything over 15,000/16,000 Hz, something like that. It's kind of a science in itself to get the level of the vinyl as high as possible. But they don't do any physical mastering of the track. What they try to do is cut out frequencies and press it as loud as possible on vinyl. So that's how it works. All the tracks on beatport and stuff like that is my own mastering really.

Sam:
Very nice. Alright, well we're here before your gig, Do you have any rituals? Do you have any preparations? Any "hold on, lemme burn this cd" moments? Anything like that?

Eric:
Not really. Normally I have a beer or two, just hang out, chill out for a bit. I don't know. I never really prepare myself. I never really know what I'm going to play. I would say 5 minutes before I go on I'm always stressed out because I don't know which track to put on first. But I don't have any rituals or any sort of thing like that.

Sam:
Well another question long awaited... we have many of these, almost done though. What is in your studio? You said before that you don't have a massive, bombtastic studio. What's in it?

Eric:
I would say nowadays, 80% of my tracks I make on my laptop with a pair of headphones. That's it. Or maybe 70% because I'm traveling so much, and I rarely have any time to spend in the studio. The laptop I'm using is an old crappy PC from 2004. I mean it was kind of state of the art back then; it's kind of a custom made laptop from Frost Network, which is made for making music on it basically. It's running a really old version of Logic. I think it's 5.2 or something like that. But I sort of like being limited, because then you... I don't know. Instead of trying to figure out how all the synthesizers work, you can work with a few instruments and try to make as much as possible out of that. As for my studio, I'm running a Macintosh with Logic 7, and like wavs, plugins, and I do have the Korg bundle as well. And then, I have one synthesizer I think which is a Korg MS-2000. I think it's MS-2000B. It's the new version. It's the one with the vocoder thing. Apart from that I don't have anything. It's like microphone preamps, microphones, stuff like that. But as I said before, I really like to keep the setup as small and compact as possible. It's not really what kind of fancy equipment you have, it's how you use the stuff that you actually have, you know. And I'm doing fine with the small setup I have, and I don't have any plans of getting a big show off studio. I don't need that.

Sam:
Alright, what about your plans for your off time? This tour has been ridiculous with the dates, and I know you're really tired, so what are you going to do when you go home?

Eric:
Well I think I have 8 days, 9 days off before I start to play again. I think the next show is something in France. But then it's like business as usual again, playing every weekend you know. I think I'm going to go to Budapest actually, when I'm back. I'm gonna' get a few days to get over the jetlag thing and then I'm going to visit my girlfriend because I haven't seen her for like 2 months or something like that. So yeah, I'm not getting any rest at all.

Sam:
Alright, okay, another fan question. What about the yankees? You seem to have a bit an obsession when it comes to clothing and the yankees. What is all that about?

Eric:
I don't really care about the yankees. I'm not really into baseball at all. I just think the hats look really cool. *laughter* I always liked them. So that's why I always have a lot of yankees stuff. Blue and white... I like the color combination. It looks nice.

Sam:
Alright cool. Speaking of clothes, we know Axwell has some Axtone merchandise, when are we gonna' see that? People are taking it into their own hands... *points at home-made Pryda shirt*

Eric:
Oh F**k me!

Sam:
It's Pryda, yeah.

Eric:
Yeah yeah I know. There is actually both Pryda and Mouseville clothes coming. But I didn't really wanna' do the obvious t-shirt with the Pryda logo type on it sort of thing so I have the guy that making all the artwork for Mouseville... his name is Russell. He used to be at the sign for Maharishi, which is a really cool clothing brand. So he's helping us out to make these really really cool t-shirts, like a small line of clothes if you want. So I think it's the Mouseville stuff that's gonna' come out first, and then the Pryda is going to follow as well. But it's gonna' be very limited, and very low key sort of thing. I'm not trying to be the next Ralph Lauren or something like that. It's going to be very limited, basically so the fans and people who really like the labels are gonna' at least have an official t-shirt to wear.

Sam:
Okay, cool. Any influences you'd like to name before we close out?

Eric:
What musicwise?

Sam:
Anything.

Eric:
I mean, when I grew up the kind of music I was listening to was kind of like Depeche Mode, Alphaville, a lot of the sort of harder electronic bodied music sort of thing, like Frontline Assembly, *Swedish*, Front 242... I don't know it's kind of hard to say. I listen to so much music... When I'm home I rarely listen to electronic dance music, it's more... I don't know, a lot of music from the 80s... could be cheesy Madonna type stuff, but whatever. I love that stuff. So I don't know. It's kind of hard to say what I'm influenced from. I get my influences from a lot of other stuff really. It could be the places that I'm traveling to, new people that I meet, could be a train journey that I'm going somewhere and it's got a really cool view as I'm sitting looking out the window, and all of a sudden this melody pops up into my head. It's more stuff like that that makes me want to make new music I think.

Sam:
Alright, we have one more question, and it's only because literally, like 9 different people in one thread wanted to know... What are the vocals in The Gift saying?!

Eric:
*laughter* Ummmm, they are saying nothing actually. They are saying... hang on a second, let me think. It is me saying that stuff in a vocoder. It is saying "give it away", and then I can't even remember... it's like "blah blah blah", because I was just playing around with the vocoder. I was trying to find the harmonics you know. So I was just babbling along sort of thing. And then I had that sort of line, that sort of, I don't know. I never listen to the lyrics. I always listen to the rhythm and to melodies, so I kind of liked how that vocal, sort of vocoded thing sounded and just used that, so... I know the first words are "give it away". I don't know what the rest is... it could be anything you want I guess. *laughter*

Sam:
Alright, well cool. Thank you so much for this interview. It's good to have you, and it's good to put it on somewhere where the fans are for you, as opposed to just some media place... so good to have you!

Eric:
Thanks a lot for having me too man!