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Michiel Overeem Interview by Clare Dickins

Hi Michiel. Apart from knowing that you're the main man behind most of releases on Dutch record label Detox, us Australians don't know much about you. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Ok, I was born June 22nd, 1977 (26 yrs) and apart from producing records, I own a multimedia company called Connecting Media. We do multimedia productions in the broadest sense of the word. That means website design and development, CD-Rom and DVD productions, digital businesscards, live broadcasting over the internet in video and audio (we've built a special Internet Field Production van) video productions and music and sound-design for multimedia productions (games, educational CD's etc). Drumming and Karate are my hobbies and I really like going out. At the moment I live in Hilversum, which is in the center of the Netherlands near Amsterdam.

How long have you been producing and how did you get into it?
I grew up with music around me daily, because my father is a musician (saxophone, clarinet, guitar and flute) and my mother plays the piano. It was mainly jazz and classical music I heard, but also lots of other musical styles.
(Digital) music production started for me when I bought an Amiga 500. I think that's when I was around 14 years old (1992). I got into it when I heard songs like "Dominator", "James Brown Is Dead" and some tapes of the early acid house music that a friend brought to my house. I bought a sampler for my Amiga soon after that and this gave me the possibility to record my own sounds and manipulate them in a simple way. The 8-bit sound quality however was pretty average compared to the productions I listened to. So as soon as I sent my tapes to record companies the reactions were: "Good tracks, but the sound-quality is not good enough".
When I heard the sound of a professional Akai Sampler at a classmate's house I was blown away by the sound and for example the effect of a filter over a sound. I wanted this machine so I saved up for one by delivering newspapers. As soon as I sent my demos made with this new equipment, I got a record deal with Coolman Records from Rotterdam.
I heard you had a background producing hardcore. Is this correct?
Yes, Coolman Records is one of the labels that started out with the Rotterdam hardcore sound and I did my first release here with a friend of mine under the name The Delinquents with three tracks "Judgement Day", "Raise The Heat" and "Gunblast". It was kind of a dark, raw hardcore sound in the style of the Dutch Ruffneck and Cenobite labels that have always been my favorite in the hardcore genre. After that I did some more hardcore tracks, but after a while I got a bit bored with the style so went on to some other stuff.

What was your musical background before you began producing dance music? Have you had any classical music training?
I followed piano lessons for three years from the age of seven but always wanted to play the drums, so that's what I've been doing from the age of 14 till now. I think it has a lot of advantages when you learn how to read and write music and learn about chords and stuff so things will never be out of tune, unless it's meant to be that way of course :-) Apart from being the main producer at Detox, what other roles do you take on at the label?
I listen to all the tracks before they are released and, as is the case with Detox 0007 (Liquid Blue) I co-produce with other artists or do remixes. Furthermore I keep in touch with DJ's about the releases, just as Fred Berkhout does, who is the A&R and label manager.

What does your studio equipment consist of? From listening to a lot of your productions it sounds as though you use some analogue equipment. Is this correct?
No, not at all, not even digital external equipment. I only use Reason and sometimes Cubase for my productions and at the end of the production stage some mastering plug-ins or tool. I started out with a sampler, synthesizer and mixer and stuff, but I discovered that it took away my inspiration when it took too much time loading sounds and preparing my mixer channels and stuff. Reason for me, is like a piece of clay, I mould and alter it till I get exactly the sound I want and because I like a raw, not too digital sound it probably sounds like being produced with analog equipment.
It takes a little more effort to get a high quality sound from Reason, but at the moment it is more important for me to be able to convert my thoughts into sounds as quickly as possible.

I think the beauty of the music you produce is that it cannot be fitted into one clear-cut genre category. Your productions touch on everything from progressive, trance, techno, acid, and you even some featured electro sound on the upcoming Mindscape release. Musically speaking, what artists and sounds have been crucial in influencing your style? What do you draw inspiration from?
I draw a lot of inspiration from DJ-sets. My favorites are Marco V, Chris Liebing, Paul van Dyk, recently DJ Eddie Halliwel from the UK and DJ Faro who has a radio show on the Dutch ID&T radio channel. Marco V and Speedy J are among my favorite producers. I also like the taste of DJ Dano who I work together with now and then. When listening to DJ's I pay most attention to their choice of records, not that much to their technical mixing skills.
And now the million dollar question: How would you describe the sound you produce?
Deep, dark, hard and uplifting with big/long climaxes and progressive influences. A mix of all the elements I like the most in several styles.

How do you see your productions works and the Detox label in general fitting into the Dutch scene; you're not hardstyle, you're not Tiësto-style trance_you seem to have created your own unique style and sound_
It doesn't really fit into the Dutch dance scene I think. Most people here like trance, club and more commercial dance music that I don't really like. Sometimes we tend to call it "pannekoekenhouse" which means something like pancake-house (a sound as flat as a pancake). Also, people here tend to think too much in styles/boxes. DJ Dano has a lot of difficulty getting bookings in the "detox-style" because people often ask him to play hardcore/gabber. The huge hardcore background here however, has always had an influence on the other styles of music, so it's often a little bit harder than the average vocal trance of club. I think for example people from the UK are a bit more open-minded when it comes to new music and creativeness. I don't really know about the Australians, but I think you guys are also more interested in new sounds...(?). Detox is doing ok in The Netherlands, but we get the best and most enthusiastic reactions from the UK and Australia.

Both the hardstyle and techno sounds were incredibly dominant last year. Stylistically speaking, where do you see the harder-edged dance music sounds evolving in 2004?
I think things are moving more and more towards techno. You see techno influences in the DJ sets of for example DJ Luna who is one of the biggest Hardstyle DJ's here and Tiësto. Tiësto almost played at the biggest techno event in The Netherlands "Awakenings" but just over half of the people voted against him on the Awakenings website, probably because they're so techno puristic and afraid he's going to play vocal trance on a techno party (duh) %-/ Of course this is bull, because his main strength is that he knows exactly what to play with every crowd.
You can also see that progressive house music has left its influences on a lot of styles and I like that mix of techno and progressive. So there's some more experimenting going on as well.

Apart from all your releases through Detox, what other production works have you released that we should be aware of?
I did a release and some remixes on Altitude records (Danza Violento) but I don't think there will be anymore because things didn't really work out between the A&R and me, and MO'Records (Avalanche - Progressive Pulse/Cozmic Wave) which is my own label that I did together with DJ Dano. But the focus at the moment is on DETOX! In the future there will probably be more releases on other labels because I'm not bound to a specific label.
I understand you're presently working on the next Marzz release. How is it sounding?
You'll hear it when it's released... ;-)

You co-produced the upcoming Detox 7 release along with Julius Geluk (Liquid Blue). Mindscape was hard electro edged trance, whilst New Mode was pure funk, with a chunky techno edge and breakbeat undertones. As many of the releases on the label have been quite progressive based, this release pretty much shattered any preconceptions of what a 'typical' Detox release should sounded like. What was the inspiration behind the release?
It was all Julius' inspiration. He's a big fan of hard/weird techno so thats what you hear. At the same time he really likes to experiment and do things differently than others. I only helped him a bit with the production and making things a little more effective and "mixable" I think cause the were a few strange time signatures in there that would probably make it too difficult for a DJ to mix. And I always try to think about the DJ a little bit because above all, it has to work on the dance floor for everyone...

Is it Detox's aim to have a certain edge of unpredictability with their releases, rather than releasing records that can easily be pigeonholed?
I think that's not really the focus. It's more about releasing good music, whatever the style. And it will always keep that raw edge and effectiveness on the dance floor. But ok, we don't like pigeonholes...

With the Mindscape release, it did have quite a distinct electro edge to it. Was the release just a brief flirtation with the sound for you, or is it something you'd like to explore further?
As I mentioned before, I take all the elements I like best of different styles of music and use them in my own productions, so it's no style in particular. And this release is really Julius' thing, but you can expect a lot of better things from him in the future.

What other sounds are you keen to explore in your productions?
I like to drive people crazy on the dance floor, and you'll be hearing some more techno in future releases but no average "pots-and-pans-techno"(?). I'd like to use some more weird psycho sounds and (hard) progressive influences with that I think... :-)

Has there been any particular music you have been listening to recently and finding inspirational?
Sven Dedek and Alex Bau something with Toneman?, Cortez vs. DJ Fergie - Scaramanga, Igor S - Boomerang. Furthermore some tracks I hear in DJ sets of Marco V, DJ Faro and Tiesto. I have some ideas I'd haven't really heard, so I guess I'm just going to try to work them out myself... :-)

Are there any producers you'd like to collaborate with?
Marco V would be nice to work with and I have some contact with him, but never mentioned doing something together (I think he'll be a bit too busy as well so I wouldn't expect this to happen in the near future).

Do you DJ as well as produce?
Nope. Maybe if I had some more time, but buying all those records and stuff will cost me a lot of money, and I'd be one of the many DJ's around so no plans for that.

I've heard that you're set to play 'live' when Detox does their tour of Australia later this year. How will this work and what can we expect from it?
I'm going to work on performing live with my music. I'll be using two laptops probably and some hardware controller to be able to do things really live. I'll try to do it all a little different than on my records and explore some other directions or take things even further than on vinyl. But mainly it will be will be the varied Detox sound you know from me...

Can you tell us about some of the future plans for not just yourself, but also for the Detox imprint?
For myself, I'll be producing a lot more (the next Marzz) and I'm going to develop a live performance. I'm gonna do some remixing for DJ Dano and I'll be producing something together with DJ Tom Harding the coming weeks. Concerning Detox in general you can expect us to keep going the way we were. With a distinct mixed sound and now and then a surprise I think. :-) There will be new artists and new remixing projects.