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RS: I’ve talked to a lot of DJs and a lot of producers, and one thing that has always impressed me about you is that you have a real emotional connection to the music. Now that you are doing more of the technical side, are you still feeling the same emotions that you did before?
Dave Dresden: Absolutely. In fact, I feel them more because it’s my emotions that guide me when I’m making sounds. Certain effects create certain emotions and I mean, of course, melodies and keys do, too, but effects really amplify certain things, like if you add a bit crusher and get the sampling down to minus 15, it’s going to create some sort of effect that might change the emotion of the sound.


At the end of the day, it has to make you feel something.

RS: Do you think now with Deadmau5 dominating the world, is there a place for you to have that kind of effect like that he has?
Dave Dresden: Absolutely, because Deadmau5 is selling emotion. In addition too, he has also brought fun to dance music. For so many years there are artists that are so serious up on stage, pouty, boring, but he puts on his mouse head and everybody goes crazy. His music is really emotional, is really well done, and is really well-produced. It’s well written. It’s well mixed. It’s the real deal and I’m really excited about the future of electronic music and that somebody like Deadmau5 has broken through to where – I’m not going to say that the guys that were really big weren’t doing real music, but there is something very real about what Deadmau5 is doing. It feels like a band.

RS: When Deadmau5 performs live, he puts on a show, when you and Josh spin together, how do you form together? I mean, do you play one song and he plays one song, do you do some songs together?

Dave Dresden: No, what we do is Josh is on the computer using Ableton Live and I’m on the mixer. Basically, we are communicating about the song we are going to play, how we are going to play it, how we’re going to mix in, and how we’re going to mix out. I’ll do the effects on the mixer and Josh will do the effects in Ableton. When we are doing them in tandem together there are just these things that just happen that we don’t plan on, there pure magic.

RS: In your time apart, how did you find DJing on your own, without Josh there?
Dave Dresden: It took a long time to get into the swing of it. I mean, DJing is second nature to me, but I got really used to having somebody next to me for all of those years and it took me about a year to really adjust to DJing solo. I was fine, but it was about a year before I found my mojo.

RS: You have also worked with other people in the studio. How has working with Josh affected you working with other people?
Dave Dresden: Well Josh went to music schools and has been using sequencers and computers since the late 80s. I learned a lot of really cool techniques working with him and hence been able to experiment with myself. That has definitely helped me out working with other people. When working with someone else, you kind of have to figure out what their hooks are. Recognizing somebody’s talent and how to push them is something I’m really good at. When I worked with Morgan Page, for example, I figured out what his thing was and zeroed in on it and it worked like that. Working with Michael Johnston, I did the same thing. I figured out what his strength was and used it to our advantage.

RS: Working with Johnston you did a mix for Enrique Iglesias, a very commercial record, and a very commercial mix that had a progressive edge to it. Do you think working with Josh you’ll be going in that direction also, taking a commercial record and remixing it for progressive sound?
Dave Dresden: Well, Josh and I did a few really commercial records in our time. We did Kristine W. We did Deborah Cox, the Jewel. So absolutely, when a really good song comes down the pike, I’m sure that we are going to take that. That’s really the reason… I normally wouldn’t remix an Enrique Iglesias song, but that song was really, really unmistakably good.

Brent Bussey (BB): I have some questions based on the business of music. Do you have any ownership or executive responsibilities with any labels or publishing companies?
Dave Dresden: I did a little bit with Johnston. We started our own label called Problem Child Records. Our biggest song was a song called Keep Faith. It actually did really well on the radio on our own little label, very little promotion.

BB: Why would you ever get into the business of music? Not necessarily the creation of it, but the day-to-day operations?
Dave Dresden: Well, one of the things that I wanted to be before I became a well-known artist was an A&R guy, work at a label and nurture artists. Figure out what their thing was and really zero in and push them so doing a label is like second nature to me because it’s what I wanted to do all of my adult life.

BB: What about the finances and all of the business aspects that come along with it, how does that work for you?
Dave Dresden: The finances, it’s pretty easy to put out a record now on a limited budget because you don’t have to press physical copies. Actually, there’s really no place to sell them. With a limited amount of money, and a few good friends doing good remixes; you can spend around $1000 and put out a full release now. I’m not saying that that is going to happen to everybody, but it seems to be the norm.