DJ Vadim Interview : Earz Magazine

DJ Vadim Interview

July 23, 2007 · Words: Martin S ·

DJ Vadim Interview The following is an interview conducted with the highly prolific and proficient DJ known as Vadim.

Known globally for his turntable and production skills, Vadim has also made his name through work with Ninja Tune, One Self, the Scratch Perverts and DJ Krush, to name a few.

Labels and artists have struggled adapting to the changes in how we consume music. How have the changes affected you– in the longrun do you think they’ve helped or hindered your career?

Well this never ending conversation on downloading is good and bad. I am able to reach more people with my music but yet my sales have plummeted but the shows are more busy, more people, more shows… So it’s a gift and a curse. The way we consume music in the future will change. CDs will die sooner or later and everything will be digial except for some vinyls… I need to stay in tune and in touch with the changes, but as a touring musician I am thankfull that I have invested loads of time into working on creating a dope show.

The majors’ reaction has been to arrest the development of these changes, thus we have restrictive DRM technologies, lawsuits against teenage downloaders, and police raids of mixtape DJs in America. How do you think the industry’s high-end should be reacting?

DJ Vadim Interview Well there are a lot of issues you mention above not all related to downloading, but yes things are changing and majors have been hit hard and are panicing. Forums like myspace give power back to (the) indie artist to sell their own stuff. I feel that major shops like HMV etc, the radio stations, and major labels are totally out of touch with what people wanna hear. It’s just sheer luck and the fact that they deal with such a huge volume of music that they have survived.

You’ve just released the audio source files for your tracks “Kill Kill Kill” and “Talk To Me” under a Creative Commons lisence as part of a remix competition. Tell us a bit about that.

Well I wanted to give all the producers, music fans etc, a chance to do what they can. interesting results so far. It’s a way of encouraging creativity and letting unknown pruducers a chance to get something released.

Will you be dropping any full releases under a Creative Commons liscense in the future?

Who knows.

What’s up with the new album ‘The Sound Catcher’– how was the creative and recording process, and who’s guesting on it?

There are a lot of people from Zion, Abstract Rude, Monte Smith, Demolition Man, Deuce Eclipse, Belleruche, Skinnyman etc… all of that info is up on the BBE site or Myspace.

To the future of independent music– Do you feel the divide between indie and major labels is easily traversed by good music and work-ethic, or is the divide growing or lessening, or what?

Like i said, the model of how people consume entertainment is totally changing. It will be totally different in 5 years. We got to embrace change.

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