Timo Maas in Malaysia: My Old Life is Never Coming Back

Superstar German producer Timo Maas DJed in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur (KL) in March as he continued a 5 continent worldwide tour. His unique style of 'percussive wet funk', expressed through no less than 85 productions in the last 3 years, rocketed him to the top in 2000, most notably via his killer remix of Azzido De Bass 's Doomsnight. Skrufff's Malaysian representative and local radio DJ Angie Ng hooked up with him several hours after he'd rocked 2,000 highly impressed Kuala Lumpur clubbers.

Skrufff: You're well placed to see dance music's globalisation, how much do gigs differ from country to country-

Timo Maas: "Basically there's no difference. It's always a new experience every night you're doing it. It doesn't matter whether you already know the club or not. It's a new game every night you go out and play. I have residencies at Twilo and Cream but, always when I'm there, there's a different atmosphere and crowd."

Skrufff: How comfortable are you with fame and all the attention it brings-

Timo Maas: "Sometimes it's scary. I've been doing this for such a long time but it's only in the last 18-20 months that my whole life has changed. I'm still trying to process the thought that my old life is never coming back. I miss hanging out with friends in private, but it's not possible anymore. The other side to it all is that, you get to see the world and you get paid for that. My job is having fun, basically, doing parties and I really enjoy what I do."

Skrufff: How often do you find yourself in bizarre 'rock & roll' situations-

Timo Maas: " (laughing) Very often. There are some moments when you find two girls on your left arm, and two more girls on your right, and you're thinking, 'Fucking hell, what's going on here-' Basically, the whole of last year was rock & roll."

Skrufff: How does the stardom trip compare to dropping a new Timo Maas production-

Timo Maas: "That's always the best thing you can have. I try out every track that I've worked on in the studio. The weekend after I've finished a track I'll always play the record and people don't know it's a record of mine. When it works well, wicked ! The next week we send it to the record company. So, the crowd is much more involved in the production process than they think. I check everything out on the crowd".


Skrufff: How tempted are you to make another Azzido Da Bass type track-

Timo Maas: " Nooooo..(laughs loudly) Well,…, it's not fair to say I would never do something like that again. … Just listen to the Fatboy Slim remix, there's a connection between them both. That's all I can tell you."

Skrufff: What kind of feelings do you have for Doom's Night now-

Timo Maas: "I still play the bootleg remix of my remix. I played it last night."

Skrufff: Do people expect it every set-

Timo Maas: "Yes. People expect it. But I don't play the original anymore. For me, it's history. It's been nearly one year and 8 months since we produced that version. For me, the song was finished after 6 months but then it all started on a real, proper basis. I don't know how many copies they've sold so far, but it IS the biggest success I've had in my career."


Skrufff: Is it true that when you first delivered your original remix, Azzido Da Bass sent it back to you-

Timo Maas: "No. Not Azzido. Azzido loved it but the record company said, 'Well there's nothing of the original on here'. So, I said, 'Well the original is shit ! Yeah, it is a completely new track but I mean what should I do - They said, we'll have to refuse that, can you do another one - I said, 'Fucking hell, I don't wanna' do that. Oh whatever. So I did another mix with lots of breaky beats."

Angie Ng / Jonty Adderley Tags

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