INTERVIEW WITH ANN CLUE

How are you, how has your year been so far?

I`m fine, thank you. Well the year is not old yet but in January I had a little break from touring. I needed some time to find new employees for my companies in order to help me grow as an entrepreneur. 10 hours ago I arrived in Australia for my first tour this year and I’m really excited about 2020 already. I have the feeling it’s going to be very special for me.

What inspires or influences you in the studio? What’s your vibe, what makes you, you?

Inspiration is everywhere. People, other music, the mood I am in, relationships, situations I deal with, anger, sadness, happiness. Whatever is on triggers me in a certain way and the sound that comes out is related to that.

I love the variety of sounds and my music is not really something you can out into a box 🙂 I didn’t find a fix style yet, I’m still experimenting a lot and I love that. Not sure if that will ever change.

Do you make tunes to play in your own sets? Is there a connection like that?

Of course, that’s the whole idea 🙂 but I don’t play all the tracks I made as I don’t like all of them. My first releases were some kind of experiment and its hard for me to listen to them without not wanting to change them. But what I produce nowadays, I play regularly and love to put them into a certain context with others – especially music from Boris.

As a DJ, do you like to get people in a trance or lay down pure energy or freak them out or? 

Both – but mainly I want them to freak out 🙂 I love the energy and let go of control is a special state of mind. It helps me and others to release tension so I try not to be too emotional – more a good mix between trancy but focus on making people go nuts.

Tell us about how you became friends with Boris Brejcha and what it means to you?

Oh that’s a long story – I’ll try to keep it short. One day in 2008 I listened to Boris’ music on Myspace (before Facebook and Instagram – that was our first real social media). His music was already very special at that time and I commented on this page how impressed I was.

I wrote him a message in English as I didn’t realise he was German! He wrote back to me in a funny dialect that we could write in German and that’s how all started. First we had kind of a pen friendship – we wrote EMails to each other for around 3 months or so. Loooong letters – like sometimes 10 pages long. It was really special. Our first telephone call was 4 hours long and blew our both minds away as we had such a cool connection. It felt like we’d known each other for a long time before. After a few months writing he had on of his first gigs not far away from where I lived and I came by to see him. From that day on we´ve been friends ever since. After such a long time Boris till means a lot to me. He is my friend, my mentor, he was my partner for almost 8 years and best buddy afterwards. We have the label together and we grew up together as friends and stick together through good and bad times. It’s rare to have such a solid friendship in music business and also in normal life, so I’m very grateful to be able to maintain that through the years.

You run your own agency, FCKNG SERIOUS – why did you start that?

When I met Boris he had just started out as a full time DJ. I remember one of his first tours was in Russia. His former agency sent him to Russia and through the country by train. He didn’t get paid and sometimes he didn’t even have a hotel or money to pay his food. As I loved him so much I wanted someone to take care of him while traveling. And when I realized his agency is not able to cover that I jumped in by myself. That’s how this whole thing with Boris and I started. I learned how to be an agent and manager and he travelled the world in order to follow his passion.

What are the key things to being a good agent do you think?

You need to know what your artist wants and needs in order to be happy and healthy, you need to be able to negotiate and play poker in order to get contracts done and you need to be good at networking so you can establish good connections to promoters. It’s a very challenging work but full of variety and one of the most interesting things I’ve ever learned in my life.

Why do DJs need agents, what level do they need to be before they get an agent?

DJs or lets better say musicians or artists need time for what they are best at – music and entertaining and stay healthy through this tough lifestyle. But the biggest challenge for most artists I know is that they are really bad in doing business. They can´t handle sorting out contracts, negotiate fees or take care of their needs and value themselves. I think most DJs would not survive if they wouldn’t have an agent. For sure if you have a good agency, this helps you faster to reach the next level in your career and makes sure you can concentrate what is most important for you. Playing parties around the world – like DJs nowadays do usually is very exhausting and challenging enough. You need someone who makes sure that you can relax business wise and do what you can do best. Entertain people.

You play some huge festivals this year such as EXIT and Awakenings – how do you scale up your sound so it makes sense on a huge stage like that?

Actually I have no clue yet 😉 noooo I will do whatever I can do make this a unique experience for the audience. That means I’m digging deep into new sounds and dig out some old really cool stuff. I’m quite confident that I can keep up with the big ones as my style is quite different compared to what most Techno DJs play nowadays. I´m capable to make it special!

What’s next for you, what else are you working on?

At the moment I´m on tour in Australia and afterwards I go to Bali to work on my first Album.I try to finish it by summer. I want to make it a live act, but as I never did it before, I´m not sure if I like to play this way 🙂

But I will definitely give it a try as I want to work on a concert show. I think it’s time to make something new and different and I really want people to join me in a new adventure.

Ann Clue plays Time Warp (4 April) and Sea You Beach Republic (18 + 19 July). Keep up with Ann Clue on Facebook, Instagram and Soundcloud