Complextro It’s this desire to push his sound — sometimes taking a month to finish a track from the dozens he’s working on at any one time, only happy when he has something that tops what he’s done before — that led many to label his sound ‘complextro’. Using tiny painstakingly added edits, in a style shared by Porter Robinson and Mord Fustang, tracks such as ‘Fire Power’ and‘Undertaker’ constantly morph and twitch, but it’s a label he’s eager to get away from. “It’s a very complex piece of music, a lot of different sounds doing a call-and-answer thing,” he replies in definition. “For me it has become a sort of masturbation thing, ‘how complex can you get, showing off your skills?’ For me now, it’s all about melody, basslines and simplicity. To write something that’s really good and really simple, it’s harder to do that than something that’s really complex.”
His first single of the year, ‘There And Back’, featured the kind of euphoric riffs that he discovered were best for swaying European festivals over the summer, while ‘We Own The Night’, a collaboration with the indomitable Tiësto and vocalist Luciana, ticks all main stage memes, with a fish-hook-catchy sing-a-long snare, squeaking Dutch house bleeps and Deadmau5 chord stabs. While Wolfgang calls it “The biggest thing of mine that came out this year,” ‘Red Line’, also out now, is another example of his new Euro-friendly sound.
“I’ve decided to keep doing what I’m doing, but I’ve also decided to experiment with new sounds. ‘There & Back’ is obviously a bit different for me. It’s a little bit more big room and anthemic. ‘Red Line’ was made in a day. I’ve never made anything that quickly before, so it comes naturally to me. I sit down, press record, play it on the keys and it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s actually good, let’s use that’, and it’s the first take. I’m kind of rolling with the style because it works for me.” A second album is in the works, and will be released
slowly as a series of singles, but topping ‘Weekend in America’ will be a hard task. “The ‘Circus Freaks’ track is still my favourite thing that has ever come out of my studio,” he says on his grimy Dipset collaboration. “It’s so gangster and ghetto, so foreign to dance music. If you look at David Guetta and other people that are collaborating with rappers, they’re doing stuff that is very consumable by the masses. The lyrics are aimed for the club and chart-friendly. These guys are talking about selling keys and bricks and cutting cocaine. It’s never been done before, and people don’t know what to think of it. Some people love it, and that’s awesome, as I feel we’ve opened minds a little bit.” While a huge hip-hop fan, Wolfgang feels that, far from big name guest MCs being essential for dance music to succeed, it’s now potentially at odds with it. “To be honest, it would have been smarter and I would have sold more records if I didn’t have any hip-hop artists on my record. I did it for me and I did it because I like rap. A majority of my fanbase would prefer to hear unknown vocalists I think, or no vocalist at all.”
Pop Market It’s difficult to imagine, then, what they’ll make of his journey into the heart of the pop industry. “Listen to the Top10 pop chart on iTunes right now and it’s all Rihanna, Chris Brown, The Wanted and Katy Perry, and they’re all incorporating dance music. Some of them are using pop producers, who are copying dance producers, but a lot of them are working with dance producers and right now, there is this feeding frenzy in LA, with pop producers working with dance producers to make No.1 Billboard hits. I’m already doing it.”
While reticent to reveal who he’s worked with, the few singles in summer will unveil whether he can transform the US top 10 in the way that he has its growing ranks of giant outdoor raves, now so lucrative that even the New York Times business section has flagged them up as investment-worthy opportunities.
For those who still question Wolfgang’s integrity, consider his reaction to dubstep, the sound which he says has probably now overtaken electro-house in the US in terms of popularity and many are chasing to garner some teenage cool points. “It’s obviously the next big thing,” he agrees, “but for me dubstep isn’t dance music. I grew up on 4/4 club music, that’s what I feel,” he adds, miming the pump of the kick-drum as it hits your chest. “Dubstep is cool to listen to, like hip-hop, and I can maybe gather some inspiration from the sounds in it, but I don’t feel it in terms of the rhythm.”
Instead, he remains locked in the prolific journey of self-improvement that’s marked every stage of his career. “It’s changed so much and the people that were my heroes back then, Derrick Carter, Mark Farina, DJ Sneak, Heather, Doc Martin, all these people I looked up to and thought were God… I’m kind of in the same position,” he reflects when we ask about the sway he holds. “But I don’t feel it. I don’t know if I take it for granted, but I’m just focused on trying to do the best I can. When I’m up there playing, I don’t really take it in. I’m so focused on delivering the best possible performance or music I can that I don’t really step outside of it and realise what’s happening in the grand scheme of things. Then there’s like a moment in an interview when you ask something like that, and I realise right now what’s happening, and it’s fucking amazing! But that only happens five seconds a month. Most of the time, I’m so concerned about making something amazing that I don’t really think about it.”
As modest and unobtrusive as his sound is towering and bombastic, in person Wolfgang Gartner is the antithesis of America’s rock ‘n’ roll-ification of dance music. But as pop and dance collide and conspire to take over the world, you can be sure that somewhere behind the glitz and glamour, he’ll have his hands at the controls.
“Complextro has become a sort of masturbation thing, ‘how complex can you get, showing off your skills?’ For me now, it’s all about melody, basslines and simplicity. To write something that’s really good and really simple, it’s harder to do that than something that’s really complex.”
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www.djmag.com
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