COVER STORY
A CLOSER LOOK – ‘EXPLORING THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF JOSEPH CAPRIATI’
A Closer Look – ‘Exploring the Remarkable Journey of Joseph Capriati’
In the vibrant realm of electronic music, there exists a luminary who goes by the name of Joseph Capriati. His journey through the beats of House, Tech House, and Techno paints a vivid picture of evolution and relentless dedication.
Join us as we unravel the story of a man whose music pulsates with the very essence of his being.
- Joseph, your
remarkable, seamlessly navigating between House, Tech House, and Techno. Can you share a bit about your roots and how they’ve influenced your journey in electronic music? How do you maintain such a diverse range in your
sets and productions?
“Let me start right from the beginning: it was 1998 and I was 11 years old. At that time, in front of my house, there was a residency where the families of American soldiers sent to the Naples base of NATO were living: it was Independence Day and these american people were having a party. I was walking around my house in Caserta, Italy, and I remember seeing them around this guy who was mixing and playing some music: he was DJ-ing. At the time I didn’t even know what a DJ was, but I just clicked and knew I wanted to do the same! It wasn’t easy, at that era there was no internet of course and it was also expensive to buy records, mixers and turntables: I started then helping my uncle in his construction company during summer, passing him along his work instruments basically, and at the end of the summer he gave me something that today would be around 500$. I was finally able to buy one turntable! My grandma had this Hi-Fi which she wasn’t really using: I asked her permission to de-cons- truct it and that became my second turntable. This second one didn’t even have pitch control, I was using my own fingers, you know? As per the mixer, a friend of a friend gave me a third hand one (which, for the records, I still have) and I then bought two records. I remember mixing these 2 records only for over 6 months!”
“In terms of musical influences, one of my very first ones came via listening to Euro Dance music. We are talking about summer anthems such as Gala’s ‘Coming into My Life’, Gigi D’agostino. In these same months, some older guys from my hometown gave me a cassette of Little Louie Vega: this is how I discovered House music and the love for it and that same year I started DJing. My
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mixmagnl.com versatility as an artist is truly
biggest inspirations were people like Louie Vega of course, Danny Tenaglia, Frankie Knuckles and François Kevorkian. I did get into Hip-Hop these years as well, I was actually even doing Break-Dance with some friends! I was then about 13 years old when I became one of the DJ residents at the ‘Subway Disco’ club in my hometown, plus I would play at birthday parties after school.”
“It came then the time when I used to sneak out of my hometown, Caserta, telling my mother I was going to sleep at my friend’s house, while I was instead going to Napoli to attend events and listen to DJs at the parties of the promoters ‘Angels of Love’: these were the most legendary House music parties in town - and one of the best in Italy. They were doing parties every weekend of about 8 to 10 thousand people, people who were really coming from all over the world! And that was also the only way for me to listen to DJs because we didn’t have internet at the time of course and I didn’t have money or the possibility to travel, I was really young.”
“So it was when I was 14 that I went to one of those parties for the first time and François Kevorkian was playing: he completely blew my mind. I never even thought before that night that a DJ was going to be able to play all these different genres in one set. He shifted from House to Techno, to Deep House to Tribal Tech. All these styles in one night, in a 3 hour DJ set! That experience amazed me, mind-blowing, really.”
“It came then the time - I was still young, 16 years old I would say - when I first listened to Danny Tenaglia, in Napoli again of course, and that set completely changed my idea of what a DJ is: he was playing for about 8 to 10 hours and he really created something magic. He moved across Techno, House, Pop, Drum and Bass! He took us on a very special journey and from that very moment I just knew… This is something that I deeply feel inside :) And so it went: from that moment I naturally started to experiment and play different kinds of DJ sets.”
“It was although discovering Techno at some point, years later, that really changed my life. It made me eager to get into music production and it shocked and so changed my vision of music.”
“I was 17 years old when I first discovered and fell for Techno. I was attending an event at the legendary Old River Park - between Caserta, my hometown, and Napoli - held by International Talent, one of the biggest promoters in Italy and definitely Napoli. From that moment my life changed forever, I remember
immediately understood that it was really it: Techno became my very own thing. And, as you all know, it
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