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Troy Pierce DJ Interview
House | Thursday 9th June 2011 | Annalisa
Not many men can claim to have been rared in a quiet farming town in Indiana and go on to become a massive Techno DJ working with the likes of Richie Hawtin; this month Joe Le Groove caught up with Troy Pierce...
What kind of music did you grow up listening to?
When I was about 10 years old I was listening to Hall & Oats and Duran Duran. I also got into Prince and then I got into Metal music like Mega Death, Danzig and The Cult. I was really into Danzig a lot because he was ridiculous. I wasn’t really into Electronic music or Dance music until I was 20.
So you got into Electronic/Dance music late?
Yeah I guess so, I wasn’t exposed to it as I was from a small town in Indiana. My choices were top 40 Radio or Metal, they were the only options. There wasn’t a dance scene there. I then moved to Ohio and I was dating girl there, she took me to a few underground dance parties and that was my first real exposure to repetitive beats. After dating this girl I went back to Indiana and I started going to parties in Detroit and other parties in the Mid West. So at the age of 22-23 I was exposed to all forms of dance music. I was in the mid west until 1995 and then I moved to New York to go to photography school. I moved out there by myself and bought a pair of decks and started buying more records.
At what point did you decide that you wanted to make music?
I don’t know, I think started playing around with making music in 1997/98. It wasn’t anything serious as I didn’t know anyone else that made music. I had no clue and no one to explain it to me. It’s a bit easier these days as more people are doing it. Maybe I just hung around with the wrong crowd. I started messing around with Reason like it was a video game and my goal in the video game was to make a track that I liked. It was like that for quite a long time until I met Marc Houle, He showed me stuff and told me how to do this and said it should sound like that.
So he showed you the way forward and helped you bridge the gap so you could take your loops and start constructing arrangements and break downs etc.
Exactly, I had a lot of happy accidents as I was exposed to really good music in Detroit, Chicago and all around the mid west. Some people now a days are exposed to obvious music like Trance, I was really lucky that I was there listening to the likes of Richie Hawtin and Jeff Mills. That formed the basis of my sound.
When did you meet Richie and how did your relationship develop?
I knew Rich in the Midwest , there was a girl I was dating her best friend was going out with Rich. We met like normal people; it wasn’t like I was some super fan. I was just a guy who was going out with his girlfriend’s friend.
So the natural progression is that you knew him anyway, years later you were still making music, you passed on some tracks to him and he came back and singed you to the label?
Yeah it was exactly like that, completely casual. I didn’t really realise how famous he was until much later. I was like.. “It’s Rich whatever”. I didn’t get it as I wasn’t following dance music closely. You couldn’t just get online and download mixes and find out where he was playing. I just wasn’t aware. When I met him Detroit or Indiana where ever it was, he was my girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend stroke DJ guy and we started hanging out.
Was your move to Berlin a strategic one?
At the time I was not so conscious of the implications of what it could do for me career wise. It took me a long time to put music and career in to the same sentence. I wasn’t doing anything in New York. I had a nice apartment but I wasn’t doing anything. I thought Rich and Magda were moving so why not check it out. It seems completely random now that I’m trying to explain it. Magda moved here a few months before me so I can and hung out with her for a week or so and went back to New York for five months and thought there is nothing going on here.
So you went to see what it was like at first, then you went back to the states and then felt screw living here and made the permanent move to Berlin?
Yeah that’s exactly what happened, at the time the first Run Stop Restore EP was coming out so I was thinking I really needed to be in Berlin to be around what was going on. That was my short sighted idea.
It was a good idea and it paid off didn’t it? (Laughs)
It was a pivotal decision wasn’t it? (Laughs) It wouldn’t have happened for me the same way if I stayed in New York. When I moved to Berlin there was not so much going on, in New York I had tons of friends from the fashion industry etc so there was always something to do. Here I was just hanging out with a few friends so I concentrated more on music.
How would you describe your sound with regards to the music that you make?
Hmmm (laughs), I don’t know.
I would describe it as dark, weird and groovy, but that’s just me.
Those are descriptive words I would agree with for sure. I always have liked more weird and strange sounding stuff. There is a particular time that Rich was playing at a small club in New York, it was really late at night and I was standing in the middle of the dance floor thinking “Who makes this stuff?”. It was so weird, interesting and abstract. It was weird dark techno. And a moment that I that go back to as a reference. It’s hard to describe but I like to make weird,
surprising, dark and hopefully interesting music.
Besides the collaboration with Magda and Mark Houle you also have been doing the Square One thing with Heartthrob, how has that been going?
We did something in Munich a couple weeks ago, I think we are waiting to do more shows until we do another release along the same thing but not as harsh. We listened to it later and thought “is this too much for people?” We have new stuff that is a little bit more light hearted yet still strange. (Laughs) We have a very fun working relationship, like I have never laughed with someone like I laugh with him in the studio, like we just make the weirdest sequence of things that we will sit there and laugh at ourselves and we are not drunk!
You had a previous album out on Minus entitled Gone Astray, have you got plans for another one?
I’m finishing a lot of tracks for a release, I’m not sure if its album material or just and EP. I have given Rich a lot of tracks, so we will see which ones he picks.
So at the moment you are just rolling with things and you haven’t actually got a plan for an album as such, but if it happens it will be organically. You just sound super laid back and you just rolling with things as they are?
You couldn’t be more correct (laughs), I’m quite a relaxed person.
You are headlining the “One More” warehouse party on the 25th June here in East London, what have you got in store for your performance?
Hopefully some interesting music that inst too scary that people will be intrigued, inspired by and maybe will dance to it. (Laughs)
What are your views as a lot of Producers and DJ’s are slowing down BPM’s?
I’m totally happy with that, I think I have always played a bit slower. Breaching 127 BPMs is like excessive for me.
What set up do you use when you are performing?
I use Traktor and Abelton together with Maschine so it’s a little bit live and mostly DJ. Let’s just say that I have the room to improvise.
Finally, if you were marooned on a desert island and you had to take 3 famous people dead or alive with you who would they be and why would you take them?
Damn that’s hard, Johnny Depp because he seems interesting and eclectic. Al Capone, because I have been watching Boardwalk Empire and Amy Winehouse because she is amazing.
