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[align=justify]Q01. Your productions are being noticed on the global trance music scene, can you tell us more how do you produce and what inspires you?
It's pretty easy, I just make the kind of music I like myself, I get inspired by a lot of things, other music of course, movies, things I read . It can be anything, you never know when it's going to hit you...
and then I go to my 'studio' ( which nowadays isn't much more than a powerful computer with monitor speakers and a keyboard ) to try if I can make the idea work in the real world as well . Sometimes I also just sit at my keyboard and start jamming a bit, that's the way I got a lot of the melodies of tracks like Castamara , tales from the south , etc...
Q02. How do you describe the current Jonas Steur sound?! Does it differ from the Estuera sound?
For me 'Jonas Steur' and 'Estuera' is actually the same, the only difference is that both projects are signed to different labels so for legal reasons they need to have a different name. But I'm trying to change this soon because having 2 names for almost the same kind of music makes me feel a bit schizophrenic, so probably you'll see one name fade to the background in the not too distant future. To describe the sound itself: I think it's warm, summerish and most of the times pretty melodic as well. People tell me they can feel like they are in another place when listening my tracks, so the 'general theme ' in most of my tracks is escapism I guess.
Q03. Who are the DJs that you were affected by their sounds, and who are the ones and you still highly look up to?
When I started listening to trance music (that was about '97) a friend of mine always had these mix cd's of a certain Tiesto. I already used to listen to dance music for a while but this mysterious and melodic trance sound really hit me. Like it was the music I was always waiting for. I also had a Ferry Corsten mix cd some years later and I just know it inside out. So what the trance dj part concerns these 2 guys were quite important to me in the beginning. Because we didn't have internet here in the days the trance scene really boomed ( '98 - 2000). I never had very recent sets or tracks unless I went to see a dj in a club or went to the record shop. So it always was a big surprise to me to hear a lot of new tracks that way.But on the production side of things I got influenced by producers like Chicane, Solar stone, Vincent de Moor, and also Vangelis and even things as old as Emerson , Lake and Palmer ( should anyone know who they are
).
And to answer the last part : I still look up to Tiesto and Ferry a bit nowadays, I met them both already and still I could feel a bit of the 'magic' I used to feel when I listened to their sets years ago.
Q04. Is there any particular artist that you wish to collaborate with in the future?
Short answer: yes, it's Paul Moelands and I'm going to collaborate with him this very month. Besides him I think it would be cool to do something with Mark Otten , maybe I should talk about him with that one time...
Q05. You are currently working on your debut Jonas Steur album, what can you tell us more about it?
A few months back black hole recordings asked me if I would be interested to do an album for them. I doubted about it a bit but after some thought I really started liking the idea. Now I'm in the middle of producing it, it's going to be a display of the kind of sounds I stand for. You will find the melodic , warm tracks but also more groovy and techy things as well. I'm trying to keep it interesting so I don't want to make a cd full of Castamara clones of course. The album should be released somewhere early 2007 on black hole. Pretty exciting for me, as it's the first time I release more than 2 tracks at once...
Q06. Jonas Steur right now and Jonas Steur back in 2000, what changed during that time as a DJ/Producer and as a person?
I'm still the same basicly, just a regular guy with a passion for music. Since I was about 16 I wanted to have a job as producer and dj and since this year it really happened, I guess that changed me a bit. Nowadays I'm feeling very good in my skin and I guess I opened up more. I love to meet new people and go to new places regularly, and I became more ambitious as well... But like I said , it's not that I'm a really different person than before I was a known producer and dj...
As a producer and dj I grew of course, I'm still learning everyday. I'm always interested in new techniques, new synths, sounds , etc... I guess the learning process will never stop.
Q07. It says in your biography that you started discovering the world of vinyl at the age of fifteen, and being a DJ at that time was taken only as hobby. Yet nowadays, Jonas Steur is one of the top producers and the whole Dj issue turned out to be more than only a hobby. What was the reason behind you taking producing/remixing as your fulltime job?
Well, like I said in my answer to the previous question, I wanted to do this as a fulltime job since I was 16. In those days I guess nobody really believed I could really do it but I just kept going on stubbornly. I signed my first track only about 1,5 years later so that made me think it maybe was something that could be more than a dream. A lot has happened since those days and at a certain point I saw the possibility that it should be financially possible to really make it my job, certainly because also my dj career was going better and better. So I took the risk and I didn't regret it yet.
Q08. What message would you like to send through your music?!
In the first place I think my music is like an 'escape hatch' to be able not to think about your daily worries. That way everybody can give their own meaning to it as well. Most tracks don't really have a higher goal than making people feel good. Of course that doesn't mean I don't have a message, I'm a believer in the 'universal nation' (thanks to push for that title). I mean that I think that music could bring people together from all kinds of backgrounds and hopefully make them understand eachother a bit better. After all we are all the same species, it's crazy that we still hate or even kill each other about things like religion, skin color and such...
Q09. Aside from music and work, what are your hobbies and how do you spend your free time?
I like to hang out with my friends and brothers ( I have 5 brothers ). Doing things like watching movies, going to parties or just sit together and drink a bit. When I'm alone I also like to do some gaming and reading from time to time. That's about it I think
.
Q10. Envision this scenario: you are spinning at the very last gig of your DJ career, and a crowd of thousands from all around the world has gathered to bid you farewell. You deliver the set of your life, blowing the minds of all your fans, though the time has come for you to step down. But before you do, one last track needs to be played out, the track that would be engraved in history as Jonas Steur's final offering to his followers. What is that one single track you would select?
That's a very very very difficult question hahaha , certainly because I'm just at the beginning of my career, it's hard to imagine something like this. I guess I would play a track that means a lot to me as well... Maybe I would play Chicane - Offshore , that's one of my all time favorites, but maybe I would also put on Castamara , that track already has a lot of very good memories attached to it. But still...I can't really tell until it really happens ... I hope that's still very far away to be honest haha
Q11. Any final words for the Lebanese Crowd and especially for all your Trancehits.com fans?
Thanks for all the support , I hope the current 'problems' in Lebanon go away very soon and that I can come over one day to spin over there , I think that would be really cool as I heard a lot of good things about the Lebanese scene !
TranceHits.com Crew: Thank you for your time and wish you all the success for this year
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