Growing up in an isolated place will do wonders for your creativity, just ask Germany’s funk master Malente. Here he waxes lyrical about how he came to know and love music.
Hey, where are you at the moment?
I’m in bed!
Are you really what’s the time?
Um it’s 11.30 but I was out yesterday and last night and the first call today was at 9am.
Ohh so I’ve caught you at the tail end of a morning full of interviews
Yeah yeah so I thought ahh I will just stay in bed.
Sounds good to me, so tell me a bit about how did you get involved in DJing?
It was from when I was very young I listened to the radio a lot of the time and there was some DJs doing shows and I would record them with a tape recorder, record the best tunes and then I would cut them together and then after a while on those shows they started playing mega mixes and stuff like that and then I tried to do my own mixes by pressing the pause button and stuff like that on the tape deck and I mixed them like that and I became obsessed with music and at my friends parties I was the one who had to bring the cassettes and later on I was the one who had to bring the records and that was really how I started DJing.
Your music has a really happy upbeat feel to it, definitely party music, who do you draw inspiration from musically?
Oh there is a big variety of music that I like to listen to and I think that is reflected in my music its from rock to ska and also like cross over music like a mix between hip hop and metal and also of course black music. I was really influenced by house and acid house when that first came out so yeah it’s like everything im really into music s a thing, I just love good music.
How did you find your recent Australian visit?
Yeah it was cool I liked it very much it was a great audience there the people all knew a lot about music and they loved good music and happy music and everyone was really enthusiastic about music so that was cool I loved it.
When did you move into the production side of things?
Well it was always hand in hand you know from the mega mixes not so long ago to producing my own songs so what I did was make a tapped collage of instruments that already existed, cut them together in any way and sing over it and that was back when I was young about 15 or sixteen and with a friend of mine we had a duo and then sang German lyrics over the top and then also did some English lyrics over those collages and had our own percussion, .
“No Risk No Funk” and “The Spirit of Malente” have been meshed together and re released here as “We Came to Party” – what was the reasoning behind that?
Well creative vibes approached me and said you know the first two records didn’t get a proper release over here in Australia we would like to do a compilaion so that people who don’t know that first two albums get into Malente and we think many people never heard of you and that’s a shame so they said lets put this out and I said yeah lets go for it.
And how well do you feel this albums has been received?
It’s been great I think, its doing really well, it was album of the week on Triple J
Yeah that’s huge exposure over here that is really exciting stuff
Yeah and I mean I’ve done some interview this morning and for Australia and did more the other day so it’s cool.
What’s in store for you 2005?
There’s a new album coming out in March, called rip it up I don’t know when it will be released in Australia maybe the same time maybe a nit later but for that I tour in the us and Canana and in April I tour in Germany as I do all the time I mean I play every week in Germany but also some other European dates.
Any plans to come back to Australia?
Yeah definitely I loved it there it was great I would like to come back in December, it would be cool to be there over Christmas and the festivals because this time I left just before Christmas and it was a bit of a stupid thing to do but I had to for my family
Yeah I think your sound would really suit the big open air summer festivals over here
Yeah yeah I read the line ups and it is really great what you guys have over there its cool I would like to be there so I’m working on that I think that should work out and I will be there in December and there for New Years Eve.
Do you have a gig highlight from 2004?
Hard to say but there was one festival in Germany which was really good, it’s called The Fusion Festival and that is also the programme of it, there is a big variety of music going on there and people are very open minded and its not really about big names it more about really exciting and interesting music form all over the world but all electronic and it was a very very gig there, open air Saturday night, sunset, people screaming and 4 or 5 thousand people dancing yeah it was cool
How would you describe your sound?
The sound of we came to party is a to me like a new definition of funk, it’s break beat with a positive vibe and its very funky and is influenced by 70’s funk I guess it’s like electro funk or new funk, that’s what I call it anyway.
What is the spirit of Malente to you?
To me it’s the unique way I got to know about music, because I was born in Malente and Malente is very far away from big cities and if you don’t have a car you cant get anywhere so you just listen to the radio and you have very limited access to music and that was the Malente access and so that’s the spirit of Malente for me the special way I came to love music by growing up there.
Well thankyou for speaking with me I know it must have been a long morning for you
Yeah that’s ok that’s what I’m here for an its cool that you call me and want to speak to me! So thankyou.
Malente’s album ‘We Came To Party’ is out now through Unique/Creative Vibes.
