You don’t get much bigger and better than interviewing an influential figure such as Derrick May, probably the most interviewed of the three godfathers of techno music, next to Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson.

Having grown up together in the industrial wasteland and musical heartland of Detroit, the city became their musical playground and the back drop for the creation of what we know as techno music. The three met in school and fostered a dream to create, despite all odds, eventually techno music was born and the rest is history.

There seemed something eerily strange about interviewing May on Good Friday recovering from the public holiday eve party the night before – if it wasn’t scary enough interviewing such an impressive producer and DJ such as Derrick May? For the next 45minutes he proves to be straight-up, briskly spoken, passionate, driven and one of the most inspirational, yet mysterious and probably controversial characters in dance music I’ve ever spoken to.

For the last few years, May has been wrapped up in the organisation of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, Movement, and his music and label Transmat has taken a back seat. This year, there was some speculation about whether the festival was going to happen at all this year. In fact, it was largely due to May, one of the driving forces, deciding to pull out. “I had put quite a lot of energy into the festival,” explains May through his thick charismatic Detroit accent.

“I found myself overwhelmed. I’d been carrying the responsibility of organising a festival for over one million people. I’ve gone as far as I can go. I spent a lot of my own personal money on this. Financially, it can’t go on at this level. I handed it over to Kevin Saunderson. This year there’s going to be a smaller version of the festival to keep the energy, to keep the fire burning – Promoters of parties – if they only knew what you go through putting on a festival of this size.”

Having converted Transmat into Transmat Events to some degree to organize the festival, May’s focus has turned back to touring and getting his label back on track, “back to where it was 16 years ago,” he says.  ”I didn’t do Transmat Records because we couldn’t. The festival takes one year to prepare for.”

Last year they managed to release four artist albums including one act from Australia called Microworld, but, “we were not capable of doing the kind of marketing and support structure we usually put behind the music,” explains May. “I ended up almost losing my record company because of all of this. I have a few more artists I’m committed to putting out and I’m going to put my energy into that. I almost had to close down the company, but I haven’t, let’s just say restructuring is a massive thing. I’m working at develop some new relationships with distribution and put Transmat back where it should be.”

May’s deeply determined spirit, which saw him compete in athletics and gain a place at university, has helped him carry on through the difficult times he admits. “It has helped me when it was crunch time. Any kind of sport or dedication which puts you on another level of testing yourself is always gonna cause you to have some next level backbone at some point that can be useful.”

Perhaps that’s why May along with his counterparts Saunderson and Atkins were able to build techno from a form of electronic music pioneered by artists like Brian Eno and Kraftwerk in the ‘70s? Now, after nearly two decades, techno music and the Detroit techno scene has become its own legend and is revered and held in the hearts of people all around the world.

“Back from the beginning – 1982, we just had the pipe dreams to start imagining another world of music,” start Derrick. “To put these thoughts in your head when there was no DJ, no club, nobody that could understand what this thing was in our heads; then to do it, but not to just do it and it be a success, but to do it and it be rejected and to do it and be laughed at and ridiculed, and to stick by your guns and fight the fight. There was no one that believed this could happen, not my parents, not our friends, not any of my friends’ friends, very few people thought we had any idea what the hell we were doing, nor was it any good to most people. It took years and a lot of sacrifice and I think the legacy is well deserved. I think the whole mythology is a reality. Detroit is a city for the music. It is an amazing place, because it is the least place you would expect a creative movement to come from….This industrial shit-hole of a town… and here comes this amazing thing. It is for most people, what causes them to wonder and keep wondering how the hell it could have ever happened.”

There are obvious connotations as to why they came to call this music “techno”, but having read numerous articles about the evolution of the music, none have ever explained exactly where the name came from. “I didn’t want to call it techno,” says May, enthusiastic to chat about the topic. “Juan called it that. We fought over that for years. I didn’t like the term because I thought it represented what some guys in Florida doing Miami bass were doing. I basically didn’t like that sound and didn’t want any association. Juan said ‘we’re gonna call this techno music man’, and I was like ‘Juan this is not techno man, techno is some ugly ghetto shit’; he said no, ‘this is techno for technology’. ‘This is not that kind of bullshit’, I said, ‘I don’t care, we’ll never call it techno, let’s call it high tech soul’... This is in the very beginning; we did an interview with Face Magazine. They spent like four days with us, it was a big front page story – it was gonna be the introduction of the music to the whole world. The guy (journo) and people from Virgin records were here, everyone was really concerned with one aspect of this interview, what the hell is this music called – and I kept saying ‘it’s high tech soul man, it’s high tech soul’, and finally Juan, he had his moment, and it was like a big dinner, the journalist was there and ready to leave the next day, they’d gotten their interview, they’d gotten their pictures, they’d gotten their music, they felt a connection with the city, the music, then the guy said to us, ‘we really need to know what this music is, what do you call this music’, and Juan says, ‘we call it techno’, just like that, and those people said, ‘that’s it, it’s techno’, and I was like ‘oh no’... He came up with the name. It’s a derivative of technology. That is the unfortunate mythology and legacy that we have to live with,” chuckles May sarcastically at last. “Juan Atkins titled the music techno; unfortunately he didn’t patent the name techno.”

So for ease of marketing purposes, the name techno stuck, until now, and a compilation called Techno: The Sound Of Detroit which was released on Virgin around the same time, only reinforced it suggests May. Nowadays the word techno means many different things to people all around the world, some favourable, but most far removed from the humble beginning of these three guys from Detroit, and that’s why affirms May, “the music we make is not techno, it’s high tech soul, and Juan even knows that now.”

“It’s a hybrid form of electronic music. We have never done techno. Techno is exactly what it is, it’s a generic art form of electronic music, it is nothing that no one can’t do on their little, basic home computer or Casio keyboard. We are high tech soul musicians. We are making this hybrid form of electronic music – high performance dance music. Nobody could get their heads around high tech soul. Everybody thought it was too sophisticated, intellectual. I think we kind of let ourselves down a bit. We needed to give the music a hybrid form, we shouldn’t have generalised the term.”

May’s passion for the music and drive to have the music recognised as a Detroit art form has meant he has often come under fire and heavy criticism. “When you say the word techno, unless you say Detroit techno, no one knows what the fuck you talking about. They just throw it all in the one ugly-assed basket of ignoramuses. There are those that say, I wanted to possess this and hold on to it, damn right I did, cause I knew, once people got a wiff, it’s be like cocaine, they’d be hooked, and I knew there was no way we could control this animal once we let it loose.”

“I don’t regret what we have, we don’t have, or the opportunities we have or don’t have, I think most of us are doing pretty well, most have wonderful careers and will continue to, but a lot of guys from Detroit will not have great careers because they have given there all and their best to those who simply wanted to learn this shit, the qualification of making techno music. You need more qualifications to work at McDonalds. Any idiot can make a techno record!”   

Many diehard fans of Detroit techno will surely applaud May’s announcement of this new definition over the broad term which has seen the soulful string laden electronic music of Detroit lumped with soulless commercial rave anthems. “It’s sad that Detroit techno hasn’t been defined better around the world,” explains May.

“Where ever I am around the world, when people ask me what I play I say, ‘well I’m a musician and I’m a DJ’, and first thing is I get some idiot that doesn’t know what a DJ does these days, and secondly I get the response of, ‘well what kind of music do you play’, and I’m always very careful to say, ‘well I play dance music’, ‘well what kind of dance music’, well we now we live in a world of four thousand different types of dance music, so I have define or spell out exactly what I play, but then it comes out, I say, ‘electronic music’, ‘what kind of electronic music’, they say, ‘well I play hybrid form of techno’, ‘oh techno’, you know the response…. That’s the only thing that burns me, here we have invented this thing, we don’t even take credit for inventing it, cause this thing has spiraled out of control… and that’s the only thing that bothers me, the guys can’t really benefit from all their hard work, commitment, dedication, educating of other mother fuckers around the world… to become not just famous but very rich…”

Fortunately amongst the educated fans of underground and alternative dance and electronic music most recognise Detroit as its own unique style and sound, and Derrick agrees. “The festival is an obvious response and appreciation of how people feel about the music. The festival happens because people love us and the music. People appreciate what we’ve offered the world and I think that’s beautiful. We give back by doing the festival, but it’s a pity that we can’t do the festival the way we want to do it.”

It will be interesting to see if a feature film about the rise of techno – or high tech soul as May rechristened it, will ever happen, similar to what 24 hour Party People did with the rise of Acid House and Madchester in the UK in the ‘80s. “There’s actually been a documentary made by a local boy here in Detroit,” says May. “His name is Gary and the name of his film is High Tech Soul, I was an influence on the name of the film,” he chuckles. “It’s not a full blown documentary. Last week he actually got a viewing at one of the first film festivals here and the response was amazing. There’s been lots of documentaries done, but none by locals so this one is interesting cause it gives a different perspective on our careers and how we got to be. Hopefully this particular documentary will stir the imagination of some those that can make movies that might be interested. Hopefully we can get it viewed at your festival season, be it this year or next year.”

Techno has remained relatively underground keeping the credibility, whilst becoming a commercial entity selling records all around the world. “The reason it has stayed underground is the same reason that some guys have not become successful from it and others have,” suggests May.

“That could be attributed to the fact that there are those that have taken credibility for things they haven’t done. There are those who have caused the music to be seen in one light when there is really another light and I think that this has constantly created quite a lot of enquiry and confusion. People have never really known what it is, so there are those are constantly discovering this thing. It hasn’t really ever been full blow exposed and as long as that is the case, there is always somebody that wants to know what this music is and where the hell it comes from… I think that’s the reason why it continues to be underground. If it had a full blown explosion, if we’d had become pop stars, it would have fizzled out years ago.”

So with all these answers, another set of questions have arisen, but looks like we’ll have to wait until Derrick May tours again to find out, or you can ask him yourself at one of the shows this month.

Derrick May tours the east coast in April:

Sat April 23, 360, Sydney (BUY TICKETS)
Sun April 24, Honkytonks, Melbourne
Sat, April 30, Family, Brisbane

Check out http://www.transmat.com for the latest news from the Detroit underground.