For trance music fans, the past 12 months has been known as the ‘Year of the Shah’. Having spent the past decade quietly building his skills and industry identity, while in recent years focusing his energy into lobbing tune after quality tune into the boxes of top jocks like Armin van Buuren, Tiësto and Above & Beyond, the man we know as Roger Shah has seen his popularity explode.

It’s a development that can be put down to both the strength of his collaborations, with names like Armin van Buuren on Going Wrong, as well as the quality of his own original productions, both as DJ Shah as well as under his Sunlounger alias. Look not further than last year’s Balearic masterpiece Lost, a tune that went onto win the coveted ‘track of the year’ gong on Armin’s A State of Trance radio show. For many artists such success would bring with it an inflated sense of their own importance, but in 2009, Roger Shah is every bit as down to earth as he was before his grand adventure started. He recently took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to sit down with ITM and tell us how it ha all unfolded.

The first topic is of course your sound. In a genre too often accused of sounding entirely same-same, you’ve managed to carve out a unique niche for yourself with your own identifiable sound. How did this come about?

As you might know, I’ve been around the dance music scene a very long time, and have worked for a lot of major companies just as a producer in the background, developing myself and my sound and production skills. I’ve always played trance music, but as a lot trance is very similar, I tried to give the whole trance sound a warmer and more emotional touch – I tried to create something that is nice to play in a club, but that you can also listen to at home.

Some elements of your music seem to pay homage to the likes of Solarstone, Salt Tank, Chicane, and similar ‘first-generation Balaeric’ artists. Were any of these inspirations or influences on you?

There are no influences when I sit down in the studio nowadays – I just follow my feeling. But when I first began producing more of a softer sound, both Chicane and Solarstone were two of my main influences. I have two Chicane albums at home, and they’re still nice to listen to. This was something which I wanted to create, too – albums you can listen to again and again. I created both of my Sunlounger albums, and also my Songbook album under my DJ Shah solo name with this in mind. Now, I’ve changed my name into Roger Shah, and you can expect a lot of different stuff from me this year.

One doesn’t normally associate Germany with sun-soaked white sand beaches. Where were you first introduced to sun, sea, and surf, and what sort of influence is the ocean on you, generally?

No, Germany is not really famous for white sand beaches, especially in the southern part of Germany where I live, there is no beach or sea. My main influences come from Ibiza, where I’ve been every year since 1996. It’s something of a petrol station for my creativity. That’s also why my label and mix album is called Magic Island – as a tribute to this beautiful and magic island.

In many parts of the world, Germany is seen as the home of minimal techno and big, banging electro, more so than the sort of progressive trance tunes you have been making. Are you well received in your native country?

No, I’m not well received here in Germany and the most clubbers here don’t know me or my music – but that’s ok for me, because I love to play in foreign countries, and I’ve realized that everywhere I go, people are much more open minded and friendly than they are in Germany. I don’t know why people enjoy more of the ‘blink-blonk’ side of music instead of nice melodies and real songs, but this is Germany and I’m not proud of it. On the other side, it’s also a cool thing to be unknown in your own country. You can do whatever you want. I’ve also realized that most German people don’t know that I too am German! When I played at the ASOT 400 party with Armin van Buuren here in Germany, a lot of German people came up to me after my performance and asked me in English for am autograph, saying that they were really happy that I had visited Germany. How funny is that?

2008 was a very successful year for you. What did you find your biggest successes and challenges to have been?

Yes, 2008 has been my biggest year so far! I can say that my international breakthrough has resulted in a DJ Magazine ‘Top 100’ entry, with a nice #58 position. It was great to do the huge collaboration that I did with Armin van Buuren, too – and to have this big hit record together and then to make an even bigger one some months later under my Sunlounger alias with the song Lost, which was then voted as the number one tune of 2008 on Armin’s A State of Trance radio show. A big challenge for me was to play the live piano in front of 18,000 people at the ‘Armin Only’ show. All other things are not challenges for me – I just enjoy creating new music and playing it live for my fans.

Roger Shah Australian tour dates, check out his mix in ITM-FM:

Friday 15th May – Sublime, Sydney
Saturday 16th May – Subconcious, St Pauls, Adelaide
Friday 22nd May – White Sands, Room 680, Melbourne
Saturday 23 May – Rise Nightclub, Perth