What more can be said about Infected Mushroom? They have made their way into the music collection of any respectable psychedelic trance lover. If you haven’t heard, Infected Mushroom is Erez and Duvdev, and their music is transcendental.

Mesmerizing melodies, sickening beats and all the technical know-how to make your mind spin and make your soul fly. Their music history is extensive almost as extensive as the number of tracks that can be credited to them. They have collaborated with countless artists and are responsible for: The Gathering (YOYO/BNE), Classical Mushroom (YOYO/BNE) and BP.Empire(YOYO/BNE). Through the years their music has f**ked with the norm and delivered fresh sounds to those of us who have been infected. They are about to release their 4th album – ‘Converting Vegetarians’

Your music contains a lot of influences outside of trance, which makes your style stand out from all of the rest. What is the biggest musical inspiration to you (trance or not)?

Our biggest inspiration is “Dream Theater”, a heavy metal group… Very complicated beats, chords and melodies. Both of us moved to trance music because we liked it at the time and we just wanted to do some full on tracks. At the time there were some great acts like Simon Posford (Hallucinogen), Etnica, Transwave, Indoor, X-Dream and much more. We just wanted to do something like they did.

In the trance scene, who was your favorite person/s to work with?

Dado, Simon Posford and Avi (SpaceCat)

Why?

It was in our beginning. We learned a lot from them.

How did their style and methods of production help or inspire you?

We learned different ways of working, starting a track. How to do complicated stuff…

There are a lot of new and talented artists in the scene today. Where do you feel the trance scene is headed?

We believe that the trance will grow more and more, today its very easy to start making music, you don’t need a $1,000,000 studio. Even not more then a $3,000 studio and you are set. You see a lot of talented people starting to produce music.

Is there anyone who you haven’t collaborated with that you would like to work with?

We would like to do something with Sting, Depeche Mode, Prodigy.

Which artists, in your opinion, have had the biggest impact in the scene?

Simon Posford & X-Dream.

It seems as though your creativity and ingenuity is never ending and I can’t wait to hear what Infected has in store for us… What can we expect to hear on your upcoming album?

Well, we have a double album (“Converting Vegetarians”). One will be trance (a bit different. Some with singing, but not fluffy commercial) and the other CD will be free style ambient. We are investing a lot of time in the studio full on working on new sounds and new tricks. It will be interesting for people that like us to find new details each time they hear the track again.

When will it be released?

April 2003, we are launching the album in Melbourne and Sydney.

It seems as though everywhere I look I see Infected Mushroom (you were even mentioned in Rolling Stone magazine). Regardless of musical preference everyone seems to have heard of Infected Mushroom. With being this well known there must be some criticism. What would you say to those critics who don’t always understand the direction you’re going in or don’t readily accept stylistic changes in your music? And what would you like to say to your faithful fans?

We are not trying to “Ride” on a success that we had because of a specific style, for example the “Classical Mushroom” album. The main goal is to progress and change all the time. In the other hand we got our personal taste about things we like more or less. We try to find new things that we like each time. If we make a change only you can tell.

When a track is completed, who do you first share it with? Is there anyone whose opinion or advice you seek?

We play it to our friends but are not listening to anyone.

Erez, I’ve noticed during the couple of live acts I’ve seen that you are very calm and extremely focused. What goes through your head while you’re up there? And what influence does the audience have on you while you’re playing?

I’m thinking what to play on the keyboard, what effect will be good in a specific point, checking the crowd how they react to new tracks that they don’t know. If the audience is full on dancing and shouting. The adrenaline is coming up (also the ego.) and the sound that I’m searching for (what to play now??) comes faster to my head.

Duvdev, what’s this I read about your singing debut? Has this been something you’ve always been developing or is it a fairly new pursuit?

The singing is just a new sound to get inside the psytrance, and doing something new for a change. I try to do it as psychedelic as I can.

Your website and the art on your website is very original and well put together. Who is the artist and how did you come to work with him?

We got a web site: http://www.infected.co.il which is handled by a French guy called Max ( He is really cool guy, that we met through the internet) and he is using some stuff from “Tzahi Keshet” (the guy that made Classical Mushroom cover).

Trance is exploding in all directions, there are many great artists and tracks being released constantly. What is catching your attention these days?

We like a lot of new artists like Astrix, Cosma (R.I.P), Delirious, Violet Vision. We like much more artists but they are not that new.

What is the message or meaning behind ‘Converting Vegetarians’?

There are a few ways you can look at it, one of them is to convert people that are not into electronic music to people that are addicted to it !!!

Infected Mushroom tour dates:

Thu April 17, Bliss 4 @ QBH, Melbourne
Sun April 20, Gas Nightclub, Sydney (BUY TICKETS)

Interview by trancerr with additional questions by raptor – 2002 Psytrance.us