Interview With Carl Craig!!

How are you today? What are you up to?

I’m fine, just leaving the house. It’s a sunny day here in Detroit, which is fantastic because it’s been dreary the days I’ve been here. The weather here is funny. It’s dreary when I’m here and then when I leave it gets sunny, then when I get home it get’s dreary again. Weird. Typical shit you know.

Do you spend much time in Detroit or are you touring most of the time?

I tour a lot but I try to come home every week so that I’m home with the girls. So we can go to the park or something or play in the back yard.

Looking ahead to the Get Loaded festival we’re thrilled to have you perform the Innerzone Orchestra, could you give me a brief understanding of what the Innerzone Orchestra constitutes and what we can expect on the day?

Right well, Innerzone is an entity that I developed back in the 90’s. The track ‘Bug in the Bassbin’ was a slow grower, but very inspirational to a lot of people who were wanting to make music. The track is credited as being one of the tunes that helped visualise the drum and bass scene with Fabio and Grooverider. So the concept of Innerzone has always been very heady but groovy music. Just an experience that’s involved in the performances rather than being a typical performance.

In terms of the actual performance that you’ll be doing, are you recruiting a new team of musicians for this project?

Yes I will be.

So this will be a whole new project?

What will be new about Innerzone this time is we’ll be adding a small orchestra to perform. The group will consist of myself, Francisco Mora, Kelvin Sholar, and Francisco Tristano and we’re also planning on adding some percussionists and actually adding orchestra to it which for Innerzone we haven’t done this before. The concept of the Innerzone Orchestra is always what’s in your mind and now we’re bringing the orchestra outside of your mind.

How does this differ to the set up from your last tour as Innerzone?

We have a small orchestra of 3 players, very big undertaking.

Have you started work on putting the music together and the rehearsals for this year yet?

Yeah, we’re putting music together depending on the line-up and music involved. The main guys in the Innerzone, they just roll. They just go by my lead and their beats rock it. The Orchestra are going to have to rehearse like last year in Paris, as long as the conductor is good, which the conductor will be good, the rehearsals for that show, string players will be there.

I’ve seen clips of some of the old Innerzone shows on Youtube, including a trailor for the forthcoming Carhartt DVD release. What does your particular role entail on the day?

It’s like Voltron and I’m the head! My role is a director and chief rhythm-oligist and directing the other musicians. I’m the chief writer of the material and program. 

And a new smart suit with it perhaps?

You know I always gotta be fresh.

Did the Carhartt guy sort you out with some gear as well?

Erm, no they didn’t! The Carharrt thing is a funny situation, in that it was sponsored by Carharrt in Italy because Carharrt is a company from Detroit.

Going back to what you said before about the drum and bass scene and Bug in the Bassbin. Do you still keep up with the drum and bass scene, is it something you still love?

I’m not so in it and I’ve never really been in it and I’ve never tried to be in it you know, because it’s a style that you know those guys from London developed and have been very good at what they’ve done. My music is a bit less complex and with all the instant programming and everything involved. My reality is not trying to be involved in doing drum and bass or whatever. Creatively, I’ve never really wanted to make that move you know. I leave it up to the pro’s... to Roni and Goldie and those cats.

You know Roni [Size] will be performing on the day at Get Loaded in the Park on the main stage with you, which will be good.

That’s fantastic, the guy’s got a great vibe and live set up. He’s really very good.

Will you be planning to release any new material with Innerzone based on what your plans are for this summer?

Yeah we’re working on some new recordings that we will do in 2010.

Will that be through your label Planet E?

Yes, most likely through and one of partner labels too.

Alongside Innerzone you have various other acts that you’re know by - 69, Psyche, BFC, Paperclip People and so on. What’s your favourite one to do or do you just rotate them, how does that all work?

Well it depends on inspiration you know. If I feel inspired to be Paperclip People then you know then I’ll do a Paperclip People, there’s not one that’s necessarily my favourite, I love them all. Paperclip People might be a little crazier as I walk out in a lab coat and start screaming and shit you know. Tres Demented might be a little more voodoo or invaded and I’m screaming and shit on that or of course the Carl Craig stuff which is more on my own and more computers based or more programmed based stuff. And of course the Innerzone Orchestra stuff we have a ball doing that because I go out with the guys and we all play great music and have fun and try to bring people into our world which is great.

It’s definitely better to do more as it keeps things more varied for you all the time?

Yeah, I consider myself an artist so I like to challenge myself artistically and by having a variation it definitely gives me artistic challenges.

How did the gig in gig in London recently? You played for six hours didn’t you?

I did yeah, it was great. It was wonderful for me because for the first couple of hours I played very light jazz and ambient and things that I’ve worked on and re-composed. I have fun doing that kind of thing because I can go wherever I want to go musically and it doesn’t matter if there’s nobody in the room or 100 people in the room or a 1000 people in the room, I don’t feel that pressure that I have to play 6 hours of banging you know, bumping club music I can play music that inspires me and I hope it will inspire others.

You don’t normally play 6 hours though do you?

Yeah, it’s not very often that I do that. To do it you have to be in a good space as well, the club has to be good, travelling as much as I do it makes it difficult to do 6 hours. I couldn’t do it every night because the minute I’d be done I’d have to catch a flight and sometimes it’s 2 or 3 flights or I might only have a little bit of time to eat and then go to the club and play again. You may not have time to rest.

It’s a hard life isn’t it?!!

It can be, it really can be. It’s not easy I’ll tell you that.

Going back to Detroit, obviously it’s one of the most famous musical cities in the world and the techno scene is obviously very famous from evolving from there. What was it like for you growing up there?

It was an interesting place because Detroit has such a bad reputation locally for violence and that sort of stuff that this is something we had to live with. We had great radio, we had great music that was happening all the time but you know these were times when young boys were the biggest heroin sellers in the US probably, not only the Detroit area. There were local gangs that increased the drive by’s and all kinds of stuff like that. You know a mixture of elation and terror [laughs]! But I think that in relation to that it helped to mould me into the person I am today as well as the artist and the businessman I am today too.

So it’s part of what inspired you essentially?

It is yeah, definitely. I think that even the very small things in life can have an effect on some people and it’s what your sight picks up. If it picks up something that’s positive all the time but within a lot of negative you’ve got to bring it all in and balance it all out to whatever your personality will allow you to.

Back in 2000 you were the artist director for the Detroit Music festival. Obviously with our own Get Loaded festival around the corner we’re interested to take your view on what you look for in an artist and the problems of putting a festival together?

Yeah I learned a lot from that about putting together a line up that suits my taste and where it could be appealing to other people as well and it’s really important to understand what the listeners are interested in or maybe then what will fill the void. Here in the Detroit it filled the void that we’d not had for a long time where radio started getting very corporate and the only free events that you could go to were kinda whack, you know. Bullshit gigs that would happen at Shane park or whatever. We really needed it, we needed something for the people who were inspired by radio when radio what really fantastic here as well as the kids who never knew radio being as wonderful and amazing first.

Have you recently been asked to do that again or have you been asked to do a similar thing?

Well, the Detroit Electronic Music festival does not exist anymore, hasn’t existed since 2002. The festival is called Movement now and I was asked to become the creative director for 2010 which would be the 10th year of the Electronic Music festival happening.

Would you put on your own Innerzone Orchestra at the festival?

Erm, I have a strict policy that when I’m being a creative director I don’t hire myself. The reason why, there are so many politics involved in Detroit concerning musicians that you have to justify why you can’t hire everyone in Detroit to be at the festival. Everyone wants to play and if we only have 30 slots and we have 100 different acts that want to play then there’s gonna be a lot of hoop-rah if one of 30 acts is me.

True... you could though put Carl Craig on one stage, Innerzone on another, a Paperclip DJ set somewhere else maybe?!!

I could do four stages, every day for the whole weekend with different performances!! I mean there are at least 12 projects that I’ve been involved with over my career so I think that would definitely be possible for me to have 12 different projects happening during the time span of the festival for next year! But I don’t want to do that, I won’t do that. I want to do the best of what I feel is to introduce to Detroit. That I can get new guys that I think are doing really great things and can really represent the festival as something that is quite amazing and that can be another step for the festivals progression.

Have you been able to check the Get Loaded line up to see who else is playing?

I know that Orbital and Reprazent are playing. Laurent [Garnier] and Peaches will be crazy too!

You’ve played all over the world. Have you come across anywhere new recently that’s incredible to play at?

Dublin. I like Dublin a lot, it’s great. The audience gets very excited. I had a lot of fun. It was the last place that I felt the people were really excited about the music. They wanted to hear new things and were lusting for some different shit.

With all the projects going on how do you relax? What do you do in your spare time?

I do interviews!

When you’re not doing interviews?

I like to stay at home with the family; it’s the best way to relax.