Lucky Number Ten: Alan Braxe

On Saturday night, we were celebrating a friend's birthday. Music was loud and quite aggressive. A friend of mine and I decided to turn down the lights and switch the whole place into a home-made dance-floor.

We started with "In Love With You" by Paradise (one of Alan Braxe's hits which have been played everywhere and helped 375.000 couples to start their relationship), followed by his remix of Beyonce. We actually kept on only playing bunch of his remixes plus the hyperactive "Rubicon" for more than an hour and the magic happened. People were hypnotized. I don't think I've nothing else to say to introduce Alan, the instigator of the massive french house music fame. Forget all your body-pump or spinning lessons at your gym club. Just put on his music and let yourself sweat for an hour. This is way more healthy.

Alan is our first Lucky Number Ten protagonist and he tells us more about some different topics we wanted to hear about.

TEENAGER

It's the best period... I hope to keep this state of mind for a long time. For me, it only represents great memories, it's at this time that my ears got to listen to a lot of different musics. It was going from punk, thanks to my brother who is older than me, to hip-hop and RnB, but also new wave. Then, when I was 18 en 89/90, I discovered the techno and house music; it changed a lot of things in my mind and I got totally fascinated by this movement which was completely innovative.

CHAKA KHAN

"Fate", her song that we sampled for Stardust. We were listening to her record with Thomas and Benjamin, when we suddenly heard this small loop inside the song. We thought it would be a great base for a track... Then, we spent a week together in studio and the result was "Music Sounds Better With You".

It also makes me think about "I Feel For You", which is one of her classics, that I play on a regular basis; this song still has a formidable effect.

ROULÉ

It's Thomas Bangalter's label (Florent: half of Daft Punk). I released my first record on this label, then my second one, with Stardust. It's also on Roulé that my cousin DJ Falcon (who I'm currently making music with) released his first EP, then the two Together with Thomas. To me, Roulé is a bit like a family... It's a lot of good memories, but especially some great music, every reference from the catalogue is good. And, because there is no more release since 6 or 7 years, I think it gives even more credit to this label which got plagiarized so many times.

HOTELS

Ha, I love it... Between DJ sets, that's where we are resting and ordering the eternal burgers from the room service... As one goes along with touring, I end up going back to the same hotels and having my little habits. In general, I'm lucky because I love airports, planes and hotels. And when we are on tour, we spend so much time in those places, so I'm stoked.

DRIVING LICENSE

It reminds me of the "Rubicon" music video, a song that I wrote with Fred Falke, out in 2005; the video, made by Matthew Frost, is about a girl who's taking her driving test in Los Angeles. In a certain way, it can be linked up to the first question... The driving license is one of the elements which allow you to get some more liberty when you're a teenager. It also makes me think that I don't have my driving license anymore, since I lost all my points after speeding a lot... Now, I take the bus or the metro, and eventually, it's more relax than driving in Paris, which can drive you crazy.

FILTERS

A very important effect in instruments, for synthesizers or samplers. With samplers, it's an effect which has been very used in the 98-2003 period on all disco house hits... Some people think it's ruined because it's been used a lot, but I don't think so, it would be like saying that distortion on guitars is an obsolete thing.

FRANCE - BRAZIL 98

I'm not really a big soccer fan, so on a sport side, it doesn't evoke much to me... On the other side, the day of the final, I remember that Paris was completely invaded by over excited supporters, who partied till the end of the night... There was so much people everywhere, it was chaos.

ISLAND

It makes me dream. I really wanna go there by ferry on a stormy winter day with big waves and stay over there for a week, it might be very otherworldly.

FRENCH TOUCH

This expression exists for more than ten years... It is totally meaningful nowadays I think, because there's a continuity between the production and the sound from the old generation, and the new generation of producers.

INSULATION

It's pleasant, but there are some limits to it. The perfect mix is a good dose of insulation during the production times and a big breath of fresh air during tours where you can meet loads of people and especially the public in clubs.

Find more about Alan and his universe on:
- his label: Vulture Records
- his myspace page: Alan Braxe's Myspace