How long have you been living in Spain, and how has your career changed since you moved from the U.S. to Europe?

I’ve lived here for a year now. Well, got here in August of last year, so just about a year. It’s a lot easier to get around. Since I gig more in Europe than the U.S. I needed to be closer so I could fly to the gigs faster and get right back home. From the U.S. to come to Europe I would have to always do tours and stay for a few weeks. And in that time I couldn’t really work on music, I didn’t have a studio or anything, you know what I mean? It was just on the road stuff. So while I’m here in Europe I can just get to the gig and get right back. That’s definitely the biggest difference.

Is there is a “dance music capital” of Spain?

I would say it’s between Madrid and Barcelona. Those are really the places for dance music. Seville and Granada, and maybe the Canary Islands are the up-and-coming places. They’re starting to get hot. But right now, the dance Mecca for Spain would either be Barcelona or Madrid.

Since then you started making music back in 1997, what has changed besides just the technology? What in the way of people’s tastes, what’s hot now compared to what was hot in ’97?

I was actually just thinking about this lately. I started DJing in ’93 and I started making music in ’97, and I think the biggest difference from what I remember is people were a little more open-minded. The further back you go the more open-minded they were. It wasn’t such segregation of genres. You could play a trance track, then a trance/techno track with some house and some breaks or pre-jungle breakbeat stuff mixed in, and everybody would just get down. The early ‘90s especially, and maybe through the mid-90s, people were more open to new sounds, innovative stuff. And then as time has gone on, especially from 2000 until now, just this last decade it’s been what’s more “hyped up,” what’s fashionable. It’s a little less about music, just a tiny bit more about socializing, being popular, political and diplomatic concerns, who uses the best loops that everybody is already using, all the same crap, you know? That’s probably due to the software revolution. People started making music with software, then it became more and more software and less and less gear. Obviously that’s made it easier for people to make music, so you have a lot of over-saturated bad music out there. It’s totally over-saturated. It’s the same comparison as nu-rock and classic rock I guess. (laughs)

Before the digital revolution came and changed everything about making music, what was your favorite piece of gear? Do you currently use the same stuff, or have you gone digital?

For years I was a major Nord Lead fan, just really good at it. Probably as far as other favorites go, I would say a VF-Vocoder that I used for a long time just on beats and voices. Between those two pieces and maybe one or two more, I was set. I made tons of music with them. As for currently, I would say that I wasn’t too excited about most of the software that was coming out until Ableton. Once Ableton came out it was time to start going digital. I’m half-and-half now, maybe more like 75% software over gear.

Earlier you mentioned the way that the music business is becoming increasingly closed-minded, especially within the last decade. Is that why you’ve adapted so many pseudonyms, so that you can easily move between styles without fear of being pigeonholed?

I would say yes and no. I just like to make so many different kinds of music, I thought that maybe so I don’t confuse people who follow the Maetrik sound by putting out a really deep house Maetrik track, or a really Detroit-electro type of track, I would start using different names. So I’m at a point where, you’re right, it’s kind of easier now with this new Maceo Plex thing and Mariel Ito, which had a big year in 2006 doing electro stuff, between those three names it’s no problem. You’re right. It’s about keeping people clear on what the Maetrik sound is and what the other names are about.

Is it fun to feel sort a sense of incognito with new fans?

Yeah, it is fun. Although labels these days aren’t too into the whole secretive idea. I’ve tried that and they like to let everybody know that you’re really Maetrik, or you’re really the person that you’re best known as. People worry about sales, so they do that to keep sales up. It’s a little hard to be both secretive and make sales.

How did you get hooked up with Mothership Records?

I met this guy named Brian that worked at Dirtybird. It was during a gig in San Francisco, where it was me, Lee Curtis, a few others and this guy Brian. I think that was his name. Anyway, he worked there, heard my set, told me about Dirtybird and told me to give him a demo. A couple months later I sent him a demo and he showed it to Claude (VonStroke–ed), and it took maybe twenty minutes before he called and told me he wanted the tracks. Then when I was out there for another San Francisco gig a few months later, I went out with them and realized they are just really really cool people to hang out with and work with. They’re all just really lighthearted and they have a sense of humor, and that is kind of important. So that was it. From there we just ran with it.

Who are some of your current favorite producers and DJs?

I would say Jin Choi, I’m really digging right now. Oh man there’s so many out there, I can’t think of them all. House-wise, I like Nicholas Jaar and Soul Clap. I’m really into all kinds of styles, I’m into some techno people, I like to play house stuff. Really just everything.

How about back when you first started DJing in ’93? What were you into then?

I started DJing in ’93, I started buying records in ’92, so I would say it was mostly just early early breakbeat, before jungle was around. Well, before it was called jungle, it was around 140BPM, 150BPM, it was all the sampled hip-hop breakbeats that were out there. Then just rave stuff. After that, pretty fast within a year or two I discovered Detroit Techno and electro. I was hooked from then on. I was really young y’know, like seventeen, so when I started I was pretty immature about my taste. I liked some pretty bad music back then (laughs).

Maetrik, Maceo Plex, and Mariel Ito all rolled into one

Can you remember the first record you ever bought?

That’s a good one…I think the first record I ever bought was a Dubtribe record, from before Mother Earth, their big hit. Oh no wait! I know the one. It was one by this artist named Eric Davenport, but he went under the name Metro. I forget what the track was called, but it was on Bassex Records. That was ’93, or sometime in late ’92.

What are your plans for the rest of the year?

This year is pretty busy. I’ve just finished an album for Crosstown Rebels under Maceo Plex, so, just going over that, figuring when that’s coming out, figuring out the singles. There’s a remix from Nic Jaar on that, as well as some other people. So that’ll be out later this year, along with that there’s going to be a tour, probably around the end of the year, October onward. Going to try to fit in a U.S.A. tour in December. Plenty of Europe gigs, my new “Audiomatique” just came out. I’ve got a project just started with Troy Pierce. Basically just sending files back and forth and working on music together. Other than that, just plenty of new music coming out on different labels and remixes and stuff, as both Maceo Plex and Maetrik. Then I’ll probably get going again on some electro at the end of the year, maybe beginning of next year for some like deep, just deep Detroit-Electo stuff again.

Do you usually try and write music or record when you’re on tour?

Yeah a lot. I don’t really finish anything while I’m on the road, but I start lots of music, and then when I get back all I’ve got to do is wrap it up. I do a lot on the road.

Now that you’ve been working in the dance music scene for almost twenty years, where do you see it going twenty years from now? If you were starting today, what would your outlook be?

I’d say it’s just as techno as it was when it started going anywhere. Along with techno, I think there’s always going to be some sort of 4/4 beat house music or electronic music with 4/4. As far as the fusion of genres, it’s just going to keep doing that, keep refusing in different ways with new sounds coming up each time. Like when dubstep came up a few years back and it was huge, and it still is. That was a fusion of things. As artists, we’re all going to keep fusing together different influences. It’s kind of difficult to see the future since everything seems to have been done already, but I’m always searching for it, I’m always searching. Right now I’m trying to make music that you can’t really call anything, you can just call it my music. You can’t really call it techno or electro or whatever, it’s just me. I think in 20 years the pattern will change and people will hopefully be more accepting of all the electronic music genres, and not so separated. We can finally start moving away from the politics.