Interview with Victor Calderone

Step on any dance floor and you’ll immediately recognize Victor Calderone‘s deep, unmistakable rhythms: A velvet bridge between performing artist and the crowd. Most recognize Calderone first as a DJ, then as a producer or remix artist; however, it was his skill as a producer that brought him his fame in the DJ booth.
It was in 1991 that Calderone broke into the dance music scene with “Program Two,” a techno music partnership backed by Sire Records’ Seymour Stein. Although Program Two was not a commercial success, Calderone re-emerged in 1996 with his first solo record “Give It Up” and the follow-up recording “Beat Me Harder.” These two records would become his sound, the sound that helped to reshape dance music in the new millennium.

1998 delivered one of the most pivotal moments in his career when Madonna contacted him to remix “Frozen,” the lead single from “Ray Of Light.” Soon after came remixes for other prominent artists, including Bette Midler, Elton John and many more. Madonna actually recommended that Sting ask Calderone to remix “Desert Rose,” Sting’s first-ever dance remix. Sting was so impressed by his work that he cut custom vocal tracks for Calderone’s version (usually artists send a vocal track and leave the rest to the imagination of the remix artist).
Today, relying less on “diva” vocals and more on his unique rhythms, Calderone makes his next move as a producer and launches his first full-length album project with Astrid Suryanto, using his own label, Statrax recordings, as a springboard for his signature sound.
Suryanto’s versatile talent has given her the freedom to explore all genres of music. At just 22, with only a handful of commercially available titles, she already has hit-makers like Calderone, John Digweed and Neil McLellan (The Prodigy) gravitating toward her becoming voice and musical style.
On the heels of Statra’s introduction to Astrid in Miami at the Winter Music Conference, we had a chance to get Calderone’s take on this groundbreaking project and how he plans to communicate his influences through his new label with his team at Statra Records.

MP: So tell us a little about your label, Statrax, which you launched last year. This must give you more freedom to achieve your goals as an artist and producer.
VC: This is something else, something I really never wanted to do! It’s a sub label of Statra, which is four or five years old, which is a label of my very good friend Dave Tomeselli. We grew up together basically, and he was always into the record label/industry thing where I was always into the more studio side, DJ side of the industry. We always knew what each other were doing. We always said we were going to do something when the timing was right.
I was to deliver my third compilation with Tommy Boy at the time and I had a falling out with Tommy Boy. They were looking for me to deliver the same type of album I had delivered to them in the past: Major artist driven with names like Madonna that would basically sell it, where I wanted to go in more of the direction of something that I had a connection to more musically.
I wanted to put out an album that represented what I was doing and where I was going musically and Tommy Boy didn’t get that whole idea. I wanted to put out a more music quality album, not just put names on it and big screaming divas on it to sell it.
So at that point we disagreed and I asked to be released from the label. And later that night over a conversation with Dave I said, “Why don’t we just do it together? Let’s just put it out and I’ll finance it and you handle the whole business aspect of it.” And Dave said, “Let’s go for it, I’ve been waiting for this opportunity.”

We did that (the CD compilation “Resonate”) and then decided to just continue and start a sub label. This way I can use it for an output for my own track and any artist like Astrid that I want to sign and put out to the label.
I don’t want to go crazy and put out an album a month, I just want to put out good quality and just have it as an output. I wasn’t doing it as a financial thing I did this so I could have the control and do a project the way I want to do it.

MP: Looking back on your body of work, from Sting to Madonna, you seem to keep the integrity of the vocal there
VC: Yeah, I try to keep the integrity of the original song, that’s important to me. I don’t want a remix to take a song and butcher it and make it unrecognizable. I try to take the artist’s original emotion there but on a different level.
I’m trying to find that sound that’s going to be new and fresh. What I’ve noticed, what’s new and fresh is coming out of Madrid in Spain. I really love the music that’s been coming out of there. It has a whole tribal foundation but it’s also this baseline drive, very melodic keyboard sound that I’ve been really feeling these days. I don’t know necessarily if it’s going to be the “new thing,” but it’s been catching on pretty large in the [New York]. I can’t say, you know, that I’m going to be the one to bring the “new fresh thing.”

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MP: Well, I don’t know Your original “Beat Me Harder” is so lasting that when you brought those sounds in it was the early 90s. So when you talk about the tracks you hear coming out of Spain, you’re talking about a lot of tracks like the ones on Stereo Productions like Chus & Cebellos, Colors & Legaz, Boltz & Flydrums?
VC: Yea, those guys out there, I think, are really onto something. The sound has been really working and now I’ve been using them to do some remixing from them.

MP: When I picked up your mix of “This Beat Is” from Superchumbo I could hear those influences in that track.
VC: Yes. Definitely. Definitely I pull my influences from that stuff. “This Beat Is” mix is probably a little more aggressive that some of the stuff I’ve done in the past. I’ve been? going back to my roots and doing more, well, banging tracks whereas before I was doing more musical arranged type of stuff. When you have vocals it gets to be a little more musical because you have to start changing keys and stuff. When you have the freedom of doing an instrumental you can really take it more dark or progressive.
What I’m going to try to do is bring that sound across with Astrid. So it would be kind of that vibe musically, but then with this gothic ? I don’t want to say Dido-ish, but she had this really dark, gothic vocal sound to her and it’s what I’m going to present coming up with her and her projects. ”
For me Astrid is definitely my new sound, where I’m going.

MP: So with Astrid being your first full-length album project as a producer you must be very excited.
VC: I am. I’m excited that it’s a full-length album, but it’s a whole new direction for me. The album isn’t going to be all dance cuts. We’re going to take it into the dance territory with remixing, but the album is more of an electronic album. An experimental vibe like album. It’s got some tracks that are a little more up-tempo, not so much dance up-tempo but most of it’s like really down-tempo, really vibey electronic music.

MP: The most impressive thing I think I’ve seen you do was the Caligula party for Pride 2000 in New York. I think as a producer you went so far out on a limb to produce a performance like that.
VC: You’re right, you’re absolutely right. It was a little scary but it was something that I wanted to do for a long time. I’ve always wanted to produce an event the way I thought it should be done. I had all of these ideas that I had bouncing around in my head for a long time. One of them was working with an orchestra to re-interpret that song by Brainbug, “Nightmare.” I thought it would just be incredible for that to go down on a stage at 4 a.m., in the middle of the night. I know, when I thought about it, that if I was out on the dance floor that it would just blow me away if something like that ever happened. So I said, “You know what, I’m going to look into it. I’m going to see if I can try to get this to happen.”
So I started looking into the orchestra to see if these guys would even be willing to show up at 4 a.m. to perform in an after-hours nightclub setting in front of 4,000 boys! At first it was a little tough to find the guys to do it and then to my surprise a lot of people were down for it. Once I was down for the orchestra we were down for the event and went ahead with it.
I was really happy we did it. To me that night was, it is such a great memory now and when people ask me what my most memorable experience was, I have to tell them it was that night.

MP: I don’t think people realize what it is to score and arrange an orchestra. How much formal music training did you have for that, or did you just relate it back to your multi-tracking experience?

VC: No, no, no. I mean, I don’t have that kind of formal musical training. It was pretty much old school. I got together with the conductor and we went into the studio together. It was a whole six-month process just for putting that piece together. It was only 12 minutes long.
Basically the leader and conductor of the orchestra scored it out and sat with me in the studio and I directed him on where I wanted it to go, how I wanted it arranged and all of that. We then scored it out and presented it to all the musicians, what sections were going to be played with what ? it was a really big undertaking. It was definitely one of the biggest things I had worked on.

MP: When we talk about the skill that it took to pull an orchestra together and apply that to an album project like Astrid how do you think that the two play off of each other? Do you feel like you have applied the experiences of traditional arrangements back to this album project?
VC: I think so. I mean I really learned a lot sitting in the studio with the gentleman who was scoring it out. As far as arrangements, I’ve always had my own ideas about arrangements just from working on production and remixing.
Actually its surprising that you ask that question because I am now going to bring in some of those same people to work on Astrid’s project. I’m bringing in string sections, live strings for her next song we’re working on called “Deeper.” Originally we had in there some layered keyboard strings and I was like, “You know what, let’s just bring in that real, acoustic element into this project.” I mean it’s so electronic now. So I’m bringing in that same connection that I had for that event for Astrid’s project.

MP: So what can we expect to hear at your show at Crobar in Miami during the Winter Party?
VC: Definitely more of the vibe, tribal thing, that’s always been a signature sound of mine. I’ve got some really great, sexy tribal tracks. Also the original material that’s coming out on my label, like Astrid. Music I’m really excited about.
I’ve been collaborating with That Kid Chris. He’s fabulous and a very good friend of mine and I really respect his work. We’ve got some great new material coming out. He did some remix work on “Resonate,” and some work from DJ Vibe and another talented remixer from Madrid, D-Formation; so yeah, you can expect a lot of new material. I’ve been collecting a log to great new stuff.
I’ve been really trying to bring something fresh and new to my audience. There’s been such a lack of good vocals out there, so I’ve been just trying to find good quality tracks. [It’s] not so much that I’m not searching for the good vocal stuff, because I am, I’m constantly searching for it. But in the past we?ve had so many opportunities to remix Mariah Carry, Whitney, Deborah Cox and there are so many mainstream artists having dance remixes done and now there’s such a lack of those records in the clubs, you know?

Victor Calderone performs live at Crobar, Miami Beach at 10 p.m., March 14.