Steve Bug…

Interviewer / Editor: Alex Rose

PREAMBLE: Germany‘s very own taste-maker, trend-setter, mover-shaker-extraordinaire Steve Bug is a multi-faceted artist and label owner revered the world over as a dedicated, energetic and constantly evolving talent, Steve has remained key figure and ambassador of the ever developing world of deep, tech house and techno. Now with his cornerstone imprint Poker Flat Recordings celebrating more than 20 years, we chatted to Steve about his history and ever evolving career…

BTG: Steve Bug, welcome along. We are here to get behind the groove of you and spend a little bit of time really exploring the background of your ever-developing music career and the scene-forming contributions to the world of electronic music that you've given. Before we kick off, could you just give us a brief introduction to yourself perhaps?

Steve Bug: Thanks for having me Alex. I'm Steve Bug, as you said. I'm living in Berlin since ... or maybe even more than 20 years now. Been running Poker Flat Recordings and a few other labels during this period and been a touring DJ for almost 30 years by now.

BTG: Before we get through to the part where we really start to talk about where underground electronic music becomes such an important part of your life, perhaps you could step back just a little bit for us in time. Take us back to how you became interested in music at all. Maybe take us back to your early experiences of electronic music.

Steve Bug: I mean, since I grew up in the 70s/80s and my mum, she loved to listen to some funk and disco music, when the 80s came and the whole new wave pop kind of music with bands like Depeche Mode, Simple Minds, Visage, the Soft Cell, all this kind of a stuff that I've been listening to as a young teenage guy. The first music as electronic that I discovered as something that's different from the stuff that was running on the radio was the break dance stuff.

Steve Bug: The early the Wild Style album, for example, and things like this. We've been trying to do some stupid break dance moves as kids on the streets, that was the first music that I really took as something else. The music that was played on the radio as more of underground movement or something.

BTG: You actually grew up in Germany amidst the acid house kind of heyday, I suppose, when the electronic music was really starting to develop, right? How/when did you first become more seriously interested in acid house techno DJ and producing? Were you indulging club culture or were you just listening from your bedroom at home? How did that come into your periphery?

Steve Bug: I was already at a stage where I went out to go clubbing, or more disco techs at the time as we call it over here. More commercial clubs where they used to play some funk and some other pop stuff. I was always enjoying being on the dance floor dancing to some Prince, Michael Jackson, whatever the DJ would play. At one point a friend of mine, she said that there is this club in Hamburg and they play this music called house. She was like, "You should really come and join us to go there.

She said, "I think you're going to like it." Since I haven't heard of house music, that was back in '87/'88. I don't exactly remember which year. Yeah. I didn't know what house music was. I went to the local record shop and asked if they had some house music and I bought two samplers. One was The House Sound of Chicago and the other one, I forgot the name. Yeah. I bought these two records and brought them back home and listened to them. I really enjoyed it. So I decided to join them to go to the club.

It was an hour and a few minutes' drive to Hamburg. The club was called The Front and it was basically a gay club. At least 99% gay guys, a few lesbian girls and a few straight people. The 80s, I think what a lot of people forget about is that house music was also ... because it was the first time, at least in a lot of countries, that gay people would celebrate their freedom in clubs and

BTG: Absolutely. It's definitely recognized in that way.

Steve Bug: Yeah. As this disco music and high energy music kindly slightly transformed into the more housey stuff, one track that always stands for me to the very early days was Ralphi Rosario, You Used to Hold Me or Liz Torres, I Can't Get Enough

BTG: Wow yeah, Master C&J, right?

Steve Bug: Exactly. Yeah. It's great stuff and there are so many tracks. We finally got into the club and it was basically blowing my mind. I was on the dance floor for like the whole time that we spent in there. It was the first time I listened to a DJ playing records without having a break in between. Mixing them together. It was like an endless track of music that I didn't know, but I just really enjoyed it. I was so blown away that after that I continued buying records and continued to come back to this club. Luckily, I was allowed to get in because I was looking crazy enough be inside.

I remember there were a few weeks where we got there ... Because slowly more and more people heard about the club and sometimes we were driving, sharing a car to get there because it was a long drive. There would be some of us that couldn't get into the club. They said like, "No." Then the others were like, "Yeah, man, I'm sorry, but I'm going in… hahaha!"

BTG: haha Sure. That's how passionate people were about getting in and getting into the vibe, right?

Steve Bug: Yeah. Exactly. It was just that one place to forget about all the trouble you had during the week and everything. It was a place where we really wanted to be. It didn't matter if friendships broke because your friend couldn’t get into the club, because this was what you wanted to do, being on the dance floor and just dancing your ass off to this music.!

I think Adonis, No Way Back is definitely one of the ones that stood out for me from this population.

BTG: Ha that's good enough for me!

Steve Bug: I would be the guy going to the record store saying, "Hey, can you give me the track that says, 'Muscle Muscle. or whatever the words were haha!'"

BTG: I spent half my life as a teenager doing exactly this haha! Getting into record stores and then singing lyrics to people.

Steve Bug: Totally! I mean, there was no Shazam in our times, was there!? How were we supposed to explain a record to someone haha? After being on the dance floor for about three years, listening to house and techno and trying to mix at home, I finally started to DJ in '91. Then soon after that I wanted to figure out how this music was produced. I had a few friends who had a studio. I asked them if they could invite me or if we can work together on some music, because I wanted to know how it was done. I knew they were already having some releases out.

Steve Bug: The first person I've been going to was my friend, Henry AKA Phax. I visited him in his studio and we sat down and started writing some music. Since I didn't have a clue at all. I don't have any musical education before that, so it was basically me trying to hit some keys and I don't think I was much of a help. I could give guidelines to what I wanted and what I didn't.

Steve Bug: While we were recording I know that I had the biggest fun twisting knobs on the equipment that we're using to do some filtering on the stuff, but I didn't really understood much what was happening, to be honest. Basically, the music is Henry's production more or less and I've been just the guy sitting in the room with him trying to do as much as I could

BTG: Executive producer, they call it right? haha…

Steve Bug: Hahaha…Yeah!

BTG: Yeah. The energy of those tracks was a little bit more up-tempo. Would you agree? A bit more kind of like almost trance-esq, I suppose. A bit more kind of high energy.

Steve Bug: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it was the time. That was also the music that we were playing. The early days of trans were just great. I mean, I loved it and there's been a lot of great stuff released on many different labels from many different artists. Everything was new and everything coming from the kind of Chicago House style acid house sound. Then it was growing into more like the Belgian techno, and then the trance-y stuff.

BTG: Of course. Yeah.

Steve Bug: Everyone was still curious about the next thing and picking up every single new influence. It was a great time because it was a big playground and not much has been told yet. It was definitely a great time.

BTG: Around '95, we start to see releases like Telepathic Bed Bugz, which are decidedly more techno influence, I suppose, or kind of morphing and changing and a bit of a nod back to that sort of acid flavour infusion in there. Really credible good music of its time… Also, around this time, you founded Raw Elements, which saw you start to release quite a steady flow of techno like this and tech house quite minimal releases until around '98. Maybe tell us a bit about that time.

Steve Bug: After I've been working with other producers trying to get my sound, but always had to make compromises and also still didn't know much how to do it myself, I soon figured that I need to buy my own equipment and have to start writing my own music, at least try it. I've been lucky enough that Tobias, who I've been working for at this time, because when I moved to Hamburg in '94, I started doing the bookings for Superstition Recordings for a while. Then the evening I would write some music.

Actually, first ever written tracks by me that were released on Superstition Special, two records. They were basically my first productions ever that I did by myself. Tobias had a strong believe in me as an artist for some reason, because if I listen to the tracks now, I think they're very strange and very unprofessional, but in a way there are some good stuff in it already. I'm glad that Tobias saw it back then already. I figured that my music wasn't really what Superstition was releasing.

Also, Superstition was going more deeper into the progressive trance-y techno stuff and at that time I was really into the minimal stuff like the Minimal Nation by Robert Hood. All the stuff that the guys from Cologne were releasing, all these super minimal things. That was what I was playing at the time. I didn't really see myself as an artist in this trans field anymore, and also with my productions.

I talked to him and saying like, "Look, I think I'm going to start sending my tracks out to other labels." He actually mentioned that maybe we should start a label together for this kind of sound.

BTG: Raw Elements was born, I suppose.

Steve Bug: Exactly… I gave it a quick thought and Raw Elements was born. Then we started soon to find new artists like Vincenzo. I did some tracks with my friend Acid Maria and signed some guys from Denmark. The label was slowly growing.

BTG: It looks like it was from around '95 right up to about '98, it was pretty busy with a steady flow of music, right? You were doing great

Steve Bug: Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Also, it was a time when I started to tour more and making more connections. It was a bit community of artists that play electronic music because it was still a fresh young thing. Of course, also running a label and getting remixes, and it was great at the time.

BTG: Okay. Let's keep moving along then. '97/'98 with the release of On the Road Again, your Volksworld album?… There, it really feels like that you're really settling into a much more firmly, deeper, more grooved out style. Really finally produced. Your production skills obviously really being honed into that minimal sound, but really infused with like flashes of soul, disco, just citing Drives Me Up The Wall among other tracks as being a landmark or a track around that time. Tell us a bit about how you settled yourself into that groove, because you're often attributed with being a real ambassador of tech house sound, minimal sound that developed around that time. Tell us a bit about how conscious that was for you.

Steve Bug: I've just been writing music the way I felt it. Sometimes a lot of it happened because I didn't know how to do it differently. The strip down thing is something that I think I kept from the early days of house and techno because tracks were so basic. People would call me as one of the guys who really came up with a minimal blah, blah, whatever. To me, personally, I think that's what house music acid and all this stuff was to me

BTG: It's what it is, is bare bones.

Steve Bug: Exactly, Exactly. Stripped back to the basic elements and it just became something bigger, but like the basic needs of a simple dance floor track is very little and I always try to stick to that point. Before starting with Raw Elements, I was still mixing on Hi-Fi speakers. I didn't have the money to buy proper speakers. It's because I had to buy keyboard, I have to buy a mixer and stuff, and there was basically no money left. At the time I finally also had a sampler that I don't know which time I bought it, but I finally really got to use it. I think I stepped up from the AS950 to E-mu E4 and that kind of shifted the sound into something better, I think. Also, having the chance to go to the studio of P. Kjonberg, the guy who I did the ‘Clever and Smart’ stuff with. To be able to there and work on the track and not have to sit in my 12 square meter, basically, shared flat room where I did everything from sleeping to recording mixes to write music. Yeah. I think that kind of took me steps forward and this album was the first proper production that I came up with at the time.

BTG: Let's keep moving on then to the introduction of Poker Flat. Perhaps complimentary to that morphing in your sound and style through those years. Really well aligned with that whole tech and minimal house movement. 1999 sees you launch Poker Flat Recordings, which has long since been considered a real cornerstone of consistent really unapologetic tastemaker tech house minimal techno. It is a genuine real shining beacon of solid underground house music some 20 years on plus. Bravo. Tell us a little bit about the journey that has taken you on over those years and how you came to develop it into such a brand and an imprint as well.

Steve Bug: We started Poker Flat after I had started this too already at the time for the more discourage deep house stuff.

We were still running Raw Elements but we thought we had to change something. It wasn't really our vision anymore, what we came up with at the first place when we started the label. Yeah. When it comes to Poker Flat we decided to start this new label instead of continuing Raw Elements. Our vision at the time was to be more precise about the type of music because Raw Elements, we had some electro, so some broken beats. We had some disco. We had some techno. We had some minimal house stuff.

Steve Bug: It was quite chaotic and at the time a lot of people appreciated that. As Poker Flat we tried to take it into another direction and being more precise about the sound that we were releasing, but we never had the vision that this label is going to run for 20 years plus

BTG: You must be immensely proud of the who's who artist roster that Poker Flat has come to represent over the years. You just talked about real musical journeys that are coupled with a minimal sound. You got like Trentemøller, John Tejada, Marco Resmann, Alex Niggemann, Guido Schneider, Martin Buttrich. So many names and amazing releases. I think I counted there's more than 240 releases, correct me if I'm wrong.

Steve Bug: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

BTG: The artists that you have had on the roster. What have been some the proudest moments for you, I suppose, in terms of who you've managed to work with and have on the label over the years?

Steve Bug: I mean, of course Trentemøller is a very obvious one. It's a very funny story because actually, I played with him in Denmark at a show. At the time he had this release on Naked Music out The Champagne EP which is…

BTG: Champagne. What a track?!! both sides of that are incredible!

Steve Bug: Exactly. Actually, at that time, I was searching for some artists writing some music for the studio recordings. I asked him if he would like to send the demo one day. A few weeks, months later, he sent over a demo and he said, "But look, I don't think this is what you've been looking for, but maybe you still like it or something." Yeah. Then I listened to it and it was obviously quite different from what I expected, but it was perfect for what we were doing with Poker Flat at the time. Yeah.

BTG: He released a full artist album off the back of that right!?

Steve Bug: Yeah.

BTG: Incredible album.

Steve Bug: Guido Schneider was also for a long time a big part of the sound and also shaping it with his approach to minimal music. Later on Alex Niggemann and that also is another artist who moved along and is now running his own label. That's one of the main reasons why I love running a label is to help artists from scratch, if possible, if you meet them early enough in their career. The Detroit Grand Pubahs for me was also one of the highlights. I love the Sandwiches track they did. I played in Detroit. I told him how much I loved his track and I'm running a label and again, if you can send some music, if he wants to send some music and which also lead it in an album, which I think is great. It's just very fun kind of approach to electronic music that he has with a funk touch to it.

BTG: Actually thanks for the reminder on the Detroit Grand Pubahs Sandwiches track. All I can think of is the artwork is a giant hamburger on the front, right? Hahaha

Steve Bug: Yeah! hahaha!

BTG: Such a great track man.

Steve Bug: It totally is. It totally is!

BTG: The Champagne EP in progress on the flip side and the Champagne on the first of Trentemøller. Amazing. That got rinsed. I played that out all the time!

. . . Such a great track. In the interest of Holy Grail house music, which is very much what Behind the Groove is about, an early techno from the forefathers in the whole Detroit and Chicago scene, I've followed your Forward To The Past series. I've actually blogged about it in years gone by actually when it was a little bit fresher. What a fantastic tribute to honouring the sound of yesteryear. Tell us a bit about how you came up with the concept to do that little project and what it meant to you, I suppose. Can we expect any more from the series?

Steve Bug: I was having the most fun writing tracks that I haven't released just for the sake of the fun of it, and these were just basic, very old school imitations of the early sound somehow.

BTG: Yeah. Sure. Sure

Steve Bug: I really enjoyed this so much that I thought, "Hey, maybe there are other artists out there that would enjoy this as well." I started contacting people and said like, "Hey, look, I'm having this idea. I'm thinking of releasing something that we all write tracks as if it was '88 to '91 or something." The first one was, you could choose whatever style you like and come up with something. Yeah. It turned out so well that we decided, "Okay. Let's do a second one."

Steve Bug: Then the second one was all about the acid. We asked people to do acid tracks. Everyone really enjoyed it again. I think this compilation series was mostly about the joy of making this music and not thinking about what's next and blah, blah. Just having fun, jamming and putting together jacking tracks.

BTG: Well, you've got the quality of the production for the modern world.

Steve Bug: Yeah. Totally.

BTG: Fused with the raw energy of the old tracks. Such a great project. Really cool.

Steve Bug: Thank you. Yeah. After the third one, I'm a big fan of series of three, so we decided to at least put it to bed for a while.

BTG: Poker Flat has grown into this monolith of an imprint, and it's a really firm staple in the record boxes of any DJ. It's all culminated in you celebrating like 20 years of Poker Flat. It was kind of the end of last year, I suppose. It was your 218th release. I got my numbers wrong a bit earlier, but 218th release working with the master deity of vocal house music, Robert Owens, was a great release. Such a cool track.

BTG: What a great opportunity that must've been for you to work with someone like him. Tell us a bit about that and tell us a bit about what's coming next for Poker Flat I suppose

Steve Bug: The 20 years anniversary actually hit us quite as a surprise. We felt like we just celebrated 15 years and then suddenly it was 20. We're a bit late with our celebrations. There's a few more remixes to come. The next one I can talk about already is Martin Landsky 1000 miles is being remixed by Harry Romero. It's a really cool remix. Also, it's one of my favorite track of Martin on the label. He's contributed many tracks, but yeah, this one is a bit different from the stuff that he usually does.

BTG: That was due for release in the coming months, is it?

Steve Bug: Yeah, it is. It is. Definitely. Yeah. I hope that the club is going to be open again so that people can play it out. Not only through the internet.

BTG: Anything happening with you that's coming up that's important?

Steve Bug: Yeah. Actually, I did a new release with Langenberg and this is coming out at the end of this month. It's April already. Yeah. At the end of this month. Yeah. It's going to be on Poker Flat Recordings. It's called Emphasizer.

BTG: Fantastic. We'll look out for that one then for sure.

Steve Bug: Coming all this way to 20, now 21 years. It's a great achievement, but it's just, I really have to say we wouldn't be here without many artists that send us demos and that write great music and that help the label to stay in perfect shape musically to survive. You know.. I'm really happy about the sound of today, of the label. I'm happy we grew into this, what we are right now, still keeping the roots as a part of it. Yeah.

BTG: Some really interesting stuff there from you Steve. Thank you so much. I guess all that's left to say really is thank you so much for your time and for taking us behind the groove today. Steve, please keep on doing what you keep on doing.

Steve Bug: Oh, thanks. Thanks Alex. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.

This interview was brought to you by

Alex Rose for behindthegroove.co.uk