SOUNDSECTOR

We’ve seen a mix by Paul Hazendonk appear on Soundsector a while back, but who is the man behind the music? This interview will give you a look inside the world of Paul Hazendonk.

Hi Paul, as with all interviewers I would like to start with an introduction. Could you tell us a bit about the phenomenon Paul Hazendonk?

Wow, “phenomenon”, this interview goes off to a flying start! Well uhm, what do you want to know? Born in 1982 in the suburbs of Rotterdam, DJing as a hobby from age 12 and my first professional gigs came at age 18. I’ve been lucky to play at many many fine clubs/parties/festivals in Holland and many other European countries alongside some of the world’s greatest. Done releases on Diynamic, Sleaze, Manual Music, Stolen Moments, Melomane, Punch Funk, Kill Brique etc. and have remixed Jesse Somfay, Dejan Milicevic, Jeff Bennett, Petter and many others. Worked at Basic Beat for 8,5 years doing everything from working in the shop, doing marketing and promotion for their releases to running several labels. Nowdays busy my own company, Manual Music, which is active in releasing music, artist management, bookings, publishing and digital distribution.

You run an awful lot of labels, which ones are you currently involved with?

I’m currently the owner of the Manual Music company, and within this company there are six inhouse labels: Manual Music, Stolen Moments, Melomane, Adult Records, Work Hard Play Hard, Relatives.
The first three labels are more ‘Paul Hazendonk style’ then the other three labels, on which hardgroove/uptempo techno is being released.. It all seems like a lot, but each label has got it’s own sound. The thing is that I’m into many genres of music, but with nowdays’ market it’s really difficult to start a label and releases different genres on this one label (unfortunatly), because the market nowdays is very much ‘genre-based’.

How did you start your first label? What sort of mindset were you in and why did you launch a label?

My first label was called Technique and it was launched back in 2003 as a sublabel of Basic Beat where I used to work back then. I didn’t really have plans to run a label at that time, but was asked by Basic Beat if I wanted to run a techno label since I was into techno music and they didn’t have any techno labels at Basic Beat.

Are there decisions you made that you regret? (regarding your labels)

For sure, especially the financial mistakes, I think every label recognises these things.. spending too much on a remix, spending too much on outragious artwork etc You simply need to make those mistakes in order to learn, so it’s not all bad. I’m experienced now, that’s a good thing!

Give us a quick tour trough the Hazendonk studio! Any favorite VST’s or hardware synthesizers?

I must dissapoint you, because my setup it very VERY basic… Macbook with Logic Pro, an Emu Xboard + 2 KRK Rokit 6 speakers is all I’m using at the moment. I do a lot of sampling from old records, CD’s and from the internet and movies… This is what I always had, all my solo productions/remixes are made with this Nowdays with my busy schedule I hardly find time to finish complete tracks, so most of the times I make some sketches/loops/ideas and fire them over to either Qbical (for Furrr & Hazendonk stuff) or Tundra (for Tundra & Paul Hazendonk stuff) and they’ll finish the track untill it’s a worthy end-product.

Do you have a track that you put in every set or are you constantly on the lookout for new DJ material?

I’m continuously adding new tracks but naturally there are always some all time favs.. I’ve been playing the “Candy Mountain” track from Roland M Dill in nearly each and every set since it came out last year for example..

Share some secrets with us! Any big and breaking plans for 2010?

Doing quite some interesting stuff with Furrr & Hazendonk at the moment. We just did a release on Diynamic and more releases on big labels will follow. I can already tell you that we will do a release on Sander Kleinenberg’s Little Mountain Recordings label for instance. Next to that some interesting stuff gig-wise, like playing alongside Steve Lawler at Melkweg in Amsterdam and playing at the opening of the new Air club in Amsterdam (the former infamous iT club). Also I’m organising 4 editions of Manual at the Beach, the first one being April 17th with Solomun, Man Zonder Schaduw, Furrr & Hazendonk and Module II (aka Commu vs Tundra). The summer seems to be a busy one too with some nice foreign gigs coming up, but I can’t tell you too much about that already..

You are involved in the Furrr & Hazendonk project. Whats up with that? Who is Furrr?

Furrr is actually Raymond van Baal, better known to the public as Qbical. We are both still doing our solo projects, but thought doing a house/techhouse project would be a fun thing to start, since we are both already quite into this kinda music. Sometimes you just want to get away from that uptight purist world and simply have fun.. So that’s basicly what we do with Furrr & Hazendonk: have fun And the nice thing is that it seems to pay off as the first releases were pretty successful and we are now producing and remixing for some great labels are artists!

So tell me Paul, what’s your most favorite food in the world!

I’m loving oriental foods. I visited Malaysia last year and had great food there at the local stands, tasty stuff!

Paul Hazendonk at Room Lounge, Cakovec (HR)

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