{"id":21973,"date":"2015-08-14T15:37:29","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T13:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/?p=21973"},"modified":"2015-08-14T15:44:18","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T13:44:18","slug":"interview-onno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/interview-onno\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Onno"},"content":{"rendered":"

ONNO is a revered Dutch DJ and producer who has been steadily rising to the top of the pile since 2001.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the ensuing years, he has released a number of well-received EPs, most recently the Beatport topping \u2018Paragroove\u2019<\/strong> on Moon Harbour<\/strong>, which also made hime one of the top 3 most charted artists on Resident Advisor.<\/p>\n

ONNO now continues to produce for other top labels including Get Physical, Souvenir, Saved<\/strong> and International DJ Gigolos<\/strong>. The sound that he now weaves at clubs and festivals across Europe is a bass heavy one with plenty of interlocking house grooves all heavily reliant on big bottom ends, and has received much support from the likes of MANDY, Reboot, Davide Squillace, Matthias Tanzmann<\/strong> and many more.<\/p>\n

The future looks just as bright for ONNO: as well as continuing to spin in the best clubs around the world, ONNO has many more productions in the pipeline, each of which will continue to showcase his own unique house style. With all this in mind we nabbed the man himself for a quick chat recently, and here\u2019s what he had to say ahead of the release of his latest EP, \u2018Some Mo\u2019<\/strong> on Upon.You Records<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201c…rather than following the latest trends what some other people tend to do, I am happy that I floated around [a little bit] before settling on something that I am truly passionate about.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

How did you get into house and techno?\u00a0<\/b>
\nThat\u2019s a while ago already, haha. As a kid I was already fascinated with music, trying to do a drive-in show when I was 11 or 12 or something.\u00a0 After that I got heavily into hip hop, which later developed into a love for electronic music. I feel everyone goes through a lot of different styles of music before finding that right match that sticks, it\u2019s a part of growing up I reckon. Looking back I\u2019ve always been a fan of stuff with a lot of bass.<\/p>\n

Where did you grow up and what was it like? Was it a good place for house and techno?<\/b>
\nI grew up in Noordwijk, a town on the Dutch coast in-between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. It was a great place as a kid, with the beach around the corner, and some nice local bars as there are so many tourist youngsters that wanted to go out there in summer. Music wise it wasn’t much though, but the proximity to both Amsterdam and Rotterdam still made it a good place to be when I got to the age where I could go to clubs and raves. We had a very tight knit group of friends that were all into the same music as I was, so every week we would drive to amsterdam to go out and discover new stuff. That all being said though, as soon as I could, I moved to Amsterdam and didn\u2019t really look back after that.<\/p>\n

What were you into before house? What was your entry point to the music?<\/b>
\nAs I said earlier, I was a hip hop kid, and still am, and I went through various phases with different types of electronic music before ending up where I have been for the past 10 years or something (including a hardcore phase, being a rebellious teenager in Holland but some progressive house, and later I was heavily into the whole west-coast tribally house stuff like Halo and Hippie). I think all those different types of music did help me develop a signature, something to hold onto, rather than following the latest trends what some other people tend to do and I am happy that I floated around a little bit before settling on something that I am truly passionate about.<\/p>\n

What inspired you to start producing, and how your set-up evolved since then?<\/b>
\nThe technical part about making music always fascinated me. When I was listening to the hip hop stuff the things that drew my attention were the beats, wondering where they came from, how sampling worked and how they made those signature Dre high pitched synth lines. So at some point I saved up all my money and bought a second hand Roland MC303. Together with a friend who also scraped all his cash together for a Yamaha synth I used to write beats on my parents computer and these two devices. Then we recorded this to tape and another friend did the lyrics on top. I think I was around 12 or 13 around then, and of-course we thought we were the bomb with our home made tapes haha. A few years after this I discovered House and techno, started playing records and met a guy from my hometown who was a pretty big techno producer back then. We started working together and he taught me a lot on production, and taught me to abuse devices rather than learning how to use them properly, something I am still very grateful for. Back then it was all hardware, Roland Juno and JD800, some drum machines, Emu samplers, big Mackie desk , the lot. When I started working solo it was all in the computer, but now I am very happy with my hybrid setup.<\/p>\n

Do you see yourself as a DJ or producer first and foremost?<\/b>
\nI am a DJ first, always have been always will be. As much as I love being in the studio creating music, what\u2019s it all worth when you cannot share the emotions that you create with the people on the dancefloor. In the end music is about connecting with people, and in my case the way to do \u00a0that is by playing in clubs or festivals, and meeting new people while travelling.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What would you say is your greatest achievement from a musical perspective?<\/b>
\nThat\u2019s a hard question to answer, like asking a parent which of their children is their favourite \ud83d\ude42 So I can\u2019t really say which of my tracks is my favourite, so the thing I am most proud of is the whole body of work together. I am happy that I always did what felt right to me, without concessions, and the fact that although the styles vary a bit over time, there is a foundation in all tracks that is really \u201cme\u201d.<\/p>\n

Do you feel any pressure to deliver \u2018hits\u2019 these days? When are you at your best in the studio<\/b>
\nThere\u2019s always this pressure I think, but especially in the last year I have let this go a bit. I allowed myself to experiment, try different stuff without thinking about the outcome or which labels should be signing it, which has been pretty liberating I must say. As soon as there\u2019s some success there\u2019s always the expectations that come with this, and from an artistic point of view it\u2019s very important to let these go and not to repeat yourself. Maybe because of this mental shift, it has been a very productive year for me, and creatively very satisfying as well.<\/p>\n

What was the inspiration for the latest release on Upon.You?<\/b>
\nThe EP for Upon.You is also a product of this freedom that I\u2019ve been allowing myself to have in the studio. I\u2019ve always been known for my percussive, bass-line driven stuff, and I think you can still hear this in the Upon.You EP. But when I started this project I had in mind to try and focus a but more on the synth side of things, just to do something new, try to go into undiscovered territories for me. So I sampled a few chords from a hardware synth and started experimenting how far I could go with with this and this ended up becoming this EP. The vocal on Some Mo was on my hard drive for ages, ready to be used, and now finally the time seemed right.<\/p>\n

Are you still living in Holland? How is that?<\/b>
\nYeah, I am based in Amsterdam again after spending two summers in Ibiza and I am enjoying it a lot. Reconnecting with old friends, and discovering that summer in Amsterdam is quite nice as well. It\u2019s good having a studio again as well I must say, productivity and Ibiza don\u2019t seem to go together too well.<\/p>\n

Is it harder to make music during the summer when there\u2019s so much on? Are you doing much right now?<\/b>
\nAs I said, it\u2019s much easier now I am that in Amsterdam, and back in my studio. I think last year has been the most productive so far, so I\u2019m pretty happy.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the coolest place you\u2019ve played at and why?<\/b>
\nPanorama bar, Hands down. To me nothing beats playing that floor on a sunday<\/span><\/span> afternoon or night. Seems like there are as many opinions about that place as there are ravers, but for me, both as a DJ and a raver it\u2019s a magical place. On another note, and more for cultural reasons, I loved my mini tour through Korea last year. I\u2019m a huge fan of Asia, and being immersed in their culture and people and was an amazing experience.<\/p>\n

What makes a perfect party in your eyes then?<\/b>
\nThere\u2019s many factors to that. But a great sound system and openminded crowd are the first things that make a party what it is. If you have those two ingredients, the rest usually falls into place.<\/p>\n

Lastly, what\u2019s next for you that you\u2019re really excited about?<\/b>
\nRelease wise the next thing is my EP on my good friend Sant\u00e9 and Sidney Charles\u2019 Avotre imprint. It\u2019s a techno record, not what people would expect on Avotre maybe, but that\u2019s what makes it interesting in my opinion. I did it together with Per Hammar from Sweden when he was here in Amsterdam for a few days, and Luca Agnelli did an amazing remix for it. Gig wise I am super excited to visit India and Asia in 2 months. It will be my first time in the country, so enough to explore there.<\/p>\n

Onno\u2019s EP\u00a0\u2018Some Mo\u2019 is out now on Upon.You Records – Buy it here<\/a>\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n

Soundcloud <\/a><\/span> Artist Page <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ONNO is a revered Dutch DJ and producer who has been steadily rising to the top of the pile since 2001. In the ensuing years, he has released a number of well-received EPs, most recently the Beatport topping \u2018Paragroove\u2019 on Moon Harbour, which also made hime one of the top 3 most charted artists on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3971],"tags":[4614,5266,4708,3162,5060,883,4587,2250,6746,607,6748,6745,6747,1331],"class_list":["post-21973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","category-interviews-london","tag-amsterdam-london","tag-davide-squillace-london","tag-get-physical-london","tag-mandy","tag-matthias-tanzmann-london","tag-netherlands","tag-onno-london","tag-panorama-bar","tag-reboot","tag-rotterdam","tag-saved","tag-some-mo","tag-souvenir","tag-upon-you-records","post_format-post-format-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}