Why are you the most successful American techno artist?
I first started making records long before there was any interest in techno music in the US (apart from maybe N.Y. and L.A.), so I never expected to sell these records. The first single that started to do well was "Go", which was the second-or-third single that I put out. It just built and built and built. I originally expected it to sell maybe 3,000 copies, and now the single itself has sold about 200,000 copies worldwide. It has also been licensed to compilations. Altogether it has probably sold close to a million. That's an awful lot more than I expected. A lot of the sales came from being in the right place at the right time. I had a really high-profile techno record just as people all over the world became interested, en-masse, in techno. One of the other things that helped me was that I was a face and a personality. I did interviews and played live and did all of the standard promotional things that help to establish artists, but that most techno artists don't bother to do.
I was out in the marketplace. I DJ'd a lot. I got a few lucky breaks. It can be very difficult to get a DJ job in NY city. It's more about personalities than it is about talent. At least that's the way it was four years ago; maybe it's changed a little since then. You can't expect people to know who you are or what you're doing if you don't present yourself to them. It can be very frustrating because in the early stages of a career record companies, and managers, and agents, etc., don't want to know about unknown artists. They want someone else to do their legwork for them. Therefore, you have to be determined, and be prepared for a lot of humiliation. You also have to keep in mind that the music that you are making now isn't nearly as good as the music that you will be making two-or-three years from now. If people aren't too interested in your music, it doesn't mean that you are no good, or that you shouldn't keep trying. You always have to keep trying to get better. Don't ever get self-satisfied. A musician's goal should be to always make better music and to develop his craft.
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