Page 12 - Zone Magazine Issue 012

feature interview [ireland]
Declan McLaughlin has spent the last 14 years touring the world playing the biggest clubs and festivals as part of The Japanese Popstars and Hedrock Valley Beats; Decky Hedrock decided to go back to his roots and create a new live act called Sirkus Sirkuz.
A collection of all his musical influences, Sirkus Sirkuz is a versatile move for the dancefloor, creating electronic monsters with old school references and sounds, receiving support from a diverse selection of the worlds largest DJ's.
With an impressive back catalogue of critically acclaimed releases over the years, including remixes for such high profile artists as Beyonce, & Depeche Mode, as well as having previous major chart success in various countries including a No.1 in Australia, a National Airplay No.1 in the USA and other Top 30 chart hits with various releases as Hedrock Valley Beats in the early 2000s, Sirkus Sirkuz is seen as a continuation of Deckys prolific music career.
Over the last few years many record labels have host to a constant stream of Sirkus Sirkuz releases which have climbed high in various DJ and dance music retailers charts. Developing a style and sound thats crossing multiple genres from House to Techno and Tech-House to Disco but still retaining that Sirkuz sound. Decky is also currently hosting his own “Sirkus Sirkuz Presents” radio show on Ireland largest national radio station RTE 2FM.
He has also been building a reputation as a 'must see' live act, he has brought a blistering live show to the clubs and festivals yet again proving his lineage. Coming from a live background based around performances with keyboards, samplers and other electronic gadgetry gives an advantage.
Who is Declan? what where your first steps into music scene?
Sure thing.....its a bit of a story, so get ready......I grew up in Derry always wanting to be in a band or make music. I had a cheap Yamaha home keybord/synth from about the age of 10 that I battered on and made lots of noise but it was around the age of 15 my Dad bought me a guitar which I learned to play (very badly) and I think that pushed me to write music.
I then experimented on the old Commodore Amiga Trackers making music from various samples and then I passed some tunes I wrote to a local Derry based hardcore dance act called Aurora 7 around 1995. I went on a few shows with them to see what it was like and actually ended up becoming their onstage dancer in the band for about a year. Yes, I had all the rave moves. Luckily, I learned more about MIDI and started building my own music studio and writing music properly.
I left Aurora 7 and started my own
outfit called Hedrock Valley Beats in 1997 with a few mates, which we had a lot of commercial success with! I wrote the music and we played out live as a threesome on synths (me), bass guitar and a scratch DJ. We were very much influenced by indie rock music and hiphop, so fitted right into the Big Beat style that was popular at the time; sounding like a cross between The Prodigy and Fatboy Slim. We ended up having a No.1 in Australia, Top 20s in different countries and even a National Airplay No.1 in the USA. That sort of faded out after a few years and in 2005 I had the idea to start The Japanese Popstars whilst sitting at Oxegen Festival in Ireland watching LCD Soundsystem. I really missed the buzz of playing live and a few months later we had compiled enough tracks to play live for 1hr. Our first show was at the Trinity Rooms in Limerick and it went really really well.
We picked up a reputation for being a great live act and toured the world for the next 8 years, releasing various albums, signing to Virgin Records and remixing the likes of Daft Punk, Depeche Mode, Beyonce, Benny Benassi and a pile of other well known names. It was all quite surreal!
The pressure of being with a major label sort of got to the group and I left after to start Sirkus Sirkuz, as a little side project to get away from the major label madness.
I’ve been releasing as Sirkus Sirkuz the last few years and producing my own radio show Sirkus Sirkuz Presents for RTE2FM.
I’m only now finally getting to release my very own solo album next year after nearly 20 years of releasing music. Its called ‘My House, My Rules’ and will be out on Whartone Records early 2017! I’m buzzing.
Tell us a little about The Japanese Popstars.
We where 3 guys from N.Ireland who made electronic dance music and played it in clubs VERY loudly. We worked with artists such as Green Velvet, Robert Smith (The Cure) and Morgan Kibby (M83), as well as remixing Groove Armada, Pete Tong, Orbital, Gorillaz, 30 Secs Mars and loads more. Over the years we picked up various awards for Best Live Act, Best DJs and Best Producers from various magazines and awards shows. It was a whole lot of fun.
Tell us about the best experience you have had in clubland.....and the worst?
I’ve had so many to be honest, its hard to pick or actually remember! If this counts as clubland, my favourite moment ever was playing Fuji Rock in Japan with the Popstars. It had been a long time dream of mine to play that festival and we had been billed to play at 4am on the Red Stage infront of 5,000 – 6,000 Japanese ravers. We all where excited and spent the hour before the show watching
youtube video of Underworld playing the same stage a few years before.
When we walked onstage it was just a sea of Japanese people staring back quietly waiting. Once things started the gig was incredible. The place was going absolutely mental and they really just kept wanting more. The vibe was electric and its really my most favourite memory of my career. I also remember after we came offstage we got immediately asked to DJ then in a field, and we were so buzzing that we said ‘yes’ straightaway without even thinking and ended up DJing on a stage whilst the sun rose over Mount Fuji at 6am. I’ve never had an experience like it.
I think the worst experience was in Liv, Miami. They just where not ready for dance music. It was the week after the famous Steve Angello/Paris Hilton ruckus, if that was any indication of the scene then but we were booked to play live in this incredible club. The EDM explosion had not yet happened but was definitely on the verge, but it was still very much hiphop that ruled the roost then.
We had flown from Vancouver as part of a 2 week tour of the USA/Canada and went right into soundcheck/setup for our show after 11 hours on a plane, or something ridiculous. I always remember the waitresses walking around with their fingers in their ears, like they where complaining about the music as we soundchecked, so we decided we should DJ instead – just to be safe. Later when we arrived at the club to actually play our gig, the DJ before us was playing off an ipod and the vibe was all wrong. It was full of people with too much money, lots of expensive table service, beautiful woman grinding on top of pedestals and not your typical sweaty rave vibe. During our set the promoter actually got removed from the club by the hotel manager because we played electro. The promoter obviously knew what he wanted to hear and dance music was becoming more popular in the US but the hotel manager wanted hiphop - so things heated up between them and he was forcibly removed whilst we played on. It was an eye opener, I can tell you.
How do you think clubbing and EDM has changed in the last 10 years?
Dance music is constantly changing an evolving but keeping its roots. Various genres come and go and over the last 10 years, I think, it has been filled with a lot of bad mistakes but thats what helps things grown and change.
Unfortunately, it has led to the closure of a lot of great iconic clubs and parts of the scenes dying off, which then lead to smaller parties, new offshoot music genres and a proliferation of producers who can make music using just a laptop and release it the next day on their own label. Its a hungrier scene now with very little reward. Things will sort themselves out. We just have to wait it out.
12 ZONE-MAGAZINE.IE