Supreme

Super Ferry

May 12, 2012 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines - Ferry Corsten, in the two decades of his life as an electro demigod, has never slowed down, his music has never aged, and his ear has never gone deaf for hip-to-death, off-the-radar beats. While the Dutch DJ married a gorgeous Filipina a decade ago, he hasn’t really settled, choosing instead to take his wife along for the ride.

What started with home-spun mixtapes that he sold by the dozens when he was 16, has grown into a party-anthem empire with Corsten as chief, crowned with all sorts of stately titles from Best Trance DJ at the 2005 and 2007 Ibiza Awards to being the first Dutch DJ to become an Ambassador of Peace, and an assuring spot in DJ magazine’s Top 100 for 12 straight years.

So huge is Corsten in the Euro club scene that everything, it seems, needs or wants his spin of success — from special-edition tequila bottles, popular remixes of hits from U2, the Killers and Moby, to a new legion of party-circuit royalties hewn off his popular weekly radio show, The Corsten Countdown.

Now, after three highly successful self-entitled albums, Ferry Corsten turns in another party-heavy record. “WKND” is 14 tracks of an homage to the weekends we simply can’t live without. Supreme sat down with the godfather of trance to talk about his work.

SUPREME: After over two decades of ruling the club circuit, how has the Ferris Corsten sound changed?

FERRY CORSTEN: In the beginning, it was just house and it didn’t have a real attack to it, no such thing as progressive house, techno or trance, it was just house. I really started to explore the other sounds more 15 years ago, then I had a big breakthrough 10 or 12 years ago with trance at that time where basically it was all about big “anthemic” melodies, the big drops, and over time, it has adapted to the new genres and new sounds. It’s all fusing together, basically. Now, what I hear in the house scene, they start experimenting with the stuff we were using 10 years ago, and in the trance scene, we are adapting the house grooves of now, so it’s all coming together and it’s very interesting because everything is allowed right now.

On the other hand, how has the club scene changed?

The worst, for the scene itself, is the lack of patience. Right now, everybody has access to knowledge. Ten years ago, you could play a brand new track, test it for the first time, and then you play it after four months and everybody goes crazy. But now, the moment you play a new track, it’s everywhere and everybody knows about it, and ends up knowing the story of the track better than you, and after two weeks, it’s old. It’s really sad. I know, for the kids these days, it’s really “cool” to be with the group that knows but let me tell you, it’s a waste that you don’t have that attention span anymore because the attention-build we had 10 years ago, that was just what made the whole thing so tingling.

You have WKNDR webisodes on YouTube, where you jet-set across different cities and play at the best clubs. Which is your favorite city to spin in?

There are a lot of cool spots out there, really, but I just have a soft spot for Tokyo. I think the whole vibe about it, the craziness is so full-on. It almost feels like a different planet. And the club there, Ageha, is absolutely an amazing club, with huge production, LED screens, big stage, it’s definitely part of my top three clubs in the world.

How do you think the Manila club scene compares with the rest of the globe?

It was really good, actually, around 2000 and 2001, when I started coming here for the first time. And it took a bit of a dive and became more like a bar scene. But now the last two, three years, it’s on the up again with people like BigFish throwing these bigger events and clubs like Republiq bringing in international DJs so its definitely getting there again. It’s just that with one club like that… we need more like that here! But with Republiq as a club, we can line it up with the clubs from the rest of the world.

Do you find your music fitting with the energy of Manila?

That always surprises me, coming here, like your city has a bit of mayhem, it’s fast sometimes, it’s so crazy and in-your-face, you would also expect that the music in the clubs would be so full-on, you know? But what I’ve seen so far, it’s very paced, very laid-back. But then again, I played in Boracay last year for Holy Week and it was mental… it wasn’t really holy! (Laughs) I think with the right environment, the vibe can be very explosive here.

You have a show, The Corsten Countdown, which is very big in Europe. Do you think a Manila DJ could one day be featured in on your show?

Absolutely! I’m surprised that there hasn’t been yet. I’ve been getting music from all the different labels out and I’ve never encountered a Filipino producer or artist and it’s known throughout the world that Filipinos have great ear for music. I think up to now, the infrastructure for that hasn’t been set-up quite right yet. Perhaps the Philippines look up a lot to the US, and whatever’s big in the US, like if hip-hop is big in the US, it’s big here in the Philippines. But now, there’s so much going on in the States. You go to a random bar and they play dance music, or whatever clothing store and they play dance music. No more hip-hop, no more R&B. And it will only be a matter of time before things start to change here. I went out the other night and they were playing hip-hop, and I was like, “Wow, I haven’t heard this in a long time. Maybe in the States awhile back, but not now.” So it’s only a matter of time before the mentality changes that may bring in some interesting talent from here.

Will you be playing here soon?

Yup, we have plans coming up for July 5. It’s gonna be in Republiq. I will be playing a lot of the “WKND” stuff and some of the classics that the people expect me to play. Every time I meet someone here, they’re like, “Hey, Ferry, you’re System F right? Like, Out of the Blue or Gouryella, or Walhalla?” So, you know, I might have to play that, with some of the new stuff around.