FAUSTO & PHIL YORK EXCLUSIVE "IHDS - Suomi Finland Pärkele" INTERVIEW BY PROTEUS:
1. Hi guys, welcome to Finland; the land of darkness and vodka!:) For both of you this is your second time here, do you have any nice memories from last time?
Phil York : Last time I came over with Dark by Design, the club was awesome but the after party well that’s something I’m missing a large part from my memory haha! Was very good times though!
Fausto: I remember having the worse hangover ever from being fed Salmiakki all night long haha!
2. You are touring at the moment with celebrating your compilation album IHDS - International Hard Dance Sessions, can you tell us how the IHDS project started?
Phil York: I’ve known Fausto for a few years now and knew he was someone I wanted to work with. We had done some studio time together and bounced idea’s off each other and realized we both had the same goals to get hard dance back on the map as hardstyle had pretty much taken over everywhere. This lead us to the IHDS concept that is in full effect now and seems to be taking over!
Fausto: Both myself and Phil were getting fed up with the lack of attention hard dance was getting and so we joined force to become a stronger unit to help push hard dance back globally! It’s been a great team as we both have different strengths and contacts so together we can achieve a lot more than individually.
3. The IHDS compilation album includes lot of different artist from different countries. Can you tell us how you picked your artists for the album and who all you have there?
Phil York: We managed to get our favorite artists together from each country in the world for this project. This is a long running series so there were some artists in the likes of UK, Holland, Italy etc we had to leave out for our next album as we didn’t want too many acts from same country. Artists involved include Alex Kidd, Kidd Kaos, Lisa Lashes, BRK3, Zany, Activator, Shock:Force, Luca Antolini, A.S.Y.S, Nomad, Mindbender, KloneZ, Nish, S.H.O.K.K, Remocon, Bass Agents, Ricky Raw, Stana, Morten Berg, S-Dee and of course the legendary mr Proteus from Finland!
Fausto: We picked artists who had a good presence in their country and also who we really liked their sound of and who represented that country or regions sound such as Remocon doing tech dance from Japan or Activator making great Italian hardstyle .
4. I think IHDS is great unifying thing for the global Hard Dance scene. How are the Hard Dance scenes doing at the moment in UK and Netherlands?
Phil York: The Uk’s hard dance scene is still strong but there are definitely less events than 2 years or so ago, the hardstyle sound has had an impact on this I think with some nights just doing hardstyle. A lot of the big events are doing less parties but bigger line up’s instead of doing monthly club nights now. It’s not all doo and gloom though there are some great events and this IHDS tour has really kicked off a lot more parties for us around the UK.
Fausto: In Holland its pretty much all hardstyle, HQ are the only brand that are throwing just hard dance parties at the moment but we are going to change that with many IHDS events and arena’s at festivals in Holland planned for 2011! It’s time to shake things up ;)
5. We love dark and hard music here in Finland, any extra hard tunes expected at your DJ sets at SADE & Fury?
Phil York: I was going through my tunes the other day trying to find the darkest ones I can especially for Finland, there are a few I’ve done with Dark by Design I know that I will be playing especially the Fade Out bootleg I know mr Proteus has been hammering in his sets for quite some time out there ;)
Fausto: Oh yes for sure! I’ve got some great dark material from likes of Wragg & Log:one & Zany, its going to be dark and hard as nails!
6. The most important question; are you ready to drink vodka and beer as much as we are?:)
Phil York: oh yes! I wouldn’t miss it for the world, I’ve organised a driver especially for my UK gig the next day as I know I wont want to be driving after a gig in Finland haha
Fausto: If there’s a late checkout then hell yes!! Bring it on!