The Schulz Army invasion of Stereo Nightclub was anticipated from the moment it was announced that Markus Schulz was going to be playing a marathon event at the legendary club, to the moment the event sold out in less than a week and then when trance fans realized that Armin van Buuren would be appearing at another club across town on the same night. Stereo Nightclub is known to stay open as late as the DJ wants to play and also for the fact that the club doesn’t oversell tickets and that the crowd expects music well beyond the current top 40 in the world of dance music.
Markus Schulz had mentioned leading up to his appearance at Stereo Nightclub that he’d be playing for at least five to six hours. He ended up playing for seven and a half hours from 4:30 AM until noon. You read that correctly, he ended at noon. After the typical high fives, pictures and autographs a lot of the crowd finally walked out of the club after 12:30 in the afternoon. Markus has teased that the night was recorded and he’ll upload it to his SoundCloud page. We’re waiting like everyone else to see if it’s just a portion of the set or the whole thing. Whichever it is we’ll be listening and sharing the moment it’s online. UPDATE: Scroll down for links to Markus’ full Stereo set broken into two parts, clocking in at 463 minutes, no cuts, no edits, just exactly how it went down that night! We’ve compiled a full track list: http://bit.ly/StereoMTLtracklisting
Our interview was scheduled for just before 4 AM but for a brief moment we expected the whole thing to be scrapped when Markus Schulz had arrived in the DJ booth with one of his good friends, Armin van Buuren. The club had erupted at the sight of these two appearing together in the same DJ booth, a sight rarely seen even at an A State of Trance event. Markus had been at New City Gas prior where Armin had played. After Markus took some time setting things up in the DJ booth he retreated to the upstairs for his media commitments while Armin was signing things and taking pictures. For those on the dance floor, we apologize for delaying the start of his set by a few minutes.
Anyone given the chance to interview a veteran like Markus Schulz could spend an endless amount of time picking his brain about a variety of topics but with time against us we focused on a few things going on at the moment with Buenos Aires ’13 being the focus. When the Buenos Aires ’13 track list was announced the majority of tracks were unreleased tracks with a majority having never been heard before or known as an ID in a set, not an easy task to accomplish with 38 tracks on the compilation.
When asked about the process of picking artists for the compilation Markus said, “It’s a lot of the artists that I’ve been supporting and playing on Global DJ Broadcast.” So for any up and coming producers out there try to get your tracks onto a broadcast and if the sound is appreciated you may get asked down the road for an exclusive track.
“It’s not like a one month process, it was a whole one year process,” Markus said talking about what goes into something like this. He continued saying, “As a matter of fact I am already starting next year’s compilation now. It’s constantly working with artists and trying to envision the way you want the compilation to sound. It’s also working with artists to try to get that sound that it is that I hear in my head.”
Less than two weeks after the 2013 compilation the work has already started on the 2014 edition. No, the city it will be based off of has not been announced.
Another challenge is working with artists to keep the tracks unreleased. With a project like this you also want to try to keep the tracks from being played in a lot of sets so that they’re fresh with the release. We live in a world where music comes and goes so quick and it makes compilations like this something to look forward to with new music.
Talking about that topic Markus said, “Sometimes it’s very difficult you know. You’ve got these amazing tracks and you want to play it.” One of the tracks he mentioned not holding back on is Grube & Hovsepian’s “Trickster” which was three years in the making for the Coldharbour duo.
“I am not going to hold back on playing them, I am going to play them anyway,” he said.
“Remember This” is another track that was not held back on and debuted at Electric Daisy Carnival 2013 in Las Vegas and was an instant hit with the melodies. At the time it was an ID but a track that was an instant hit. The track was originally planned for Scream 2 but was given the push early and added to disc one of Buenos Aires ’13.
A compilation like this can also be stressful for an artist and when we asked about the feedback so far he said that it had been fantastic while adding, “But you know the thing is this, I am really at a point in my career where it’s like I want to show who I am as an artist. And so you know, I try not to worry too much about what the response is going to be. I just want to be an artist and do things that I enjoy doing and I know that I have such a great loyal fan base, that they’re there with me. I try not to worry too much about the backlash or the feedback.”
Purchase the CD from Armada Shop
Or purchase it on iTunes Buenos Aires ’13 – Markus Schulz
Along with the unreleased tracks another big part of live sets is the visuals that are present in a majority of clubs around the world. There are in house VJs but there are also VJs who travel around the globe with artists. Since the Scream bus tour Markus has been traveling with VJ Infinight. Stereo Nightclub is one of the rare clubs that only has a couple of projectors and lights from the ceilings but as Markus said, “Some of these venues where we’re wrapped in LEDs it’s great. And Morgan has been traveling with me since the bus tour. I think it’s very important because with the visual I want to make a show. I don’t want generic visuals of shapes, and you know weird warping things. We really try to put together a show where the music and visuals are connected.”
We’ve grown the Schulz Army in big numbers over the past year so we had to ask about the presence around the globe with t-shirts and flags being present at places not only in North America but also in places like Beirut, Tunisia and Tomorrowland. He replied saying, “It’s amazing. You guys are amazing. Sometimes when I walk into a club I am jet lagged or whatever and I see everyone with the t-shirts, the flags and everything. It’s just like wow!”
A DJ will do everything they can to appear being tired and jet lagged and this just shows that showing signs of support from the crowd can give an artist the sense that they’re right at home with like-minded people ready to have a good time. You can purchase Schulz Army t-shirts, flags and decals here: http://www.schulzarmy.com/merchandise/
One trend that has emerged in 2013 has been marriage proposals and weddings. Electric Daisy Carnival 2013 in Las Vegas married ravers for the weekend and also allowed people to get married at the festival with the proper license. At the Toronto solo set by Markus Schulz in June 2013 there was a wedding proposal during “Perfect”. Since then Tiësto was a part of a wedding in Las Vegas and another couple was married on the Groove Cruise while Markus Schulz played. Given all of that we asked if he thought about becoming ordained and he laughed saying, “It’s pretty cool. It just goes to show you how far this music has gone into people’s lives. Where they want the music to be part of special moments in their lives.”
Toronto and San Francisco are two cities close to us so we also had to ask about the idea of solo sets in those cities again. He said, “They’re all on my list. You know I definitely love doing those. Those are special cities that I always plan on doing long sets in. Whether it works out or not that’s a different story. But I always plan when I go to those cities to do long sets.”
Whether you’re in one of those two cities or anywhere else in the world if you’d like a marathon set find the local promoter who could make something like that happen and start building support for such a thing. Events don’t happen without the support of clubs and promoters who make things happen.
Markus Schulz was the reason Stereo Nightclub had sold out in less than a week so without hesitation we wanted to hear him get started and so did the rest of the club so we asked him about dragging Armin to the club and Markus replied with a smirk saying, “Yeah he’s here. He gets to hear some techno tonight!”
Here’s a brief glimpse of the night from the DJ booth thanks to kärl k-otik (a Montreal DJ):
Markus Schulz – Marathon Set Live from Stereo, Montreal Part 1
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/116614990″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Markus Schulz – Marathon Set Live from Stereo, Montreal Part 2
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/116617934″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
We’ve compiled a full track list: http://bit.ly/StereoMTLtracklisting
