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Berlin Love Parade

live at Red Rocks

Written by Jules Mari and Kevin Schoenbohm

Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL is one of electronic music’s most celebrated musicians, developing a well-deserved and enviable career status for more than a decade. With his new artist album Today, Junkie XL gets back to the basics with 10 guitar-driven tracks, and we wanted to know the how's, what's and why's... Why did he focus on guitar? What does he use in his studio? How did he develop the techniques that form his signature sound? How does he back up his data? Come along and find out what we learned in this down to the nitty gritty captivating interview!


Jules & Kevin: Did you use any new or different production techniques in the making of Today?

Junkie XL: Yes, there were a lot of new production techniques. The most important one is "why don't you just play your live guitar". Like, sample the heck out of it, for starters. Because this is a more personal album, it's important that you write the songs on the instrument that is the closest to you. Even though I play four different instruments, the guitar is the one I feel the most connected to. So, most of the songs were written on a guitar. Just like that. Not more, not less. Just sitting down with the guitar and banging out riffs and chords. Sometimes the song would be there, like the songs "Yesterday" or "Mushroom", they're songs that were there within 15, 20 minutes, and that would be it. Then you take it into the electronic world and you spend days banging your head against the wall on how to finish it [laughs], but pretty much it's all there. So if we talk about production techniques, I would say what changed towards the last albums that I did is that, even though this album sounds more organic and warmer than some of my other albums, this album is done completely digitally. And my other albums were done half digital, half analog because those were done in Amsterdam, where I have a full-on studio. I have everything digital, but also have a 128-channel desk, analog outboard gear, all Fairchild compressors, tape recorders. All that stuff I have used extensively on those albums.

So you still have the Netherlands studio then?

Oh, yes, I still have all of that equipment. For this album, since I moved three years ago to L.A., and since the square feet price here is a little bit different than Amsterdam, it was quite expensive to fly out that whole studio. I might do it later, but not for now. So my studio at the moment is a full-on digital studio even though it's a lot of computers and all that stuff. It is fully digital. So my main setup is ProTools HDTM. I've got a really big setup with all the farm cards that you can get, and an extension chassis, a bunch of converters, and pretty much all the plug-ins that I can get my hands on. So that's my main system and my second system is on a G5, with Logic - also with all the plug-ins that you can think of. It's a separate computer and they slave with each other so they're always in synch. Besides that, I have six PCs running Kontakt 2, which contain all the samples that I've made over the last twenty years and they're directly accessible through Logic for midi programming. And there's a third G5 running Kyma and MetaSynth. Kyma is a sound design program that comes with hardware and kind of works like ProTools. It's a big hardware case that you can expand with DSP and it comes with a program that uses Smalltalk which is almost something like CSound or something like Max/MSP and you can build in that box, whatever you want to build. I use that for sound design purposes, so that's a box that's new. I got that two and a half years ago and most of the sounds that you hear on this album are derived from guitars and vocals. I barely used synthesizers. Most of the sounds that you hear are all tweaked sounds from that program.

Of the six PCs that you have, are they older or newer boxes?

What I usually do is, I buy the cheapest PC that I can get. I usually go to the store that I always deal with here in town, PC Mall, and I just go in there and, like, "so what's the cheapest PC this week?" So, like, an HP 3.2 GHz for like three hundred bucks, four hundred bucks. I throw a bunch of memory in there, then I come home and install Kontakt 2 on there and all the samples are being read from firewire. So, if that PC dies, it's like, ok, go back to PC Mall and "what's the cheapest PC this week?" They die every now and then, but then, they're on for twenty four hours. I install Kontakt, once it's working, I never shut them down.

As far as backing up your data, what do you use?

I'm a really old-fashioned guy when it comes to backing up. I work in a way that's saved my ass a couple of times. I just copy everything by hand onto a firewire drive. So, I work all day, and then I've got a double 500 gig drive, so it's a terabyte in total. Everyday, when I'm done with work, whether it's a track, or whether it's a queue for a movie, I just drag and drop that queue on that drive. And that's how I work and when that drive is full, I write on there, this drive is from April 1st until May 26th and I just put it on a shelf and I buy a new one. I used to work with a server, I used to work with AIT drives with Retrospect and all that stuff and so many things went wrong. Like, you thought everything was being copied, or backed up, and it said it was backed up, and you'd go back, and it wasn't there, like, what? So now I'm doing everything by hand. It's a lot of work and it's definitely annoying sometimes, but I never lose data anymore since I do this. So, that's why I do it. But I would love to get a proper server, like a proper XRaid or something with a Raid 5 or something that has a huge amount of data storage capacity that can store all of my samples on there and that all of my computers can access that server. You know, that would be amazing, but that's an easy forty, fifty grand and I hate to spend that kind of money for something that doesn't make music, you know?

I'm assuming your latest album, Today, was a collaborative effort for you, Banker and Mader, or were the tracks written prior to them coming in?

Well, that's why this album is different than my previous albums. My previous albums were big conceptual albums or they had a lot of collaborations on there with famous people and also combined with the fact that a lot of the movies I've been working on here in L.A. the last six, seven, years, were all, like, blockbuster movies. And then, on top of that, some of the remixes that I did were from well-known artists like, Britney Spears, Coldplay, or Sarah McLachlan. So when I was thinking about making this artist record, I was like, you know what, I'm going to go back to basics and make a couple of tracks with unknown vocalists and no big stars, no well-known names, not a big concept, just very simple. The title of Today is about change. Basically moving from Amsterdam to L.A., different environment, a great outlook on my career here in town, but also missing my friends, missing Amsterdam, missing my family, so it's definitely a whole struggle of starting a new life. That's what this album is about.

How did you decide on Lucas Banker?

I wanted to use a vocalist that was not like a well-known guy but had a great voice. The character that I was looking for was a voice that would blend in with the music as an extra instrument and Lucas Banker is one of my best friends who's a guy that I met in Amsterdam but he's from D.C. and he also ended up in L.A. for some reason. I started talking to him about what I was doing and that I was done with my album on an instrumental level. I said, I need this type of vocalist and he said, "well, I know the perfect guy" because he knows everybody in town for some reason. So I met up with Nathan and with Lucas, because they know each other and it clicked and we started working straight away. I basically wrote the music and partially wrote the vocal melodies and then Lucas and Nathan would fill it out with lyrics.

"Mushroom" is such an emotional tune. It almost seems like there could have been vocals for it. Were vocals ever considered?

Ya, basically what happened is, I wrote the tune and then everybody around me was saying "Tom, you need to turn this into a song because it's going to be a single, or whatever". I know it's tempting to use vocals on those kinds of tracks but then again the guitar riff is so strong and so trippy to listen to that whole thing going in and out that I was, like, no, it would ruin the track if I were to throw vocals on it. That's why I decided not to do it. It's one of those tracks that really emphasized what I was trying to do with this album. I would say the whole vibe of the album is melancholic. Melancholy is something that if you bend it over to the left it becomes kind of sad and emotional, but if you bend it to the right, it becomes and it becomes hopeful and that's the beauty of melancholy and that's also, for me, what the eighties is all about. It's not about sampling that bass line, or that pop song, it's about the melancholy that all the bands that I loved, had. Early U2, or Depeche Mode, or the Cure, you name it. You know, I'm 38 and I started playing in bands every night, so in the early eighties, when I was in bands, and all those bands started around me it's also that type of guitar player that I am. If I pick up a guitar, that's what comes out of it, I can't help it, that's what it is. It's funny, when you see Depeche Mode live, and they play, "Enjoy the Silence", the whole stadium just turns into one rising party vibe and I'm like, "huh", how does that happen? It is such a sad song with such emotional lyrics. That's the beauty of it.

With the album taking only three months to complete, what steps did you take to simply the process to create the album?

It was a revelation, actually. It was such a vibe to go into the studio on January 10th and to walk out of it April 15th, like, ok, it's done; instead of working for three years on it. I would never work on an album three years constantly, but, ya know, in between doing other stuff. I would just block myself to three months and I forced myself to finish it, because I noticed when I was working on movies and video games, that it was always such a heavy deadline that sometimes I would do my best work if there was such a restriction on time. And I was like, why don't I restrict myself with an album and just get it done in three months and it felt really fresh.

How much of what you do in the studio relies on other individuals in order to follow a process through to completion?

Well when it comes to music, I'm pretty much a self-made man, I do it on my own. I find a lot of inspiration from music that I used to listen to or new music that I listen to, especially from guitar bands. When I work on movies and stuff like that, I sometimes have to hire outside sources to help with certain things or if I'm not able to complete something on my own because it takes a certain knowledge that I don't have. Like, I was working on a movie with a very traditional Japanese scene and, yes, I can fake something, but it will never be traditional, if you know what I mean. So you get people in to help you with that or when you record a string section, you've got to make sure that everything that you've composed can actually be played by that instrument. So you sit down with somebody who's an expert on that. But when it comes to my own music for my album, I'm just there and I like to try to find a way to do it which is my way.

It's always great to hear the eighties rock influences in your music, production, and remixes, etc. Is it safe to say that it's something that's synonymous with all your releases?

It definitely is, like I said earlier on, I'm 38, so I grew up musically in the eighties, especially the early eighties and the music that you hear and the music that you write and play as a musician I would say from the point that you're 12 until you're 20, that's essential, that's key, that gets into your soul, that's what you are and yes, later on, when hip hop started, like late eighties I was like, awesome, so I used a lot of hip hop influences in my music to come. But it's never the same as the kid who turns 13 when hip hop started and THAT becomes HIS soul, his second nature. That's why that is really my second nature, it flows through all the music that I make. It doesn't matter, sometimes the music can be fully electronic, or sometimes it can be fully guitar orientated but it will always have the certain vibe to it.

You've worked on many projects, original work and remixes for Adidas, Sasha, Coldplay, Britney Spears. How do you approach these diverse projects while maintaining your signature sound?

Well there a couple of things going on at the same time. If you're an artist you just do whatever you feel at the specific moment. If you're a remixer you just listen to the song and you have to seriously consider, not if you can make it better, but if you can offer an alternative that is different enough to the original, which makes sense. So that's my approach there. When it comes to movies, video games and commercials, you just watch the picture and try to come up with something that is a contradiction to what you see or supports what you see, and make it work with the picture. When it comes to producing somebody else, like on the personal level, that's where it gets really important. You have to gel with that person that you're producing. I cannot work with somebody that I think is a total ass. It doesn't work. Like Sasha and I clicked straight away. You know that on a human-being level you connect and you can talk about a lot of things you have in common and then it also makes sense when you talk to each other; like "I think we should do this…", or "I think we should do that…" and that's how it really works; and then when it comes to a signature sound, it depends on what you bring to the table and luckily I usually get asked for my signature sound so that makes it easier from that point on.

I used to be a traditional producer between records, like in the late eighties, early nineties, where I would be with the bands in the studio - doing an album for them, which would not necessarily have my signature sound. But I would be the producer of that album because the band felt that they performed better when I was around or instruments were better recorded, or they felt that as a group that they'd have more of a unit when I was around, almost being a psychologist, you know? And there are other people out there, producers, you know, you've got Trevor Horn. Trevor Horn is the sound signature guy. He records sounds a certain way. If you want that sound, you go to him. But if you go to, for instance, people like Danny Lanois or Brian Eno, that produced together, some of the U2 records, they just hang out in the studio and for some reason, the record sounds awesome. But it's very weird, it's very hard to pinpoint.

What did Daniel do?

Oh, he was just sitting on a couch drinking coffee and his album sounds so great because he's around, you know? So that's another aspect that I did as well, and that's fun as well. A lot of "old-fashioned" producers are like that. Those are guys that, the big names in history, whether it's Quincy Jones, or Phil Spector, or the guys that did the old Fleetwood Mac albums, people that worked with Pink Floyd, those are people that now, we think of as producers. A guy that makes a 12" in his bedroom on a laptop calls himself a producer. Which is fine, the definition of that word's changed but back in the seventies it was a guy that would oversee the whole recording process to make sure that the guitarist was clean when he needed to perform and he got off the heroin a week before so he was fine to do his guitar parts. We're talking about albums that took a year and a half to record so it's a whole different process. You were a psychiatrist, you were talking to the record company, you were listening to the band, you were saving marriages within the band, doing everything. It's an interesting process and it's totally different than slamming some beats together in Ableton Live and then saying, "hey, I'm a producer."

So you got away from all of that essentially?

Yes, it takes a lot of toll, man. It's a serious hit on your health. If you work with a band, you record the drums and the drums are done, he's beaten, but you're beaten as well and then the bass guitarist is next to you, all fit, just came out of the shower and he's like, "come on, let's record some bass". O.k., so there we go with another shift. And you work days of twenty hours for months and months and months in a row and at a certain point, you can't do it anymore.

How does the video for "Today" relate to you as an artist, producer, remixer?

It's pretty much what it is. The lyrics are all about enjoying but also finding that magic moment that when you see it, embrace it, enjoy it while it lasts. Also the young dog mentality. You see something that excites you, jump in it and just do it. That's me as a hair dresser, I'm not fucking hair dresser, I don't know how to cut somebody's hair, but I'll do it! [laughs]

As I watched the video for "Today", the message to me was that the people came in and didn't realize who they were and you helped them realize that and it reminded me of your production.

It's definitely an aspect of it and also where people come in and doing live shows, the lyrics about "Today" was literally written for what happens during my live shows - when you stand face-to-face with people that you've never met in your life. They might know you from a picture, but they've never met you and then you stand face-to-face with those people and that interaction between one and another, that magic happens at a certain moment, and that's what Glen [Cole] wanted to do, the director I worked with on several Nike commercials in the past. He wanted to create something similar but then with a completely different angle, something that is fun. So he created this whole idea of me being a hairdresser and people coming in and don't know what to expect and then I take the razors and flip them and then it's done. There's that magic moment and that's when the explosion happens for them when they go out - "come on!". They don't want to play it cool, like still in the barbershop and I'm around. They get out there and they get excited.

With the current release being on Ultra, what is the current status of being on the Roadrunner label?

The thing is, I got signed to Roadrunner in '95. Back in the day, my sound was way harder and it was very metal. Hard guitar meets very aggressive beats; and it made sense back in the day to be released on Roadrunner; and it's still my international label but in the U.S. Compared to some of the other territories, Roadrunner is more like a crossover label, but here in the U.S., it's pretty much metal. So they said, to give this record a good chance, and an honest chance at the market, we should find a license partner in the U.S. that knows what they're doing in this specific genre. And I'm really happy to work with Ultra on this, they're great.

And one final question, why is it that you put a limit on your remix work?

Especially after the Elvis remix that dropped #1 in 30 countries or something, I think it's good to do only a couple a year; and I usually do four or five. Usually two big ones, and then two or three unknown ones. Last year it was the remix for the Sims video games and then I did a project that nobody knows, but it was great to project work on, and then I did Unkle, some people know Unkle, and then it was Britney Spears and Coldplay. So I always try to keep that balance between underground remixes and more commercial remixes.

Thank you so much, Tom!

For more information on Junkie XL: www.junkiexl.com or www.ultrarecords.com

Special thanks to Karli at Cornerstone Promotion for all her efforts in coordinating the interview.