Hot Seat: Andy Van Dorsselaer – Founder iThirtySeven and Co-founder Vicious Recordings
Andy Van Dorsselaer has been making club kids bounce for more than two decades. Now he’s passing on a few tricks. The DJ, producer and businessman has developed a novel new sampler app which he hopes will became a favourite new toy for DJs & Musicans. The iPro.DJSampler app’s features include an XY pad, trigger pads and DJ effects. And there’s an in-app store where users can purchase licensed sample packs, which can include stems, vocal cuts, beats and chopped up tracks which artists can pull apart and reassemble at the press of a button. Launched this week through Andy Van’s iThirtySeven company, the app carries sample packs from the likes of Skrillex’s OWSLA label, Nick Thayer and Steve Aoki’s label Dimmak. There’s more to come.
Andy Van has some history in the game. He co-owns Vicious Recordings, the Australian music label that signed and developed Avicii, Dirty South, Angger Dimas, Vandalism, Potbelleez. Vicious has released some 500 recordings. As an artist, he’s enjoyed something few Australians can match – he has a U.K. No. 1 single to his name with Madison Avenue’s 2000 hit Don’t Call Me Baby. His current act Vandalism is an in-demand international touring outfit.
Why build this app?
It came out of a frustration. Some DJs make a lot of noise when they’re performing, doing tricks and triggering snippets. But I couldn’t find an app on the iPad that could do what I wanted. I spent a year looking around, because you need someone with a high level of music programming skills. You’ve got to be able to trigger samples and to stream audio off RAM discs, and have gate and reverb and all those tricks. I’d almost given up and then I found this guy who’d made a (virtual) synth. It turned out he lived in St Kilda. I’d been looking all around the world, and I found my guy was living 10 minutes from my house. DJs are difficult characters; if a particular feature doesn’t work, then they’ll get ticked-off. So we’ve taken six months to build this, and then six months to test and refine and improve it.
What does the app do?
There’s two parts to it. You would use it as a DJ to use live in your sets, to drop samples exciting the crowd, sirens, vocal snippets. The second part, which is potentially even larger, is that it allows music producers putting together their own sets of music. There’s a lot of areas for musicians to use this as a live production tool. The funny thing is, John Course and I used to do this at a club called Chevron 15 years ago when the Akai sampler came out. We would chop up songs and put them together live. And lots of young DJs would come up and say, “wow, you inspired us to become producers because we could see you chopping up people’s songs.” All these years later, I’m making the tool that got me started in DJing.
Who are you targeting this software at?
There’s a middle ground — a pro-sumer. It’s someone who’s keen, but they’re not a “pro” yet. They know what they’re talking about, they just don’t know how to get there. This is not the tool, it’s a tool to get them across the line and get them inspired very cheaply. With EDM blowing up in America, I think I’ve just been lucky with the timing. Two years ago, EDM was just in its infancy in America.
How have you priced this?
The app is free to download. Within that, all the features are enabled. It’s a freemium app. If you want the premium part, you have to pay essentially five bucks. Effects packs are different prices.
What is this new company you’re behind, iThirtySeven?
It’s a music oriented start-up company to develop music apps for people who love music. It’s looking at potential areas where you can take things further, like effects apps for just a guitarist. We’re also thinking of going into social apps where you might be able use video, and chop-up vision. I’ve always been a bit of a geek on the technology front. And I’m passionate about music. When I wake up I’m listening to music and when I go to bed I’m listening to music. Its 15-hours a day music, or gadgets and apps. That’s my entire world.
All high-profile DJs and producers have their own label. You’ve made the leap from artist to businessman some time ago. How did you make that transition?
I started the Vicious record label with John Course about two decades ago, when many of the people who now like our records weren’t even born. We were creative businessmen. We were building things, but we very young and naïve. We weren’t very good with legals, but we just loved music and wanted to know how to get music out quickly. We put out Carl Cox’ first ever song. We had Sasha in the studio in the first few years of his development. Down the track, Madison Avenue happened and all of a sudden we became a label with strength and artists. Now we have 500 releases under our belt. We’ve got marketing people, promotions people. It’s a real team at Vicious. Now I’m expanding that idea into software. And this is now my baby, rather than being a part of Vicious. This is the “Andy Van” project.
Can you see a time when you leave the studio and clubland altogether?
Potentially. I’m not sure. Luckily I still look young. I was blessed with young skin (laughs). And I don’t cane it as much as other DJs do. I think that’s kept me in a place where I still look young and I can still jump around with 18 year old kids and not feel out of place. I suppose the day I feel out of place, my hip hurts and my back aches, is the day I get out.
I lived in the U.K. when Don’t Call me Baby went to No. 1. It was perceived as an international record, not a song that had come out of Australia.
It sounded global because I aimed global. I listened to (Mousse T’s) Horny and thought, “I want something like that. Something every DJ will play. At the time, Europe was the be-all, end-all in terms of dance music. We signed it to Sony in Europe. EMI Virgin in Australia. And Virgin in the U.K. And everyone pushed the hell out of it. Un the space of one year, we did six global tours. We were thrown into planes, every day a different country. It was bananas. It completely changed my world in terms of being a DJ from Australia. Ministry of Sound put me on their magazine as one of Australia’s first superstar DJs. I did Love Parade in the U.K. to 300,000 people – as far as the eye could see. We did the front cover of Rolling Stone. There’d never been an electronic artist on the front cover.
Are you astonished at how big electronic music has become?
Not at all. I’m surprised it took this long to get there. I wish it had happened when Madison Avenue were big. Newer artists are taking the baton. Steve Aoki is a hot property. Avicii I discovered by coincidence, is now one of the biggest DJs in the world. I was in his one-bedroom apartment in Sweden, sitting there with him and his laptop listening to demos. I thought, “this kid is going to be a star.” I didn’t know how big a star, and I didn’t know how quickly we could get him there. We signed him and put out the first nine tracks for Avicii. His 10th track, unfortunately for us, was Levels (laughs).
Can Australian artists stay here and become global?
Distance is a problem. It’s 15 hours to LA. If you’re regularly just emailing, it’s very hard to build that relationship. So a lot of guys are now moving to L.A. Look at the Stafford Brothers for example. They have a house over there because they know they have to be there. It’s a shame that you can’t be here and still be successful. I can tell you about 20 DJs who have moved to L.A. Yes, Australia can play a big part in it. They can play a big part if they’re living in LA. You lose that identify of Australia a little, which is disappointing.
There’s a lot of protest from the old-school about the use of EDM as a catch-all for dance music.
Genres have always been going around. In the U.K., Speed Garage was a thing. It’s just a word. It’s a word people use to describe for a period of time. EDM is an all-encompassing word. That’s why I kinda like it. People used to say to me, “Madison Avenue sold out.” Hang on, how did we sell out? We made a dance record that become popular. At what point did we sell out? Yes, some DJs make music you can call cheesy, and some are making music just to make money. But I think the majority of EDM artists are making music because they love EDM. If you want to make a lot of money, you’re in the wrong field, because it’s bloody hard to make money in EDM.
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