Tom Wax on the Virtual Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions 7/25/24

In this dynamic Virtual Session, Darran Bruce speaks with German DJ, producer, and label owner Tom Wax, whose 36-year career boasts over 600 releases and remixes. Known for his energetic, groove-infused techno, Tom shares how his sound has evolved from early hard trance to the driving, melodic techno he focuses on today. His work ethic is relentless—producing nearly everything he creates and maintaining a release schedule of new music every two weeks.

Tom reflects on milestone tracks such as It’s Our Future, a Love Parade anthem that propelled him onto the global stage, as well as his long-running label Future Wax. He discusses balancing releases between his imprint and other respected labels to maximize reach and promotion, and how collaboration with other producers continues to inspire him.

The conversation dives into AI’s growing role in music creation, the unpredictable nature of hit records, and the challenges of navigating a social media-driven industry. Tom emphasizes authenticity, advising new artists to stay true to their sound rather than chasing trends.

He also shares his excitement for Rave the Planet, where he co-produced the 2024 anthem Love is Stronger alongside Dr. Motte and Westbam. From festival main stages to intimate clubs, Tom’s passion for music remains undiminished, fueled by fan feedback and the thrill of performance.

Whether producing in the studio, DJing worldwide, or nurturing new talent, Tom continues to push forward, driven by creativity, connection, and a deep love for techno.

Host: Darran Bruce
Guest: Tom Wax
Location: Virtual Studios, Seattle WA & Frankfurt, Germany

Overview:
Darran Bruce connects with Tom Wax to discuss his decades-spanning career, signature techno sound, production output, label work, industry insights, and the creation of the 2024 Rave the Planet anthem.

Topics Covered:

• Career origins and evolution from hard trance to techno
• Over 600 releases and a release every two weeks
• Milestone tracks: It’s Our Future, Freedom of Expression
• Future Wax label history and collaborative projects
• AI’s potential in music creation and its limitations
• Rave the Planet 2024 anthem Love is Stronger with Dr. Motte & Westbam
• Balancing releases across multiple labels
• Social media’s influence on bookings and artist visibility
• Staying authentic and avoiding trend-chasing
• Festival culture differences between Europe and the U.S.
• Essential current tracks: Egbert – Overpressure, Fiak – Hustle
• Personal inspirations: Trevor Horn & The Art of Noise
• Advice for new producers: define your sound and live it fully

Call to Action:
Explore Tom Wax’s music and connect via tomwax.de.
Discover more episodes at thedjsessions.com

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions presents the virtual sessions. I’m your host Darran and right now I’m sitting in the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington and coming in halfway from around the world we have none other than Tom Wax coming in from Frankfurt, Germany. Tom, how you doing today?

[Tom Wax]
Hey Darran, yeah thanks for having me. I’m yeah super happy to be here.

[Darran]
Yeah, you know I mean I’m super excited. I mean you’re coming in from Frankfurt. I’m going to be visiting Berlin here in the near future.

Super excited to be part of Rave the Planet and we’re going to be talking a little bit about that because you dropped some free show notes and I’m super excited to let our DJ Sessions fans know about today. But wow, you’ve been in the industry now for 30 years. You look pretty young, like a lot of people, like I bet you can’t guess how old I am but you look like you’re in your mid-30s man.

You don’t look that old.

[Tom Wax]
No, I’m turning 52 in September so that’s the reason I’m in the business for over 36 years.

[Darran]
Wow, that’s pretty much basically how long I’ve been in the film and television business for and I turn 50 next month. Okay. But don’t let the, don’t let the, don’t let the, I don’t have hair or makeup on my team but you know they got some ways to make us look younger on camera now.

So it’s all good but you know over 600 releases and remixes. You know if you could describe your music in three words, what would you call it?

[Tom Wax]
Oh definitely techno, really energetic and yeah, how to say, not too monotone, a little bit groovy. I could describe it in different ways because I’ve been doing music for such a long time and yeah, techno music, electronic music was always about progression and over the last 36 years that I’m DJing, it has developed so much and my own sound as well developed a lot. I started with more like, yeah, like how to say, hard trance stuff or transier stuff, made a lot of techno in between and more a bit housey, tech housey and now I would say over the last 10 or 15 years I really focus on mainly techno.

Yeah, as I said with a bit of a groove, with a bit of melody, with a bit of a lot of energy. I always need energy. That was the reason why I got into techno music and electronic music because it gave me so much energy and that’s what I want to present when I release my tracks and produce my tracks.

It’s the energy.

[Darran]
The energy. Well you know with over 600 releases and remixes, you know, how many tracks do you produce in a month and how many end up being released?

[Tom Wax]
Nearly all the tracks that I produce are released. That’s the reason why I have already had so many releases and remixes. No, the thing is, to be honest, in the Corona or the Covid time I produced like hell.

Yeah, already in the beginning when I was really young I produced as hell but back in the Covid days, yeah, I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t DJ anymore so I was in the studio all day, all night and I don’t know how many tracks I produced in that two years time or two and a half years time. Yeah, I don’t know.

I’m so inspired all the time. I could go on forever. Sometimes I get a remix idea or someone asks me to remix this track then there are some things that I can recreate.

That’s also cool but still when I can start on zero, yeah, I just go on and it catches me all the time. I love doing music. I love producing music.

I love DJing and it’s still such a massive passion, yeah, that I could go on for, yeah, for years and I will go on for years still. Yeah, that’s the reason. So out of, yeah, 36 years now it’s 33 years that I produce music since 1991 and, yeah, out of that it’s such an amount of releases and of remixes and also of co-productions, of ghost productions, of producing other artists.

I do it 24-7, yeah.

[Darran]
How many tracks do you produce in a month and how many end up, I mean, you say you release almost everything you produce, but how many tracks you produce in a month? Because if you look at your average of 36 years or 30 years, just roughly doing the math, that’s 20 releases a year almost two a month.

[Tom Wax]
Yeah, when you look on my Spotify, for example, I have a release every two weeks, yeah. So, yeah, I can’t say that there’s a special amount of tracks that I produce a month, it depends on the time. I’m very productive when there is winter time, yeah, because I don’t want to go outside, the weather is shit, so I’m in the studio and doing music.

And in winter time I do a lot of tracks, I would say maybe nearly one track a day, for example, yeah, not really finished, but the basics. And then maybe sometimes I just save it on my hard disk and sometimes I work it out completely and do the complete mix down. But in the end, yeah, I always, when I don’t have any inspiration, I load in my latest, yeah, how to say, tries or something, and then I work them out again, yeah, when I like them.

And that’s how I, yeah, I would say like four or five tracks every week, that’s not a problem at all, yeah, when I’m in the flow. But sometimes maybe, yeah, every producer knows that you get out of the flow. And then sometimes I need a bit of a time, like one or two days to get into it again.

And then when it rolls, then I’m rolling and going on, going on and then unstoppable.

[Darran]
Yeah, I mean, that’s just a lot of tracks. I mean, I know, usually, I mean, even for a release schedule, you know, I know a lot of people that say, you know, once a month is what they try to keep up with, but you’re just, you’re just churning them out. I mean, that’s just crazy.

Do you ever make music completely out of your own genre that never gets released? No, no, I don’t think so.

[Tom Wax]
No, because I, the problem is, I, I’m really good into doing techno music or maybe some, also some trendy stuff. I really love, I would love to do really cool breakbeaty stuff, but I think there are other producers that can do that much better than I can do it. So sometimes I try, but yeah, it more gets like a fusion thing.

I like some breakbeats and stuff. To be honest, if I could really, if I could sing, I would do some alternative rock thing, because I’m a really big fan of a lot of alternative bands. When I’m on my own, I just listened to, to independent rock and alternative stuff that I can sing.

So I go on doing techno music. Yeah, that’s it. So that’s my passion.

That’s what I’m good in. And so I stay in my genre and doing my thing because I think I can do it best. And all the other stuff I would try, I think maybe that could be a good fusion of some sound styles, but I don’t know if someone wants to hear that.

I’m not sure. Maybe one day I start singing. I don’t know if I’m confident enough, I start singing.

[Darran]
Well, you know, it’s, it’s funny you bring that up because I’ve recently been doing some experimentation with AI and AI and transcribing our shows so that, you know, our shows, they’ll go in, it’ll transcribe them, pull this interview text out so that we can put it on the website, but then translate our website into like 80 different languages and people could get a rough translation of our episode, even though it’s in English, they can switch it and watch the transcription in German or Spanish or Thai or whatever language our website translates into. But, you know, I was watching something the other day and this company that I go through, they actually have it where they can actually do the subtitles in another language and have it read in another language as well. And the voice was like, I changed it over to Spanish just to try it out.

And it was, it was like an interview with Elon Musk. And it basically changed the whole voiceover of the interview into Spanish. And the text at the bottom was in Spanish as well.

And I’m like, this was done almost instantaneously on the fly. I was like, whoa, this is really cool. So if somebody could do that with translation of speech, what could they do from a vocal standpoint in AI?

And what are your thoughts on AI in the music industry?

[Tom Wax]
Yeah, I think it’s the next big revolution in all digital businesses. For example, nowadays, if you need a voice for any track, you go to the web and get an AI voice, whatever you want. And in the future, I think you can get every famous singer to sing any song in maybe any language in any track.

I think it’s maybe in the future, just the idea of any track is the main thing. It’s not about the production anymore. It’s not about the songwriting anymore.

It’s just about an idea. Just to say, okay, let’s do AI. I want to have a track, really kick in techno and Elvis Presley should sing on it, for example.

And he should sing a song of, I don’t know, of Rammstein or something like this. Just the idea of putting things together. That was awesome.

Ideas are crazy. That’s the thing. There are already some AI artists.

Here in Germany, I think it’s also in America the same, but you have artists, they have best of releases already. It’s more like funny stuff, but it’s already possible and it’s definitely really easy. If there is a need of that music, I don’t know right now, but in the future, it will be just the idea and the transcript, I would say, to develop an idea of what you want to hear.

And maybe everybody can create his own song. If he doesn’t like it in the original, he wants to have a hard techno version or a trance version or a house version, you just say, hey, AI, I want to have a housey version of whatever. And then you get it.

And that will be the future. I don’t know if it brings out really new songs, maybe. I don’t know if it brings new sounds, because it’s all supplied with already existing material.

So it will not be so innovative. But yeah, that’s maybe in the hands of us, of the producers, to create something completely new. I don’t know.

We will see. I think the possibilities are endless. But as I think right now, when you look here in Germany on the official top 100 chart tracks, it’s mainly reproduction of old tracks using old samples, using old lyrics.

They just cover tracks, some songs. And it’s nearly the same. And an AI could already do that in the same way.

So maybe nothing special will happen. Maybe it’s the same that it’s already going on. You understand?

It’s already there. But maybe people can do that who have never started any synthesizer, never started any computer to doing music. Just giving the AI the idea what she has to create.

[Darran]
I’m wondering, maybe I just came up with the idea, and I should have thought of this months or even a couple of years ago. I wonder if I can take my questions, because I have about 300 questions that I use when I’m and looking up, before I did the show, doing research with you. And I could go in, make myself an AI-generated character, and then have myself be the interviewer, but my interview is done in AI.

And you’re actually interviewing with the AI person. It’s asking you questions. You’re responding to those questions, but I’m not even there.

[Tom Wax]
Maybe that’s also possible. I think one day it will all be possible.

[Darran]
I guess, though, what it wouldn’t have is it wouldn’t have the response. If you answer the question, it may not be able to say, it might be able to say, well, tell me more about that. But it might not be like, oh, wow, I’m staying at this hotel next week.

We talked a little pre-show, which we’ll talk about in a little bit too, because I’m really excited to talk about that experience coming up. But I think that’s what I’ve heard a lot. When I’ve gone to ADE the last couple of years, and I bring up that AI question, a lot of people say, what it will miss is it will miss the soul.

It won’t have that on the fly. I mean, unless it gets smarter and smarter and smarter. But my AI-generated character, unless it knew I was going to Germany, wouldn’t say, oh, you’re in Frankfurt.

Oh, I’m flying to Germany next week. It might just go with the questions I put. It’s what you plug in is what you get out.

So I guess I would have to tap into my personal, my contacts list. I’d have to type into my emails. I’d have to type everything about Hey, now this is Darran, the AI version from the DJ sessions.

[Tom Wax]
That’d be pretty crazy. If I’m talking from the AI right now, I wouldn’t even know it.

[Darran]
You know, but if I can increase my interviews by tenfold, instead of doing 32 a month, I could do 320 a month. I’m always pushing the boundaries over here. Going back to music production, though, if you could take a look, and I know this is probably one of the harder conversations that always gets me, too, when people ask me this type of question is, if you could take a look at the list of the productions you’ve done, all the tracks you produced so far, is there any that really just stand out to you at the top most, the top of the line, like the one that’s most memorable, the one you just say, I just always love this track, this is my baby, and it’s my favorite child, and I’m going to coddle it and love it to the day I die.

[Tom Wax]
I love every track that I’ve produced, but yeah, for sure, for example, a release, back in the 90s, I released a lot of tracks with project names, not as Tom Wex, I had some projects called Arpeggiators, Microbots, and also AWACS, and AWACS, there was this big track all over Europe, nearly all over the world, called It’s Our Future. It’s Our Future was a Love Parade anthem back in 1995 or 96, such a long time ago, but this track was massive, and this track, it didn’t really start my career, but it got me through the world. All the other releases as well, but this one was so massive that I got booked all over the world, and so it’s really a special track that I really love, and as you said, that I cuddle, and that I re-release all two or four years again with some new mixes and stuff, but there are so many tracks that I really love, and that were milestones in my career, for example, Microbots, Cosmic Evolution, Microbots was a project, Cosmic Evolution was a track, was on R&S Records back in the days, the famous Belgium label, and got really famous, as well as the project Arpeggiators, a track called Freedom of Expression, I recently re-released with new mixes, and those are my babies, but as well as my first Tom Wex release called, and then it hit me back in 2001, I think, those are the milestones, but to be honest, every week when I have a new release, it’s my baby, I love it, and it’s always important for myself, but you remember those ones who got really famous, and pushed your career like this, I think those are the most memorable tracks at the end of the day.

[Darran]
Absolutely, you know, like I said, it’s really tough, because I have 2,500 episodes over the last 15 years, and everyone, people ask me all the time, what’s your most favorite, what’s your most memorable episode, you know, it’s like every single one of them, and I have people ask, do you ever go back and watch your old episodes, and I’m like, no, I was there, I produced them, you know, if I had to go back and watch old episodes, I wouldn’t have time to, you know, do any new work, because I’d be watching these, or having them play in the background all the time, I wouldn’t be listening to any other new music, or doing research, or another artist, anything like that, there is one story that I do tell from time to time, though, that was really memorable, and this is kind of the early days of our show, but I’m going to the story, it deals with a DJ, you might know him, Anthony Atala, yeah, so it was really, really kind of cool experience that happened with Anthony back in the studio, but other than that, like you said, every show is so, it is my own baby, and you know, I’ve been the perfectionist with it, and then, oh, I made an error, it wasn’t until I started getting into live streaming, though, that I realized bloopers are going to happen, things that might, you know, accidents are going to happen, I might slip up and say a word wrong, or say somebody’s name wrong, or, you know, I was just, we were going into the show, and I have the Roku player on the background, and I forget to put the TV on mute while we’re doing the interview, and it starts playing in the background, you know, I’m ready for those wartime scenarios during a live broadcast, you know, and, you know, so it’s kind of interesting when you just got to let it go, and let it get out there, you know, you’re producing tracks, you’re just pushing stuff out, you don’t, you fall in love with everything, but you don’t have time to just coddle it, and hold on to it, and say, this is my one, and I’m going to push this one episode, you know, and I’m producing, you know, we’re going to be at upwards of over 60 to 90 hours of content a month coming August, so I don’t have real time to look back, you’re talking almost 1200 episodes a year, like, nobody does that, so.

[Tom Wax]
The good thing is that I always, when I’m going to DJ, I always can play my tracks, that’s the cool thing at the end, so I think right now I could, like, play for hours, just my own stuff, I don’t do that normally, but if I wanted to do, I could do it, because I have so many releases, but I like also a lot of other tracks from other artists, so I mix that up, but it would be easy to just fill a whole night with just my music.

[Darran]
You know, now, are you, do you work, do you have your own label, or do you work with a label?

[Tom Wax]
It depends, I have my own label called Future Wax, that I run since 1994, but it depends, I always like to also release on other labels to spread my music everywhere, also it’s a thing of the promotion and stuff, I don’t want to do it all on my own all the time, so I spread it on different labels, but I have like a handful of labels that I really like, that really are releasing my kind of music, my sound, and I work with them together and doing always follow-ups, new stuff, yeah, from time to time, but yeah, since the Covid time, I really focused back on my label, and also released other artists on my label, as well as my own music, and yeah, since the last three or four years, I really have had a lot of releases on my Future Wax label, that was before the Covid days, it was, yeah, from time to time, but now I really focus back on my label, and also trying to release other artists and work with them, work some remixes out with them, some like remix sharing, like this, and that’s really cool to have, back in the days, in the 90s, I had also my Future Wax posse, my crew around me, but over the years, yeah, everybody got to other labels, got famous with other projects and stuff like this, so this disappeared a little bit, but then now I’m focusing back on my label, on my artists, on my label, and it’s a cool thing, because we also have meetings, where we all get together, yeah, talking about music, talking about new projects, arranging new studio sessions, and working out some tracks together, and that’s really cool. I really love to work in teams, to work together with other DJs or producers, that’s, yeah, it’s always a new experience, and you get new ideas, or ways of producing, that’s something I really love, because everyone is producing in a different way, with different plugins, with different arrangements, and stuff like this, and that’s really inspiring, and that’s what I really love.

[Darran]
Definitely. What’s the most important thing that record labels should be doing for their artists, and on the whole, are they doing a good job with that?

[Tom Wax]
Good question, nowadays. Back in the days, I could answer this question really easy, but nowadays, yeah, I think a good DJ promotion is the first thing to do, yeah, to spread the news, that there’s a new release coming to different websites, blogs, stuff like this, like a good promotion in advance. Then in the end, yeah, here in Germany, everybody looks just on Spotify, nothing else is important anymore, just Spotify, so sometimes you push your stuff with some Spotify promotion, it depends, yeah, you need to know if it’s a good result at the end.

I’m not sure sometimes, I’m not really happy about all that, yeah, when you get some cool Spotify playlists, you have a lot of plays, and you get recognized, and people know that your new track is out, but it’s really hard, at the moment, because there are so many platforms, so many shops where you can buy music, so many websites where you can consume music, where you can just listen to DJ mixes, whatever, so it’s not really easy, but in the end, it’s good, that’s the reason maybe why I established my own label crew again, because we push each other’s releases, yeah, we share that on our socials, and we try to hype it in a crowd, with a lot of people who spread the word, and yeah, maybe that’s the most important thing, to have support from your locals, and from your artists, and maybe then you get a little impact on a release, but hey, sometimes I think it’s just luck, you need good luck, and sometimes it happens, sometimes it don’t, yeah, it’s sometimes I focus on the release, and I think, oh yeah, damn, this will be the biggest one, it will be massive, and then in the end, nothing happens, yeah, you sit there, and you say, hey, why, what did I do wrong, what happened to the release, it’s not played, it’s not pushed, nothing, but sometimes you have a release, you don’t focus so much, and it explodes, it goes through the roof, and everybody loves it, and that’s maybe the reason why I put out music every second week, yeah, because I want to spread my music, I don’t want to be sad about any release that doesn’t work, I want to go on producing my music, producing my sound, spread my music, and it’s always great if someone says, hey, Tom, I love your new release, yeah, that’s the most important thing for me, and I’m always happy when I get some recognition, and if someone loves my music, that’s the thing, yeah.

[Darran]
Now, you said that you can go out, obviously, with your library, and play a set of just all your music, but you like to incorporate other people’s music, and include that in your mixes as well. Outside of your own music, what is an essential track, say it’s July 25th, 2024, today, what’s an essential track that’s out right now, that no one should miss out on, that you would include in your mix right now, saying, I’m playing tomorrow night, Friday, or I’m playing tonight, I’m going to put this in the mix, because this is something that somebody should be paying attention to, maybe it’s already getting a lot of attention, maybe it’s not getting a lot of attention, but what do you think, do you have anything right now that somebody should know about?

[Tom Wax]
I have my playlist here, and then I can tell you which track I really love, it’s Egbert, Overpressure, that’s a real cool track, a real cool techno track that I really love, that has so much energy, but there are many tracks that I really love to play, Fiak, the artist Fiak, Hustle is a really cool tune, a really old school sounding techno tune, that’s also something I love to play, but yeah, it depends, it depends on the audience, it depends on the mood and the time, for example, last weekend I played a sundowner set, and I needed some more atmospheric stuff, I would not start with just heavy techno, so it always depends, I’m a real old school DJ, I started playing old DJ sets for like 10-12 hours in the club here in the Frankfurt area, Dorian Gray for example, and I’m used to play long sets normally, to have a build up, a climax, a little bit going down, going up again, that’s really what I love, and I’m always happy when I get out of an event and I’ve played every track that I really wanted to play, that I had in mind before, that’s something that makes me happy, and so there are tracks in every genre and in every mood that I really love to play, but it depends, but those two tracks are really something that kicks my ass when I’m playing out.

[Darran]
Well, speaking of tracks, you gave me some information about something I’m super excited to be going to in a few weeks here, and you have a quintessential part in this mix, I actually just went to your Instagram and clicked on your profile picture, and saw one of the latest pictures you put up about eight hours ago, and it mentions Grave the Planet and Friends, and that picture was put up there, Dr. Motte, is it Motte, M-O-T-T-E? Dr. Motte in Germany. Dr. Motte and Wes Spam, and so I’m going to Rave the Planet, it’s a super, super awesome festival, maybe you can let our DJ session fans know a little bit more about it if they haven’t gone to the website or found out about it or heard me talking about it on social media, but you actually made the anthem for Rave the Planet, I mean, tell us about your involvement with Rave the Planet, what it’s all about, and we’re definitely going to see you there, hopefully get you on the ground, but tell us about your involvement with Rave the Planet, and how you got tapped to make the anthem for Rave the Planet.

[Tom Wax]
Yeah, it was really funny, because I’m a long-term friend of Dr. Motte, he’s the inventor of Back in the Days of Love Parade, and he’s also the inventor of Rave the Planet, of the new parade, and I produced a lot of tracks together with him back in the days, we had like two or three or four releases together, and yeah, he called me and said, hey Tom, we want to do a new anthem for Rave the Planet this year again, and I already started together with Wes Spam, we did some basic melodies and beats and stuff like this, would you be up for doing a more driving, more techno main stage kind of sound to the tune? I said yeah, for sure, let me hear it, and I checked it out, and I said yeah, let’s go, and I started to giving the whole thing a more energetic, basic beat and sounds, and it’s not really a real hard techno track, but it’s a track that is driving, has techno elements, and I think it’s really usable for that Rave the Planet anthem thing, it’s more like an anthem kind of track, because when we are there in Berlin on the 17th of August, we want to have a tune that gives you some emotion, that kicks you, that gets you a feeling, and I couldn’t do just like a drumming or driving thing, there was a need to have some melody, some atmosphere, some anthem kind of sounds, and that was my job in that tune, and in the end it’s a Dr. Motta, Wes Spam and Tom Wegg’s release called Love is Stronger, that’s also the claim of the whole Rave the Planet parade, Love is Stronger, and yeah, I can’t wait to be there on the 17th of August, and to hear that track in front of all the people, in front of the Berlin audience, and of the people that come from all over the world, to attend the parade, because that’s something really magical, and something really special. I wasn’t there last year, but two years ago I was at the first Rave the Planet parade, and that was awesome, I couldn’t believe it, before I was just thinking about maybe 20,000 or 25,000 people will come by and attend the parade, and in the end we had like 300,000 or 350,000 people, it was amazing, I was standing there and saying hey, unbelievable, I couldn’t imagine that there would be so many people attending the parade, and I think this year we will get much more, and from all over the world the people start coming again, because after the breakdown of the Love parade, there was nothing comparable anymore, but right now there is the Rave the Planet parade, and yeah, just come by, visit Berlin, and have the best day of your life, because Berlin on this day is so special, and it’s so unique, and people love it.

[Darran]
I am so honored, I got invited literally last week by Riverside Studios to come by, by Martin Ayer, and to come by and be part of the show, come tour the studio, do some interviews, be part of that, and my 50th birthday is next month, I was looking for a bucket list kind of thing to do, I was going to take my friend to New York, and go hang out there, and last minute he wasn’t able to do it, and then Martin last week, I was in an interview with him, and he’s like you should come to Rave the Planet in Germany, I’m like when’s that, and he’s like next month, and I’m like well that’s my birthday month, I was looking for something to do, next morning I booked my airfare, I booked a reservation at the Enhow, and I was like all right cool, and Enhow’s just right across the street from them, and I’m going to be on the Riverside Studios float, it’s a double-decker bus that has room for 180, but they’re only going like 120 people on it, they’ll have an upper floor and lower floor with the DJ up on top, I’ll be up on top filming the DJ, but also doing interviews at the top of the float while we’re in the middle of the parade going around for eight hours, I’m like this is like a once in a lifetime experience, you just don’t say no to, you will love it, you said 350, I was expecting 250, now it’s like 350,000 people, this just keeps getting better, and we dropped out, give a little plug, shout out to the Enhow Germany, I was on an interview with somebody, a friend of Martin’s, talking about VR and interactive experiences online, they own an interactive experience company, doing some really cool stuff over there, and they said have you seen any pictures of the Enhow hotel, and I’m like no, and he goes go online right now, go to Wikipedia, look it up, and look the pictures, and I did not know the architectural design of it one, that it was a hotel that catered to musicians basically, they have studio spaces, like if you want a guitar brought up to your room, they’re like what kind of guitar do you want, what kind of bass do you want, do you need studio time, it’s a very awesome boutique hotel, I got a really cool room there, and I did not know that it’s gonna be right there in the heart of everything, so I’m super excited for that, I look forward to definitely seeing you at the Ray of the Planet, congratulations on that, if you can slide into Dr. Mote, if you can slide into his DMs and say Darran would love to do an interview with you before the festival, that’d be awesome, I’d love to get that, I’m super excited like I said to be coming over there and experiencing that, I usually go to ADE every year, but I’m changing that up a little bit, and I’m gonna kind of got an invite to go to Ibiza as well later in the year, so it’s like doing a little bit more international stuff, try to get that before I lose my youthful vigor, I can still party with the best of them, but congratulations on remaking that new anthem, I look forward to hearing it out there, you know looking at big events in Europe, you mentioned Love Parade, we’re talking about Ray of the Planet, you’ve been in this industry for 30 plus years, how has your experience been seeing the rise of electronic music in the United States, and the differences of that, seeing EDM, or sorry, I usually don’t like using the moniker EDM, seeing electronic music being in Europe for so long, are there differences that you see between the two scenes?

[Tom Wax]
Yeah okay, when you compare it, we had those events and clubs and stuff since the end of the 80s, like from 86, 87, around that time, and also in the middle of the 90s, we had already a big festival or event scene back in the days, and then in my point of view, I saw David Guetta becoming really big here in Europe, with the American artists that he featured on his releases, and then it seemed, I played in New York, when there was a new music seminar still existing, I played in New York in 93, and the scene was really underground, and nobody really did understand what we played out there, and a lot of the dancers were doing breakdance kind of stuff on the dance floor, and it looked mad to me, but I think when David Guetta came up and brought the straight kick drum, the straight bass drum to the States, something happened, and the people, they got socialized with electronic music in a completely different way than we hear in Europe, so it’s obvious that it’s a different kind of approach to the music, but in the end, I don’t care, because if the people get into all kinds of electronic music out of David Guetta, it’s not a problem, if they listen to techno as well, it’s cool, and maybe they get their favorite electronic music at the end out of maybe hearing a David Guetta record, that’s okay. EDM, I really don’t like it, because for me, it’s just commercial music with vocals and stuff like this, it’s okay, I understand why people love it, I understand why big festivals work perfectly with that kind of music, but it is not my origin, and it’s not my kind of music that I really love and where my heart bumps for, it’s not what I would expect, what I wanted to hear on a big festival, but hey, it’s okay, anyway, everybody should get his music, everybody should hopefully get into electronic music out of that, and maybe just doing some research and checking where it’s coming from, who are the originators, who was there first, who invented techno, who invented house, it’s cool when it has this benefit, but as I said, maybe in America, in the States, there was a different approach to the whole electronic music, because back in the days, rock and roll was existing, hip-hop was existing, it was really big in the States, but then David Guetta came and all the others behind him, and they are really big superstars right now, worldwide superstars, but for me, it’s more like commercial pop music at the end, it’s not really… some of them started with really cool tracks and cool stuff, for example Skrillex was really cool in the beginning, also maybe Martin Garrix, you could hear that in the beginning, but then it got really commercial, just vocals, just like a hook, what you need for everyone that has fun and can sing along with it, but that’s not club music, it’s not techno music, it’s not good club music at the end, and what I really like is the thing that all the big festivals, they have a big main stage with EDM artists, but they also present some techno stages with cool acts like Richie Hart and Dubfire, that’s what I appreciate, and that’s where I hope that people get also involved in different kinds of electronic music out of the other floors, but it’s the same in Germany here right now, you also have these big festivals with a main stage, techno floor, trance floor, house floor, dubstep floor, you know, I like the fact

[Darran]
that you bring that up about those different floors, those different areas, and being able to experience that, because one of the technologies that we’ve embraced here at the DJ sessions is what’s called silent disco, I’m sure you’ve heard of that technology where people with the headsets on, and you know, coming from being such a big foodie myself, I translated into a music experience of being kind of an all-you-can-eat buffet, where you’re at our event, and we’re the only ones that I know in the world, don’t out there anyone fact check me, but I think we’re the only ones out there that have seven channel headsets, so I can have seven different stages going on in these headsets, and I can choose what I want to listen to, if I’m not a fan of what’s going on in the main stage, I’m not a fan of happy hardcore, I don’t want techno, and I want some house, I can put on the house station, go listen to that, and still be standing right next to somebody who’s listening to the techno station, you know, and the music isn’t crossing over, and we’re having our own experience, and I might look like I’m having fun, they might switch over to the house station, but they might look like they’re having fun, I might switch over to the techno station, and have that, you know, that symbiotic environment, that connection there, which is just interesting, but you’re right, with so many genres, how do you choose, and how do you, you know, you wouldn’t be able to facilitate seven stages, unless you had such a massive area where the sound is going to cross over into, and give bad sound performance, a bad end user experience, but you know, you’re right, with so many choices, like how do you appeal to so many flavors and genres of music now, unless you’re just gonna be a techno-only event, or a house-only event, or a tech house, or a trance, or a psytrance, or, okay, I don’t even want to go into the Wikipedia definitions of how many genres there now are of electronic music.

When I grew up, it wasn’t even called really electronic music, it was just called techno, you know, and then it started, I mean, you had house, and you had techno, and then it started breaking out from there, I think house, you know, and then this techno music, it was like, what’s going on?

[Tom Wax]
Back in the day, for example, we just had a main stage where different styles were played, yeah, like one DJ played like more house-y stuff, then more like techno, then some break beats, and some trance-y stuff, and that’s what, that was a time that I really loved, because it was not like the genre stages, it was one stage for all kind of sounds, and so you got open-minded for everything, but now it’s just like in, I think, in genres, oh, there is some trance played, I don’t like that, I go to the techno stage, okay, that’s, yeah, the time, times change, and now it’s like that, yeah, can’t stop that.

[Darran]
Who’s been your biggest influence when it comes to your career as an artist, and why is that person such, why, what did they do to inspire you?

[Tom Wax]
Yeah, that’s really easy, because I’m a big fan, I’m one of the biggest fans of Trevor Horn, maybe you know Trevor Horn, he’s just a producer, but he produced so many great acts, and my main track that inspired me the most to do electronic music, and it’s his project, The Art of Noise, and it’s a track called Close to the Edit, and when I first listened to that track back in the beginning of the 80s, I was wondering and saying, damn, you can do music with just noises, some car noises, some, yeah, car door crushes, some stuff like this, motor, engine, engine noises like this, and that was so inspiring, and I thought, damn, what’s that, that’s great music, that’s outstanding, I have never heard something like this before, but then I also got into his projects, and back in the days he did Frankie Goes to Hollywood, he did Propaganda, he did Grace Jones, he did as well Seal, he did ABC, all my favorite artists from the 80s, and he’s just such a genius as a producer, I recently read his biography, and that was so inspiring again, yeah, he’s a genius, and I was also always into his music, but this special project, The Art of Noise, you should all listen to it, because it’s outstanding music, it’s so special, so unique, I think there is no other music project that sounds like The Art of Noise, and that was my main inspiration, I said, I want to do something like this, and my first record that I released had some samples from an Art of Noise track, as you can imagine.

[Darran]
I couldn’t agree with you more there, Art of Noise has definitely had its influence on me over the years, from an electronic music standpoint, you know, one of the albums I fell in love with years ago was the Seduction of Clyde Debussy album, and I just completely, I would just listen to that over, and over, and over, and over again, it was so beautiful, and I mean, if you listen to it on the right sound system too, where you can feel this bass, one of the songs, you just feel this bass drop, and just make you feel like you’re sinking into a marshmallow bed, just boom, and you just go on this journey that he’s, you know, I mean, it was just, I actually used it in my thesis for Philosophy of Music, actually, as one of the tracks of like, you know, looking at an artist that, the history of an artist, and where they started, and where they were at, you know, this is back in like early 2000s, but yeah, Art of Noise is just, I still get a kick here in old school tracks, I listen to an online radio station, Groove Salad, by Son FM out of San Francisco from time to, well, I listen to it all the time, but from time to time, they’ll kick an Art of Noise track in there, either do like Paranoia, I think Paranoia is one of the ones they play a lot on that station in rotation from time to time, but you know, Art of Noise is just, they’re one of my top favorites, too, that’s an awesome share there. What has been your best business decision in favor of your artist career? If you could go, this was the turning point, I made this decision to do this, and everything went after that, like, whoa, the best business decision.

[Tom Wax]
Okay, when it comes to techno music, it’s always a good thing to release on a good label, or like the most famous label or whatever, and back in the days, I released on Sven Färd’s Hardhouse label, that was my third release, I think, this was the track Arpeggiators, Freedom of Expression was first released on Hardhouse Records, Sven’s label back in the days, and this one got out of the roof, yeah, it was incredible, and was the first push I had in my career, and then, yeah, I think that was, you get into the scene, and that’s the most important thing, and I don’t know if it’s like a business decision, for me, the whole thing was never really a business in the beginning, it was just passion, I was producing music, and the first thing was, I want to release a record, I want to hold a record of my own in my hands, that was my main aim in the beginning, and then it was more like, okay, I want to have a collection of my own releases, like, going on, going on, a new record, a new record, nowadays it’s just a new Spotify release, or a new MP3 download or something, but yeah, it was like, I want to release on the right labels at the right time, that was mainly the business decision I always had, to be part of a good label, to have a focus on your music, to get recognized, and it’s still the same nowadays, if you release on the right labels, you get the reputation, you get the followers and the fans, it’s the same nowadays, in a different way, so no more vinyls, no more records, but still really famous labels, and it’s good to be a part of it, to be on those labels, and then I think that’s always a good business decision at the end, but I don’t know if it’s really business, it’s more like an idea of how to release your music.

[Darran]
Definitely, and it kind of leads into my next question, is how do you define success as a DJ slash producer? Is it a Beatport top 10 hit, sold out tour? What are your thoughts on this?

And you might have to take this on a per project basis, as opposed to, like you said, your early stages was getting on a label, and then getting the release, and getting the library, but now, how would you define success as a DJ slash producer?

[Tom Wax]
Yeah, that’s hard to describe, I think it’s when you get over a 1 million plays on Spotify with a techno track, that’s really awesome, but I don’t know if that’s really success, it’s cool, but I think I don’t care about that really anymore. For me, it’s more like when people come up to me and say, hey, love your new track, or I get an email, or I get a Facebook post, and people say, damn, massive, a bomb, I love it, like this, that’s my fuel, that’s what I’m living for, and I really don’t care about success at the end anymore, it’s more, I want to release my music, I want to still do what I want to do, I don’t want to do people that others want me to do, I want to do my own stuff, and that is easy nowadays, I can do a track every day, and next week I can release it if I want to, and maybe that’s my success at the end, because I’m perfectly connected, I can release everywhere, I can release on my own, and that’s what I established after years of producing music, I’m free, I can do whatever I want, that’s maybe my success at the end.

[Darran]
You know, being in the game for so long, 36 years, and seeing the rise of social media now becoming such an important part, or so many people’s careers, you know, how important is social media to you as kind of a veteran in this game, I mean, are you on the socials, are you active in the socials, you’re like, my social media is organic, it does what it does, but how important is that to you, or would you say, how important is that to up-and-coming artists?

[Tom Wax]
It’s the most important thing right now, because every promoter, everyone is just looking how many followers they have, oh okay, he’s famous, it’s really a hard thing for the veterans, for the legends of that music, because our peak time was back in the 90s, we are still existing, I always try to redefine my style to be a part of the sound that is pushed right now, or that is working right now, I’m not a guy who just thinks back in the days, I’m in the present, I want to do music still for the future, and I work on that, and I try to be up to date with everything, with my DJ sound, with my productions and everything, but it’s really hard, because a lot of the newcomers, they just do one track and have like 100,000 followers, and I’ve done music for over 36 years, but the younger generation, they will not recognize me anymore, just when any of the new guys is maybe remixing a track of mine, or when I’m featured on any release of such a new guy, it’s definitely very important, there is nothing more important than social media, I’m not a big fan of TikTok, I’m not doing anything on TikTok, I hate TikTok to be honest, I’m still a big fan of Instagram, I’m still a big fan, no, not a big fan, but I still use Facebook, I’m not really working with X anymore, but yeah, what should I say, we have to work with it, go with the flow, do our business, that’s maybe the main change, if you compare it to back in the days, nowadays you have to do all on your own, graphics, videos, pictures, artworks, everything, you have to be a good presenter, you have to have good reels, good stories, and normally you definitely need someone like a social media guy who is doing all your work, but I do it all on my own, and I like to do it, but normally it’s a full-time job, and normally you have to invest a lot of money to promote your posts, but I’m still not a friend of that, for me it’s really a waste of money to buy clicks and followers, I want it the natural way, and not the money way, to be honest, but yeah, it’s how it goes nowadays, back in the days they pushed some boy bands like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys and stuff, they pushed them with money, and nowadays all the DJs, the new up-and-coming DJs are pushed with money just buying Facebook promotions, Instagram promotions, TikTok promotions, and yeah, that’s how it goes, I’m not a big fan of it, but yeah, sometimes you have to do it, but yeah, it always depends how much money you want to spend, or as I said, waste, you want to waste.

[Darran]
If there was something that you’d like to say to new and up-and-coming producers to watch out for when it comes to making their careers successful, what would that be, what would that one piece of advice be?

[Tom Wax]
That’s easy, because I think they have to stay true to their music, they have to know what they want to present, what they want to stand for, which kind of music it is, you can’t go on doing EDM the one day and then cool techno the other day, and the next day some groovy house, that makes no sense, you have to focus on your music, stay true to your sound, and this sound has to be your passion, it doesn’t make sense if you like techno one day, house the next day, main stage EDM, that makes no sense, you must feel that, you must live for that, and you must have a passion for the music, and in my opinion, that’s the most important thing in the music business. For example, I could not go on stage and play EDM, you would see it in my eyes, in my behavior and everything, that I don’t like the music that I play, but when you go out and play your music, you must be completely into it, you must feel it, you must live it, it must be you.

[Darran]
No, I hear that all the time, and one of the other things I hear too a lot of times is, don’t look to Beatport and say, oh, that’s what’s hot on Beatport, so I’m going to start producing that right now, because by the time you might be finished, it might move on to the next genre, and you’ve got to just stay in your lane and produce what you produce, and if that’s your goal to rank on Beatport, produce what you like and try to get it there, and reach out to other forums and other areas to share your music there, and it can help you maybe be in that genre.

Don’t, like you said, bounce around, do a lot of different things, that makes a lot of sense, very good piece of advice there. Tom, a little personal question here though, when you’re not entertaining others, making music, what do you do to entertain yourself? What’s Tom do outside of the studio and off the stage?

[Tom Wax]
I play a lot of tennis, my second passion in life is playing tennis, I’m a super nerd, it’s also a really, really big passion in my life, I started playing tennis back in the days when I was 12 and still today, but that’s my sporty thing that I do, but I love to watch some cool Netflix series, any recommendations are always welcome, and hanging out with friends, going for some dinner or lunch or whatever, talking, not just about music, I also have different kinds of friends, like music friends and just normal friends, and I really just love to hang out and have good talks, and yeah, just enjoying life.

[Darran]
And if I were to visit Frankfurt, what’s the best thing we should visit, what I should go do if I came to Frankfurt? The one thing you have to do.

[Tom Wax]
Wow, what? You should go out for a really traditional restaurant, like a Frankfurt restaurant, where they have some really special Frankfurt dishes, as well as some special Frankfurt drinks. We have Apple Boy, it’s called, it’s like an apple kind of wine, yeah, and we have some really interesting food stuff, you should definitely check out, that’s really special about Frankfurt, in Frankfurt, Frankfurt is, for example, yeah, for me, I like to go there, it’s more like the business, a business city, a banking city, and we have some nice spots to look at, but not so special, that you haven’t seen something like this in the States before. Other places, for example, Heidelberg is really close to my town, where I live, that’s really like, really old, and old houses, old castles, old churches like this, but Frankfurt is more like a modern kind of city, but go to a traditional restaurant, a Frankfurt restaurant, you will have a lot of fun, you will have some special, yeah, kind of food, and smells, and tastes, that would be really interesting, it’s new for you.

[Darran]
Well, being the foodie that I am, I’m sure I would completely love it, I love international food, I have the iron stomach, I can eat anything, I just don’t, I can’t eat anything that’s alive, I just don’t think I could eat the squid on a stick, if I went to Tokyo, or wherever they serve that at, or Japan, you know, the live, like, no, I know, and sea urchin, I can’t do sea urchin, tried it once with sushi, just wasn’t my flavor, wasn’t my thing, but a couple last questions here, if somebody were to write a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?

[Tom Wax]
Oh, okay, that’s not easy, I released a special compilation back in the days, and the title was Music, Fun and Good Friends, I don’t know how I came up to this, but yeah, it’s something that is the most important thing for me in life, music is one of my passions, I want to have fun, I want to enjoy life, and I need good friends, and yeah, it’s the best you can have, those three things together, it’s perfect for me, I don’t need anything else, and maybe that would be a good title, but maybe there, if I would write the biography, because a lot of people know me because of that, it’s our future track, yeah, I would maybe call it, it’s our future, or no, I think about a good idea, this was his future, or something like this, but it makes no sense, but in the end, something that is connected to that, it’s our future track, maybe something like this, but I have to think about it, it’s a good point, maybe I should write a biography one day, I always, sometimes I thought about it, but yeah, there must be something in that people want to definitely know, and maybe some secrets, some special happenings, whatever, and I think I would need a lot of time to write all that stuff.

[Darran]
Well, maybe you can have some AI help there. Maybe, yeah, maybe, yeah, that’s a good idea. Awesome, Tom, is there anything else you want to let our DJ Sessions fans know before we let you go?

[Tom Wax]
Yeah, watch out for my music, I love, if you get into it, if you appreciate it, and if you like it, write me some words on Facebook, on Instagram, if you enjoy it, it’s great to get feedback, it’s great to, also, if you don’t like it, also, no problem, I always like to have serious feedback, and yeah, that’s very important to go on, as I said, it’s the fuel that drives me, it’s something I need, and yeah, check out my socials, check out my website, www.tomwex.de, here we have it, check that out, there are all the links to my socials, and you can connect with me, and can write me, and also, if you are a producer, and produce some cool techno music, I’m always looking for new artists for my Future Wax label, I had some guys from the States as well, called Astro Noise, they released on my label, I don’t know where they are from, but they are definitely from the States, and I’m always looking for new up-and-coming talents that are into my sound, check out my Future Wax label, maybe on Beatpod, you can check out the sound of my label, what it stands for, and if you have something comparable, or even better, then just send it to me, and I will have a listen, and yeah, check out my next releases, there is a lot of stuff in the pipeline already, and yeah, August is full of releases, September is full of releases, the whole year is full of releases, remixes, and stuff like this.

[Darran]
I’m definitely looking at the new anthem for Rave the Planet release coming out, if it isn’t already released out there, I’d love to hear that, and I’d love to get you on the ground at Rave the Planet as well, hopefully in that mix of 300,000 plus people we can connect, so we can meet up there, definitely, for sure. That’ll be awesome. Tom, thank you so much for coming on the show, we’ll definitely have you back on, we like to follow up with all our artists every six months, get them back on, because you have a ton of stuff to talk about, always going on, so we’re going to follow up with you later in the year, and get you back on the show again.

Thank you so much for coming on the DJ sessions today, we really appreciate it.

[Tom Wax]
I have to thank you, that was awesome, love talking to you. I like to talk about music and my passion.

[Darran]
Thank you again. On that note, don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com, you can find all our socials there, MetaX, Instatick, follow us on iTunes or the Apple Music Store, you can subscribe to our shows and download them automatically to your device, we have our app that’s there now that’s going to be in the Apple App Store, you can take our shows with you on the go, we have our virtual reality nightclubs, we have our 600 news stories a month related to the EDM, electronic music industry, exclusive interviews like this, live interviews, exclusive mixes, merchandise, all of that and more at thedjsessions.com, that’s thedjsessions.com.

I’m your host Darran, coming to you from Seattle, Washington for the virtual sessions, and that’s Tom Wax coming in from Frankfurt, Germany for the DJ Sessions Presents the Virtual Sessions, and remember, on the DJ Sessions, the music never stops.