YORK on the Virtual Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions 7/15/25

Guest: Torsten Stenzel (York)
Host: Darren (The DJ Sessions)
Duration: 1 hour, 16 minutes
Location: Virtual session – Seattle ↔ Antigua & Barbuda
Format: Long-form artist spotlight interview

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🎶 1. Introduction & Background

Darren welcomes York to The DJ Sessions from the Caribbean. They joke about York’s wall of gold and platinum records — including one for DJ Sakin & Friends. York explains that it keeps him motivated.

He shares that he’s been in the industry for over 30 years, with roots going back to 1989. Despite being behind many hit tracks, he didn’t DJ much early on — instead, he was a producer for DJs, often in a “ghost producer” role before becoming more publicly visible himself.

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📛 2. The Origin of “York”

York’s stage name has a humorous backstory:

• It’s a mispronunciation of his brother Jörg’s name by a Russian colleague.

• The two collaborated on a chill-out track in the 90s.

• They self-released it on Planet Love Records, Torsten’s own label.

• The track caught the attention of Talla 2XLC, who helped re-release it as “The Awakening” on a larger scale via Sony Music — launching York into international recognition.

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🌅 3. The Ibiza Years

York moved to Ibiza in 1997 — long before it became the luxury party island it is today. He describes the 90s scene as raw, underground, and musically diverse, with affordable and accessible clubs.

His favorite venues included:

• KM5 (a no-cover venue with wine, mashups, and a chill garden)

• Space Ibiza (legendary venue, now closed)

• Sa Trinxa (for chill-out music and open-air dancing)

After returning in 2018, he was dismayed at Ibiza’s commercial transformation — high entry fees, VIP culture, and the loss of original charm.

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🎵 4. Musical Evolution & Signature Tracks

York reflects on key moments in his career:

• “On The Beach”: His remix of Chris Rea’s track became a defining hit. Though not his favorite musically, it was a massive career milestone.

• “Taucher – Eila”: Introduced a unique synth sound (using the Nord Lead), which became widely copied in trance and mainstream records. He claims this was the first track to use that signature “whooshy” trance sound.

He emphasizes his intentional use of aliases, sometimes up to 15 different names (e.g., “Jack Daniels”) — a practice common in the 90s when producers wanted to keep focus on the music, not their identity.

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📱 5. Social Media, Ghost Producing, and the Industry Today

York offers deep insight into how the music industry has changed:

• Ghost Producing: Back then, producers were fine with anonymity. Now, having your name and face out there is crucial.

• Marketing > Music: Great producers often struggle because they’re focused on the art, not social metrics. Meanwhile, others get booked based on Instagram or TikTok numbers.

• Labels Are Lazy: He believes labels should do more — especially in promotion, video content, and digital tools to support artists.

• QR Code Marketing: Darren suggests QR codes on shirts and visuals. York thinks it’s a brilliant idea for DJs today.

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📷 6. The Problem With Phones at Shows

York shares a poignant critique of modern club culture:

• He believes constant filming diminishes the experience.

• Suggests fans should “use your eyes as your camera, and your brain as your recorder.”

• Criticizes inauthentic moments where people only dance for their phones and revert to stillness after recording.

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🌊 7. Life in the Caribbean & Personal Routine

York now lives in Antigua & Barbuda, where he:

• Enjoys the beach, snorkeling, kayaking, and gardening.

• Finds balance by taking breaks from music.

• Has a ritualized love for coffee, inherited from his Ibiza lifestyle.

• Lives quietly, despite being an international producer.

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🕴️ 8. The Diplomatic Side of York

One of the most unique parts of the interview:

• York serves as the German Vice Consul in Antigua, and is also designated for the Netherlands.

• His diplomatic duties include helping tourists, renewing passports, and representing German interests — often due to the influx of German cruise tourists.

• He was recruited into diplomacy after casually chatting with embassy staff while renewing his own passport!

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👨‍👧 9. Family Life & Daughter’s Success

York has two daughters, including:

• Aura Dione, a successful pop singer known for tracks like “Panic Room” with CamelPhat.

• He initially helped manage her career but stepped back after her breakthrough to maintain a healthy relationship.

• Proud of her independence and current success.

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🎤 10. Industry Wisdom & Reflections

• Favorite moment hearing his music: While getting tires changed in Ibiza — “On The Beach” played on the radio!

• Proudest musical achievements: Creating signature synth sounds, helping define melodic trance, and his remix work.

• Advice for artists: Talent isn’t enough — you need PR, branding, and business acumen to succeed today.

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📚 11. Final Thoughts & Philosophy

• York embraces both artistry and industry — but urges producers to stay authentic and pace themselves.

• Hints at writing a biography someday. Title suggestion: T.R.A.N.C.E.

• Encourages fans to connect with him online:
  👉 Instagram: @heyits__york
  👉 Website: york-music.com

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🧠 Closing Takeaways

• York is more than a trance artist — he’s a multi-dimensional creator, mentor, diplomat, and father.

• His legacy lies in musical innovation, scene authenticity, and balancing artistry with humility.

• The interview is a blueprint for surviving (and thriving) in a fast-changing creative industry — with heart, wit, and rhythm.

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions Presents the Virtual Sessions. I’m your host, Darren, and right now I’m sitting in the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington, and coming in all the way from Antigua Barbuda in the Caribbean, we have none other than Torsten Stenzel, a.k.a. York, in the studios with us today.

[YORK]
Torsten, how’s it going today? Hey man, you okay? Yeah, all good, all good over here on the little island.

Awesome, are those some gold records that I see behind you on the wall? Whoa, hey, guess what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, well that is actually platinum for DJ Sacken and Friends.

Platinum? That I made in 1999, yeah exactly, and there will be more right here.

[Darran]
There is more, no shameless plug there showing off at all, awesome.

[YORK]
Well, it’s my studio, so I have to look at it to feel motivated to make more of those.

[Darran]
You know, I totally understand how that goes. I’m in my office in my virtual studio, and I need to start decorating it back up again. I haven’t jazzed it up.

I used to have a TV over my shoulder here, and you used to be able to watch the scenes I left in my living room. It’s kind of cool, I got to work on it. I used to green screen, and I’ve done all the things over the past 16 years of doing a show like this, you know, but it is what it is.

I kind of got my targeting from a gun ranges up there now, and a painting, but anyways, we’re not here to talk about me. We’re going to talk about you, and what you’ve been up to, and for our DJ Sessions viewers that don’t know who you are, you know, we’re going to ask a few questions so we can get familiar with who you are, and what you’ve been up to. So, York, what’s the story behind your artist’s name?

Because that’s not Torsten, and where does it come from? And also, we were talking pre-show a little bit, you actually produced under Torsten and York, so tell us a little bit about that, and how York came to be about.

[YORK]
Well, that’s a story that dated back to the 90s, of course. My brother’s name is Jörg, right? So, that’s the weird German spelling with the O, which is the O with the dots on top, and so this is really funny, because I made music many, many years before I dragged him into the studio.

He plays pretty well electric guitar, and at some point, I was just producing a chill track. I would say it was kind of relaxed, like you could say balleric chill sound, balleric trance, and I thought, oh, guitar would be nice on this one, and it was kind of unusual to use a guitar on a track like that, so I just asked my brother, and he was next door, hey, bring your guitar, let’s try something on this backing that I made, and he wasn’t much involved in my music, he did his own stuff, but yeah, then he came, and he played on it, and yeah, I chopped the guitars together, and it turned out to be a really, really nice track, and I said, you know what, let’s release this on my label. Back in the day, I was very active on my label called Planet Love Records, which I started in 1993, and so we made a vinyl pressing, pressed the track, and just released it, and it had a different name back in the day, than the name that came up later, so we released this track, and many DJs started to play it, and it was called York Big Brothers Watching You, quite a weird title, until a quite famous DJ, still active, very active today, Talla 2xlc, he messaged me, he had a big label, much bigger label than my label back in the day, and he said, hey, I really love that vinyl, I play it a lot, and it’s in my sets, and can we distribute it and release it on a bigger scale for you, so we basically carried that track to Sony Music, and then he said, you know, Big Brothers Watching You sounds so negative, why don’t we call this The Awakening, and I said, that sounds beautiful, so much better than my original title, and we re-released this track on his label and Sony Music about a year later, and it smashed into the UK charts with a remix, and we were like, wow, of course, the question came up, so how do you call this, and this is the most funny part of that, so my brother has this Russian colleague, and he cannot say the correct pronunciation of Jörg, so he always said, Jörg, Jörg, so I was like, you know what, isn’t he always calling you Jörg, because he cannot say Jörg, like, yeah, that’s our project name, so that’s how it came, that’s why it has nothing to do with New York, it’s literally this guy, this Russian cannot say Jörg properly in a German way, yeah, so I took that, and that became the name, and since over 25 years, it’s called Jörg.

[Darran]
Wow, that’s an awesome origin story, I mean, you know, I mean, it’s funny, sometimes people ask me how did I come up with the name of the DJ session, you know, and gosh, 16, 17 years later, I think I still remember how that came about, but yeah, that’s a very interesting story, I mean, that’s some hidden gem stuff that’s out there. Now, you lived in Ibiza for a long time, back, I mean, your first, I mean, you lived back in 98, so almost 20 years, 20, 20, gosh, 27 years ago, okay, I guess that, am I dating, dang, you still look great, it must have been the Ibiza times that kept you young, but you lived there full time, you know, and I’m sure you’ve seen the transformation over the years, do you ever get a chance to make it back there from time to time and play out there or visit there?

[YORK]
Yeah, you know what, I mean, I lived in Ibiza in the 90s, I moved to Ibiza in 97, and in 97, Ibiza was not the hip place that’s, or the hip, posh, money, rich people place that it is today, and the club scene was much different too, it was way more underground, it was more, I would say, original, so I had this great luxury that I could, yeah, get to know this original Ibiza, and yeah, I do go back, and I was quite shocked, because I haven’t been in Ibiza for many, many years, since I moved here to Antigua, and I went back there 2018, so that’s about roughly nine or ten years after I left, and I was shocked how everything changed, I mean, it became this big marketing club, 75 euros entrance place, and I was like, so I was shocked about the prices and how everything just got so big suddenly and so commercialized, yeah, so that’s definitely for me, and I hear now it’s getting worse, I thought about going back, but it’s kind of, I think it will hurt me to see it like this.

[Darran]
Yeah, you know, I had a chance last year for my 50th birthday, my bucket list, I was in Germany for Rave the Planet, and was there with the Riverside Studios crew on their bus, on their truck, their double-decker nightclub truck, if you know about Rave the Planet, I’m sure you know about Love Parade and all that fun stuff, it was crazy, and I was this close to going to Ibiza for just, you know, to kill that bucket list, but it was just going to be the timing and getting back to the States and all that and stuff was going to be a little expensive for me, so I was like, I’ll go another time, but definitely want to visit there. What would be, I mean, I guess it was a long time ago, was there a favorite spot that you’d like to go when you were there that is still there or is non-existent or something you would remember that was like, wow, I wish this was still there or because of the commercialism and taking it over, is it all, like you said, changed and gone?

[YORK]
Well, I mean, what I loved about Ibiza was always that it has this wide variety of music and you could literally listen from deep house, classic house, soulful house music to techno or trance, everything, so every genre you like, you are minimal back in the day, you will find the right club and of course in the 90s it was a bit more free and there was also, it was all a bit less organized, so for me there was this one place called Kilometro Cinco, which is KM5, I think it’s closed or has been sold, but that was for me the classic place, no entrance, a small dance floor and the DJ back in the day playing wide area from cool progressive house stuff to, you know, even mashups with some pop music and KM5 was for me like the to-go-to place where you have a glass of wine, you listen to nice music and it’s like a big garden outside and it was just a lovely place and then of course, that was more during the week and then on the weekends I really like to go to Space, the original Space, which does not exist anymore, that had this huge outside area and I’ve seen Carl Cox there and Sven Veidt, not to forget about, there’s some big techno DJs also and yeah, that were two really good, really interesting places and of course to chill there was Sartrentia, which is where John Sartrentia was playing and where you heard the best chill-out music, the ultimate classics from Ibiza were played there and people half-naked dancing there and stuff like that, so it was, they closed it actually down forever because the new government doesn’t allow music or they changed some laws and so there’s no music allowed anymore, so they’re killing, they killed this little gem sadly.

Yeah, there’s more places but yeah, I’ve been back to the BBC Festival in San Antonio in 2018. Yeah, so that was a very long answer of course, as usual. Oh, I don’t hear you anymore.

[Darran]
I’m sorry, that was very interesting to hear about. No, it’s great to hear that information. Sometimes I mute my mic when there’s a fire engine or something going by and I forget to turn it back on, but no, I mean to, you know, sometimes I’m talking with people that are new in the industry, two, three years, sometimes I’m talking with people who’ve been in the industry for 30-plus years.

No, I mean, gee, 30, wow, 89 you said, so yeah, I was okay, I was only 15 years old, you know, but you’re still looking young, it’s all good, you know.

[YORK]
Yeah, I mean, I try, I live a different lifestyle nowadays than when I started hanging out in the clubs and producing DJs and was a young guy. It was different because I have a producer background, so DJing wasn’t really my thing. I produced DJs, so today you would say ghost producer.

I wasn’t really a ghost producer, but my name was only in the credits and I worked with about 17 different DJs, so I never had this really big DJ life. They went to parties and I went with them. And maybe that’s also the reason why I’m still a little bit more fresh with turning 55 next year, so I’m quite happy.

I think I aged okay, whereas some guys, you know, who are partying for 25 years, they don’t, so.

[Darran]
I know all about that, you know, and you mentioned, you know, 89, your first release was in 89. I mean, I didn’t start really getting really into electronic music until about 92 myself. And you mentioned you were producing back then and kind of more of a back-end ghost producing.

I totally understand. That’s a term that wasn’t, I mean, when did the term, do you think, did the term ghost producing actually start to come about? Was it when the internet, when people started going digital, mainly?

Because you wouldn’t really know. Like you said, you’d get a credit on the back of the album, but people would look at the album and be like, oh, this is co-produced. And so that’s the only way you could know.

Nowadays, you know, I mean, if you got a credit on the album, but back then there was no way to track it digitally to know, hey, that was me on that white label I made. How would you prove it? You know, how would you, unless you had like a signed contract or something.

[YORK]
It’s also very interesting now if you, in this Spotify, Beatport world and Apple music and you name it we are living in, it’s also the opposite back in the day. So back in the day, it was, if you were a cool producer, you try to hide your name. So you make it difficult.

I have about 15 or 16 different names. So I use all the time different names on the record. So even if you find the record, the vinyl, and you turn it around, you read like Jack Daniels, which is a random name because I like Jack Daniels.

And I just used his name for some house stuff. And there’s lots of other names that I used. And so it was the opposite of today because I think the difference was that the music was the most important and not the person.

So now it’s swapped. Now it’s kind of, oh, you want to see who’s that person behind it? Who’s that name?

You want to have your name on it or you want to slap your name on it. So everybody else, oh, that’s Jörg or that’s Thorsten did this or whatever. So it’s a bit of a different scenario.

[Darran]
Yeah, I can totally understand that anonymity of keeping yourself. I mean, I do research, have my assistants doing research on DJs, producers all the time. And you’ll come across, sometimes you’ll get into their discographies and stuff and you’ll see 20 different names.

I just recently contacted somebody and they were like, I don’t use that name anymore. That’s the name of my label. But the way it’s listed everywhere that that’s actually a DJ producer.

And it’s like, no, it’s in my label. This is who I actually am. And I was like, oh, okay, cool.

You never know who you’re dealing with. And sometimes people want to rebrand too. And they don’t want to mix the waters and muddy the waters.

I can totally understand that. Since 1989, all the stuff you’ve ever produced, and I know this is, I get this kind of similar question myself when doing the shows. If you had to choose out of the list of the productions you’ve done so far, which one of those stands out to you the most?

And why does it stand out to you the most?

[YORK]
Well, there’s, of course, the songs that chased me all my life, or the tracks that I made that chased me all my life. I mean, I can’t, I can’t. There’s of course, some tracks like On The Beach, for instance.

So York On The Beach was for me, a massive game changer. Because after that, I mean, we played the BBC Hop Off The Tops. That’s a cat.

[Darran]
That’s Yoja the Disco Cat.

[YORK]
He’s our mascot. But my cat hates music. So once she’s in the room, and I turn on the speakers, she runs away.

Anyways, so On The Beach is, for me, of course, maybe not my favorite track that I ever made or mix. But it started to change everything for York once that released. So I would definitely say On The Beach was for me a game changer.

And it went through in the last 25 years through endless, endless process of mixes and different covers, and people covered it and other people found it. And, and many, many people think that I wrote the track, but the track is from Chris Weir. So that was definitely, for me, an outstanding track, particular as York.

And yeah, then there’s other tracks that I’m proud of, for instance, Taucher Eila. Where back in the day, you know, we always tried to, I tried to do new sounds, find new sounds, don’t use the same stuff. And I remember, Eila was very clearly the Taucher remix, which I made with DJ Taucher back in the days.

That was for me, the first time that I saw, you just saw in the synthesizer, that’s basically this. There was a first track that really used that kind of sound. And it was very simple, because I just pulled my Nord Lead and just programmed it like that.

Very simple. And we used it and it sounded fantastic. We’re like, wow, that sounds so different.

And that, that record, really, and that sounds changed the demoscopic of that of some dance genre. Because after that, we had at least DJ, we had all kinds of producers taking this sound that I used the first time and make huge hits out of it. There’s countless hits.

And until today, I hear this sound in Van Buren records or Tiesto, whatever, even in mainstream area. And I can clearly say I was the first one who used that sound. And of course, that was a pioneer, or you can say, okay, I was a pioneer with that.

That’s for me outstanding. And that makes me proud.

[Darran]
Well, you know, you’ve gotten kind of an accolade of being labeled as one of the godfathers of trance. You know, nice little accolade there by Ruben Daron, calling you the godfather of melodic. You know, having somebody do that, I mean, to me, it’d be like somebody coming and saying, Darren, you are the king of live streaming DJs.

Why you started this before anyone was doing it to have or somebody would come along and look at my history and somebody came along and said, Dude, you’ve been hanging. You’ve been holding this down for 16 years. And I’m like, Yeah, but I’ve been in the industry for 35.

But I mean, that would be just such an honor, you know, to see that. And then like you said, hearing you’re hearing something that you kind of developed and when you know, that other artists are starting to use even is, do you still hear it today? Is that still a sound you’re hearing today and in current stuff?

Yeah. Awesome. Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever heard one of your tracks play before?

[YORK]
That was when I changed my tires and I went I went to tire tire blaze. There was an Ibiza back in the day. So I’m changing my tires and driving the car inside the lifting the car up the radio is running and suddenly on the beach is playing my version on the radio while they’re changing my tires and the Ibiza radio.

And I found it pretty cool. So I was just smiling. I didn’t say anything.

But I remember till today that moment. Yeah. When they were like, take your tires off and then do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do.

I was like, Okay, that’s cool.

[Darran]
That’s awesome. You know, it’s always it’s always great to hear people talk about where the most interesting place they’ve ever heard their tracks and you get some. They’re like, nobody’s ever asked me that before.

Like I’ve never, you know, it’s in your head. But the public doesn’t feel like where is the most interesting place that they’ve heard tracks from? Well, you know, are you you’re still DJing?

You’re still playing out, correct?

[YORK]
Yeah, you know, production now and less playing out. No, it’s a good balance. I mean, I DJ more than before now because for me, it’s just I enjoy it.

And it’s just pure enjoyment because since I produced back in the day, only DJs and I was always the guy in the background that was going with them sometimes. I never had this. I played live for many times.

But yeah, I also enjoyed the big festivals and stuff like that. But I never had this DJ experience that I can play any record and see how the people are reacting. And, you know, and just do that and or take a brand new track that nobody knows and just throw it in.

So that is for me a new feeling. And in my late years now, I like to do it. So I’m not playing like crazy amount of shows, but I really enjoy playing shows and mixing old stuff with new stuff and unreleased things and just try to give everyone a pleasant experience.

[Darran]
And do you often, I mean, obviously, I would assume you often play your own music in your sets if you’re playing it out there. What’s your latest release you have right now? And you know, do you have multiple versions of it that you play to test on crowds?

Or do you use the crowd as a petri dish litmus test to see how well different environments?

[YORK]
Yeah, well, I mean, basically it’s I have the early versions usually. And then when I play them, I kind of check it, how it sounds, and then I do my adjustments. So for me, it’s like I really I’m literally testing it when I play it.

And then I see, oh, this is good. They love this or the kick is maybe too hard. And yeah, for instance, I did a cover of the Milky Way, Aurora Borealis, which is for me on one of the biggest classics ever in the trance area, early trance area, you have to say too, because it’s early 90s when trance was not popular at all.

And but for me, it was not playable in that mix. The kick was too weak. It’s too boring, the arrangement.

So that’s why I made my own mix. And I didn’t plan to release it. And then I played it this year at the Boats House in Cologne, which is world’s best club, yada yada.

And I played it and I see all the arms up and they are like, whistling was like, oh my god, they love this. And yeah, then it was running to some record labels till it got signed. And it’s a release now and has almost 200,000 streams.

So it’s nice.

[Darran]
There you go. What’s an essential track right now that’s out that you are including in everything that’s not one of your own tracks that you’d say, this is going to be hot for the summer, this is hot right now, or this is what people should be listening to. It’s not one of your own.

No shameless plugs here.

[YORK]
Now you got me on the spot, because I would have to go actually in my library and look, because I’m so bad with names. But I can in general say there’s certain producers from Anjuna where I can say they always deliver top quality. And it’s even above and beyond for me, for instance, above and beyond delivers always that fine line of vocal trends, which is not cheesy and doesn’t sound cheap.

So they have this high quality, but still the energy. And there’s, I think, very little people who can actually, because if it’s typical uplifting with this hammering loud bass drum way too loud, and then there’s a breakdown, the angelic vocal starts and then the hammering sequences start again. That is something above and beyond does better than anyone else.

And yeah, that’s why I usually or play very often their tracks, for instance. Yeah, I would name them.

[Darran]
Yeah, we just had an Anjuna weekend here in Seattle at one of our nightclubs. All the clubs kind of do this Anjuna tribute. I think they might’ve just been here, or something was going on, probably an AGBT tour was going on.

And they usually do that the weekend of before the big events happen. It’s awesome. You’re growing up, I mean, I’m going back, let’s go back 30 years in the industry, 89 when you started out, and you were probably going to clubs and stuff.

I started in 92-ish. I was going to nightclubs, but it wasn’t electronic music nightclubs. And I remember back in the day that the DJs were not necessarily part of the main show at nightclubs or dance events.

And now they’re looked at as like the rock stars. I mean, this has been going on for 20 plus years. I mean, late mid and late 90s is when I started seeing it in the nightclubs, the DJ was put center stage, up on the stage, and they were the person the crowd was playing to.

But I remember going to nightclubs and the DJ was up off a booth, up in the corner, you didn’t really see them. And you were just dancing in the club. Do you think because of that paradigm shift that it’s taken away from that, away from focusing on the dance?

And this goes into technology advances too, I’ll get into this in a second. But do you think DJs should go back to maybe being just part of the overall, not in the corner, still given spotlight, but part of the event rather than being the main center of attention at the event? What’s your thoughts on that?

[YORK]
Well, I kind of think it’s too late for that. That train left the train station a long time ago. So we’re so far until DJs are the new pop stars and everybody.

And like you said, back in the day, you weren’t even knowing sometimes who’s playing. You’re going to the club and there’s amazing music and you dance and you have a good time, but you don’t even know who’s the DJ. Only if you’re like, oh, let me go to the DJ booth, actually find out who this guy is, because this is really good.

But now most of the lights in the club, the biggest laser is on the DJ. The biggest light is on the DJ and the dance floor gets some lights too, of course, but there’s always, they make sure that this is a DJ. And then there’s a small LED wall, like 35 foot behind him, which tells you the name.

So, yeah, I think that is too late now. It’s a culture now that changed. It’s not the same anymore.

And now the name dropping is why people buy their tickets when they go somewhere.

[Darran]
I’m so surprised that a lot of DJs don’t do this. I was huge into QR codes in 2010. I was trying to tell people this is going to change the world.

It’s going to be the most coolest thing. And people were like, you’re insane. What is a QR code?

What do you mean? I have to download an app to view this thing and it takes me to the link. And I’m like, no, you got to understand where this can go.

And I’ve told up and coming DJs that if you’re going to get that stage time and they’re going to put your name up there, that’s great. But everyone’s pulling up their phones and they’re trying to record the show or take pictures of it. I said, hey, why don’t you get some extra publicity for you and put your name on the front of your shirt, but then on the back of your shirt, put your QR code.

So when you get that moment, you turn around like this. Everyone takes a picture of your QR code, but some back of your shirt or make your logo a QR code and put your name in the middle of the QR code. That way, when it’s up on those big LED screens and everyone’s up there, it’ll automatically activate their cameras.

They take them to a link and maybe you get a free track or something to have a recycled page. I like that. You’re getting some marketing out of it.

I’m sure Insomniac and Live Nation probably wouldn’t allow you to do something like that. But if these smaller nightclubs and venues, if they do have the video walls, it’s like, hey, that is my logo. And instead of having somebody type in a website or search my name, it can take you right to a landing page, which could be a link tree.

It should be a web page. No hate on link tree. I just wish people had taken an extra step and bought a domain name and got a website.

And then put their link tree on the website. Just looking at ways that people could take advantage of marketing in different ways like that and being up on that stage and using the spotlight to further their career would be awesome. But you come into play, we wouldn’t.

We started doing all this. You started doing this. There wasn’t social media.

It was truly an underground kind of chasm unless you got the flyer or knew the phone number to call or knew where to go. And those flyers, they only printed out so many because printing four-color flyers back in the day wasn’t an inexpensive thing. And you weren’t going to put out a five-cent copy on a black and white piece of paper and put it in your local music store.

Or you’d have to know the person at the music store and say, hey, when somebody comes in and asks them, this is the telephone number you call. Because there were no websites. There were no Google Maps.

It wasn’t out there. So in the advent of technology moving forward and making it so fast, what is your take on people in the audience now doing this? And as opposed to where it’s back in the—I mean, you’ve seen the growth.

You know the change. I probably have a good take on you’re going to say here, but a lot of people don’t understand what they’re taking away from the actual magic when they’re doing that.

[YORK]
And what’s your take on that? Yeah. I mean, first of all, that QR idea, Darren, that’s a brilliant idea to project that in the back.

I like that. That’s great. Particularly for this always online generation, always on the phone generation.

And yeah, I want to say that sometimes when it’s too much with the phones, I think, okay, use your eyes as your camera. That’s your camera now. And your brain is the recorder or your brain is the record button.

Just look at this. And it’s also sometimes you look through the phone and you have this very limited view. If you look through your eyes, you have this amazing almost 190 degrees angle that you see one time.

The phone can never capture what your eyes can capture in the colors and everything together. So for me— And the audio. Don’t forget about the audio.

For me, this is all—I like to put the phone up sometimes to just record 20 seconds and then it’s going. And I think it’s important also that the audience, if they feel like, oh my God, I’m so emotional, touched, they put the phone up and they film something and they put it up on Insta or TikTok, why not? My God, that’s our generation.

That’s how people memorize things is just online. But I’m really against it if it’s only just phones all the time. And I see particular events where for about two hours, all the way through, you just see phones.

And then the problem is also that nobody really dances. And I’ve seen these people, once the phone is off, they just stand there and then the phone goes on and they film themselves and they suddenly start to party and you’re like, oh my, we’re having the best time. Once the camera goes off and they’re like this.

So it’s all very fake. And I prefer definitely phones away. Use them for your memories.

Otherwise, here, your eyes are your recorder and your ears. And that’s how you should remember things. And that’s for everything.

It’s if you jump from an airplane or if you ride a sailing boat or if you do anything crazy on a motorbike or whatever, whenever you use your phone, it’s just so limited.

[Darran]
You brought up a, oh gosh, I was going to go with a really great question. I had something for you. And now I completely forgot about what it was, but that’s okay.

That’s yeah, definitely. I’ve heard people, I was going to go off of, it was rumored or there was an article years back about how Apple was going to include an infrared device into their phones, into their devices. And if the venue sent out an infrared beam from the stage, that the moment you went to go like this to record, it wouldn’t let you say, sorry, cannot record this.

It won’t let you record. That infrared sensor would pick up and you couldn’t record. I don’t know if it would stop it from taking pictures, but it would definitely stop from recording.

And there have been events where there’s a device out there people can get for shows and you drop your phone in a bag and it closes with a magnetic seal. You can’t open that unless you go past and then they open it, let you take your phone out or just smaller events, checking your phone in at the door. Those have been, I wonder if we’re going to start seeing more of that happen.

Just from a logistical standpoint, you got 35,000 people or 250,000 people. How are you going to manage that? It’s not going to happen, but.

[YORK]
I mean, that’s another kind of dictatorship. We have enough dictatorship today, nowadays, everywhere. So I think people should make their own decisions, not send out a laser beam so their phones won’t record anymore.

[Darran]
In all the shows and all the time you’ve been doing this, who would you say the most inspiring person is that you’ve ever met backstage or that you’ve met? I’ll widen that because you have years of doing this. In the industry, who’s the most inspiring person you’ve ever met in the industry and why did this person inspire you?

[YORK]
I know there’s a long list. It’s a very long list indeed because I’m doing over 34 years music now. So there’s a long, long list of people that I met that are famous, not so famous.

But yeah, let’s say it’s a tough one. But one person that I met and that is for me just the top of a musical genius, that’s Mike Oldfield. So I produced this remix album with Mike Oldfield back in the days, 10 years ago, called Tubular Beats.

And that all happened because I ended up in Mike Oldfield’s studio in the Bahamas. And when I saw him working in the studio and how he plays guitar and how his fingers and his mind functions together, the coordination. And I want to say nothing is randomly.

Everything is like, the brain is almost like autistic, organized. And I mean, that’s someone who wrote Tubular Bells. I mean, just listen to that.

Tubular Bells live Montreux Jazz Festival is one of the most sickest performances in terms of instrumental music or synthesizer music and guitar. So yeah, I can clearly say he’s one for me with maybe Jean-Michel Jarre, but he was Jean-Michel Jarre was for me a little bit more boring with equinox and that stuff. But Mike Oldfield is with Kraftwerk on those guys for me, the godfather, one of the godfathers of that sound.

Of course, Pink Floyd, I would have to name two. But the only one I met personally is Mike. And yeah, I would say that was mind blowing.

And just his skills. I was impressed by his skills.

[Darran]
Awesome. Yeah, I’ve met countless people over the years. That would be a hard one for me to answer as well.

But you know, it’s always, I think it’s always awesome. I’ve had one person I’ve always wanted to get on the show. Always, always.

I’ve been knocking on the doors for years. We’re working up to it. It’ll happen.

I know it will.

[YORK]
Who’s that?

[Darran]
Mr. Cox. I would love to just sit down with Carl for a moment. And even if I got 10 minutes of time, funny story is I had before the DJ session started in 2009.

I was doing another series, a broadcast series called ITV Nightlife. And I was at Winter Music Conference in 2009. This is where I met Dave Dresden.

I met a whole slew of artists. And it was funny because Dave Dresden was the first ever kind of celebrity guest I had on my show that he played in my bedroom, for crying out loud when we first started the live streaming portion of the DJ sessions up. But I was at Winter Music Conference 2009.

And I was there mainly because the press person who manages Dave and Carl had set up this event. And I had this opportunity. This is how naive I was.

I had this opportunity to actually interview Carl. He was doing a special event in Miami for Winter Music Conference. And for some reason, I was like, Oh, I’m not gonna be able to make it out there.

Because we had timing. We had another pool party or something we had to be do. And was invited to this exclusive party for him.

It was a really big thing. And I didn’t even know who Carl was at the time. But for some reason, it hadn’t entered into my head.

I didn’t understand it. Because we were such a local show based on what was coming to Seattle and interviewing the guests when they came to Seattle. I hadn’t looked at it from a national or international perspective at that time.

Had I known back then, I would have had Carl on my show back in 2009. And that would have been kind of cool to have in the archives. But still meeting so many people backstage.

And so awesome. Because you really get to meet people in a different light. Especially now that we’ve transformed and doing the interviews like what we do now.

I don’t have just five minutes behind the stage to ask some tough piece questions. And they can’t get into detail. Plus, they’re tired from touring.

They got to prepare for their set. They haven’t eaten dinner. This way, I can talk with artists, talk with guests, get a really nice, intimate interview with them.

It’s really awesome. Again, thank you for being here, first of all. But yeah, that would be a hard question for me to ask who’s been the most inspiring person that I’ve met.

But going to production, looking at what’s happened in the industry over the years, what do you think the most important thing a record label should do for their artists that they represent? And in the industry as a whole, are they doing a good job with that?

[YORK]
All right. That’s a very good question. But here’s a very quick one.

Carl Cox is one of the most humblest guys that I ever met. And I met him in 94 when he was not the number one superstar. And his mix album was the first album ever released that was on my label.

So I released his first album in Germany. And so I met him one time, and it was really nice. Okay, so now to your question.

I just had to say that because he’s a really nice guy. And also, he’s the only one who mixes five records at the same time. And it’s still sounds good.

Okay, so your question was…

[Darran]
What’s the most important thing that record labels should do for their artists? And are they doing a good job with that as a whole?

[YORK]
Well, I mean, I think what the record label should do is basically let the artists be more artists and more musicians, and then take over a lot of that stuff, I call it promotion stuff. And it starts with little clips or teasers and all that stuff that you can use on socials. I think labels are a little bit too lazy.

So they should put more effort in that. Just to help your artist or help your DJ or help your track to evolve. Just do a bit more there than just assigning artwork.

And then you tell the DJ or the singer, okay, you have to do this and that story that that don’t forget about, then put your beatport chart. So I always feel like you have to do almost all the work for the record label, and the music, and being this. So that’s very small that they do for a very big chunk of royalties.

[Darran]
Yeah, we were looking at toying with the idea of opening up a label a few years ago. And it was there and I was interested. I just didn’t know what genre I wanted to go.

I’m not a label owner. I mean, first and foremost, I’m an executive producer. Second of all, I’m a video guy.

Third of all, I’m hosting my own show. And then I run two other companies as well. But throwing a label on that and then trying to do the A&R and trying to listen to tracks and what sound are we going to be like and managing deals and putting all that together.

I don’t want to do that. We just did launch a music section on our site, not a music store. And we want to collaborate with artists such as yourself and list their tracks on the site.

But we don’t want to get into any of the royalties. It would take a link and if your store if your stuff’s on Apple Music or Beatport, it links you off there and let you take care of it there. It’s the most everything.

Yeah, we don’t want to be we just want to feature and say, oh, something new by York is up on the site. Check it out or something new by Torsten is up on the site. Whoever you release under is there and there’d be a bio or the track or the album or the EP.

But all the buy links would just take them off to the site and let them go somewhere else. We’re really excited about launching that. And that’s kind of dipping our toe a little bit into it.

But we’re not going to we’re not a label. It’s just the music section. Yeah.

So that’s kind of really a new exciting project that we’re looking to take under. We’ll talk about that off camera, though. But what what measures nowadays with looking at how the Internet has become obviously ingrained in our lives, social media has become ingrained in our lives.

What measures do you take to actively promote yourself or your releases in your career? And do you think that solid PR is an important asset for DJs slash producers to have? I mean, how important can you go from here being yourself and self promotions as opposed to hiring somebody to like a label, you said, take on that job and responsibility?

How important is that? I think it’s massive.

[YORK]
I mean, all those DJs who are like super huge have massive teams behind them on the side and agencies. It’s it’s not it’s just a team working behind them that you never see. And I think it’s it’s more important now than even back in the day, because we have way more artists now, since you only need a laptop and able and you can produce a track.

It’s not like in 90, 95, you need to spend 100,000 to get the minimum equipment to make a track. And now I spend 1000 bucks and you’re down on some some cracks and you can work and make music. So we’re up against that.

And that means, of course, not to mention AI music, which is on top of this, like spoiling even more the party. You definitely need more PR, better PR and all that in the future to be successful.

[Darran]
Yeah, we’re currently right now. In the past, I was doing everything. But now I’m getting to that point where I’m reaching out to PR companies and saying, Hey, how much do your services cost?

What does the package look like? And what are we looking to do? And, you know, it’s just an important arm, because, you know, I usually pre Pandy, I would give away 98% of the information that I had to help artists grow, if you need to know how to live stream, if you need to know this, that.

But one of the coveted things that I would protect would be my Rolodex or my list of contacts, you know, just you don’t get access to that, you know, you I worked hard to build that up. And there’s some stuff in there that I don’t release to the public or let people know. But you know, that on the flip side of a PR company, they’re going to have those lists of direct contacts to the publications that we want stories on us done about or, you know, getting in the mix or on their email lists or whatever.

So it’s huge, but it is costly. And I tell a lot of people getting into this industry, you know, like you said, anyone can pick it’s not 30 years ago, where you said $100,000, or $50,000, or even up until I’d probably say up until 2000, it might cost you 10,000 bucks to get a decent electronic music studio up and running with a computer and the tracks and everything in there. And now you’re right, anyone with a laptop in Ableton can go boom and go download music tracks and packs and stems and all that and throw it in.

And, you know, but when I and when I talk to people about that, it’s like, let’s say at any time you have a million people that want to start doing that. The difference that’s going to set those people apart is okay, if these people have the bare minimums, they’re using their personal computer, and they got a copy of Ableton and great. But those people have 10,000 bucks are going to be here, those people have 50,000 are going to be here, there’s people that are investing in looking at it like a business, they’re going to run it like a business on the back end, even though they’re artists, they’re going to slowly learn that, oh, I might need to run social media campaigns, I might have to pay for some ghost producing, I might have to pay for some mastering, I might have to have a website and social media campaigns and have somebody make those. And wow, this is a business that’s going to cost me, wow, just the upkeep might be 1000 bucks a month alone.

You know, just to put it out and maybe I’ll see a return, maybe I’ll get some gigs, maybe I’ll get something in and that kind of brings me to the whole thing that I’m talking about is, is, you know, people getting booked based on their social media worth, as opposed to their creativity worth, you know, you have a lot of people out there that, you know, oh, I’m going to book this person because they have 150,000 fans on TikTok or Instagram.

And this person over here has 4,000 fans and did a phenomenal producer over here with very low social numbers. And brand new producer here with these numbers here. But are those real?

Are they engaging? Or are they? How are they buying that?

Are they using social media influencers? And, you know, push that how? And that’s all back in marketing discussion, you can point a finger at them all day.

But, you know, it’s kind of those that don’t take active measures are going to be left in the dust, you know, and that’s an interesting thing, I would say is like, no, you can kill me for that.

[YORK]
But I would say, the more talented and good producers are, for instance, the less followers because they don’t enjoy sharing little videos or doing this and that. They enjoy making music and producing. And that’s all they want to do.

So those with the 4,000 followers are probably those who make the best sound and credible tracks, but they’re not the ones who would sell it. And they’re not the ones who sell tickets when they play as a DJ. And it’s vice versa, it changed completely in the opposite.

So you have to take also that money that you invested in your recording studio back in the day, you take that same money in your hand, and invested in PR and campaigns instead of equipment. So yeah, that is a reality.

[Darran]
Exactly. No, it’s just, you know, a lot of DJs start up and they don’t think about that equation, or they don’t think about their image and their likeness or getting a logo made for themselves or a website with their own domain name, things of that nature. I do business consulting sometimes on the side, I’ve been doing that for 25 years.

And it’s like, who am I going to pick to work, the professional image guy or the person who doesn’t have things going for him, you know, you got to look at it like that. But you know, after all said and done, at the end of the day, do you ever sometimes get fed up with making and playing music? And how do you deal with that?

What’s a go to that Torsten says, Hey, I gotta take a break from this. What do you go to do to do that? What’s something off the off the charts?

It’s not in your bio that you got to take a break from everything.

[YORK]
Yeah, I have my phases, of course. I mean, I somehow I somehow take breaks. When I for instance, yeah, I mean, I have I have a good possibility here.

I go to the beach. I go swimming. I go snorkeling, I go diving, I go out on the boat.

I be on the water and just stay on waves and do this kind of things, you know, and it’s just like, be for myself, be quiet, also no music. And that’s my recreation moments. And that’s where I can recharge.

Or I do something totally random. I mean, I, I plant some plants, and I’m there with earth and pots and whatever crap like that. So I do some random gardening.

So it’s funny, actually. But yeah, when you see me planting some some stuff, then you know, okay, he’s he’s bored. He needs a break.

[Darran]
Hey, hold that thought right there. I’m gonna be right back. I got somebody knocking on my door.

I’ll be right back. That was crazy. So I have a new dishwasher coming into play.

And I didn’t want to miss it. And I’m like, No, I’ve been with that one for like, a few weeks now. And I’m like, Oh, you know, I get my new dishwasher.

Anyways. Um, yeah, so I don’t know, I just forgot where I was that. Oh, yeah, taking breaks.

I definitely know what it’s like to take a break. I just got off an eight and a half month hiatus, you know, that I came back from Germany last year, and was my 50th birthday. And I thought I was what I thought was gonna be a few weeks turned into a few months, which turned into months and a few quarters.

And it was like, I just didn’t know where to go what to do. And, you know, the burnout is real. If you just keep going all the time, or at least you don’t pace yourself.

And I had that happen in 2022, when we really ramped up production. And, you know, I was doing the month of after we ramped up production, I had like 49 interviews in one month. And it was it was from nine o’clock in the morning to almost five o’clock in the evening, nonstop four days a week, as I and then that went on for like three months until I went, Whoa, wait a second here.

This is way too much. It was great for the bump. And my plan worked out.

But, you know, I just had to scale it back. And your health is what you got to maintain. And like you mentioned earlier, you know, you see people that have been out there in the party scene for 2025 years and starting to show you know, I mean, I’m 50.

And it’s not that I can’t stay up partying. Well, I go out in my local neighborhood and go stay up till three, four in the morning now. No.

If I go to Ibiza, or go to London, or go to Amsterdam, or go into Mexico later this year for a big festival, I probably will. But, you know, I like to also kind of kill two birds with one stone. I’m usually going there for work, first of all, to you know, do interviews, be part of the event, and then it’s playtime.

So you know, usually when we go to ADE, it’s the first three days. It’s like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, interviews, interviews, interviews. And then Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, it’s let’s go party in Amsterdam.

You know, fun stuff there. Now, speaking of traveling, I’m excited to add more passport or more stamps to my passport all the time. I’m interested to find out more about you’re the only DJ and producer who’s also a diplomat.

What is that all about? Like, tell us how you got involved with that. And you’re a diplomat for what country?

[YORK]
Well, I’m, I’m, I’m designated for the Netherlands and for designated for Germany. I’m for I’m six years running the vice consulate in Antigua and Bermuda for Germany. And now also for the Netherlands.

So that’s basically my hobby. I always call it hobby diplomat. And how that came across is the weirdest thing.

I’ve never in my entire life, I would think that I am somebody who’s wearing a suit and sitting at conferences. But I do that from time to time. And then I become this different personality, which is the serious guy.

And then we’re doing politics and talking about all kinds of other things. That came across. I came across that when I was just asked, when I want to extend my passport in the Caribbean.

So I went to the to the embassy to the German embassy. And they asked me, so how is how is Antigua, Bermuda? So you’re like, it’s like, yeah, it’s nice.

But I’m there for seven years. And then they asked me questions. And they said, why don’t you come and have a coffee with the ambassador?

I was like, okay, did I do something? So no, no, it’s good. So I sat down there and I thought, oh, my God, you did something, you know.

And then he said, like, no, no, relax, all is good. I just want to meet you and say hello and see if you’re maybe interested to become our man on island, on this island. I was like, yeah, why not?

And that turned into three, four years process where I’m transitioning and then became the consul here on island. And yeah, since then I’m doing that job and yeah, help making passports, rescuing people who are lost or whatever, miss their planes or get sick. It’s it’s it’s an incredible variety that I do now with music as my second job.

But yeah, it’s also a lot of fun. And it’s so different. It’s yeah, it’s it’s I just like it.

It’s just gives me a different vibe than than just making music and sitting in the studio because it’s something serious and I’ve never done anything serious. All I’ve done is music. Yeah, what’s the what’s the population where you live at?

We about 120,000. And what about tourism? What does that bring in every year?

It’s huge. That’s that’s why I’m busy sometimes. Because we have about over a million visitors.

And then we have around between four and 6000 just Germans alone on the cruise ship weekly. So if you have 4000 elderly people running over an island and doing bicycle tours and stuff, you can imagine there’s a lot of things happening.

[Darran]
Yeah.

[YORK]
So this is this is basically also why I’m busy is not because of the people living here is because of the cruise ships coming, going from island to island and wherever they stop, they let a lot of people off the ship and then there’s a lot of things happening.

[Darran]
Now you talking a little bit about family life and and juggling family life career obligations and everything. Sounds like you got to kind of little dialed in you kind of know when it’s production time when it’s work time. You’re you’re you have a daughter and I hope I’m pronounces her name is Aura.

Does she enjoy what you do in making music? Is she interested? Do you allow her to come in the studio and and hang out with you and make music as well?

[YORK]
Well, I mean, I have two amazing daughters. One is Aura. This is the big one.

She’s 24 and a half.

[Darran]
Oh, okay.

[YORK]
Okay. So so we have one, a little one. It’s not that little anymore.

But of course, both of them grew up with music. And since my studio was always in the same compound of the living house, the living quarters of the house, of course, they see DJs coming, going, singers coming, musicians, players, guitar players, you name it. And then when they’re little already, they’re in the studio sitting there.

And this is also how my big daughter started to get into music. She she just saw me doing stuff. And then she started to sing a little bit in the choir.

And then at some point, she asked me, oh, I want to do I want to record a Rihanna cover. Can you record me? I was like, okay.

I mean, I really didn’t want to do it. So because, you know, when you make music all day long, you don’t want to do in your spare time music with your daughter because you already have had my eight hours or nine hours, my fair share of music. So I don’t want to do another three hours with my daughter.

But I couldn’t stop it. And it went like this. And then suddenly she became, you can say, for about 10 years, my main business in terms of time, because I was doing her in the first years, music management and all this kind of things.

And until we had she had a big hit with Panic Room and Camel Fat together. And when that went through the roof, we had management company and stuff in place because I was on island here and I was overwhelmed with that. And a dead injure is terrible, I think.

So when you try to be a father, and you be a manager at the same time, it’s never really great turnout. So I gave that up. But it’s tough to balance.

And now she’s in England and has a new single out. That’s amazing. And it’s called Crack.

So yeah, she does her own thing. And I’m super proud. Well, we’ll have to get her on the show sometime.

Oh, she’s great. Yeah, that’d be awesome.

[Darran]
We’ll talk about that off camera. But that’s congratulations on that. It’s awesome.

Especially, you know, when that’s how I kind of got into all this, is that my brothers were musicians. And this is in the 80s. And my brother were rock, punk rock, rock, and I’d say more punk rock and than anything.

And my dad would buy all the music gear for them. And here you got Yamaha rack mounts and synthesizers and things like this, eight track recorders and all this. They weren’t the most technical guys.

So here I am eight years old running in the studios and grabbing these Sony manuals, these Yamaha manuals, and I’m reading them. And this is back when they weren’t really well translated from Japanese into English. And he was showing just really just hitting buttons trying to figure different things out.

And that’s where I got my kind of technical background is I always like playing with gadgets and gizmos. And then I got playing with dad’s video camera at six years old, you know, and making the home movies and stuff like that. So I got into video, they were musicians, I was like the video guy and the technical men later in the computers, I guess you could say, by way of video games, mostly, mainly, but, you know, got into editing and doing all the video stuff.

But yeah, it’s, you know, encouraging that kind of stuff at an early age can definitely have advantages later on in life. Yeah, go ahead. What was the first computer you had?

Oh, the first? Well, okay. First computer ever that I owned.

Um, I don’t think we had a computer was an Amiga 2000. Okay. Okay.

And, yeah, I remember I was just like, it wasn’t, I mean, the Amiga had a really great computer line. Um, you know, I got it because they had video games. Um, you know, we didn’t have a PC in the house.

[YORK]
Well, on the Amigas, you could actually produce that.

[Darran]
Yes. Yeah. I mean, but I mean, this is, this is probably I don’t even think I was, was I even 21 at the time when I got that here had just come out, it was kind of a newer on the system on the market when I got it.

But that being said, yeah, I had an Amiga 2000. And that was kind of also was a, it was also a computer you could use kind of for video graphics as well. I think it had an output on the computer that was a video, like a yellow video output, composite output.

You could put into a like VHS screen. And I started playing with that one of those in, um, in high school as well at 18 years old and was like in the video production class, I was the one kid who knew how to use the Amiga computer graphics on its own video graphics on the kid’s computers. And, you know, that was kind of cool.

But yeah, an Amiga 2000. What about yours?

[YORK]
Um, I had like the very first computer was a Sinclair. It’s it doesn’t exist anymore. It wasn’t wasn’t popular.

After that, it was a Sinclair C, CX 81. It was a black and white computer with one kilobyte memory, which is so funny.

[Darran]
Was it like this each time you want to do something floppy?

[YORK]
No, well, it’s optional floppy disk. Oh, okay. You have to save everything on a cassette.

So, so you have to put your cassette on and then you would save everything on the cassette and then load it back in from the cassette. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the Commodore and then Atari and the Atari was the game changer because that was the first one who was really good with MIDI triggering so we could trigger the equipment properly in the studio.

So it was the first time that that did MIDI great.

[Darran]
And yeah, basically, that was something you mentioned MIDI and people now know it like household term, but I was playing with MIDI in the 80s when it was like really just first out there. And people didn’t understand what triggers and what you could do to do certain things. And I’m here in the studio, my brother’s like, wanted to kick my butt and beat me up like, because you’re playing with the expensive music I’m here, but I’m like, you guys don’t even know how to use this.

I’m eight years old and look what I can do. And they’re like, how’d you do that? I’m like, okay, okay, get out of my room now, get out of the studio.

So that’s kind of cool stuff though. When you’re not entertaining others, producing music, I know we talked a little bit about this before, but what are some of the activities you do to entertain yourself? What does Torsten do again, outside of like taking a break and not being the diplomat, what do you do to entertain yourself?

[YORK]
Yeah, first of all, like I said, for me, the ocean, very clear, being on the ocean, being on the beach, I go on long walks, I go run on the beach. I’m a dedicated coffee drinker. This is part of my ceremony.

So the coffee every day is like very special. And that is my moment also when I get into the groove, it’s like when I have my coffee and most of the times I go to a nice place. So I sit somewhere nice to have coffee.

And I developed that when I lived in Ibiza because people are like, they sit on the street in a coffee place and they watch other people walking by and they drink their coffee called leche. And it’s just such a cultural thing, Mediterranean cultural thing. I think I copied that behavior because I lived there for 10 years.

That’s definitely not something exciting recreational, but that’s what I do.

[Darran]
You know, people watching is something that I, yeah, it’s just chilling and hanging out and, you know, watching things go about. I think that’s something I’ve done a lot in nightclubs, especially when I’m on site and I’m not there to party. I’m there waiting for the next interview to come up.

I’ll kind of be out there at the event and I’m just kind of like feeling the crowd, just look at the crowd, watching what’s going on and what’s happening. And like, this is kind of, it’s kind of cool, you know, just getting the overall vibe for it rather than, okay, now I’m out in front of the crowd and I’m stuck like this for four hours and going, you know, yeah, no, I tried to get out and I just bought a kayak, inflatable kayak, really recommend those are fun. Two-person kayak, get out on the lake.

And that’s a really fun thing to do.

[YORK]
That’s the water thing. That’s always good. Yeah.

[Darran]
Yeah. That’s really fun. And, you know, but yeah, always getting out and trying to be active when I can, because I got it, got this to worry about, you know, make sure something’s going on there.

Torsten, after being in the industry for so long, million dollar question. If somebody wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?

[YORK]
Oh, I don’t know. I thought about this many, many times. At some point I’ll probably write a biography or get someone to write it because I’m not a great writer and it’s not music.

I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s a tough one because it would have to cover such a long time in music development, in dance music.

In dance music, 30 years, it’s like ages. It’s like a hundred years in classical music because so much stuff is happening in a short time. So I don’t know, maybe Trance, but with dots, T dot R dot A dot N.

Nice.

[Darran]
I like that. I like that. That’s awesome.

I’ve talked about the idea of making a coffee table book over the years. I don’t know what I’d call it. Probably same kind of thing, like notes, N dot O dot T dot S, because I have my to-do lists.

This is probably just going back to… Let’s see if I can get a date on one of these. March of 2024, my to-do list.

There you go. I got a whole couple of… But the thing is…

I know my papers. I know my papers. It would kind of go in chapters or sections and have anecdotes or certain things, but there’s a lot of keywords in there that only mean things to me, but what it takes to run a company on background.

I often say to people, if I put a camera, I could do a reality television show on this stuff alone and broadcast it eight, 10 hours a day. People just think I turn on a camera, I’m interviewing tourists. That’s all I do.

No, there’s email, there’s planning, there’s PR, there’s marketing, there’s social media, there’s booking clients, there’s sponsorship. There’s so much more that goes on in the background of this. Arranging trips, travels, all that fun stuff that people don’t get to see.

And my coffee book table would kind of be notes or to-do. I might call it to-do. And that way it’s like, this is my to-do list.

And again, you look at one of these and it’s like, oh, what means something to me on this one? New Lane Insurance. Okay.

Well, that’s pretty standard. Or Megan. Nobody knows what Megan stands…

I know what Megan stands for. I mean, this is like what’s in my brain all the time. Yours are definitely fuller than mine.

And I usually try to redo these like once a week. Now I got my phone, I do all my notes in my phone so it’s in the cloud. So I can actually add an update to it when I’m out and about.

But yeah, I like having those to-do lists.

[YORK]
What I do is I do the notes in the cloud and then the important notes on paper.

[Darran]
Well, they say the one biggest thing though, that you get, and I believe it’s, I always get this, I don’t want to say it incorrectly, but it’s either a release of dopamine or a release of serotonin. When you actually have something on the list and you cross it off, it’s like a natural release. A hundred percent.

[YORK]
I did that. It’s so nice to cross things off and then after a week or whatever, you have your list and you finished everything on that list. It’s so rewarding.

I started on my post-its on the cloud to actually strike things through instead of just deleting it. So when it strikes through, I still remember that I’ve done it. And I think it’s better than just deleting it.

[Darran]
I don’t strike through, I just put an X next to it. And if there’s a little something next to it, I add that on and it’s kind of like, oh, I did that, but now there’s a second part to it, but I keep it very short and sweet. Not like a big note.

If I need to do big notes and I’m writing a proposal, I’ll just create a new note tab for it and start putting notes in that and then come back and throw it in the word processor, whatever, Word or Google Docs or whatever. But yeah, I wouldn’t be anywhere without my notepads, without my to-do list. I think that’s the one way to stay organized.

They say the moment you put something down on paper, half the problem’s already been solved. Or you put down, it’s already been solved. God forbid I have to leave my phone in my office and the notepad’s in the office, because if I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s idea time.

But awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate you being here.

You’re also going to be dropping our DJ’s fans an exclusive mix, is that correct?

[YORK]
Yes, yes, yes. Awesome.

[Darran]
Looking forward to getting that, Torsten. Definitely. Now, will that be under York or will that be under Torsten or will that be under a different alias?

[YORK]
I think it will be under York and I think I’ll do a nice journey of old and new and mix it a little bit and give it a little twist in there. But I think it will be a nice travel from the past to the future, something like that.

[Darran]
That sounds amazing. I know a few people here that are my close personal friends that will love to hear that when we get it out there. And we’re super excited because we’re going to get it on our site and we’re going to get it in our virtual reality nightclub and put it in our rotation 24-7 out there and all that fun stuff.

Is there anything else you want to let our DJ Sessions fans know about before we let you go?

[YORK]
Well, follow me on Instagram, I would be happy. I’m the one who has more than 4,000 followers, so I would be happy about that. You find me on the Instagram, heyits__york.

I also have a website, which is www.york-music.com. You can follow me there and I’m happy to interact. Whenever you want to say something about my music or what I produce, let me know.

I share it, I answer, I take my time.

[Darran]
Here’s a question I forgot to ask. If I say I was an up-and-coming young producer, do you ever work with producers? Is there something they could like, hey, I’m working on this track and do you give insights, tips?

Are there any master classes or anything that you offer as guidance to people?

[YORK]
Well, I wouldn’t have that time, but I definitely, for instance, listen always to demos and I also helped newcomers getting a release, for instance, or pointed in the right direction or give them some feedback. But I cannot sit there and do a tutorial. I mean, if I would have dedicated time for that.

But I’m open, I listen to stuff and you can actually get me, I would say. Awesome.

[Darran]
And one more time, that website, york-music.com. All the information there, the socials there, go hit them up. Do that fun stuff and get to york-music.com and find out more information about what Torsten is up to. Well, on that note, we’re going to go ahead and let you get back to the Caribbean, having some fun out there in the sun. It’s a beautiful day here outside of the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington. Torsten, you’re coming in from, let me see if I get this right, Antigua and Barbuda.

Am I right? Awesome. I’m coming in from the virtual studios for the DJ sessions.

Don’t forget to go to our website. That’s the wrong button I wanted to click. I wanted to click this one, thedjsessions.com.

Check out the QR code there. We have 2,600 interviews, music, exclusive mixes, and more at thedjsessions.com. Check out our virtual reality nightclub.

We’ve got a mobile app you can download. We have the music section that’s coming in. We have over 700 news stories that are published every month to our news section and more.

All our socials and everything is there at thedjsessions.com. I’m Darren. That’s Torsten coming in from the Caribbean in Antigua and Barbuda.

I’m coming in from Seattle for the DJ sessions. And remember, on the DJ sessions, the music never stops. Yes.