You will find in this category each week, an interview or a biograhpy of a Dj or artist which is breaking the news. All styles are on the “menu” of this category: minimal, house, electro, techno or even trance in some cases.
The topic will be supplemented by other Djs following the latest electronic music news.
If you don’t know them by now, their full Polish names are Grzegorz Demiañczuk and Wojciech Tarañczuk but you can call them Greg and Voitek. As DJs you are likely to find them playing disco/deephouse at the small parties they organize frequently in Berlin and Szczecin as well as tech-house and techno at festivals and big clubs all over the world. Back in 2003 they started it all off by organizing a club night in their home town of Szczecin, Poland. This night soon became a residency and their reputation grew quickly. A radio show soon followed on Szczecin’s ABC Radio allowing them to explore their creativity and gain a legion of fans. Soon after that, they began to produce records together as the techno centric “3 Channels,” eventually evolving into Catz n’ Dogz - a grooving, category-free mixture of modern music. The interview followed notably the ones of other famous producers like Marc Romboy, Extrawelt, M.A.N.D.Y. or Thomas Schumacher. First, I wanted to thank Greg and Voitek who answered our questions.
"Czesc Greg i Voitek,
Honestly, it's a real pleasure and honor to interview you because you are one of my favorite producers and certainly the best in Poland. I really like Poland and notably Poznan, where I went almost 30 times!
On Monday you’ll go for a North American Tour, as you usually do since 6 or 7 years for now. What are your expectations for this new one and had you prepare something special for this year?
> To be honest every time is just better and better, we have friends now in every possible city and we understand the crowd more. Before every tour we always listen a lot of new music, promos etc because later during the tour is not that easy to do it. Also we ripped couple of 12" that we recently bought.
As I’ve just said it is not the first year you do a tour in the United States. During the previous editions, is there any anecdote to tell us or a crazy souvenir to share?
> Haha somehow when think about stories to tell they sounds inappropriate :)
Thanks to Get Physical Music, we’ve learnt that in a few days will be released the volume 12 of Body Language selected by your duo. Could you please explain us as you work on this fine selection? It will be out the 28th of September.
> This is our first official mix compilation, so we wanted to make it very special. At the beginning when we started to think about making a mix CD, we knew we want to make something that is showing all the music we like and what we play in clubs. Most of the older tunes we put in our mix have a lot of meaning to us. J. Antoni, Rhythm Plate, Schatrax or Gant – we have them on vinyl and through all these years the records are so used, that it is impossible to play them anymore in the club, because the needle always skips and they are really hard to get! That’s why we are so happy we managed to license them and put them into our mix. For our own label, "Pets Recordings", we get a lot of demos, and we got in touch with some new talents like Eats Everything, Chmara Winter, Trikk or Squarehead.
The first half of 2012 is over. If you look back to it, what can you say about it? What is your vision of the couple past months?
> Definitely this was very good year so far for us. We learned a lot last couple of years a specially about running the label and how to be more relaxed about everything and not stressed. We are now surrounded by really awesome people and we can work with our favorite artists which now are our friends as well. We have residency at Watergate in Berlin We played Space terrace first time did mix CD and couple of really big parties in Poland and next year looks only brighter :)
After you give us these info about your music news we would like to go back to your musical roots. Could you briefly tell us how did you become DJs and producers? And how did you two meet?
> We both are coming from a bit different musical background. I was singing in a choir for 7 year but on the other hand I was really fascinated by techno and I was also making hip-hop instrumentals for my friends. Gregory was more into deep-house and had his radio show where he was playing some very relaxed chill-out music. Our city Szczecin where we are both coming from is not that big (around 400 000) so it was a matter of time that we will meet on one of the underground parties. We played our first party together in Mezzoforte Club. In the beginning it was always the same that Greg was playing beginning and the end because he liked only deeper stuff but after a while and several parties it really clicked together and I think now we have perfect balance between playing tools and hits hahaha.
Your first releases were done under the name 3 Channels. Why did you change your name to Catz n Dogz in 2007? What is its signification?
> People were thinking about 3 channels only as a electro/minimal. And we really didn't want that. We noticed that we really like diversity so when we started Catz 'n Dogz we promised our self that we will try from the beginning to always surprise people. It took us more years unfortunately to make people understand who we are and trust in our taste but now this is very rewarding because we get to play every kind of party and people trust us.
Who is the dog and who is the cat?
> Yes this is THE question. Unfortunately the answer is not easy because it depends from the day.
At the beginning, did your family understand what you did for a living? And now are they proud of what you achieved along the years?
> Of course they didn't want us to be djs at the beginning Gregory was working in Cityhall and I was studying. When our career kind of started to taking of our parents started to believe in us more. It's not that they forbidden doing this before but they were thinking that this is just a hobby and we will soon have "normal" job, now we can't imagine doing anything else.
Concerning your career as producers, have you a pre-determinate role in the production of the track? How do you composed together?
> Usually I'm working on the ideas and then we finish the tracks in the studio together. The secret behind Catz 'n Dogz is that we do different things it's like a puzzle :)
Besides your production schedule, you have worked tirelessly to bring your imprint "Pet Recordings" to fruition in 2010. How do you manage all these tasks? You need to have a good team to help you I can imagine! When we interviewed Marc Romboy some weeks ago, he was mainly help by his father. What about you?
> Ok we have to admit recently our friend started to work for us because it was too much. For all these years, we were doing everything by our own because we like to control everything. Now we could actually do much more releases but then the quality will be lost. I can't believe that we were doing even the licensing by our own till last year. We want to focus now on label parties, that’s why we have somebody to work for us now. We still want to do the label management because it's working out always somehow and going in the good direction.
How you would define the artistic direction of the label?
> For us the most important is the context not the genera. We are trying to connect our Polish roots with the music form around the world and show to everybody that there are no boundaries. A lot of people have polish complex and even the reviews are divided to 2 sections Poland and the rest of the world. We really don't like this way of thinking music is universal.
What is your favorite track that has been release under it? I know it is a difficult and large question. Maybe there is one more specific than the others?
> Yes you are right this is very difficult question. But think It would be Uffe “Colors outside”. There is a big story behind this EP. Firs-table we are proud because this is first record Uffe ever released also the video made by Sonia Szostak was mind-blowing and the cover is the best cover we ever had on Pets.
In 2006, Claude VonStroke asked you to remix his international club hit “Who's Afraid of Detroit”. Do you think it is the track that opened you new doors in the electronic music world?
> The whole relationship with Dirtybird opened us a lot of new doors. Vonstroke believed in us from the beginning and he helped a lot to promote our name to become global.
More and more people are asking us about the material DJs and producers used. What are the software or instruments you used to producer and create a track?
> We use Cubase since many many years, simple midi controller and Maschine. Recently because of traveling we started to use more and more Ableton, so half of our remixes and tracks we did last couple of months the first draw was always in Ableton and then we exported it to Cubase to finish.
The interview will be published on a website mainly read by French people. So, what do you know about the French electronic music scene? Are there some artists that you personally know or especially love their music?
> Of course we did already 3 tracks together with dOP, we know them since many years and when we play party together is always fun. Also one of our best friends form Berlin is French. She told us a lot of interesting stuff about Paris and France. Real Tone label is awesome as well and the crews Dan Ghenacia, Dyed and Shonky are really dope DJs!
Besides music, what are your hobbies?
> Food! This is such an important part of this job. Actually when somebody asks us what we would do after djing definitely the answer is restaurant. Also we are trying to go to the gym very often and because of traveling read a lot and watch movies, pretty standard hobbies I would say :), ok Gregory likes trains, that's kind of weird right?
Greg and Voitek, before we conclude this interview we have a few more questions. Sometimes one word is enough!
An artist you would like to work with one day?
> Mc Hammer.
Best place to go out in Poland? Mine is SQ in Poznan!
> 1500m2 in Warsaw.
One word about France?
> Passion.
3 words to define your music?
> Surprising, always different.
Are you using vinyl or mp3 for your mix?
> It depends from the party, mostly mp3 and when we go by car or play in Berlin we always take couple of records.
One privilege, being DJs, gives you access to?
> Minibar.
Your favorite track these days?
> Infinity Ink - Vonstroke remix
Guys, dzienkuje bardzo bardzo for the time you devoted to Actualités Electroniques and particularly for this full and exclusive interview. We will wait for sure for your next productions and your new compilation. Do zobaczenia!”
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