Tom Clarke

Well, are you going on tour to celebrate your birthday?

Yes, our Highgrade label is already 8 years old, the tour is dedicated to the 50th release, which comes out in May. The release is a compilation on two records, and on CD, of course. For all of us on this tour there are about 30 sets in different cities of Europe, three of them in Russia - 2 in Moscow and 1 in St. Petersburg

As far as I know, this is not your first performance in Russia

Yes, I've already been to you 10 times or something like that. I haven't been to St. Petersburg for a long time. I came here twice in the early nineties.

I know you came in 1999.

Yes, there was something like that) But before that I don’t remember when it was

Now you are known as a techno artist, but you started with different music. How will you delight the St. Petersburg public?

I like to play different music. This doesn't mean I play hip-hop or anything like that. I play electronic music, any direction in electronic music that I like, you can call it minimal techno, or techno house, but I don't limit myself, if I like a house record, I play it in my set. I don't like straight forward sets. I like to surprise people. I can’t say whether I play only this or that, it always depends on my mood, on the audience.

What about Daniel, he started with house.

A: He plays something in between. We call it techno, but it's not techno, it's not that fast music, it's something between house and techno. People used to call it tech house.

If you try to find a definition for this music, I would say that it is something in between. And there are not many vocals in this music. I don't like a lot of vocals myself either.

Here's the hipp-e speaking tekki-sound.

A: Well, this is purely a matter of terminology.

Definitions are always different, you go to the other side of the world and you say house, people mean something completely different by that.

People come up with their own definitions often. But in the grand scheme of things, what difference does it make? It's music)

What style do you think is on trend right now? Many DJs say if soulful is popular tomorrow, I will play it, today minimal is popular, so I do minimal.

A: Minimal has actually been very popular for the last 3-4 years.

Minimal techno or minimal house, whatever it's called, is the main music in Berlin, but that doesn't mean it's popular all over the world

We never follow any general trends; we always try to promote our topic. Of course, at the moment, perhaps general trends coincide with our direction. Our trend may be yours too)

You started in the early 90s and in 2000 you launched a label, how did this idea come about?

A: I wanted to gather my friends, those dudes who were making interesting music, and start releasing it. We wanted to show what we do to People.

That was the main reason I started my own label, because I wanted to release my own music. Nobody really helped me with this, so I put my money into it, which I earned from DJing. After some time, the label began to grow.

I gradually began to find those people who are now working with me. I already have a defined team, artists with whom I constantly work. There are not very many of them - I prefer that the artists with whom I work are also my friends; close, friendly relationships in the team are very important to me. I don't need artists all over the world.

Of course, we have some guests-releases, but I prefer a small team where relationships are based primarily on friendship.

By the way, how often do you invite already famous artists for remixes? Perhaps this was relevant when high grade was just starting to grow?

A: Yes, I invite famous artists from time to time, but I don’t do it very often

The thing is, if I want to put out a record, I believe in it, and I believe in the music on that record, and I believe in that artist. I think good music is enough for a successful release.

It is important for me to promote my artist. I constantly invite artists from other labels, but I also want to promote a producer from my label.

How many official artists are on the label?

A: We have about 8-9 main artists. They are all from Berlin

Recently, probably a year ago, I created a sub-label called Highgrade, which deals only with digital releases. For him, I choose the least famous artists, because I don’t take as many risks with digital releases as with physics and can afford to experiment.

Digital distribution is like a platform for testing releases - to understand whether it sells or not.

Thus, on the high-grade and sub-label I have only 9 - 10 main artists, the rest are invited

It’s much easier to launch a digital label - many people think that you shouldn’t bother with vinyl

A: When I launched high-grade in 2000, the digital market was very narrow and few people were seriously interested in it, so we started with physics. We have now been on the digital market for more than two years.

To be honest, I don’t believe in digital promotion - you sell 100 promo tracks, and the next day you find them on some website for free.

We do not do digital promotion, but we do digital distribution

In general, we still believe in the vinyl story.

Usually you don't hear much of a difference.

A: I'm the head of a label that puts out records - I can't help but play on records.

Of course I sometimes play with sits during a set. In general, this is a matter of taste, it seems to me. If someone feels more comfortable playing with numbers, why not do it.

What about me - I'm old school) I grew up on vinyl and I'm still more comfortable playing from records.

I don't want this market to die, which is why I still support vinyl.

What about the MacBook? Surely you use it sometimes?

A: Yes, you know sometimes I use Live scratch, not so often, but when I go on tour for a long time, I can’t take all the necessary recordings with me.

But this happens extremely rarely

In most cases, I prefer to take with me my bag of records, some unreleased tracks, or what I don't want to take with me on vinyl.

For me this is the best option.

Do you travel a lot? Do you have enough time for the label?

A: Yes, yes, some travel even more. In fact, I like to have no more than three dates a week. But it still comes out more)

Of course I have my own team, they help me a lot. Now there is a lot of work, and it is quite difficult work - it is not like it was at the very beginning.

It’s hard to do good promotion. It takes a lot of time.

In general, I run the label 24 hours a day - I’m always involved in these matters, I’m always coming up with something, solving some problems, sometimes I can’t stop thinking about it)

This is my life)

How many people do you have on your high-grade team?

I have an office where 2 people work for me

Wow, just a little bit, when you look at what you are doing, it seems like there are more of you)

Yes, just two. I want people to clearly do what they need to do, I don’t want to hire a bunch of workers for no apparent reason, I like to control everything myself, before I launch something I always check everything myself. I like to keep everything under control and always be in the know

What do you usually listen to during non-working hours?

A: To be honest, now I listen to country and folk)

I play the guitar a little and I like all kinds of guitar music.

In general, I like completely different music

What I listen to at home is more relaxing music

I'm relaxing at home.

Don’t think that I come home and start mixing)

Sometimes I listen to hip-hop, but in general there’s quite a lot of interesting stuff now, unfortunately I don’t always have enough time to keep track of it all.