In conversation with DJ T.

Having been DJing over the last 25 years DJ T. has perhaps been better known for his productions than anything else. Starting out with DJing, his first quantum leap into the music industry was making his idea of a music magazine a reality almost immediately after leaving school. Groove Magazine has thereon proceeded to become one of Germany’s staple productions in the field. Moving on 15 years he was part of Germany’s “inner circle” of electronic musicians and was invited to be part of a new label that was to become a phenomenal global success, Get Physical.

More recently Thomas Koch (DJ T.) took the step to shed commitments outside of DJing and production to focus solely on these two facets of his career. Having spent his entire career with a greater focus and these two aspects as an aside, it is only in the last two years that we have been able to appreciate the unrestrained creative. His recent Get Physical Compilation is soon to be followed up by an artist EP expressing his current self, drawing on Detroit and Chicago influences as well as his signature, groovy sound. The release is said to embody his DJ sets as he goes through a renaissance of former influences.

For a night of jacking grooves tempered with an eclectic array of varied electronic styles you can catch DJ T. at The Nest in London tonight. Here’s what he had to say about the last 25 years and on what’s to come.

So Thomas you’ve had a lot of success with past projects, magazines and record labels most notably…does that make you more cautious with future projects or does it give you confidence when doing something new?

Well, I’ve always had a good sense for the needs of the people and for movements and what could be the next thing for example. I’ve always had this perspective of an analyser as well as that of an artist, so it was really helpful to be in these different positions with these different perspectives. So that’s all been very helpful but also, for example when you are an artist but you have been a promoter it helps to know what the promoter’s job entails so you can understand why they may be coming from a certain angle.

So a huge part of your beginnings in music was of course Groove magazine. You started that early on after leaving school. Under what circumstances did that come about?

I was 19 when I started the magazine; I left school one year prior to graduation . My attention to schooling was pretty terrible actually; it was an all boys school very much into sports but I was very much the black sheep of the year-group, whereby I had started DJing a year before leaving school and was constantly thinking about the next party or the next weekend. Nonetheless I had a vision of doing something with music and had 100% faith in a career in music. Very early on in fact I decided that I wanted my own record label; I saved money from holiday work and went on to book studio sessions with some “creepy” soft-rock guy trying to produce dance tracks! I sent the music out but didn’t hear much back from labels and I realised that the thing that I needed to do to get my music out was to network. At that same time my father had just bought a computer and we had a little talk when he suggested that I could also use it, like perhaps list my record collection. At that point I had this eureka moment and knew I had to do a magazine. At that time I had already realised how important one day DJ charts would be for the audience. In Germany there was only one other magazine that would publish one or two DJ charts in each edition back then.

So your parents were fairly instrumental in the career path that you picked?

My father none actually, but my mother was always supporting me. There was a moment when I started the magazine that was quite a coincidence, because the company she was working for at the time was bought out and the structure completely changed, with staff cuts and redundancies. She got that and offered me support with the administration side of things and that working relationship we had for 15 years until I sold the magazine in 2004. 

You mentioned that quite early on you had the thought that you wanted to have your own label. Isn’t that quite a leap when starting out?

First it was the thought of being able to better spread the word of dance music, produce my own music and also have maximum control over releasing my own music. The classic thought really when nowadays people have various disappointments through releasing on other labels and decide to start their own labels. Back then though producing and the label had to fall by the wayside whilst the magazine took up all of my time and energy.

Thereafter, jumping 15 years when Patrick Bodmer and Philipp Jung from M.A.N.D.Y. were sat down at dinner with me, they asked me if I knew anybody who could complete the group of people they had together for the label already; somebody who could perhaps bring some extra skills or networking ability to the group. At the moment of asking me though they were not thinking that I could be the person because they knew that for me it was all about getting out of the stress and hectic lifestyle that the magazine was creating at that particular time. However there was another eureka moment there; I knew at once that I was the last person they were looking for and this was my chance to finally do what I had wanted since the beginning.

I then continued with the magazine for a couple of years after that conversation, the label was already exploding when I sold the magazine and I was the last one to move to Berlin out of all of the guys.

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