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Crystal Clouds Interviews Jerom
With Jerom launching his new website this week (www.dj-jerom.nl) Crystal Clouds decided to bring the Interview series back to life speaking with the dutch trance mastermind.
A big thanks goes to Jerom for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk with us.
Jerom: First of all I would like to say hi to everyone, and I hope you enjoy reading this interview!
CC: Tell us about your personal background a bit: where you grew up, education, hobbies.
Jerom: I grew up in a place called Bleiswijk, a small town which is about 10-12 kilometres north of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. That's also where I went to school in my younger years. I finished my last three years of high school in Rotterdam and later on went to college there as well for Leisure Management, where I recently graduated in!
As for hobbies, I always enjoyed sports and music. When I was young I played football for several years and also tennis. But my favourite sport was, and still is, running. I am doing that for a long time now. Nowadays it is just for fun and staying in shape, but around 8 years ago I was much more fanatic and competed in many games. Back in 2000 my team of athletes actually was Dutch champion, so that was really cool! I also ran and finish the Rotterdam marathon once four years ago. Every since I started running completing a marathon was always one of my goals!
Music has always been a hobby as well, when I was young I really loved checking out new music on the radio and I enjoyed all sorts of music. And before I forget, videogames were always nice to play as well sometimes, so generally music, sports and videogames are my favourite hobbies.
CC: At what age did you get your first exposure to trance music?
Jerom: Back in the 90s, when I was about 10 years old, I really enjoyed music you would now call Eurodance or something. It's not exactly trance, but now that I think of it this music had a big effect on me, sort of the same feelings when I discovered trance. If I look at my position and what I am enjoying now I have to say this somehow warmed me up for the actual real trance.
That first real trance music experience was around 2000, when I heard tracks like Alibi - Eternity, Tiesto - Suburban Train, Delerium - Silence, stuff like that. Visiting my very first big event, Sensation 2001, also was an eye-opening night for me, with that great set from Marco V and that brilliant emotional anthem Such Is Life from Rank 1. The funny thing here is that being a DJ and producer never crossed my mind at that point for some reason. That actually came about two years later.
CC: Who influences or inspires you in your music?
Jerom: Well, to be honest, nowadays there isn't really one particular person who inspires me when I am making music. My father, however, has been a bass guitar player his whole life and this inspired me when I was growing up in that musical environment. Both my parents, my brother and sister were also listening to music frequently, so I have been influenced by all of them in some way. All together this gave me a musical foundation during my younger years.
As for now, I have to say Tiesto was responsible for me getting into trance music in general back in 2002, thanks to In Search Of Sunrise 1, 2 and 3. After seeing him live for the first time at Innercity 2002 I seriously thought about DJ-ing myself and later on producing as well. In May 2003 I got my first set of dj equipment.
When it comes to inspiration for producing nowadays I mostly get it from stuff I experience in life, places I visit or when I hear some other music. This doesn't necessarily has to be trance music, but in many cases it is though. The day after you have visited a really good party is many times a productive day. Even after just a few hours of sleep! Also, when checking for new tracks and hearing that one special gem amongst all those releases many times really makes me happy and inspires to make new stuff myself. But I gotta say that many of the melodies I have written for my (upcoming) releases sometimes just came out of nowhere! They just popped up in my head or I was just messing around with my midi keyboard or actually just drawing some random notes in the FL Studio piano roll. Many times this has resulted in really surprising things!
CC: What other types of music do you enjoy?
Jerom: I really like many sorts of music, there's not much stuff I don't like. What I really enjoy is music you sometimes hear in movies, music from Hans Zimmer or the music from the movie Gladiator for instance. I also still like the music I heard many times when I grew up, like Genesis and Toto for example. Also, Europe - The Final Countdown is still a track I enjoy a lot! And of course The Blues Brothers, the movie is hilarious and the music is awesome as well.
CC: What is your favourite production of all time?
Jerom: This is a difficult question for me haha! I can’t really pinpoint just one favourite track, but tracks like Tiesto - Suburban Train, Delerium - Silence, Rank 1 - Airwave and Such Is Life really had a major emotional influence on me.
CC: What is your favourite release for this year?
Jerom: Ohh, tough one here! Again I think I can't pick just one, there were too many good ones! But my best tracks for this year definitely include Andy Tau - Leap Of Faith (Haris C Remix), TrancEye - Melodramatic (Sulaco Remix), Lee Canning - The Universe (Original Mix), Tiddey - Forgiven Lies, XGenic - Inside, Caira - Shoreless (Fleeticer Remix).
Also, I am quite happy with the results of some of my own releases, like my remix of Paul Rigel's Summernight's Sublimity and my tracks Blue Lagoon and Unreachable (collab with Anoikis).
CC: Describe for us the best place you have played a gig at or attended.
Jerom: One of my most amazing gigs was actually my very first international gig, back in 2005 in a club in Bratislava (Slovakia). The crowd response during my 4 hour set was really incredible when I played there! And also, a really good one in Holland was the Tranceformer party in November 2007 in Utrecht, again an unbelievable vibe and crowd reaction while playing my set! I actually still get quite some response from people who were there that night and they keep on reminding me about how much they enjoyed my set there.
As a visitor I have been at many parties, but Innercity in Amsterdam in December 2002 (my first live Tiesto experience) is one I will never forget. The first Tiesto In Concert (May 2003 in Gelredome, Arnhem) is also one to remember! Most likely I think my best parties were the ones in the first years after I got into trance music, cause it was all new for me at the time.
CC: Who is it that you would not want to miss see DJ? And who has been the DJ that impressed you the most?
Jerom: After discovering trance I always went to see Tiesto when he played a gig somewhere in the Netherlands. He's also the one who impressed me most to be honest. He was always able to play some interesting track(s) or surprise me when going to a party. He was always able to build up his set in a brilliant way, I really enjoyed those longer sets most!
And for some reason I always dig Marco V, I really like the way he just does his own thing, regardless of how you would call the style he plays. It's the open minded view I like most there!
CC: Tell me your thoughts on the trance scene of today.
Jerom: What surprised me most this year is the fact that the best trancers are mostly released on rather 'small labels' instead of what is being considered a 'big label'. This is something that is been going on for several years now in my opinion. Also, I kinda have the feeling many producers only make music just to get on ASOT or get a release on what is generally being considered as a 'big label'. Maybe I am wrong, but it looks like many people don't make music anymore just for the love of music. I think this resulted in my continued surprise of hearing tracks which were outstanding produced technically, but just had no interesting or catching melody and emotion into the track what so ever. That makes if often quite boring to be honest. But hey, of course this is just how I experienced it and musical taste is so personal to each individual that everyone can give their own interpretation to it.
Another interesting thing in the scene I noticed this year is the amount of quality coming from Poland (again). I think the most brilliant trance tracks this year actually came from there and I think it's definitely a country we are going to hear from in the next year(s).
In general, there has been a lot of quality in the scene from various artists and it is really great we can all keep the genre we love alive!
CC: What are your plans for the next year? What do you hope to accomplish?
Jerom: Well, my to-do-list is quite big at the moment, so I got many upcoming stuff, including a very interesting collab with another Crystal Clouds DJ actually You will all hear more about this when the time is right, but I can tell you it is something to look forward to! New Anoikis vs. Jerom tracks and remixes are coming up too and I hope to finish some new tracks with buddy Michael de Kooker soon as well. So, for next year I hope to see many of those released and some support wouldn't hurt either.
As for DJ-ing, I hope to keep continue the Visions show every two weeks and getting some really nice gigs as well, both in the Netherlands and hopefully abroad too. As for the rest, we'll just see what life has in store for us! Hopefully there will some nice surprises along the way during the year.
CC: Your show, Visions, always seems to include tracks not played by the vast majority of DJs. What is it you try to achieve each episode?
Jerom: Well, first of all, having your own show is a great way to show the world what you are about as an artist. The main goal for me has always been to give the listeners the same enjoyment and feelings I experienced myself when I discovered trance music. Those feelings are actually the way I select my tracks, I am not really interested in looking at what a particular label has to offer, I just check all releases (regardless of the label) to see if I like it and if it fits my style. When I have that special feeling when hearing a certain track, it will most likely be something I am going to support! For me this way it's the most fun working on selecting my tracks. That makes being a DJ so much fun to be honest, because you can give your own interpretation, feelings and emotion to the music you select and play. Just blindly copying some popular dj isn't really fun for me, especially when you have your own show where you can let everyone experience what you have to offer. If it so happens to be that it makes me somewhat different from the majority, than I guess that's just a really nice compliment, so thanks for that!
CC: Thanks for the little chat mate! Best of luck to you!
Jerom: I just want to take the opportunity here to thank you Glen for this interview. Big thanks to the other Crystal Clouds admins for all the work and support as well. It is really great to be part of the Crystal Clouds community!
Last, but not least, I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in every way and I hope many of you enjoyed the Visions show here. It's really great to be in the position where you are able to share your passion for the music you love and I hope I can keep on doing this for many years to come!
Crystal Clouds is a non-profit project based in the UK and run by EVM, Styarc, GP1 and Gord in the hope to support
the trance and progressive industry through various different promotional channels. Long Live Trance. Gen Time: 1.374 Seconds
