By Michael Lara
Tokyo Bureau Chief
Tokyo, Japan
Tim Deluxe (credit: Satoru Fueki 2010)
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“Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes (Turn and face the strain)….Ch-ch-Changes (Just gonna have to be a different man)...” Bowie’s nearly four-decades-old tale is precisely right for English house artist, producer and deejay Tim Deluxe, as well as for the land and people of Japan.
Sitting down with Deluxe in the BEATINK offices in Naka-Meguro, near Shibuya in Tokyo, he elaborated on transformations that happened in his life and his future plans to run the Tokyo Marathon in February 2012.
Tim Deluxe: The lucky dip, yeah.
THIRSTY: Indeed. Feel free to pick an item out of this “Live Simply” bag and a question will come from there.
Tim Deluxe: Okay.
THIRSTY: “Live Simply,” is not so easy, eh?
Tim Deluxe: Tell me about it (eyebrows and eyes up, and a slight smile as he reaches in).
THIRSTY: Now, this is from the Tokyo Canadian hockey club (a jersey) and I won it in a fundraising raffle for the Canadian winter Olympic team back in 2004 here at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. So, if you were to have any jersey, what would it be?
Tim Deluxe: Which jersey?
THIRSTY: Which one would we find you in on the jumbo screen in any stadium with your hands high in the air and you screaming with your eyes alive?
Tim Deluxe: Well, it’d be an Arsenal one and it’d probably be… Who would it be? Hmmm… It’d probably be…Tony Adams, #6 shirt or David Rocastle, #7 shirt.
THIRSTY: And why them?
Tim Deluxe: Because they were, sort of, two of my favorite players when I was a kid growing up and following Arsenal. And to me, they kind of represented what the club was about and the sort of spirit of the team back then. And they were as, as the fans would say, they were proper Arsenal.
THIRSTY: What about for you and your new album? I’ve seen you many times over the years. What is the fundamental spirit behind it?
Tim Deluxe: Behind the new EP?
THIRSTY: Yeah.
Tim Deluxe: The whole idea behind this whole new EP is that it comes out of the whole… Well, off the back of the Fukushima thing [March 11th’s massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear issues that still beleaguer all] and the transformation from that. It’s for the Japanese people. I’m going to give my royalties to the Red Cross and the song, well, all of the songs are kind of about, I guess, hope essentially and change. Probably, spiritual transformation, kind of… Yeah, just transformation in general… even down to the artwork as well with the link of yellow and blue making green. In fact, the green represents the hard shack road, which means transformation and change, compassion and stuff.
THIRSTY: What about for yourself?
Tim Deluxe: The same applies to me as well, yeah. Before, it feels as well for me that it’s kind of like. It also applies to everyone, but just on a personal level, many connections into that as well of the fact of what’s been done through change in perhaps going maybe in the last four years, especially the last two years…turning vegetarian, stopping smoking. You know, various changes. I had a very unhealthy lifestyle before. Drinking too much and not happy with weight, my weight, how I was feeling, a bit depressed. These kinds of things bore out of touring.
THIRSTY: So that was the catalyst?
Tim Deluxe: Yeah, yeah. So therefore you have to make a change. And you can’t change me.
THIRSTY: Yeah.
Tim Deluxe: I can’t change anyone else. You got to do it for yourself.
THIRSTY: It’s been such a rough year for this country.
Tim Deluxe: Yeah, like I was thinking about Saturday night [just hours after METAMORPHOSE 2011 was cancelled due to a typhoon]. I just felt, you know, it would be another kick in the teeth if nothing ever had happened and everyone just got on the plane and gone home. It would’ve felt so wrong. So it was some consolation for some people to turn up and it was a great vibe [at famed intimate space named UNIT in Daikanyama, Tokyo, near Shibuya]. The energy… Who knows? It might have been a better vibe than the festival. You don’t know. It’s hard to say. It’s a kind of thing that’s always, no matter how dark it gets, how tragic it gets, there’s always a positive to take away. There’s always something that comes out of it and I thought Saturday night kind of encapsulated that in the spirit of how it came together so quickly. You know, no one knew. It could have been five people there.
THIRSTY: Yeah. It was really fluid. You would’ve never known this was just thrown together.
Tim Deluxe: That’s what I’m saying. It was just amazing. And then, the actual energy itself was like, from 11 o’clock, there was a queue around the block. And I thought, “Wow, this is going to be a special night.” And you could just feel it in the air. It was like, when I first walked into the club I thought, “This is going to go off tonight… There’s no ifs, buts about it.”
THIRSTY: What do you think makes those ifs and buts? What brings that out, the hiccups so to speak?
Tim Deluxe: I don’t know. I feel, I think sometimes when, kind of, tragedy strikes or when things get tough or things aren’t quite as they’re planned… When the expectations go, I think that’s when the real fun begins. I think... It’s like, New Year’s Eve. It’s a classic example. It’s actually always the worst night.
THIRSTY: So built up.
Tim Deluxe: That’s the thing. You know what I mean? It actually usually turns out to be the worst of the club calendar you know, because it’s over-hyped. It’s built up and usually you’ll find these kind of spur of the moment, spontaneous things and especially if they are coming out of a tragic or kind of a difficult situation that they become… Well, they really shine. I think that’s, yeah, exactly I think it was that for sure.
THIRSTY: After what happened [the cancellation] as I am friends with Mayuri [DJ Mayuri Akama, the organizer], I was wondering what do I do when I found out? Do I call her?
Tim Deluxe: Yeah… I think she’s going to come out of it stronger as well.
THIRSTY: Definitely.
Tim Deluxe: And METAMORPHOSE will as well and she’s going to learn some new stuff about it and the team around her as well. How people react and who was really there and who weren’t and all those types of things. When the chips are down, you really learn about yourself and what’s going on. And I think all of the artists, you know, no one wanted to just get back on a plane and go home without having played or anything like that. Hopefully, the insurance will work something out. I’m sure everyone’s cool and will be in the right spirit and frame of mind to help her out.
Tim Deluxe
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THIRSTY: I think so too.
Tim Deluxe: Next one?
THIRSTY: Naturally.
Tim Deluxe: What (chuckling)?
THIRSTY: An old box cutter.
Tim Deluxe: What is this (grinning)?
THIRSTY: Now, so what for you, in the process, like in any craft, what makes you trim? What makes you cut things?
Tim Deluxe: Cut things?
THIRSTY: You know, “Oh, don’t need that.”
Tim Deluxe: If it doesn’t feel right…basically. Yeah, if it doesn’t feel right then it has to go. If it’s having a negative effect from my perception then it has to go. Whether it’d be a sound in a track, it’s gone. Move on. Don’t dwell on it. Don’t mull over it. Just it goes. Next. And even sometimes, with friends or situations, people sometimes their fault or my fault, it’s just the laws of attractions is a weird thing.
THIRSTY: My best friend said to me long ago, “Life can be simple if you want it to be.”
Tim Deluxe: Yeah, yeah for sure.
THIRSTY: So why is it that we make it so difficult?
Tim Deluxe: Because we are searching, searching for everything on the outside I think. That’s my take on it. It’s like, you know, not dealing with all of the internal issues, not realizing that it’s all coming from the inside of us and that we are kind of attracting it, attracting these things.
Tim Deluxe (credit: Satoru Fueki 2010)
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THIRSTY: And he always came up with some deep stuff and said to me, “There are two kinds of people in the world.” And I replied, “Two kinds and that’s it?”
Tim Deluxe: Yeah (laughing with a broad smile).
THIRSTY: Good boy! We’re cutting it down real simple now.
Tim Deluxe: Yeah, yeah.
THIRSTY: No, he said, “Think about it. There are people that are good for you and people that are bad for you.”
Tim Deluxe: Yeah, yeah.
THIRSTY: “And keep the bad ones away.”
Tim Deluxe: And it is like that. And if there’s these people around you, that you attract them. It comes from you. You know what I mean? You usually find that you’re looking after yourself and you’re feeling that, you usually have good people around. When you’re being a bit silly and neglecting yourself then you usually end up with the people that are also grating on that level as well. With vibrations, attractions, you kind of vibrate a frequency. You attract that and it’s going to come in various forms and kind of, various manifestations, but ultimately it’s coming from you, you know? You’re like a beacon, like, putting out this pulse.
THIRSTY: Too many servants?
Tim Deluxe: Yeah, I don’t know. For instance, I found when I was drinking a lot and stuff like that, it manifested. It then seemed that everyone around me were real heavy drinkers. But we just don’t see it sometimes or we refuse to see it and we kind of look for, you know, find some partners in that same kind of vibe. I think that’s what actually happens. I think when you, cut away, trim out that stuff then it starts to disappear. It’s the same with making music as well. It’s like working on a vibe and it doesn’t feel right. As soon as you start trimming stuff away then sometimes the track appears. As opposed to building it, it’s already there. You just have to trim it, you had it all the way, but it was there.
THIRSTY: It’s like when you’re cooking. It’s not right, so you add another spice, but it’s still not right.
Tim Deluxe: Yeah.
THIRSTY: And then you put it in the trash.
Tim Deluxe: Yeah, totally. That happens all the time with music and stuff. So therefore, maybe it was right all along or maybe it just wasn’t the right day to make that dish. You know, sometimes, it’s like because I run a lot now and I’ve gone off set to do a long run and I’ll get two miles in and I’m like, “No, today’s not the day to do this run.” I just turn back. It doesn’t feel right. That’s what I mean.
THIRSTY: Intuition.
Tim Deluxe: Yeah.
THIRSTY: The next EP.
Tim Deluxe: Yeah, maybe, who knows (grinning). Crazy. I read Murakami’s book about the gas attacks called Underground.
THIRSTY: Yeah, Kasumigaseki…
Tim Deluxe: And the crazy thing I picked up on from the book was literally everyone was, either that day on the trains, either they were running late. No matter what, that wasn’t their normal train. Some of the drivers… Even the bombers got on the wrong trains. They weren’t on the trains that they originally planned to be on and there’s this kind of weird thread through it all that, yeah, how different things could have been. You know what I mean? It was very bizarre. Some of the drivers were shifted to different lines that day, different trains. Some people were early, who weren’t supposed to be on the trains and then it all unfolded. That was the train that was coming after me and if I hadn’t been early today or late, vice-o-versa. It’s just bizarre.
THIRSTY: Absolutely. So do we need to have tragedy to bring out the best?
Tim Deluxe: No, not necessarily, but for some reason, it feels like that kind of shocks us, sorts of jolts us into reacting, to wake up a bit. I think we go to sleep too quickly. When we’re pounded with the daily…
THIRSTY: Hammer to the head…
Tim Deluxe: Yeah, you know what I mean? So, sometimes, therefore sometimes you need that shock to actually realize we are human and come together. I think Bill Hicks got it right: ”Life is just a ride, but people got a lot of money and time invested into that ride and they want to protect it.”
Links:
www.timdeluxe.com
www.metamo.info
www.beatink.com
www.tokyo42195.org/2012_en
www.arsenal.com/home
www.unit-tokyo.com
www.murakami.ch/hm/bibliography/bibliography_underground.html
www.billhicks.com
