PERSONAL
1. Individually, how old are you?
rene: 26
milan: 26
micha: 23
2. How did you all meet?
well me (Micha) and Milan are brothers, so our parents made the call on that one and we met Rene arround 1992 in highschool..
3. Where are you from?
Utrecht 4th biggest city in the Netherlands but actually quite a small town (bout 300.000 people)
4. Do you think your location has affected your success in Drum & Bass?
Well the scene in holland is small compared to the one in england, so if you wanna build up your name you have to go abroad... and that can be difficult... i think its deff not about making just one good tune... you will have to keep a certain level of quality
5. What are your first names?
Micha Heyboer, Milan Heyboer and Rene Verdult
6. How many are there in Black Sun Empire?
3
7. Where did the name Black Sun Empire come from?
being contacted with the illusionary world of Star Wars in our childhood, this space fairytale is still in the back of our heads, so we actually opened this old star wars book and randomly took some words which in the end formed "Black Sun Empire"
8. What are your solo DJ/producer names?
Micha: “Hi you’re micha right? I heard allot about you, but what’s your real name”
Rene: Whats he’s trying to say is we dont have individual dj-names
9. How long have you been working together for?
we decided to start making music together in early 1995 and after we had been floating between all these types of music for a couple of years we finally found our musical direction around 1997, which resulted in the formation of Black Sun Empire....
10. What is the Drum & Bass scene like in your area?
The scene is kinda devided. There is not much unity between the various cities. Most places have some good dnb nights and usualy the bigger clubs have Djs coming in from the UK.
There are some labels like Citrus and RuffTeck based in Rotterdam, Purified Audio in Amsterdam and A New Dawn in Nijmegen. But we’re happy with the things we’re able to do,
Running a label and a big label night!!
11. 2003 looks to be a good year for Drum & Bass, where do you see it heading?
Think it’s gonna be more global, because you see allot of new good producers from outside of the UK that gain allot of respect worldwide like: Concord Dawn, Illskills (dkay), skc & chris su, bullitproof, hive, sinthetix, rawthang, icbm, benjie.... I think this is just the beginning of a new era
12. Do you have a web site?
www.blacksunempire.com
13. How long have you been producing Drum & Bass?
We’ve been producing d’n’b since 1997
14. Individually, do you all DJ, and how long have you been mixing for?
Milan and Micha started mixing in 1999 or so.. Rene started a little later
15. What are your Drum & Bass influences?
Ed Rush & Optical, Matrix, Trace, BC, Tech Itch, Kemal, Underfire boyz
16. Do you have any other musical interests?
radiohead, tricky, SOaD, portishhead, KFL, coldplay, dEUS, NIN, dj shadow, underworld, the orb, mos def, orbital, aphextwin, rawkus, prodigy, autecre, philip glass, tom waits, prince, talib kwali, missy elliot, nick cave, FSOL, primus, leftfield, front 242 etc.. there is good music in every genre
17. How did you become involved in the Drum & Bass scene?
well in the beginning we all had our solo projects varying from triphop to techno to hardcore,
but around the year 1997 we got heavily influenced by releases from the darker labels
such as No U Turn, Prototype and Virus, so drum'n'bass has been our main focus from then on.
We still play with different types of music, but drum and bass is in our vains. the smile on your face when the reese hits you full frontal, its a nice contradiction hehehe
18. Individually, what did you do before Drum & Bass?
Micha : Play the drums and try to sing in a band
Milan : “don’t remember”
Rene : I always been the techno kid, making tracks on pc/synths.
19. Individually, what do you do when your not playing out or in the studio?
Micha : listen to other types of music, write, watch movies, go drinking, hang arround with people that don’t like d’n’b ?
Rene: I read books, confuse waitresses, listen to system of a down while screaming, talk to friends while drinking (and try to forget what they’re saying so we can do it again the next day)
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